rchantmen
venturing from the New England and other ports, and trading with
France, Spain and the West Indies. Hundreds were taken by British
cruisers, but hundreds more continued their dangerous trade, and so
America continued to receive imports. The Dutch, especially, supplied
the revolted colonies with some of the commodities which their
exclusion from British ports rendered scarce. So, except for paper
money, there was no economic distress.

In 1781, when if ever the British might hope to reduce the colonies,
the Empire was itself in sore straits for men to fill its ships and
{109} garrison its forts. This made it difficult for England to send
any reinforcements to America, and left Clinton and Cornwallis with
about 27,000 men to complete their raiding campaign. The task proved
excessive. In March, 1781, Greene, having assembled a small force,
gave battle to Cornwallis at Guilford Court House. The little army of
British veterans, only 2,219 in all, drove Greene from the field after
a stiff fight, but were so reduced in numbers that Cornwallis felt
obliged to retreat to Wilmington on the coast, where he was entirely
out of the field of campaign. On April 25 he marched northward into
Virginia to join the force which had been there for several months,
took command, and continued the policy of marching and destroying.
Before his arrival, Washington had tried to use the French force at
Newport against the Virginia raiders; but the French squadron, although
it ventured from port in March, 1781, and had a successful encounter
with a British fleet, declined to push on into the Chesapeake, and the
plan was abandoned. Cornwallis was able to march unhindered by any
French danger during the summer of 1781.

But while the British were terrifying Virginia and chasing militia, the
forces left in the Carolinas were being worn down by {110} Greene and
his "partisan" allies. On April 25, at Hobkirk's Hill, Rawdon, the
British commander defeated Greene, and then, with reduced ranks,
retreated. During the summer, further sieges and raids recaptured
British posts, and on September 8 another battle took place at Eutaw
Springs. This resulted, as usual, in a British success on the
battlefield and a retreat afterwards. By October, the slender British
forces in the southernmost States were cooped up in Charleston and
Savannah, and a war of extermination was stamping out all organized
Tory resistance. The raiding policy had fai