n cause had also been strengthened by the
voluntary services of a number of foreign officers, who energetically
drilled the American recruits and taught the revolutionary army the
science of war as it was fought by the greatest military countries.
Among these men was the Marquis de Lafayette, a gallant young French
nobleman, and also Baron de Kalb and Von Steuben.

Washington gradually drew nearer to New York, from which he had been
driven so soon after the Battle of Long Island, and that winter he
camped in the highlands of the Hudson and established his troops so as
to defend New England from any offensive campaign the British might
make, and for a year he contented himself with playing a waiting game,
keeping a firm grip on the Hudson Highlands and strengthening his army
as greatly as possible.

Victory now was near, for the French came actively into the war to the
succor of the Americans. The French King, Louis the Sixteenth, sent
Count Rochambeau to command an expedition in America, and the year 1781
saw the trained and seasoned soldiers of France fighting side by side
with the American troops. In this year too a great advantage was given
to Washington's troops by the fact that a large French fleet under the
Count de Grasse compelled the British vessels to keep to the ports,
while Washington with the French laid siege to Yorktown, which was held
by Lord Cornwallis. Washington himself fired the first cannon as the
siege began, and a whirlwind of iron and red hot shot was poured upon
the British works and shipping from French and American guns. The
British resisted stubbornly, but they were cut off and their position
was hopeless. And on October Nineteenth, with the American and French
troops drawn up to receive them, the British marched out and
surrendered.

This was really the end of the war. The news that Cornwallis and at
least sixteen thousand men had been captured was received with wild
rejoicing all through the former colonies, and with amazement and gloom
in England, where it was plainly seen that the valuable colonies were
lost forever. In the month of November, 1783, the British left New York
never to return, after the signing of the peace treaty at Paris in
January of the same year. The war was over, the patriots had conquered,
and a new and mighty nation was in its infancy.

At this time it would without doubt have been easy for Washington to
make himself the head of the new country, and even to have