The powerlessness of the Americans upon the sea left this movement unembarrassed save by single cruisers, which picked up some stragglers,--affording another lesson of the petty results of a merely cruising warfare.

The siege of Charleston began at the end of March,--the English ships soon after passing the bar and Fort Moultrie without serious damage, and anchoring within gunshot of the place.

Fort Moultrie was soon and easily reduced by land approaches, and the city itself was surrendered on the 12th of May, after a siege of forty days.

The whole State was then quickly overrun and brought into military subjection.
The fragments of D'Estaing's late fleet were joined by a reinforcement from France under the Comte de Guichen, who assumed chief command in the West Indian seas March 22, 1780.

The next day he sailed for Sta.
Lucia, which he hoped to find unprepared; but a crusty, hard-fighting old admiral of the traditional English type, Sir Hyde Parker, had so settled himself at the anchorage, with sixteen ships, that Guichen with his twenty-two would not attack.