To which point would de Grasse come? or, rather, to -which point should the two generals advise him to come? -- for there was, of course, time to communicate with him before his departure from the West Indies, and that indeed was indispensable. It will be remembered I hat in 1778, when the first French expedition under d'Estaing reached our shores, it proceeded, at Washington's suggestion, to Sandy Hook, with every purpose of entering New York harbor and joining with the continental army in a siege of New York; but that d'Estaing at the last moment abandoned that plan because of his apprehension that his larger war vessels might get stranded on the bar. Indeed, there was a confirmed dislike in the French admiralty office of the Sandy Hook bar, which Kochambeau appears to have shared in a positive degree. At the Weatherstield conference he expressed this animus strongly, and, in fact, the whole bent of his inclination was toward a prompt united naval and land campaign in the South. Washington, on the other hand, deemed a New York campaign of first and supremest importance -- not because he considered American interests less needful of his personal employment in the South than in the North, but for the precisely contrary reason that the proposed move against New York was the one essential instrumentality by which to relieve the stress at the South. At Weathersfield he urged this opinion with the utmost confidence, and all his subsequent procedure corresponded with his original conviction. There is nothing to show that at any time he cherished undue hope of actually capturing New York -- especially in the absence of re-enforcements and of assurance that the fleet would co-operate. But he was for an immediate and perfectly formal New York campaign, let the fleet come where it might.