The insufficiency of the military results obtained by land and sea, in comparison with the expenses and the exhibition of force, and the slowness and bad management of the operations, had been attributed, in France as well as in America, to the incapacity of the ministers of war and marine, the Prince of Montbarrey and M. de Sartines.  The finances had up to that time sufficed for the enormous charges which weighed upon the treasury; credit for the fact was most justly given to the consummate ability and inexhaustible resources of M. Necker, who was, first of all, made director of the treasury on October 22, 1776, and then director-general of finance on June 29, 1777, By his advice, backed by the favor of the queen, the two ministers were superseded by M. de Segur and the Marquis of Castries.  A new and more energetic impulse before long restored the hopes of the Americans.  On the 21st of March, 1780, a fleet left under the orders of Count de Grasse; after its arrival at Martinique, on the 28th of April, in spite of Admiral Hood’s attempts to block his passage, Count de Grasse took from the English the Island of Tobago, on the 1st of June; on the 3d of September, he brought Washington a reinforcement of three thousand five hundred men, and twelve hundred thousand livres in specie.  In a few months King Louis XVI. had lent to the United States or procured for them on his security sums exceeding sixteen million livres.  It was to Washington personally that the French government confided its troops as well as its subsidies.  “The king’s soldiers are to be placed exclusively under the orders of the general-in-chief,” M. Girard, the French minister in America, had said, on the arrival of the auxiliary corps.

After so many and such painful efforts, the day of triumph was at last dawning upon General Washington and his country.  Alternations of success and reverse had signalized the commencement of the campaign of 1781.  Lord Cornwallis, who commanded the English armies in the South, was occupying Virginia with a considerable force, when Washington, who had managed to conceal his designs from Sir Henry Clinton, shut up in New York, crossed Philadelphia on the 4th of September, and advanced by forced marches against the enemy.  The latter had been for some time past harassed by the little army of M. de La Fayette.  The fleet of Admiral de Grasse cut off the retreat of the English.  Lord Cornwallis threw himself into Yorktown; on the 30th of September the place was invested.

It was but slightly and badly fortified; the English troops were fatigued by a hard campaign; the besiegers were animated by a zeal further stimulated by emulation; French and Americans vied with one another in ardor.  Batteries sprang up rapidly, the soldiers refused to take any rest, the trenches were opened by the 6th of October.  On the 10th, the cannon began to batter the town; on the 14th an American column, commanded by M. de La Fayette, Colonel Hamilton and