François Joseph Paul, Comte de Grasse, Marquis of Grasse-Tilly, KM was a French Navy officer. As a commander of a division, Comte de Grasse served under Louis Guillouet, comte d'Orvilliers at the First Battle of Ushant from July 23 to 27, 1778. The battle, fought off Brittany, was indecisive. De Grasse responded to George Washington and Comte de Rochambeau's Expedition Particuliere when they appealed for his aid in 1781, setting sail with 3,000 troops from Saint-Domingue, where the French Caribbean fleet was based. De Grasse landed the French reinforcements in Virginia. Immediately afterward he decisively defeated the British fleet in the Battle of the Chesapeake in September 1781. He drew away the British forces and blockaded the coast until Lieutenant General Charles Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown, ensuring the independence of the new United States of America. De Grasse was a Commander of the Order of St. Louis and a Knight of the Order of St. John of Jerusalem. He was also a member of the American Society of the Cincinnati. De Grasse died at Tilly in 1788; his tomb is in the church of Saint-Roch in Paris.