ing of the fleet. Thirty-five
hundred soldiers were spared by the governor of Cap Francais, upon the
condition of a Spanish squadron anchoring at the place, which De
Grasse procured. He also raised from the governor of Havana the money
urgently needed by the Americans; and finally, instead of weakening
his force by sending convoys to France, as the court had wished, he
took every available ship to the Chesapeake. To conceal his coming as
long as possible, he passed through the Bahama Channel, as a less
frequented route, and on the 30th of August anchored in Lynnhaven Bay,
just within the capes of the Chesapeake, with twenty-eight
ships-of-the-line. Three days before, August 27, the French squadron
at Newport, eight ships-of-the-line with four frigates and eighteen
transports under M. de Barras, sailed for the rendezvous; making,
however, a wide circuit out to sea to avoid the English. This course
was the more necessary as the French siege-artillery was with it. The
troops under Washington and Rochambeau had crossed the Hudson on the
24th of August, moving toward the head of Chesapeake Bay. Thus the
different armed forces, both land and sea, were converging toward
their objective, Cornwallis.

The English were unfortunate in all directions. Rodney, learning of De
Grasse's departure, sent fourteen ships-of-the-line under Admiral Hood
to North America, and himself sailed for England in August, on account
of ill health. Hood, going by the direct route, reached the Chesapeake
three days before De Grasse, looked into the bay, and finding it empty
went on to New York. There he met five ships-of-the-line under Admiral
Graves, who, being senior officer, took command of the whole force and
sailed on the 31st of August for the Chesapeake, hoping to intercept
De Barras before he could join De Grasse. It was not till two days
later that Sir Henry Clinton was persuaded that the allied armies had
gone against Cornwallis, and had too far the start to be overtaken.

Admiral Graves was painfully surprised, on making the Chesapeake, to
find anchored there a fleet which from its numbers could only be an
enemy's. Nevertheless, he stood in to meet it, and as De Grasse got
under way, allowing his ships to be counted, the sense of numerical
inferiority--nineteen to twenty-four--did not deter the English
admiral from attacking. The clumsiness of his method, however,
betrayed his gallantry; many of his ships were roughly handled,
without any a