La Fayette was still unconquered.

His army was growing and the British were finding that Virginia, like New England, was definitely against them.
At New York, meanwhile, Clinton was in a dilemma.

He was dismayed at the news of the march of Cornwallis to Virginia.

Cornwallis had been so long practically independent in the South that he assumed not only the right to shape his own policy but adopted a certain tartness in his despatches to Clinton, his superior.

When now, in this tone, he urged Clinton to abandon New York and join him Clinton's answer on the 26th of June was a definite order to occupy some port in Virginia easily reached from the sea, to make it secure, and to send to New York reinforcements.
The French army at Newport was beginning to move towards New York and Clinton had intercepted letters from Washington to La Fayette revealing a serious design to make an attack with the aid of the French fleet.
Such was the game which fortune was playing with the British generals.
Each desired the other to abandon his own plans and to come to his aid.