October 9, 1781, to escape bombardment by the Americans and the French, Cornwallis moved his headquarters from the Nelson house with its view of the harbour and the town to this cave by the York River.  It was here at 7 a.m. October 17 that the British council of war met.  After all of the other setbacks, the report on the ammunition supply -- only 100 mortar shells left -- made the decision on what to do next unanimous.  Surrender.

It was a coincidence that October 17 was the 4th anniversary of British General John Burgoyne's 1777 surrender to the American forces at Saratoga in New York, the first major British defeat in North America.  The American victory at Saratoga, a great turning point in the war, led directly to the French entry into the war as allies of the Americans.  The French monarch was Louis XVI, who would lose his head during the French revolution that began in 1789.

This John Trumbull painting of the American victory at Saratoga, New York, on October 17, 1777, was issued for a first class 13-cent U.S. bicentennial stamp 200 years later.