ose the
traitor. Fortunately, at this juncture a severe snowstorm (Jan. 22d)
scattered Arbuthnot's blockading squadron, wrecking one
ship-of-the-line and dismasting others, and enabled the French fleet
at Newport to look abroad; and Rochambeau wrote to Washington that the
Chevalier Destouches, who commanded the fleet, proposed to send three
or four ships to the Chesapeake.

Washington feared the position of Arnold and his well-known address
might enable him to withstand a mere attack by sea; anxious to ensure
his capture, he advised that Destouches should send his whole fleet,
and that De Rochambeau should embark about a thousand men on board of
it, with artillery and apparatus for a siege; engaging, on his own
part, to send off immediately a detachment of twelve hundred men to
co-operate.

Before the receipt of this letter, the French commanders, acting on
their first impulse, had, about the 9th of February, detached M. de
Tilly, with a sixty-gun ship and two frigates, to make a dash into the
Chesapeake. Washington was apprised of their sailing just as he was
preparing to send off the twelve hundred men spoken of in his letter
to De Rochambeau. He gave the command of this detachment to Lafayette,
instructing him to act in conjunction with the militia and the ships
sent by Destouches against the enemy's corps actually in Virginia. As
the case was urgent, he was to suffer no delay, when on the march, for
want either of provisions, forage, or wagons, but where ordinary means
did not suffice, he was to resort to military impress.

Lafayette set out on his march on the 22d of February, and Washington
was indulging the hope that, scanty as was the naval force sent to the
Chesapeake, the combined enterprise might be successful, when on the
27th he received a letter from the Count de Rochambeau announcing its
failure. De Tilly had made his dash into Chesapeake Bay, but Arnold
had been apprised by the British Admiral Arbuthnot of his approach,
and had drawn his ships high up Elizabeth River. The water was too
shallow for the largest French ships to get within four leagues of
him. One of De Tilly's frigates ran aground, and was got off with
difficulty, and that commander, seeing that Arnold was out of his
reach, and fearing to be himself blockaded should he linger, put to
sea and returned to Newport; having captured during his cruise a
British frigate of forty-four guns, and two privateers with their
prizes.

The French co