The French frigate l‘Hermione was greeted by a dramatic fireworks display on its arrival at Mount Vernon, Virginia, George Washington’s plantation home. In 1780, the original frigate L’Hermione, carried the 23 year old Gilbert du Motier, better known as the Marquis de Lafayette, to America with the secret news that France was committing 5,500 men and five frigates to help George Washington and his forces in the revolution against Great Britain. Over the course of the war, Washington and Lafayette developed a close relationship. It is often said that Washington saw in Lafayette the son he never had, which gave the arrival of Lafayette’s frigate at George Washington’s home at Mount Vernon a special significance. To see more of the photographs by NinjaPix, click here.
The photos of the fireworks and the frigate brought to mind a scene in Patrick O’Brian’s novel Ionian Mission when Captain Jack Aubrey fired a broadside at a French man-of-war using gunpowder intended for gunnery practice that he has purchased from a fireworks manufacturer. The French captain, unsure of what brightly colored secret weapon the British captain was using, beat a hasty retreat.
The officers and crew of l’Hermione are obviously of sterner stuff and were not driven off by fireworks.
I’m seeing pictures of Hermione sans for t’gallant mast…anyone have intel?
That is interesting. She arrived in Yorktown with her rig apparently intact but does seem to be missing a mast at Mount Vernon. What what transpired?
I have a photo of her leaving the Potomac and both the fore mast and main mast are bald headed. My guess is bridge clearance.
I saw her this morning in Annapolis and she has all her masts, so I suspect you are right about bridge clearance.