Whether he could have been saved from the superior forces collecting about him is perhaps doubtful. Whatever chance he had was lost through want of aid from General Clinton in New York, who continued to believe that he, and not Cornwallis, would be attacked. The violent controversy between the generals does not require to be dealt with here. On the return of Graves, Clinton urged him to attack the French squadron at Newport. The admiral had, however, to reprovision his ships, and he received two pieces of information in quick succession which disposed of any plan for an attack on Newport. On the 16th August =La Nymphe= joined him with the report that Hood was on his way, and a few days later he learnt that the French squadron, commanded since the 6th May by the Chef d’escadre Barras de San Laurent who had superseded Destouches, had sailed to the southward. When Hood appeared off the bar of Sandy Hook, Graves came out to join him on the 1st September, and their united forces steered for the Chesapeake to intercept Barras. On the 5th September the British fleet of twenty-one sail of the line was off Cape Henry, and the advance ship, the =Solebay=, signalled the presence of a French fleet in Lynn Haven. Admiral Graves formed his line of battle and stood on. Grasse shipped his cables and stood out with twenty-four of the line, forming his array as he went. When the two were nearly opposite one another, the British to windward in a fine breeze from the N.N.E., Graves wore his fleet together, and bore down on the enemy, both lines being on the port tack and heading to sea. A sudden shift of the wind and a shoal called the Middle Ground hampered the movements of the fleets. The British line was not all brought into action, for it struck on the enemy at an angle, thus only the van under Rear-Admiral Drake was closely engaged. The rear under Hood might have brought the enemy to close action if it had been allowed to break the line. But Graves adhered to the old rule which prescribes the maintenance of the same formation throughout a battle. So the French were once more allowed to slip away after crippling several ships of the British van, and damaging one, the =Terrible=, 74, so severely that it was found necessary to take her men and stores out, and set her on fire on the 11th. Both fleets remained out for some days without again coming to action. On the 9th Grasse returned to Lynn Haven. During his absence Barras had slipped in with six sail of the line, bringing with him the battering train about to be used against Cornwallis at Yorktown. He found two British frigates, detached by Graves to cut away the buoys left by Grasse on his anchors, and captured them both. After destroying the =Terrible=, Graves looked into the Chesapeake again, and finding the enemy too strong to be attacked, sailed away to Sandy Hook, which he reached on the 19th September. Cornwallis was left to his fate. Graves was joined on the 24th by Rear-Admiral Digby with