Lucia, both held strongly by the English, was peculiarly weak to the French; but sound military policy for all these islands demanded one or two strongly fortified and garrisoned naval bases, and dependence for the rest upon the fleet.
Beyond this, security against attacks by single cruisers and privateers alone was needed.
Such were the objectives in dispute.

What was the determining factor in this strife?
Surely the navy, the organized military force afloat.
Cornwallis's fate depended absolutely upon the sea.

It is useless to speculate upon the result, had the odds on the 5th of September, 1781, in favor of De Grasse, been reversed; if the French, instead of five ships more, had had five ships less than the English.

As it was, De Grasse, when that fight began, had a superiority over the English equal to the result of a hard-won fight.

The question then was, should he risk the almost certain decisive victory over the organized enemy's force ashore, for the sake of a much more doubtful advantage over the organized force afloat?
This was not a question of Yorktown, but of Cornwallis and his army; there is a great deal in the way things are put.
So stated,--and the statement needs no modifications,--there can be but one answer.