from lack of food.

Once in the open air, however, I the same as forgot that I was
faint-hearted, because of the scene which was presented. Looking
northward we could see closely surrounding us, hardly more than a
cannon-shot away, our people who had come to capture Cornwallis and his
men, and in so doing were preparing a way for our escape, if so be we
lived long enough to take advantage of the opportunity which they were
counting on offering.

It was a sight well calculated to warm even the most timorous heart,
that vast army pressing forward as if certain of victory, and holding
the enemy on this peninsula from whence he could not escape even by
water, for at Lynn Haven bay lay the French ships ready to intercept any
flight.

We of Virginia had remained so long under the heel of the invader, with
only now and then a glimpse of small detachments of our soldiers, that
it seemed for the moment almost incredible that there could be so many
men ready to sacrifice their lives in the effort to free the colonies
from the yoke of oppression which bore so heavily upon them.

Looking Gloucester way, by which I mean gazing across the encampment of
those who held our village of York in a wavering grasp, we could see
that the red-coats had not only withdrawn from the outermost works; but
appeared to be massed together close within the limits of the village as
if for mutual protection, and little Pierre, ever quick to see, and keen
to understand what he saw, said to me in a tone of triumph as he laid
his hand on my shoulder:

"Look yonder; see the red-coats huddling together like a lot of rats in
a trap, and verily they are trapped now, for so long as the French
vessels remain inside the Capes, so long are they shut in here at the
mercy of those brave fellows who have drawn the net around them!"

Then it was that I began to question if Cornwallis was indeed in such
close quarters? In the river lay, as I have already said, the
_Guadaloupe_ and the _Charon_, and in addition were a number of other
large vessels, the names of which I do not remember.

I asked myself whether, by making a brave attempt, they might not force
their way past the French fleet, and thus escape by the sea?

"There is no chance they will try anything of the kind," Pierre said
when I suggested that mayhap our people did not hold the British in
such a firm grasp. "Look more closely at the ships, and you will see
that but two of them are armed for war, t