Adams Family Correspondence, volume 3
This goes by Colonel Fleury, whom you know, who desires to carry a Letter to you.1 My three Boys dined with me Yesterday, being a Playday for them, in fine Health and Spirits.
I long to hear, whether Captain Trash arrived from Corunna, who had Letters from me to you, or Captain Babson who had Letters and more. I dont know whether you have yet heard of our Arrival.
There are a great Number of Letters for You, in the Hands of the Marquis de la Fayette, the Viscount de Noailles, Mr. Lee, Mr. Brown, 317Mr. Izard, and others. I hope you will receive them and some small Packetts with some of them.
My dearest Love to my N
If you send me any Minutes in future of any Thing to send you, pray be more particular in describing the Things. I find a great difficulty in getting french Words to express them often, because not knowing the Nature and the Prices of the Things myself, I am puzzled.
François Louis Teissèdre de Fleury, a volunteer French officer who had served with distinction in the Continental Army, 1776–1779, and who then, following a leave in France, returned to serve with Rochambeau's army, 1780–1781 (Lasseray, Les français sous les treize étoiles
, 2:425–433; JA, Diary and Autobiography
, 4:104). Congress voted Fleury a medal for his gallantry in the storming of Stony Point, July 1779; see reproduction in Lasseray, vol. 2, facing p. 430. From a list of passengers recorded in JQA's Diary under date of 24 Nov. 1779, it appears that Fleury returned to France on the Sensible with the Adams party; thus he could have met AA in Boston or Braintree before they sailed. See, further, Fleury to AA, 6 Oct.; AA to JA,
15 Oct. and 13–24 Nov., in vol. 4, below.