The English lost ninety killed, and two hundred and forty-six wounded. The Terrible, one of the English ships, was so much damaged, that, after taking out her prisoners and stores, they set fire to and burned her. *
While these events were occurring on the Virginia coast, the allied armies were making their way southward with all possible dispatch, and Sir Henry Clinton, certified of their destination, ** was trying to divert their attention from the South, and recall some of their forces by menacing movements at the North.
He sent Arnold with a strong force to attack New London, an event which we have considered on pages 42 and 45 inclusive. He also threatened New Jersey, and caused a rumor to go abroad that he was about to proceed with a strong force against the American posts in the Hudson Highlands, which Washington had left in charge of General Heath, with fourteen regiments. These movements and rumors failed to produce their desired effect; and the outrages committed by Arnold at New London and vicinity served only to heighten the exasperation of the patriot army, and nerve it to more vigorous action.
When the allied forces arrived at the head of Elk there were not vessels sufficient to transport them, and a large portion of the American troops, and all of the French, made their way to Baltimore and Annapolis by land. Washington, with Count De Rochambeau and the Marquis De Chastellux, *** reached Baltimore on the eighth,Sept. 1781 Mount Vernon on the tenth, **** and Williamsburg on the evening of the fourteenth. He had ordered the troops that were embarked on the Chesapeake to halt, after learning that the fleet