At least a third of our population is estimated to have been loyalist, and another third lukewarm. At several periods there were more loyalists in the British service than in our own. Nor was this situation wholly confined to the army, for in 1779 there were fitted out at New York one hundred and twenty-one privateers in British employ, thirty-four of which carried from twenty to thirty-six guns. The whole were manned by between 9,000 and 10,000 men. The navy was reduced almost as much as the army. The _Boston_, _Providence_, _Ranger_, and _Queen of France_ had arrived at Charleston on December 23, 1779. The first three fell into the hands of the enemy on the surrender of Charleston on May 11, 1780, and became part of the British navy, the fourth along with the South Carolina ships _Bricole_, 44; the _Truite_, 26; _General Moultrie_, 20, and _Notre Dame_, 16, had been sunk in the river, as also two small French ships-of-war _L’Aventure_ and _Polacre_. There thus remained in the latter part of 1780 but one of the original thirteen frigates, the _Trumbull_, which with the _Dean_, _Confederacy_, _Alliance_, and _Saratoga_ (the last a sloop-of-war), formed in this year the entire Continental navy in service. The _Deane_ (renamed the _Hague_) and the _Alliance_ were the only two of these to survive the year. CHAPTER VIII The now unopposed command of the sea by the British navy and the consequent invasion and overrunning of the South brought darkest gloom and despondency to the American cause.