inceton. Clinton, aware at last of his danger,
sailed with every vessel he could scrape together, and approached the
bay on October 24 with twenty-five sail-of-the-line and 7,000 men; but
it was too late. He could only retreat to New York, where he remained
in the sole British foothold north of Charleston and Savannah.

Washington would have been glad to retain De Grasse and undertake
further combined manoeuvres; but the French admiral was anxious to
return to the West Indies, and so the military operations of the year
ended. More was in reality unnecessary, for the collapse of the
British military policy was manifest, and the surrender of Cornwallis
was a sufficiently striking event to bring the war to a close.
Washington had not won the last fight with his own {113} Continentals.
The co-operation not only of the French fleet but of the French troops
under Rochambeau had played the decisive part. Yet it was his
planning, his tenacity, his personal authority with French and
Americans that determined the combined operation and made it
successful. In the midst of a half-starved, ill-equipped army, a
disintegrating, bankrupt government, and a people whose fighting spirit
was rapidly dwindling, it was he with his officers who had saved the
Revolution at the last gasp.

It was no less the British mismanagement which made this possible, for
had not Howe, by delays, thrown away his chances; had not Howe and
Burgoyne and Clinton and Cornwallis, by their failures to co-operate,
made it possible for their armies to be taken separately; had not the
navy omitted to apply a blockade; had not the Ministry, in prescribing
a raiding policy, failed to strain every nerve to furnish an adequate
supply of men, the outcome would have been different. As it was, the
British defeat could no longer be concealed by the end of 1781. The
attempt to conquer America had failed.

{114}

CHAPTER VI

BRITISH PARTIES AND AMERICAN INDEPENDENCE, 1778-1783

When the news of the surrender of Cornwallis at Yorktown reached
England, it was recognized by Whigs and Tories alike that the time had
come to admit the failure of the war. The loss of 7,000 troops was not
in itself a severe blow, at a time when England had over 200,000 men
under arms in various parts of the world; but it actually marked the
breakdown of the American campaign, and, what was still more
significant, the political bankruptcy of the North Ministry. Ever
since 1778, t