_In any operation, and under all circumstances, a decisive naval superiority is to be considered as a fundamental principle, and the basis upon which every hope of success must ultimately depend._" This, however, though the most formal and decisive expression of Washington's views, is but one among many others equally distinct.
Thus, writing to Franklin, December 20, 1780, he says:-- "Disappointed of the second division of French troops [blockaded in Brest], but more especially in the expected naval superiority, which was the pivot upon which everything turned, we have been compelled to spend an inactive campaign after a flattering prospect at the opening of it....

Latterly we have been obliged to become spectators of a succession of detachments from the army at New York in aid of Lord Cornwallis; while our naval weakness, and the political dissolution of a large part of our army, put it out of our power to counteract them at the southward, or to take advantage of them here." A month later, January 15, 1781, in a memorandum letter to Colonel Laurens, sent on a special mission to France, he says:-- "Next to a loan of money, a constant naval superiority upon these coasts is the object most interesting.

This would instantly reduce the enemy to a difficult defensive....

Indeed, it is not to be conceived how they could subsist a large force in this country, if we had the command of the seas to interrupt the regular transmission of supplies from Europe.

This superiority, with an aid in money, would enable us to convert the war into a vigorous offensive.