You may see that the women as well as the men of America did all they could for liberty, for there were many others like Mrs. Steele. I have told you that General Greene was one of the ablest of the American leaders, and you have seen how he got the best of Cornwallis in the retreat. Several times afterwards he fought with the British. He was always defeated. His country soldiers could not face the British veterans. But each time he managed to get as much good from the fight as if he had won a victory, and by the end of the year the British were shut up in Charleston and Savannah, and the South was free again. Where was Cornwallis during this time? Greene had led him so far north that he concluded to march on into Virginia and get the troops he would find there, and then come back. There was fighting going on in Virginia at this time. General Arnold, the traitor, was there, fighting against his own people. Against him was General Lafayette, a young French nobleman who had come to the help of the Americans. I suppose some of you have read stories of how a wolf or some other wild animal walked into a trap, from which it could not get out again. Lord Cornwallis was not a wild animal, but he walked into just such a trap after he got to Virginia. When he reached there he took command of Arnold's troops. But he found himself not yet strong enough to face Lafayette, so he marched to Yorktown, near the mouth of York River, where he expected to get help by sea from New York. Yorktown was the trap he walked into, as you will see. France had sent a fleet and an army to help the Americans, and just then this fleet came up from the West Indies and sailed into the Chesapeake, shutting off Yorktown from the sea. At the same time Washington, who had been closely watching what was going on, broke camp before New York and marched southward as fast as his men could go. Before Cornwallis could guess what was about to happen the trap was closed on him. In the bay near Yorktown was the strong French fleet; before Yorktown was the army of American and French soldiers. There was no escape. The army and the fleet bombarded the town. A week of this was enough for Lord Cornwallis. He surrendered his army, seven thousand strong, on October 19, 1781, and the war was at an end. America was free. CHAPTER XV THE VOYAGE OF OUR SHIP OF STATE HAVE any of my young readers ever been to Europe? Likely enough some of you may have been, for even young folks cross the ocean now-a-days. It has come to be an easy journey, with our great and swift steamers. But in past times it was a long and difficult journey, in which the ship was often tossed by terrible storms, and sometimes was broken to pieces on the rocks or went to the bottom with all on board.