fire of seventy cannon. On the 17th--the
fourth anniversary of Burgoyne's surrender--Cornwallis hoisted the white
flag.

"The terms of the surrender were like those of Lincoln's at Charleston.
The British army became prisoners of war, subject to the ordinary rules
of exchange. The only delicate question related to the American
loyalists in the army, whom Cornwallis felt it was wrong to leave in the
lurch. This point was neatly disposed of by allowing him to send a ship
to Sir Henry Clinton with news of the catastrophe, and to embark in it
such troops as he might think proper to send to New York, and no
questions asked.

"On a little matter of etiquette the Americans were more exacting. The
practice of playing the enemy's tunes had always been cherished as an
inalienable prerogative of British soldiery; and at the Surrender of
Charleston, in token of humiliation, General Lincoln's army had been
expressly forbidden to play any but an American tune. Colonel Laurens,
who conducted the negotiations, directed that Lord Cornwallis's sword
should be received by General Lincoln, and that the army, on marching
out to lay down its arms, should play a British or a German air.

"There was no help for it; and on the 19th of October Cornwallis's army,
7,247 in number, with 840 cannon, marched out with colors furled and
cased, while the band played a quaint old English melody, of which the
significant title was 'The World Turned Upside Down.'

"On the very same day that Cornwallis surrendered, Sir Henry Clinton,
having received naval reinforcements, sailed from New York with
twenty-five ships-of-the-line and ten frigates, and 7,000 of his best
troops. Five days brought him to the mouth of the Chesapeake, where he
learned that he was too late, as had been the case four years before,
when he tried to relieve Burgoyne. A fortnight earlier, this force could
hardly have failed to alter the result, for the fleet was strong enough
to dispute with Grasse the control over the coast."

THE END

End of Project Gutenberg's The Minute Boys of York Town, by James Otis

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