Comte de Grasse
The Comte de Grasse won the naval battle that made American independence possible and lost his own reputation seven months later. Born François-Joseph Paul de Grasse in Provence in 1722 into an old noble family, he entered the Knights of Malta at eleven, served in their galleys, and joined the French navy, spending three years as a British prisoner after a defeat in 1747. He was made a rear admiral in 1781 and given the West Indies command. The decisive sequence came that summer. Washington and Rochambeau wanted to attack New York; de Grasse informed them he was bringing his entire fleet north to the Chesapeake with three thousand troops and money raised in Havana, but only for a limited period. That message determined the campaign, and the allied armies marched south to Virginia instead. On 5 September 1781 he met a British fleet under Thomas Graves off the Virginia Capes. The engagement was tactically indecisive and strategically total: Graves withdrew to New York, and de Grasse held the bay. Cornwallis at Yorktown was cut off by sea, besieged by land, and surrendered on 19 October. Washington acknowledged that the outcome depended on him. He returned to the Caribbean, and on 12 April 1782 at the Saintes, Rodney's ships broke through his line in three places in a shift of wind. His flagship the Ville de Paris was overwhelmed and he was captured. He was taken to London, treated courteously, and blamed his own captains publicly on release, which a court martial rejected. He died in 1788.
- Lived: 1722 CE – 1788 CE
- Nationality: French
- Roles: admiral, military_leader
