The Swallow and the Active should have reached Graves before Hood; but neither got to him at all.  The Swallow arrived safely in New York on the 27th of July; but Graves had sailed with all his squadron on the 21st, for Boston Bay, hoping there to intercept an expected convoy from France, concerning which a special caution had been sent him by the Admiralty.  The Swallow was at once sent on by the senior naval officer at New York, but was attacked by hostile vessels, forced ashore on Long Island, and lost.  The Active was captured before she reached New York.  Graves, thus uninformed of the momentous crisis at hand, continued cruising until the 16th of August, when he returned to Sandy Hook.  There he found the duplicates of the Swallow’s letters, but they only notified him of the course a reinforcement would take, not that Hood had started.  On August 25th the latter, being then off the Chesapeake, sent duplicates of the Active’s dispatches, but these preceded by little his own arrival on the 28th.  That evening news was received in New York that de Barras had sailed from Newport on the 25th, with his whole division.  Hood anchored outside the Hook, where Graves, who was senior to him, undertook to join at once.  On the 31st five sail of the line and a 50-gun ship, all that could be got ready in time, crossed the bar, and the entire body of nineteen ships of the line started at once for the Chesapeake, whither it was understood now that both the French fleet and the united armies of Washington and Rochambeau were hurrying.

Count de Grasse upon his arrival at Cap Francois had found that many things must be done before he could sail for the continent.  Measures needed to be taken for the security of Haiti; and a large sum of money, with a considerable reinforcement of troops, was required to insure the success of the projected operation, for which but a short time was allowed, as it was now August and he must be again in the West Indies in October.  It was not the least among the fortunate concurrences for the American cause at that moment, that de Grasse, whose military capacity was not conspicuous, showed then a remarkable energy, politic tact, and breadth of view.  He decided to take with him every ship he could command, postponing the sailing of the convoys; and by dexterous arrangement with the Spaniards he contrived to secure both the funds required and an efficient corps of thirty-three hundred French troops, without stripping Haiti too closely.  On the 5th of August he left Cap Francois, with twenty-eight ships of the line, taking the route through the Old Bahama Channel,[96] and anchored in Lynnhaven Bay, just within the entrance of the Chesapeake, on the 30th, the day before Graves sailed from New York for the same place.  The troops were landed instantly on the south side of the James River, and soon reached La Fayette, who commanded the forces so far opposed to Cornwallis, which were thus raised