were to windward; but though thus in the proportion of four to
three, and having the power to attack, De Grasse would not do it. The
fear of exposing his convoy prevented him from running the chance of a
serious engagement. Great must have been his distrust of his forces,
one would say. When is a navy to fight, if this was not a time? He
carried on a distant cannonade, with results so far against the
English as to make his backwardness yet more extraordinary. Can a
policy or a tradition which justifies such a line of conduct be good?

The following day, April 30, De Grasse, having thrown away his chance,
attempted to follow Hood; but the latter had no longer any reason for
fighting, and his original inferiority was increased by the severe
injuries of some ships on the 29th. De Grasse could not overtake him,
owing to the inferior speed of his fleet, many of the ships not being
coppered,--a fact worthy of note, as French vessels by model and size
were generally faster than English; but this superiority was
sacrificed through the delay of the government in adopting the new
improvement.

Hood rejoined Rodney at Antigua; and De Grasse, after remaining a
short time at Fort Royal, made an attempt upon Gros Ilot Bay, the
possession of which by the English kept all the movements of his fleet
under surveillance. Foiled here, he moved against Tobago, which
surrendered June 2, 1781. Sailing thence, after some minor operations,
he anchored on the 26th of July at Cap Francais (now Cape Haytien), in
the island of Hayti. Here he found awaiting him a French frigate from
the United States, bearing despatches from Washington and Rochambeau,
upon which he was to take the most momentous action that fell to any
French admiral during the war.

The invasion of the Southern States by the English, beginning in
Georgia and followed by the taking of Charleston and the military
control of the two extreme States, had been pressed on to the
northward by way of Camden into North Carolina. On the 16th of August,
1780, General Gates was totally defeated at Camden; and during the
following nine months the English under Cornwallis persisted in their
attempts to overrun North Carolina. These operations, the narration of
which is foreign to our immediate subject, had ended by forcing
Cornwallis, despite many successes in actual encounter, to fall back
exhausted toward the seaboard, and finally upon Wilmington, in which
place depots for such a contingency