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PREFACE.
The Chevalier de Pontgibaud was one of the gallant little band of Frenchmen, who, "sick for breathing and exploit," crossed the Atlantic to aid the American colonists to gain their independence. Like most of his companions, he was a mere lad, courageous, adventurous, high-spirited, light-hearted, and cool-headed, but he united to these ordinary attributes of the French gentleman, one which his comrades did not possess, or had no opportunity of developing. He seems to have been a shrewd observer of men and events, and he had a keen sense of humour.
It was not probable that a youth barely out of his teens and thinking more of his own liberty than the cause in which he
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