A complete history of the Marquis de Lafayette, major-general in the American army in the war of the revolution. Embracing an account of his tour through the United States, to the time of his departure, September, 1825. By an officer in the late army.

MARQUIS DE LAFAYETTE. 119
mer moved to the bank of James River to counteract it;
and Muhlenburg was thrown across the river to place himself
in lord Cornwallis' front;-not with the hope of resisting him
in his progress, but with a view to precede him, and by destroying all the means of subsistence and transportation, to
impede his progress until he could be overtaken by a force
competent to cope with him."
Upon the first intelligence of this movement of Cornwallis,
the most animated measures were adopted by governor
Burke, to co-operate with Muhlenburg. Every boat on the
Roanoke, Neuse, and Meherrin, were secured under guard
or destroyed; every crossing place guarded, and crossed by
abatis, and the militia were ordered out en masse. The
whole state of North Carolina, from the Dan to the seacoast, appears to have been set in motion by this active governor.
Lord Cornwallis had provided a number of boats, transportable on wagons, in the nature of pontons; and the reasons which led to the relinquishment of his project of retreat
southwardly, are easily deducible from the occurrences of
the day. The French fleet arrived in the Chesapeake on
the first of September; a few days after, the British fleet,
under admiral Greaves, made its, appearance, and count de
Grasse stood out of the Chesapeake, and engaged him, having
first furnished an accession of strength to Lafayette, which
put it in his power to advance upon, and alarm, his adversary. This was the period of the attempt of lord Cornwallis
to escape into Carolina, and, also of its relinquishment. The
arrival of the French fleet suggested the movement; its departure delayed it, until he found himself environed with diffkculties. Below him, he saw the whole country in arms to
oppose his retreat, whilst Greene waited in the south to receive him on the point of the bayonet; above him, Lafayette
watched his opportunity of striking when he should expose
* Johnson's Life Greene, Vol. II. chap. XVI, p. 243. et seq.