When Rochambeau and Washington first met they conversed through La Fayette, as interpreter, but in time the older man did very well in the language of his American comrade in arms.
For a long time the French army effected nothing.

Washington longed to attack New York and urged the effort, but the wise and experienced Rochambeau applied his principle, "nothing without naval supremacy," and insisted that in such an attack a powerful fleet should act with a powerful army, and, for the moment, the French had no powerful fleet available.

The British were blockading in Narragansett Bay the French fleet which lay there.

Had the French army moved away from Newport their fleet would almost certainly have become a prey to the British.

For the moment there was nothing to do but to wait.