ere all the time_, and you
would thought if you had been there, that there was nobody else in the
struggle but Col. Bigelow and his regiment." Before the morning of the
19th, those redoubts were all repaired and manned by the allies.

Now comes the celebrated 19th day of October, 1781. The day began to
appear, the allies open a tremendous fire from all their batteries; the
bombs showered copiously, the French fleet, under the command of Count
De Grasse, are opening a most deadly fire from the harbor. Lord
Cornwallis sends in a flag to General Washington, proposing a cessation
of arms for twenty-four hours. Washington would not consent to it, and
would grant but two hours, and during this interval he should expect the
propositions of the British commander. The proposition is made and
accepted. The British flotilla, consisting of two frigates, the
Guadaloupe and Fowey, besides about twenty transports (twenty others had
been burnt during the siege), one hundred and sixty pieces of field
artillery, mostly brass, with eight mortars, more than seven thousand
prisoners, exclusive of seamen, five hundred and fifty slain, including
one officer (Major Cochrane), were surrendered into the hands of the
armies of France and America, whose loss was about four hundred and
fifty in killed and wounded.

At the news of so glorious, so important a victory, transports of
exultation broke out from one extremity of America to the other. Nobody
dared longer to doubt of independence. A poet in Col. Bigelow's
regiment, made a short song commemorative of this event, in which
occurred these lines,

"Count DeGrasse he lies in the harbor,
And Washington is on shore."

A wag in Worcester, after they had returned, changed it so as to make it
read thus:

"Count DeGrasse he lies in the harbor,
And Bigelow is on shore."

Such was the end of the campaign of Virginia, which was well nigh being
that of the American war. This laid the foundation of a general peace.
Thus ended a long and arduous conflict, in which Great Britain expended
an hundred million of money, with an hundred thousand lives, and won
nothing. The United States endured great cruelty and distress from their
enemies, lost many lives and much treasure, but finally delivered
themselves from a foreign dominion, and gained a rank among the nations
of the earth.

XII.

CLOSE OF THE REVOLUTION.

After the surrender of Yorktown, the American army divide. Part o