D'Estaing sailed away and soon lost some of his ships in a
violent storm. Ill-fortune pursued him to the end. He served no
more in the war and in the Reign of Terror in Paris, in 1794, he
perished on the scaffold.
At Charleston the American General Lincoln was in command with
about six thousand men. The place, named after King Charles II,
had been a center of British influence before the war. That
critical traveler, Lord Adam Gordon, thought its people clever in
business, courteous, and hospitable. Most of them, he says, made
a visit to England at some time during life and it was the
fashion to send there the children to be educated. Obviously
Charleston was fitted to be a British rallying center in the
South; yet it had remained in American hands since the opening of
the war. In 1776 Sir Henry Clinton, the British Commander, had
woefully failed in his assault on Charleston. Now in December,
1779, he sailed from New York to make a renewed effort. With him
were three of his best officer--Cornwallis, Simcoe, and Tarleton,
the last two skillful leaders of irregulars, recruited in America
and used chiefly for raids. The wintry voyage was rough; one of
the vessels laden with cannon foundered and sank, and all the
horses died.
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