only practicable
object under present circumstances; but should we be able to secure a
naval superiority, we may perhaps find others more practicable and
equally advisable." By the 15th of August the letters of De Grasse
announcing his sailing for the Chesapeake were received, and the
correspondence of Washington is thenceforth filled with busy
preparations for the campaign in Virginia, based upon the long-delayed
fleet. The discouragement of De Grasse, and his purpose to go to sea,
upon learning that the English fleet in New York had been reinforced,
drew forth an appealing letter dated September 25, which is too long
for quotation; but the danger passed, Washington's confidence returns.
The day after the capitulation he writes to De Grasse: "The surrender
of York ... _the honor of which belongs to your Excellency_, has
greatly anticipated [in time] our most sanguine anticipations." He
then goes on to urge further operations in the South, seeing so much
of the good season was still left: "The general naval superiority of
the British, previous to your arrival, gave them decisive advantages
in the South, in the rapid transport of their troops and supplies;
while the immense land marches of our succors, too tardy and expensive
in every point of view, subjected us to be beaten in detail. It will
depend upon your Excellency, therefore, to terminate the war." De
Grasse refusing this request, but intimating an intention to
co-operate in the next year's campaign, Washington instantly accepts:
"With your Excellency I need not insist upon the indispensable
necessity of a maritime force capable of giving you an absolute
ascendency in these seas.... You will have observed that, whatever
efforts are made by the land armies, the navy must have the casting
vote in the present contest." A fortnight later, November 15, he
writes to Lafayette, who is on the point of sailing for France:--

"As you expressed a desire to know my sentiments respecting the
operations of the next campaign, I will, without a tedious
display of reasoning, declare in one word that it must depend
absolutely upon the naval force which is employed in these seas,
and the time of its appearance next year. No land force can act
decisively unless accompanied by a maritime superiority.... A
doubt did not exist, nor does it at this moment, in any man's
mind, of the total extirpation of the British force in the
Carolinas and Georgia,