The surrender of Cornwallis marked the end of the active war upon the
American continent. The issue of the struggle was indeed assured upon
the day when France devoted her sea power to the support of the
colonists; but, as not uncommonly happens, the determining
characteristics of a period were summed up in one striking event. From
the beginning, the military question, owing to the physical
characteristics of the country, a long seaboard with estuaries
penetrating deep into the interior, and the consequent greater ease of
movement by water than by land, had hinged upon the control of the sea
and the use made of that control. Its misdirection by Sir William Howe
in 1777, when he moved his army to the Chesapeake instead of
supporting Burgoyne's advance, opened the way to the startling success
at Saratoga, when amazed Europe saw six thousand regular troops
surrendering to a body of provincials. During the four years that
followed, until the surrender of Yorktown, the scales rose and fell
according as the one navy or the other appeared on the scene, or as
English commanders kept touch with the sea or pushed their operations
far from its support. Finally, at the great crisis, all is found
depending upon the question whether the French or the English fleet
should first appear, and upon their relative force.
The maritime struggle was at once transferred to the West Indies. The
events which followed there were antecedent in time both to Suffren's
battles and to the final relief of Gibraltar; but they stand so much
by themselves as to call for separate treatment, and have such close
relation to the conclusion of the war and the conditions of peace, as
to form the dramatic finale of the one and the stepping-stone of
transition to the other. It is fitting indeed that a brilliant though
indecisive naval victory should close the story of an essentially
naval war.
The capitulation of Yorktown was completed on the 19th of October, 1781, and on the 5th of November, De Grasse, resisting the suggestions of Lafayette and Washington that the fleet should aid in carrying the war farther south, sailed from the Chesapeake. He reached Martinique on the 26th, the day after the Marquis de Bouillon, commanding the French troops in the West Indies, had regained by a bold surprise the Dutch island of St. Eustatius. The two commanders now concerted a joint expedition against Barbadoes, which was frustrated by the violence of the trade winds.
Foiled here, the French proceeded against the island of St. Christopher, or St. Kitt's. On the 11th of January, 1782, the fleet, carrying six thousand troops, anchored on the west coast off Basse Terre, the chief town. No opposition was met, the small garrison of six hundred men retiring to a fortified post ten miles to the northwest, on Brimstone Hill, a solitary precipitous height overlooking the lee shore of the island. The French troops landed and pursued, but the position being found too strong for assault, siege operations were begun.
The French fleet remained at anchor in Basse Terre road. Meanwhile, news of the attack was carried to Sir Samuel Hood, who had followed De Grasse from the continent, and, in the continued absence of Rodney, was naval commander-in-chief on the station. He sailed from Barbadoes on the 14th, anchored at Antigua on the 21st, and there embarked all the troops that could be spared,--about seven hundred men. On the afternoon of the 23d the fleet started for St. Kitt's, carrying such sail as would bring it within striking distance of the enemy at daylight next morning.