sed.

August 17, as soon as he had set his own machinery in motion,
Washington wrote to De Grasse to meet him in the Chesapeake. He was
working now more anxiously and earnestly than at any time in the
Revolution, not merely because he felt that success depended on the
blow, but because he descried a new and alarming danger. He had
perceived it in June, and the idea pursued him until all was over, and
kept recurring in his letters during this strained and eager summer.
To Washington's eyes, watching campaigns and government at home and
the politics of Europe abroad, the signs of exhaustion, of mediation,
and of coming peace across the Atlantic were plainly visible. If peace
should come as things then were, America would get independence, and
be shorn of many of her most valuable possessions. The sprawling
British campaign of maraud and plunder, so bad in a military point of
view, and about to prove fatal to Cornwallis, would, in case of sudden
cessation of hostilities, be capable of the worst construction. Time,
therefore, had become of the last importance. The decisive blow must
be given at once, and before the slow political movements could come
to a head. On July 14, Washington had his plan mapped out. He wrote in
his diary:--

"Matters having now come to a crisis, and a decided plan to be
determined on, I was obliged--from the shortness of Count De Grasse's
promised stay on this coast, the apparent disinclination of their
naval officers to force the harbor of New York, and the feeble
compliance of the States with my requisitions for men hitherto, and
the little prospect of greater exertions in future--to give up all
ideas of attacking New York, and instead thereof to remove the French
troops and a detachment from the American army to the Head of Elk, to
be transported to Virginia for the purpose of cooeperating with the
force from the West Indies against the troops in that State."

Like most of Washington's plans, this one was clear-cut and direct,
and looks now simple enough, but at the moment it was hedged with
almost inconceivable difficulties at every step. The ever-present and
ever-growing obstacles at home were there as usual. Appeals to Morris
for money were met by the most discouraging responses, and the States
seemed more lethargic than ever. Neither men nor supplies could be
obtained; neither transportation nor provision for the march could be
promised. Then, too, in addition to all this, came a wholly n