land was embarrassed by naval conflicts all over the world. Rodney
expected its coming, and sent Sir Samuel Hood, as fine a seaman as
himself, and with a more single eye to the king's service, to blockade
Fort Royal, in Martinique, in order to prevent four French ships which
lay there from joining Grasse. Hood wished to cruise to windward of the
island, which would have enabled him to force Grasse either to fight or
to give up his junction with the four ships. Rodney, who remained at St.
Eustatius looking after the loot, would not consent to this, because, so
Hood asserts, he was afraid that the ships would slip out and attack the
island.[151] Hood was forced to keep to leeward; Grasse got between him
and the island, was joined by the ships, and so gained the superiority
in force. Some distant and indecisive fighting took place on April 29
and 30, and finally Hood, being the inferior in force, and no longer
having any reason to risk his ships, sailed away from the enemy. The
French, though failing in an attack on St. Lucia, took Tobago, and, what
was of graver consequence, Grasse was enabled, apparently through
Rodney's anxiety concerning his booty, to maintain a strong fleet in the
West Indies, which before long helped to bring victory within reach of
the Americans. Grasse sailed for the American coast in August. Rodney
was obliged by ill-health to return to England, and left Hood with only
fourteen ships to follow the French fleet, directing him to join Admiral
Graves, then in command in the American waters, in the neighbourhood of
the Chesapeake.

[Sidenote: _CORNWALLIS IN SOUTH CAROLINA._]

As the British forces were divided between New York and the southern
provinces, it is obvious that the issue of the struggle depended on the
command of the sea. So long as the British held the ocean way, the
southern army would be able to receive reinforcements and supplies, and
could be aided by diversions, the French alliance would be of little
profit to the Americans, and the long land journey, expensive and open
to attacks, would cut off the southern provinces from succours from the
north. The navy, as both Clinton and Washington saw, "had the casting
vote in the contest".[152] In July, 1780, soon after Clinton returned to
New York from South Carolina, a French squadron brought nearly 6,000
men, commanded by Count de Rochambeau, to Rhode Island. A few days
after the arrival of Rochambeau, the British fleet under Arbuthnot
re