All the same, it was clear that the Patriot cause was very close to collapse. Though Washington had sent the rugged Nathaniel Greene to rally what was left of the Patriot army in the South, he knew how small the forces down there were. Tower of strength though he was, he confided to James: “If the French will not join us this summer for a mighty strike, either in the North or in the South, then I do not know how we can continue.” And if the Patriot cause collapsed, nobody cared to think of the consequences.

Meanwhile, there was little to do. Through the long and miserable months, therefore, James thought about Albion and his sister. If the world around him was dismal and filled with awful threats, in his imagination, also, he was assailed by phantoms. He felt deserted by his family, powerless, impotent. Memories of his own unhappy marriage came to haunt him, thoughts of English arrogance, coldness and cruelty crowded into his mind. Sometimes it seemed to him, however unfairly, that Albion and Abigail were deliberately acting deviously, and then he suffered a blinding rage. At the least, he decided, Albion was planning to steal his sister, break up his family and take her away to a country he had come to hate. Why, he even thought, if I should not survive this war, perhaps they and my father will take little Weston to England too.

For behind all these imaginings, with which he tortured himself, there lay one great assumption, a passionate feeling of identity that, before the war, would not have occurred to him. Abigail and Weston, his precious family, were not to be English. Never. He could not bear the thought of it. They were not English, they were Americans.

In the spring, news filtered up from the South. The Patriots had engaged Cornwallis and inflicted casualties. Even the fearsome Tarleton had been badly beaten in a skirmish. But Cornwallis was pressing into Virginia with Benedict Arnold. Richmond had been taken. And now Arnold had set up a base on the coast.

It was typical of Washington that, though he did not know the cause, he should have noticed that James had something on his mind. One day, therefore, James found himself called into the general’s presence.

“We can’t let Cornwallis and Arnold range freely in Virginia,” Washington told him. “So I’m sending three thousand men down there, to see what we can do. I’m giving the command to Lafayette, because I trust him. And I think I should like it, Master, if you went too.”

May passed, and June. The weather was warm, and New York was quiet for the moment. It was known that Lafayette had gone south, but most people still thought that if he could get enough support from the French, Washington must soon make a move in the North.