Also in December 1781…
12th: French and British naval forces meet at the Second Battle of Ushant, just off the coast of Brittany. The French fleet is a heavily protected convoy transporting troops and supplies to the West Indies, intended to bring support in the American War of Independence. The British fleet is not strong enough to attack it, but forces the convoy to disperse: most of the ships return to France, and only two reach their intended destination. 16th: The German music theorist and composer Georg Simon Löhlein dies in Danzig aged 56. Löhlein began his music career late, having served 16 years in the Prussian army, in which he suffered serious injury at the Battle of Collin. Although he composed a number of chamber and vocal works, he is best known as a teacher and author of the influential Clavier-schule (1765). 18th: The Marquis de Lafayette sets off from Boston for France. A charismatic military leader, he has proved a significant figure for the American Continental Army in the American War of Independence, including at the Siege of Yorktown. Back in France, he will work on the early draft of the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen in close co-operation with Thomas Jefferson.
25th: At least one of Haydn’s Op. 33 Quartets is premiered at the Vienna apartment of the Russian Grand Duke Paul. Haydn dedicates the set – which includes ‘The Joke’ (No. 2) and ‘The Bird’ (No. 3) – to the Duke, hence their being nicknamed the ‘Russian’ Quartets.
31st: The Bank of North America, the first national commercial bank in the US, is founded in Philadelphia by Robert Morris, the congressional superintendent of finance. Ninety-nine Philadelphians plus congressmen buy shares in the bank which, also funded by $450,000 of French silver, opens for business the following week.