Page:American History Told by Contemporaries, v2.djvu/641

No. 213] compelled to acknowledge their former master, which would have ren dered the liberty of the others very uncertain. Nevertheless, England, at the close of 1782, declared them all free.

The relation of these successes forms part of the campaign of the Count de Grasse. In this view it is offered entire to the public, as the check which the arms of France sustained on the 12th of April, 1782, did not embolden England to continue her non-recognition of the sovereignty of the United States; the advantages obtained in 1781, must, therefore, have established it beyond peradventure.

The events of 1780, and of the first months of 1781, had not even prepared those of the rest of that year and of the early months of the next. In 1780, the fleet of the two powers had fought no less than three times, without obtaining any decisive advantage. The empire of the West India waters remained unsettled, and no enterprise was undertaken on either side before wintering. . ..

'Such was the situation of the belligerent parties in America, when the Count de Grasse was appointed to command the king s naval forces in that part of the world. . . . the Count de Grasse, who had reached Paris, February 1st, left the 18th, and arrived at Brest on the 26th.

There a considerable squadron was preparing, which was to escort a convoy of one hundred and fifty sail, with a reinforcement of troops. . . and the fleet and convoy set sail, March 22d, with a favorable wind, in spite of the equinox.

We doubled the cape on the 27th; and then, to keep the convoy always together, and to prevent the sailing of the slow craft from retard ing that of the rest, the admiral had them towed by his ships, taking one himself.

Thanks to this precaution, in thirty-six days the fleet and the whole convoy (an unheard of thing till then for so many vessels), came at day-break, on the 28th of April, in sight of the land of Martinique.

. . . at 11, an English frigate was perceived making signals, and at 2 o'clock twenty-two hostile sails were signalled towards Diamond Rock. . . . 17 vessels of the line and five frigates had, for the last fifty days, blockaded the roadstead of Fort Royal and the four French vessels anchored there ; the latter had orders, during the course of the night, to hoist sail the next morning and attack the head or rear of the English squadron, as soon as they saw the French fleet.

On the 29th, in the morning, the fleet, covering the convoy, steered for Fort Royal ; at 8 o'clock the English squadron was signalled, and