ABSTRACT
The Americans had not ceased to ask the French for every kind of help, especially for a fleet strong enough to face the British one. In August 1781 it came. Comte de Grasse, who had been busy in the West Indies, appeared off the American coast with 28 ships of the line and a multitude of transport boats. De Grasse gone, Washington and Rochambeau had to depend on small craft to ferry their men over the Hudson River: but Clinton, surprisingly, made almost no attempt to hinder them. They set out on the march through New Jersey and Pennsylvania. As they went, word came to them that de Grasse had reached Chesapeake Bay, had sailed up to it and landed 3,000 men to support Marquis de Lafayette and Anthony Wayne, and had then sailed off again to intercept a British fleet under Admiral Hood and Admiral Graves. There followed a few days of anxiety.
