If mildness failed the British intended to capture New York, sail up the Hudson and cut off New England from the other colonies.
The squadron destined for Charleston carried an army in command of a fine soldier, Lord Cornwallis, destined later to be the defeated leader in the last dramatic scene of the war.

In May this fleet reached Wilmington, North Carolina, and took on board two thousand men under General Sir Henry Clinton, who had been sent by Howe from Boston in vain to win the Carolinas and who now assumed military command of the combined forces.

Admiral Sir Peter Parker commanded the fleet, and on the 4th of June he was off Charleston Harbor.

Parker found that in order to cross the bar he would have to lighten his larger ships.

This was done by the laborious process of removing the guns, which, of course, he had to replace when the bar was crossed.