Washington was near, to give help on
land. The end of the war seemed not far away. But it did not
come. The French admirals were often taken from an army command,
and d'Estaing was not a sailor but a soldier. He feared the skill
of Howe, a really great sailor, whose seven available ships were
drawn up in line at Sandy Hook so that their guns bore on ships
coming in across the bar. D'Estaing hovered outside. Pilots from
New York told him that at high tide there were only twenty-two
feet of water on the bar and this was not enough for his great
ships, one of which carried ninety-one guns. On the 22d of July
there was the highest of tides with, in reality, thirty feet of
water on the bar, and a wind from the northeast which would have
brought d'Estaing's ships easily through the channel into the
harbor. The British expected the hottest naval fight in their
history. At three in the afternoon d'Estaing moved but it was to
sail away out of sight.
Opportunity, though once spurned, seemed yet to knock again. The
one other point held by the British was Newport, Rhode Island.
Here General Pigot had five thousand men and only perilous
communications by sea with New York. Washington, keenly desirous
to capture this army, sent General Greene to aid General Sullivan
in command at Providence, and d'Estaing arrived off Newport to
give aid.
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