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.
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