The Queen's Lover by Francine Du Plessix Gray

Chevalier de Luzerne, and we arrived here on the 17th. We made a charming journey and the provision boxes he brought with him, well furnished with pâtés, hams, wine, and bread, prevented us from experiencing the misery that reigns in the inns, where there is no bread, and nothing is found beyond salt pork. In much of Virginia the people eat nothing but cakes made of Indian corn flour, which they bake by the fire; that hardens the outside a little, but the inside remains uncooked dough. They drink nothing but
rum
(a sugared brandy) mixed with water. They call it
grog
. 250 miles from here, in a part of Virginia that they call “the mountains,” it is quite different. The country is richer, and there they cultivate tobacco; the soil also produces wheat and all sorts of fruits. The principal product of Virginia is tobacco; this State, which is the largest of the thirteen, is capable of other cultivation, but the laziness of the inhabitants and their conceit are great obstacles to industry. It really seems as if the Virginians were another race of men; instead of occupying themselves with their farms and making them profitable, each landowner wants to be a lord. No white man ever works, as in the West Indian islands; all the work is done by Negro slaves, who are ordered by the whites, and by overseers under them.
    In Virginia all persons engaged in trade are regarded as inferior to landowners, who say they are not gentlemen, and they do not choose to socialize with them. These Virginians have all the aristocratic instincts, and it is hard to understand how they came to…accept a government founded on conditions of perfect equality. But the same spirit that has led them to shake off the English yoke may lead them to other actionsof the same kind, and I would not be surprised to see Virginia detach herself, after the peace, from the other States.
    While encamped in Virginia, Axel’s regiment was visited by a group of Iroquois, very devout Catholics who loved Mass, which seemed to serve them as a theater; they loved the shrimp the French troops offered them for dinner, but declared they preferred the taste of a British cook they’d recently consumed.
    Back in Sweden, Stockholm’s artistic life was thriving, thanks to King Gustavus’s passionate interest in the arts. This very year he had founded Sweden’s first opera house, the most technically advanced one in Europe. It was also the first opera house outside of Italy in which performances were sung in the local language, and not in Italian: at the Stockholm opera, singers sang in Swedish. These cultural events helped to allay the sadness and concern caused by Axel’s absence from our midst.
    Williamsburg, May 27, 1782
    We are in great consternation because of a battle between the fleets in the West Indies. According to the first news we received we had won the advantage; but yesterday we heard more through…a New York gazette, which reports that our ship “Ville de Paris,” 110 guns, was captured, with six other vessels, and that we were totally defeated…. We do not bear this reversal well; I see that we are easily depressed…. This defeat…is considerable, and could invalidate our whole campaign; it gives the British the upper hand in the West Indies; they can do us great damage there, and if they get reinforcements from Europe we may well lose our conquests.
    This last letter worried me because my brother had always been such an optimist (I suppose it fueled his courage). He seemed deeply discouraged every time the British scored a victory.
    Philadelphia, August 8, 1782
    My dear Father…I came here with M. de Rochambeau, who had a rendezvous with General Washington to confer on the campaign’s progress. The result of the conference was that I was sent on the 19th to Yorktown, Virginia, with a commission that was then secret; it was to ship as soon as possible our siege artillery, which we had left at West Point, and bring it up the Chesapeake Bay to Baltimore.