Cape Henry

The Charter reads in part: "We greatly commending, and graciously accepting of, their Desires for the Furtherance of so noble a Work, which may, by the Providence of Almighty God, hereafter tend to the Glory of his Divine Majesty, in propagating of Christian Religion to such People, as yet live in Darkness and miserable Ignorance..." Captain Newport, with his three ships, Susan Constant, the Godspeed, and the Discovery, and the group of 104 men and boys, subsequently explored inland and established Jamestown on an island for protection offshore from the north shore further upstream on the James River which became the first permanent English settlement in North America.

They had been pursued after a series of clashes for several years in the Southern Theater in Georgia and the Carolinas by rebel patriot regular forces of soldiers under the command of Gen. Nathanael Greene and Daniel Morgan, along with irregular bands of guerrilla partisans sniping and wearing down the Redcoats by attrition.

As Cornwallis headed northward to the rich untouched colony of Virginia and also hoping to be reinforced / resupplied or evacuated if necessary on the ragged shores of the Carolina coast or the Chesapeake where British seapower and naval dominance could be brought to bear.

The British general was forced to surrender in October 1781 to a combined jointly commanded American-French Army with German states mercenary allies under Gen. George Washington, Gen. Marquis de Lafayette and French Army troops under Gen. Rochambeau who had deceived Gen. William Howe commander in New York where the Northern Theater had stalemated and sneaked out slipping and gaining several weeks march southward down the East Coast to surprise and catch Cornwallis' Redcoats camped at Yorktown in a siege.

The often little known sea Battle of the Capes a few miles off the American Virginia coast was the nail in the coffin to assure colonial independence as the War ended a year and a half later with the Treaty of Paris in 1783.