e it or not, that there was the simple innocence of
the Garden of Eden. The zeal of the French officers and the friendly
disposition of the men never failed. There had been bitter quarrels
in 1778 and 1779 and now the French were careful to be on their good
behavior in America. Rochambeau had been instructed to place himself
under the command of Washington, to whom were given the honors of a
Marshal of France. The French admiral, had, however, been given no such
instructions and Washington had no authority over the fleet.

Meanwhile events were happening which might have brought a British
triumph. On September 14, 1780, there arrived and anchored at Sandy
Hook, New York, fourteen British ships of the line under Rodney, the
doughtiest of the British admirals afloat. Washington, with his army
headquarters at West Point, on guard to keep the British from advancing
up the Hudson, was looking for the arrival, not of a British fleet, but
of a French fleet, from the West Indies. For him these were very dark
days. The recent defeat at Camden was a crushing blow. Congress was
inept and had in it men, as the patient General Greene said, "without
principles, honor or modesty." The coming of the British fleet was a
new and overwhelming discouragement, and, on the 18th of September,
Washington left West Point for a long ride to Hartford in Connecticut,
half way between the two headquarters, there to take counsel with the
French general. Rochambeau, it was said, had been purposely created to
understand Washington, but as yet the two leaders had not met. It is
the simple truth that Washington had to go to the French as a beggar.
Rochambeau said later that Washington was afraid to reveal the extent
of his distress. He had to ask for men and for ships, but he had also
to ask for what a proud man dislikes to ask, for money from the stranger
who had come to help him.

The Hudson had long been the chief object of Washington's anxiety and
now it looked as if the British intended some new movement up the river,
as indeed they did. Clinton had not expected Rodney's squadron, but it
arrived opportunely and, when it sailed up to New York from Sandy Hook,
on the 16th of September, he began at once to embark his army, taking
pains at the same time to send out reports that he was going to the
Chesapeake. Washington concluded that the opposite was true and that he
was likely to be going northward. At West Point, where the Hudson flows
through a