The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1912-07-01
TURNED SCALE
 FOR FREEDOM
GOVERNOR BALDWIN TESTFIES TO DEBT OF COLONIES TO
 COUNT ROCHAMBEAU.
MONUMENT IS UNVEILED
Governor Declares We Owe Eternal Gratitude to the Country Which
 Sent Him.

Southington, July 1-Gov Simeon E.. Baldwin delivered the principal ad- dress yesterday afternoon at the un- yelling of the monument erected on French Hill commemmorating the encampment of the French army en- route from Newport to Yorktown in 17S1. There was a large gathering, including representative from the various patriotic societies in the state The governor spoke in part as fol- lows:
 We meet today to set up memo rial on Connecticut soil in honor of a great man and a great general It was the army brought across the sea the scale in the Revolutionary strug- gle. To the aid of the country from which they came by her early recog- milton of our independence, and by the supplies of men and money with which it was followed up, we owe eter- nal gratitude ..
 Tt is the pride of Connecticut that one of her sons was the first envoy sent across the ocean by the United States to negotiate an alliance with France, Silas Deane of Wethersfeld a graduate of Yale college of the class of 1758. He had been delegate from this stste to the first and second Con tinental Congress, and was commis- sioned by the Congressional committee on correspondence with friends in Great Britain, Ireland and other parts of the world His instructions were dated March 3d, 1776, and contemplat- ed his sounding of the French minis ter of foreign affairs as to the prob ability of the recognition of the Uni ted States by France, should they de- clare themselves independent of Great Britain.
 Louis XVIII in his biography yob- serves that Deane's visit to Paris lighted up a vivid sympathy with the cause of liberty in the hearts of Frenchmen.' The negotiations begun by Deane resulted in Lafayette's com ing to America in TIT, and finally in the treaties of alliance made with France in 1778, Deane was one of the commissioners who signed those, and it was the young enthusiast whose sympathies he had enlisted in our cause-Lafayette-a who more than any one else year or two later induced the king to send over Ro- chambeau and the splendid forces un- der his command.
 Conn ecticut looks back to the days of the Revolution with honest satis- faction at the part she played in it. She was the great source of supply for provisioning the northern armies. She was next to Massachusetts,, the greatest source, of supply for recruit ing them. MaSSachuSetJS sent the most troops to the Continental arm ies. but Connecticut in proportion to her population, sent more than did Massachusetts, Or any other state in the American union.
 She was glad to welcome and to join the French troops on their way to New York in 1781. They carried with them a splendor "a prestige. a precision of discipline, with which her sons had nothing to compare She felt profoundly the greatness of the aid which France had furnished to America. in sending her fleets and armies across the sea. She felt, also, that one of her own children had opened the door which brought them over.
 ...To the efforts of Silas Deane of Connecticut we owe the coming of Lafayette. To the efforts of Lafay- cite we owe the coming of Rocham- beau.
 "The march of his army across the state is commemorated by a monu- ment in Midd1ebury, on hill now named Rochambeau Heights. Here from nenceforth, stands another like memorial. Let us hope that others, in future years, may arise in long succession from town to town; to re- mind our people of the magnanimity of France in the dark days of the con- test for independence"