80 the French government had sent
over a strong army under Rochambeau. It was landed at Newport. It
remained there a year to protect the vessels in which it had come from
France from capture by a stronger British fleet that had at once
appeared off the mouth of the harbor. Another French fleet and another
French army were in the West Indies. In the summer of 1781 it became
possible to unite all these French forces, and with the Americans to
strike a crushing blow at the British. Just at this moment Cornwallis
shut himself up in Yorktown, and it was determined to besiege him there.

[Illustration: THE UNITED STATES IN 1783.]

[Illustration: The Siege of Yorktown.]

[Sidenote: The march to the Chesapeake.]

[Sidenote: Combat between the French and the British fleets.]

[Surrender of Yorktown, October 19, 1781. _Higginson_, 211-212.]

165. Yorktown, September-October, 1781.--Rochambeau led his men to
New York and joined the main American army. Washington now took command
of the allied forces. He pretended that he was about to attack New York
and deceived Clinton so completely that Clinton ordered Cornwallis to
send some of his soldiers to New York. But the allies were marching
southward through Philadelphia before Clinton realized what they were
about. The French West India fleet under De Grasse reached one end of
the Chesapeake Bay at the same time the allies reached the other end.
The British fleet attacked it and was beaten off. There was now no hope
for Cornwallis. No help could reach him by sea. The soldiers of the
allies outnumbered him two to one. On October 17, 1781, four years to a
day since the surrender of Burgoyne, a drummer boy appeared on the
rampart of Yorktown and beat a parley. Two days later the British
soldiers marched out to the good old British tune of "The world turned
upside down," and laid down their arms.

[Sidenote: Treaty of Peace, 1783.]

166. Treaty of Peace, 1783.--This disaster put an end to British
hopes of conquering America. But it was not until September, 1783, that
Benjamin Franklin, John Adams, and John Jay brought the negotiations
for peace to an end. Great Britain acknowledged the independence of the
United States. The territory of the United States was defined as
extending from the Great Lakes to the thirty-first parallel of latitude
and from the Atlantic to the Mississippi. Spain had joined the United
States and France in the war. Spanish soldiers had conquered Florida,
and