d
majority and with this renewed determination. When Holland, long a
secret enemy, became an open one in December, 1780, Admiral Rodney
descended on the Dutch island of St. Eustatius, in the West Indies,
where the Americans were in the habit of buying great quantities of
stores and on the 3d of February, 1781, captured the place with two
hundred merchant ships, half a dozen men-of-war, and stores to the value
of three million pounds. The capture cut off one chief source of supply
to the United States. By January, 1781, a crisis in respect to money
came to a head. Fierce mutinies broke out because there was no money
to provide food, clothing, or pay for the army and the men were in a
destitute condition. "These people are at the end of their resources,"
wrote Rochambeau in March. Arnold's treason, the halting voices in
Congress, the disasters in the South, the British success in cutting off
supplies of stores from St. Eustatius, the sordid problem of money--all
these were well fitted to depress the worn leader so anxiously watching
on the Hudson. It was the dark hour before the dawn.

CHAPTER XI. YORKTOWN

The critical stroke of the war was near. In the South, after General
Greene superseded Gates in the command, the tide of war began to turn.
Cornwallis now had to fight a better general than Gates. Greene arrived
at Charlotte, North Carolina, in December. He found an army badly
equipped, wretchedly clothed, and confronted by a greatly superior
force. He had, however, some excellent officers, and he did not scorn,
as Gates, with the stiff military traditions of a regular soldier, had
scorned, the aid of guerrilla leaders like Marion and Sumter. Serving
with Greene was General Daniel Morgan, the enterprising and resourceful
Virginia rifleman, who had fought valorously at Quebec, at Saratoga, and
later in Virginia. Steuben was busy in Virginia holding the British in
check and keeping open the line of communication with the North. The
mobility and diversity of the American forces puzzled Cornwallis. When
he marched from Camden into North Carolina he hoped to draw Greene into
a battle and to crush him as he had crushed Gates. He sent Tarleton with
a smaller force to strike a deadly blow at Morgan who was threatening
the British garrisons at the points in the interior farther south. There
was no more capable leader than Tarleton; he had won many victories; but
now came his day of defeat. On January 17, 1781, he met Morga