Naval operations in the American Revolutionary War: Encyclopedia II - Naval operations in the American Revolutionary War - The Year of Crisis 1781

Naval operations in the American Revolutionary War - The Year of Crisis 1781

In the West Indies Rodney, having received news of the breach with the Netherlands early in the year, took the island of St Eustatius, which had been a great depot of contraband of war, on the 3rd of February. The British admiral was accused of applying himself so entirely to seizing and selling his booty that he would not allow his second in command, Sir Samuel Hood, who had recently joined him, to take proper measures to impede the arrival of French forces known to be on their way to Martinique. The French admiral, the count de Grasse, reached the island with reinforcements in April. Until July he was engaged in a series of skilful operations directed to menacing the British islands while he avoided being brought to battle by Rodney. In July he sailed for the coast of North America, whither he was followed in August by Hood, Rodney having been compelled to return home in ill-health.

On the coast of North America the war came to its crisis. In the earlier part of the year the British at New York and the French at Newport continued to watch one another. In April the British admiral Arbuthnot did indeed succeed in baffling an attempt of the French to carry reinforcements to the American cause in Virginia. The action he fought off the capes of Virginia on the 16th of April was ill conducted, but his main purpose was achieved. Washington, who was wisely anxious to concentrate attack on one or other of the centres of British power in Virginia or New York, had to wait till the arrival of Grasse before he could see his ideas applied. The French admiral gave the allies a superiority of naval strength on the coast of Virginia, and Lord Cornwallis, the British commander, was beleaguered in Yorktown. Admiral Thomas Graves, Arbuthnot's successor, who had been joined by Hood from the West Indies, endeavoured to drive off the French fleet. But the feeble battle he fought on the 5th of September failed to shake the French hold on the Chesapeake, and Grasse having been reinforced, Graves sailed away. Yorktown fell on the 19th of October, and the war was settled as far as the coast of North America was concerned.

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "The Year of Crisis 1781", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki