 However, by marching down the Tidewater and eventually occupying the Bermuda Hundreds in complying with this order, Cornwallis put himself in a position to become trapped.Indeed, as a result of the rapidity and secrecy of movement by General George Washington from New York City, New York, and the arrival of the French fleet under the Comte de Grasse the combined French-American army, Cornwallis found himself cut off.After the Royal Navy fleet under Admiral Thomas Graves was defeated by the French at the Battle of the Chesapeake, and the French siege train arrived from Newport, Rhode Island, to surround him in the Hundreds, his Cornwallis' position became untenable.