Fresh perplexities were assailing General Washington, scarcely recovered from the sad surprise which Arnold's treason had caused him. He had pursued for almost a year the reorganization of his army, when the successive mutinies among the Pennsylvania troops threatened to reach those of New Jersey, and to extend by degrees into all the corps secretly tampered with by Sir Henry Clinton. Mr. Laurens, formerly president of Congress, and charged with negotiating a treaty of alliance and of loan with Holland, had been captured by an English ship. He was imprisoned in the Tower, when his son, an aide-de-camp of Washington, set out for France. "The country's own strength is exhausted," wrote the general-in-chief. "Alone we cannot raise the public credit and furnish the funds necessary to continue the war. The patience of the army is at an end. Without money we can make but a feeble effort, probably the last one." {304} As well as money, Colonel Laurens was charged to ask for a reinforcement of troops. France furnished all that her allies asked. M. Necker, clever and bold, was equal, by means of successive loans, to all the charges of the war. In a few months King Louis XVI. had lent or guaranteed more than sixteen million pounds for the United States. A French fleet, under the orders of the Count de Grasse, set out on the 21st of March, 1781. Arrived at Martinique on the 28th of April, the Count de Grasse, despite the efforts of Admiral Hood to block his passage, took the island of Tobago from the English. On the 3rd of September he brought Washington a reinforcement of three thousand five hundred men and twelve hundred thousand pounds in specie. The soldiers as well as the subsidies were intrusted to Washington personally. No dissension had ever arisen between the general and his foreign auxiliaries. By that natural authority which God had bestowed on him, Washington was always and naturally the superior and chief of all those who came near him. After so many and so painful efforts the day of victory at last arrived for General Washington and for his country. Alternations of success and reverse had marked the commencement of the campaign of 1781. Lord Cornwallis, who commanded the English armies in the South, was occupying Virginia with considerable forces, when Washington, who had been able to conceal his designs from Sir Henry Clinton, while deceiving even his own lieutenants, passed through Philadelphia on the 4th of September, and advanced against the enemy by forced marches. The latter had been for a long time harassed by the little army of M. de la Fayette. Lord Cornwallis hastened to Yorktown. On the 30th of September the place was invested. {305}