A few evenings after the French gave a grand ball to Washington, which he opened with the beautiful Miss Champlin, at whose house he had taken tea on that evening.  The gallant Frenchmen seized the instruments from the band and themselves played the music of the minuet “A Successful Campaign” for a couple representing so much beauty and valor.  The entertainment was given in Mrs. Cowley’s assembly-rooms in Church street, and Desoteux, aide-de-camp to Baron Viosmenil, had charge of the decorations.  An eye-witness says of the ball:  “The room was ornamented in an exceeding splendid manner, and the judicious arrangement of the various decorations exhibited a sight beautiful beyond expression, and showed the great taste and delicacy of M. de Zoteux, one of Viosmenil’s aides.  A superb collation was served, and the ceremonies of the evening were conducted with so much propriety and elegance that they gave the highest satisfaction.”

Perhaps it would be interesting to the participants of the gay Newport cotillons of to-day to know the names of the dances with which the company regaled themselves a hundred years ago.  They were “The Stony Point” (so named in honor of General Wayne), “Miss McDonald’s Reel,” “A Trip to Carlisle,” “Freemason’s Jig” and “The Faithful Shepherd.”  As Benoni Peckham, the fashionable hair-dresser of the day, advertises in the Newport Mercury a “large assortment of braids, commodes, cushions and curls for the occasion,” we may guess that the belles of Newport made elaborate toilettes.  One of them, writing to a friend in New York, speaks of a dress she had worn at some festivity which probably was not unlike many at Washington’s ball.  “I had,” she says, “a most stiff and lustrous petticoat of daffodil-colored lutestring, with flowered gown and sleeves lined with crimson.  My cap was of gauze raised high in front, with doublings of red and bows of the same, and was sent me direct by the bark Fortune from England.”  So it seems the Newport beauties did not disdain the exports of the mother-country they were at war with.  A few nights later the citizens gave a ball in honor of the two heroes.

The visit of the French to Newport terminated soon after this fete.  Washington and Rochambeau, it is said, planned in the Vernon house an attack on New York, and in May the vicomte de Rochambeau brought to his father from France the news of the sailing from Brest, under Admiral de Grasse, of a large squadron laden with supplies and reinforcements.  The restrictions imposed on him by De Sartines were removed, and the new ministry sent him full powers to act.  He therefore determined upon an immediate move, for his troops were becoming demoralized through long inactivity.  After a conference with Washington at Weathersfield a summer campaign was resolved upon, and, returning to Newport, Rochambeau proceeded to make arrangements for it.  The troops began to move on the 10th of June, almost a year from the date of their arrival.  A farewell dinner was given on the Due de Bourgogne to which about sixty Newport people were asked.  The next day the whole army left camp and marched to Providence, so ending a sojourn which, although not productive of positive advantage, will long remain a brilliant page in the history of Newport.