Washington [241]
The question of French motives acquired more than academic interest when Lafayette advocated an invasion of Canada. For all his affection for his youthful protégé, Washington retained an admirable skepticism about his motives. “As the Marquis clothed his proposition when he spoke of it to me, it would seem to originate wholly with himself,” Washington warned Henry Laurens, “but it is far from impossible that it had its birth in the cabinet of France and was put into this artful dress to give it the readier currency.”16 If the French were embraced as liberators in Quebec, Washington feared, they might be tempted to reclaim Canadian territory relinquished at the time of the French and Indian War.
At first, Washington hesitated to voice opinions to Congress that went beyond his military bailiwick. Then in early November he sent Laurens a persuasive letter that laid out his misgivings about a northern operation. Any such invasion would introduce “a large body of French troops into Canada” and put them “in possession of the capital of that province, attached to them by all the ties of blood, habits, manners, religion, and former connection of government.”17 Once entrenched in Quebec, France would be well placed to control the United States, which was “the natural and most formidable rival of every maritime power in Europe.”18 Of this eloquent statement of realpolitik, Edmund Morgan has commented that it “remains one of the more striking examples of the quick perception of political realities that lay behind Washington’s understanding of power.”19
Perhaps corroborating Washington’s worst fears, Lafayette went to Philadelphia without seeking his approval and lobbied Congress for a Canadian invasion. To Washington’s dismay, some members endorsed the proposal with unthinking enthusiasm. When Lafayette traveled up the Hudson Valley to confer with Washington, the Frenchman fell ill with a high fever at Fishkill, New York, sixteen miles from the Continental Army camp. When it looked as if Lafayette might die, Washington was on such tenterhooks, according to Lafayette’s later florid account, that he rode over every day to “inquire after his friend, but fearing to agitate him, he only conversed with the physician and returned home with tearful eyes and a heart oppressed with grief.”20 By late November Lafayette had sufficiently recovered to leave for Boston, hoping to catch a ship back to France for a quick visit and “present myself before the king and know in what manner he judges proper to employ my services.”21
THAT FALL THE ATMOSPHERE grew thick with rumors that the British might evacuate New York, but even though a large number of British ships sailed south to destinations unknown in November, Sir Henry Clinton remained fixed in the city. As for winter quarters, Washington decided to house the main body of his troops at Middlebrook, New Jersey, west of Staten Island, in countryside much prettier than Valley Forge. Washington shared the home of the Philadelphia merchant John Wallace, who lived on the Raritan River, four miles west of Bound Brook. His extended absence from Mount Vernon preyed on his mind, for it began to look as if he might be trapped in some form of permanent exile. “I am beginning to throw the troops into cantonments for their winter quarters,” he told brother Jack, “giving up all idea this fourth winter of seeing my home and friends, as I shall have full employment during the winter to prepare for the campaign that follows it.”22
While the Continental Army was better clothed than at Valley Forge, it hadn’t solved all the problems of the previous winter, thanks to congressional ineptitude. By now, Washington had become habituated to a draining atmosphere of a perpetual, slow-motion