There are periods in the history of nations when, after a continuous series of misfortunes, when despair would have seemed excusable, suddenly the sky clears and everything turns their way. In the War of American Independence, such a period had begun. The armies of Washington and Rochambeau, encumbered with their carts, wagons, and artillery, had to pass rivers, to cross hilly regions, to follow muddy tracks; any serious attempt against them might have proved fatal, but nothing was tried. It was of the greatest importance that Clinton should, as long as possible, have no intimation of the real plans of the Franco-Americans; everything helped to mislead him: his natural dispositions as well as circumstances. He had an unshakable conviction that the key to the whole situation was New York, and that the royal power in America, and he, too, Lieutenant-General Sir Henry Clinton, would stand or fall with that city. Hence his disinclination to leave it and to attempt anything outside. His instructions ordered him to help Cornwallis to his utmost, the plan of the British court being to conquer the Southern States first and then continue the conquest northward. But he, on the contrary, was day after day asking Cornwallis to send back some of his troops. And while, as he never ceased to point out afterward, he was careful to add, "if you could spare them," he also remarked in the same letter: "I confess I could not conceive you would require above 4,000 in a station where General Arnold has represented to me, upon report of Colonel Simcoe, that 2,000 men would be amply sufficient."[38]

A great source of light, and, as it turned out, of darkness also, was the intercepting of letters. This constantly happened in those days, to the benefit or bewilderment of both parties, on land or at sea. But luck had decidedly turned, and the stars shone propitious for the allies. We captured valuable letters, and Clinton misleading ones. It was something of a retribution after he had so often used or tried to use such captures to his advantage, as when, having seized an intimate letter of Washington, a passage of which might have given umbrage to Rochambeau, he had it printed in the newspapers. But the two commanders were not to be ruffled so easily, and all that took place was a frank explanation. Spontaneously acting in the same spirit, La Luzerne had written to Rochambeau concerning Washington and this incident: "I have told all those that have spoken to me of it that I saw nothing in it but the zeal of a good patriot, and a citizen must be very virtuous for his enemies not to find other crimes to reproach him with."[39]

More treasures had now fallen into the hands of Clinton: a letter of Chastellux to La Luzerne, speaking very superciliously of his unmanageable chief, Rochambeau, and of his "bourrasques." In it he congratulated himself, as Rochambeau narrates, on having "cleverly managed to cause me to agree with General Washington," the result being that "a siege of the island of New York had at last been determined upon.... He added complaints about the small chance a man of parts had to influence the imperiousness of a general always wanting to command." Clinton caused that letter to be sent to Rochambeau, "obviously with no view," writes the latter, "to the preservation of peace in my military family." Rochambeau showed it to Chastellux, who blushingly acknowledged its authorship; the general thereupon threw it into the fire and left the unfortunate Academician "a prey to his remorse,"—and to his ignorance, for he was careful not to undeceive him as to the real plans of the combined army.

A text of the conclusions reached at the Weathersfield conferences was no less happily captured by Clinton, and we have seen how clearly Washington had there expressed his reluctance to attempt striking the chief blow in the South. A letter of Barras to La Luzerne, of May 27, was also intercepted, and as luck would have it, the sailor declared in it his intention to take the fleet, of all places, to Boston (a real project, but abandoned as soon as formed and replaced by another which took him to the Chesapeake). A most important letter of Rochambeau to La Luzerne, explaining the real plan, was thereupon intercepted; it was in cipher and the English managed to decipher it. But, as the stars shone propitious to the allies, it was only the English in London, and not those in New York, who could do it, and when the translation reached Clinton at last, he had no longer, for good causes, any doubt as to the real aims of Washington and Rochambeau.

The colonial secretary was, in the meantime, kept in a state of jubilation by so much treasure-trove and the news forwarded by Clinton, to whom he wrote: "The copies of the very important correspondence which so fortunately fell into your hands, inclosed in your despatch, show the rebel affairs to be almost desperate, and that nothing but the success of some extraordinary enterprise can give vigor and activity to their cause, and I confess I am well pleased that they have fixed upon New York as the object to be attempted."[40] Clinton acknowledged a little later to Lord Germain the receipt of a "reinforcement of about 2,400 German troops and recruits," which he was careful to hold tight in New York till the end.

The combined armies had, in the meantime, done their best to confirm the English commander in such happy dispositions. They had built in the vicinity of New York brick ovens for baking bread for an army, as in view of a long siege. There had been reconnaissances, marches, and countermarches, a sending of ships toward Long Island without entering, however, "dans la baie d'Oyster," skirmishes which looked like preliminaries to more important operations, and in one of which, together with the two Berthiers and Count de Vauban, Closen nearly lost his life in order to save his hat. A camp proverb about hats had been the cause of his taking the risk. When he returned, "kind Washington," he writes in his journal, "tapped me on the shoulder, saying: 'Dear Baron, this French proverb is not yet known among our army, but your cold behavior during danger will be it'" (in English in the original as being the very words of the great man to the young one, though cold does probably duty for cool, and the final it is certainly not Washington's).

Then on the sudden, on the 18th of August, the two armies raised their camps, disappeared, and, following unusual roads, moving northward at first for three marches, reached in the midst of great difficulties, under a torrid heat, greatly encumbered with heavy baggage, the Hudson River and crossed it at King's Ferry, without being more interfered with than before. How can such an inaction on the part of Clinton be explained? "It is for me," writes Count Guillaume de Deux-Ponts in his journal, the manuscript of which was found on the quays in Paris,[41] and printed in America, "an undecipherable enigma, and I hope I shall never be reproached for having puzzled people with any similar ones."

The river once crossed, the double army moved southward by forced marches. Rochambeau, in order to hasten the move, prescribed the leaving behind of a quantity of effects, and this, says Closen, "caused considerable grumbling among the line," which grumbled but marched. The news, to be sure, of so important a movement came to Clinton, but, since the stars had ceased to smile on him, he chose to conclude, as he wrote to Lord Germain on the 7th of September, "this to be a feint." When he discovered that it was not "a feint," the Franco-American army was beyond reach. "What can be said as to this?" Closen writes merrily. "Try to see better another time," and he draws a pair of spectacles on the margin of his journal.