indicate probable success for a renewed offensive.  The garrison of New York was now short of eleven thousand and could not be diminished further, as he was threatened with a siege.  In short, the British situation in America had become essentially false, by the concurring effect of insufficient force and ex-centric—­double—­operations.  Sent to conquer, their numbers now were so divided that they could barely maintain the defensive.  Cornwallis therefore was ordered to occupy a defensive position which should control an anchorage for ships of the line, and to strengthen himself in it.  After some discussion, which revealed further disagreement, he placed himself at Yorktown, on the peninsula formed by the James and York rivers.  Portsmouth was evacuated, the garrison reaching Yorktown on the 22d of August.  Cornwallis’s force was then seven thousand troops; and there were with him besides about a thousand seamen, belonging to some half-dozen small vessels, which were shut up in the York by the arrival from Haiti of the French fleet under de Grasse, which on August 30th, 1781, had anchored in Lynnhaven Bay, inside of Cape Henry.

On July 2d Arbuthnot had sailed for England, leaving the command at New York to Rear-Admiral Thomas Graves.  Graves on the same day wrote to Rodney by the brig Active, that intercepted dispatches of the enemy had revealed that a large division from the West Indies was to arrive on the American coast during the summer, to cooeperate with the force already in Newport.  Rodney, on the other hand, dispatched to New York on July 7th the Swallow sloop, 16, with word that, if he sent reinforcements from the West Indies, they would be ordered to make the Capes of the Chesapeake, and to coast thence to New York.  He asked, therefore, that cruisers with information might be stationed along that route.  Two days later, having then certain news that de Grasse had sailed for Cap Francois, he sent this intelligence to Sir Peter Parker at Jamaica, and gave Sir Samuel Hood preparatory orders to command a reinforcement of ships destined for the continent.  This, however, was limited in numbers to fifteen sail of the line, Rodney being misled by his intelligence, which gave fourteen ships as the size of the French division having the same destination, and reported that de Grasse himself would convoy the trade from Cap Francois to France.  On the 24th instructions were issued for Hood to proceed on this duty.  He was first to convoy the trade from Jamaica as far as the passage between Cuba and Haiti, and thence to make the utmost speed to the Chesapeake.  A false rumour, of French ships reaching Martinique from Europe, slightly delayed this movement.  The convoy was dispatched to Jamaica with two ships of the line, which Sir Peter Parker was directed to send at once to America, and requested to reinforce with others from his own squadron.  Hood was detained until the rumour could be verified.  On the 1st of August Rodney sailed for England on leave of absence.  On the 10th Hood left Antigua with fourteen ships of the line, direct for the Capes.  He had already received, on August 3d, Graves’s letter by the Active, which he sent back on the 8th with his answers and with a notification of his speedy departure.