Lafayette followed him with delight, not to say amazement.  “The enemy is so obliging as to withdraw before us,” he writes,—­and probably, to the end of his life, he did not fully understand why Lord Cornwallis did so.  Their forces were numerically about equal, each commanding now rather more than five thousand men.  But of Lafayette’s only fifty were cavalry, a very important arm in that campaign, while Cornwallis had now eight hundred men mounted on the blood horses of Virginia.  It was not true, as Lafayette thought possible, that the English exaggerated his force.  It appears from Tarleton’s memoirs that they estimated it very precisely.  But we now know from Cornwallis’s letters, that he had promised Clinton to be at Williamsburg on the 26th of June, ready for any operations he might then and there propose.  He hoped that Clinton would largely reinforce him, so that his favorite scheme of “solid operations in Virginia” might be carried on.  At all events, he had promised to have his army at Williamsburg to join any force which Clinton might send to him.  To make this imagined junction, which never took place, he began his retreat.  Lafayette again offered him battle; but Cornwallis did not accept the opportunity, and on the 25th of June he arrived at Williamsburg.  Lafayette was always one day’s march behind him, and encamped at last at Tyre’s Plantation, one day beyond Williamsburg, which may become famous again in a few days.  Colonel Butler, of Pennsylvania, with his riflemen, attacked Colonel Simcoe, of the English corps of refugees, at the Fords of the Chickahominy, about six miles west of Williamsburg.  We shall be hearing of these fords again.

At Williamsburg poor Cornwallis met his fate.  He had, perhaps, been dreading the arrival of his despatches from Clinton, through all the month he had been in Virginia.  At last they came.  Clinton was sorry he was there, expressed his regret that Cornwallis did not favor his plan for marching on Philadelphia, gave him carte blanche for Baltimore or Delaware,—­but, instead of reinforcing him, asked for two thousand men, if he could spare them.  The letter is, on the whole, a manly letter, from a superior to an inferior, who had social rank higher than himself, and more of the confidence of their Government.  It gives Cornwallis great latitude; but it does not “abandon New York and bring our whole force into Virginia,” which was Cornwallis’s pet plan.

His Lordship behaved ill,—­and, in a pet, threw away the British empire in America.  He sulked, to speak simply.  He took the sullen policy of literal obedience to orders, though he knew he should “break his owners.”  He marched at once, crossed James River at Jamestown, where Lafayette attacked his rear,—­and, if his Lordship had been in fighting humor, would have got well beaten for his pains,—­withdrew to Portsmouth, and put on vessels the two thousand men asked for by Sir Henry.  Just then new despatches came from Clinton, who had received later news, and who was always trying to humor this spoiled child.  He told him to keep all his men in Virginia, where he would take command himself as soon as the hot season was over.  The “solid operations” were to begin.  Very unstable they proved, even in the beginning!