The death of de Ternay in December, due, in Lafayette’s judgment, to despondency caused by his hopeless view of things; the treason of Arnold which came to light in September; the blockade for most of the coming winter of the French squadron by, now, a superior British force; the arrival in the West Indies at the end of April, 1781, of the Count de Grasse with a powerful addition to the French fleet; the information that he expected to come on to the American coast; the pressing messages to him from Washington and Rochambeau to hasten his departure; the reply received on August 14th that he would sail on August 13th for the Chesapeake with 3,300 troops, artillery, and siege guns, and 1,200,000 livres (francs) in money, determined the move of the small allied armies to Virginia, where Cornwallis, now some months in that state, was finally to take up an entrenched position at Yorktown, his move from Portsmouth being completed on August 22d. The American and French armies, after a whole year’s inaction, joined on July 6, 1781, taking position on a line from Dobbs’ Ferry to the Bronx. The Fates were surely with America. Everything conspired for the allies’ success; the position taken had convinced Clinton that New York was to be attacked; he pressed Cornwallis to send him every man he could spare, but Cornwallis could spare none. Rodney in the West Indies, misinformed as to De Grasse’s intentions, and thinking he was to take but half his fleet instead of the whole, detached but fourteen of his own command to go north under Sir Samuel Hood to reinforce Admiral Graves at New York. Rodney himself left for England on leave of absence, carrying four ships with him. The two vessels dispatched to Graves with information of British intentions never reached him. He was east with his squadron when one, arriving at New York, was sent on to him but was driven ashore on Long Island by a superior force and destroyed; the other and more important one, giving word of Hood’s departure, was captured. For this reason, though Graves returned to New York on August 16th, he still remained in the dark as to Hood’s movements. The whole was a marvel of good fortune for the Americans, while every move of De Grasse’s fleet and of the allied armies were to fit with the perfection of mechanism.