Cornwallis was diligently fortifying himself at York and Gloucester. Lafayette was in a position on James river to prevent his escape into North Carolina, and the combined army was hastening southward to attack him. In order to cooperate against Cornwallis De Grasse detached four ships-of-the-line and some frigates to block up the entrance of York river, and to carry the land forces which he had brought with him, under the Marquis de St. Simon, to Lafayette's camp. The rest of his fleet remained at the entrance of the bay. Sir George Rodney, who commanded the British fleet in the West Indies, was not ignorant that the count intended to sail for America, but knowing that the merchant vessel which he convoyed from Cape Francois were loaded with valuable cargoes the British admiral believed that he would send the greater part of his fleet along with them to Europe and would visit the American coast with a small squadron only. Accordingly, Rodney detached Sir Samuel Hood with fourteen sail-of-the-line to America as a sufficient force to counteract the operations of the French in that quarter. Admiral Hood reached the capes of Virginia on the 25th of August (1781), a few days before de Grasse entered the bay and finding no enemy there sailed for Sandy Hook, where he arrived on the 28th of August. Admiral Graves, who had succeeded Admiral Arbuthnot in the command of the British fleet on the American station, was then lying at New York with seven sail-of-the-line; but two of his ships had been damaged in a cruise near Boston and were under repair. At the same time that Admiral Hood gave information of the expected arrival of de Grasse on the American coast, notice was received of the sailing of de Barras with his fleet from Newport. Admiral Graves, therefore, without waiting for his two ships which were under repair, put to sea on the 31st of August with nineteen sail-of-the-line and steered to the southward.