Impetuous young John Laurens was chosen to be this Ambassador Extraordinary to France. Laurens was greatly admired and loved by Lafayette and he recommended him to the affections of his noble relatives in Paris. At the moment Laurens's father was being held a prisoner by the British in the Tower of London--a fact that no doubt quickened the zeal of the son. At all events, he was successful in his mission. The French fleet in the West Indies was ordered to the United States and the king himself became surety for several millions of livres in addition to what had already been sent to our aid. The time was coming when Lafayette could begin to move the British army before him little by little down the York River toward Yorktown, a method of procedure that now became, as the British reports described it, the "constant and good policy of the enemy." On the 24th of September, 1781, Cornwallis proceeded to occupy Yorktown and to strengthen it against attack. The city of Yorktown is situated near the entrance to Chesapeake Bay. At that place two rivers enter the bay, the York and the James, and upon a conspicuous bluff on the northern side of the neck of land between them stood this small town. Cornwallis began at once to prepare the place for assault. Around the village he built a series of fortifications consisting of seven redoubts and six batteries on the land side, and these he connected by intrenchments. He placed a line of batteries on the river bank to command the channel, and he established outworks to impede the approach of the enemy. Lafayette saw all this and rejoiced, for he believed that Cornwallis was at last where he most desired to have him--in a place where he would be open to attack, and with some hope of success. All the country around Yorktown was now familiar to Lafayette. He knew every inch of the land, the river, the morass, and the commanding hill. "Should a fleet come in at this moment, affairs would take a very happy turn," he wrote joyfully to General Washington. On the 30th of August the French fleet, under the Count de Grasse, with twenty-eight ships of the line, appeared in the waters of Chesapeake Bay; a few days later the Marquis de Saint Simon, field marshal in the French army, debarked a large reenforcement of French troops; and on the 4th of September Lafayette moved nearer to Yorktown and took a position with the troops he could bring together,--his own light infantry, the militia, and the reenforcements at Williamsburg, a town in the vicinity of the British position. Nothing now remained but the arrival of General Washington himself to take charge of the whole enterprise, and Lafayette's happiness was complete when, on the 14th of September, he resigned his command into the hands of his revered General. CHAPTER XI THE TWO REDOUBTS