The British interest in this region intensified in 1778 as it became clear that support for the Colonial cause and Independence had gained strength to the point that the New England states were virtually lost.  By the time this chart was drawn the British had already decided that the largely loyalist middle and southern states might still be retained as part of the Empire, and under the new command of General Henry Clinton  they started to implement their 'Southern Strategy' as follows: 

• By occupying the key town of Savannah (along with that of Charleston in South Carolina) and by mobilizing and arming the loyalist population, including the slaves, they hoped to split these states from the rest.

• If they controlled the rivers, harbours and waterways of the eastern seaboard vital supplies of munitions and other essentials needed by the Colonial army to stay in the war might be denied and a strangulation invoked.

• The more loyalists that could be assimilated into the army, the more British troops could be concentrated elsewhere. 

• These Middle States produced the commodities upon which the economics of Empire was built - tobacco, rice, indigo and so on, and the British government planned to link these states along with their holdings in east Florida, the Bahamas and Bermuda as a new colonial grouping.