The Dim Light of Truth
In a recent episode of the HBO series,”John Adams,” Laura Linney in the role of Abigail Adams displays a deftness for diplomacy as she dines with Admiral d’Estaing, just after the French Royal Navy puts into Boston after their unsuccessful campaigns against the British Fleet at New York and Rhode Island. Meanwhile, her husband John is doing a less than admirable job of courting French favor in Paris. This brilliant production explores the powerful political and personal partnership of America’s first couple. It also presents an accurate accounting of the faults and frailties of the architects of this republic. Had these men been subject to today’s standards of behavior and decorum we would still be paying too much for tea.
But alas, history tends to expunge the misdeeds and misgivings of great men. By most accounts even the French fare well in the telling of the American Revolution.
In the November issue of American Public House Review this author, after a few single malts at the famed White Horse Tavern in Newport, Rhode Island, expounds on the virtues of The Comte de Rochambeau and other assorted Frenchmen that aided America’s cause for independence. Hopefully this recounting holds up to the light of historic truth, or at the very least – the light of a dimly lit tavern.
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