New York

NEW YORK. 11-22 July 1778. D'Estaing at the bar. On 8 July the comte d'Estaing reached the Delaware Capes after taking eighty-seven days to cross the Atlantic from Toulon. Three days earlier the British fleet had completed ferrying Clinton's army from the vicinity of Sandy Hook at the heights of Navesink, where they had marched after evacuating Philadelphia. Although the slow passage of the French fleet across the Atlantic had saved the British fleet from being trapped in the Delaware, Admiral Richard Howe's problem now was to protect his fleet in New York Harbor against a superior force. D'Estaing's problem, on the other hand, was to get ships drawing twenty-seven feet across a bar where there were no more than twenty-one feet of water at low tide.

D'Estaing wasted no time off the Delaware when he saw there was no enemy fleet to engage and no promise of making contact with Washington. He had many sick aboard and was low on water and provisions, so on 9 July he sailed north to New York, reaching Sandy Hook on the 11th after capturing a number of British supply vessels. At Sandy Hook the American pilot who had come aboard off the Delaware reneged on his promise to take the fleet inside the Hook. It was not until 16 July that John Laurens reached the fleet to establish liaison between d'Estaing and Washington. Laurens informed d'Estaing of the near impossibility of crossing the bar into New York Harbor for an attack on the British.

After days at anchor off the treacherous coast while the best available pilots were consulted, d'Estaing was told they could take his ships in only if a strong northeast wind coincided with a spring tide. Ignorant of the deeper draft of the French ships, Sir Henry Clinton considered abandoning New York before the expected attack. But on 20 July the French admiral decided to leave New York and follow Washington's suggestion of a combined French and American operation against the British at Newport, Rhode Island.

Many military historians have been critical of d'Estaing for failing to chance crossing the bar into New York Harbor, insisting that a bolder commander might have won the Revolution by trapping the British in New York. Others agree with d'Estaing in thinking that such an effort would have been foolhardy and have led to the destruction of the French fleet.

The French Alliance was off to a bad start. Until Rochambeau arrived in America, it would deteriorate further.

SEE ALSO French Alliance; Laurens, John; Monmouth, New Jersey.

                          revised by Michael Bellesiles