mote service, was sixty-two, and suffered from gout. "The
sudden change of climate makes it necessary for me to go on shore for
some short time," he wrote; and although he added that his illness
was "not of such a nature as shall cause one moment's delay in his
Majesty's service," he probably lost a chance at Rhode Island. He
did not overlook the matter, it is true; but he decided upon the
information of Arbuthnot and Sir Henry Clinton, and did not inspect
the ground himself. Nothing of consequence came of his visit; and on
the 16th of November he sailed again for the West Indies, taking with
him only nine sail of the line.

The arrival of de Ternay's seven ships at Newport was more than offset
by a British reinforcement of six ships of the line under Rear-Admiral
Thomas Graves which entered New York on July 13th,--only one day
later. Arbuthnot's force was thus raised to ten of the line, one
of which was of 98 guns. After Rodney had come and gone, the French
division was watched by cruisers, resting upon Gardiner's Bay,--a
commodious anchorage at the east end of Long Island, between thirty
and forty miles from Rhode Island. When a movement of the enemy was
apprehended, the squadron assembled there, but nothing of consequence
occurred during the remainder of the year.

The year 1780 had been one of great discouragement to the Americans,
but the injury, except as the lapse of time taxed their staying power,
was more superficial than real. The successes of the British in the
southern States, though undeniable, and seemingly substantial, were
involving them ever more deeply in a ruinously ex-centric movement.
They need here only to be summarised, as steps in the process leading
to the catastrophe of Yorktown,--a disaster which, as Washington said,
exemplified naval rather than military power.

The failure of d'Estaing's attack upon Savannah in the autumn of
1779[89] had left that place in the possession of the British as
a base for further advances in South Carolina and Georgia; lasting
success in which was expected from the numbers of royalists in those
States. When the departure of the French fleet was ascertained, Sir
Henry Clinton put to sea from New York in December, 1779, for the
Savannah River, escorted by Vice-Admiral Arbuthnot. The details of
the operations, which were leisurely and methodical, will not be
given here; for, although the Navy took an active part in them, they
scarcely can be considered of major im