RODNEY

1719-1792

Unlike Hawke, Rodney drew his descent from the landed gentry of England, and had relatives among the aristocracy. The name was originally Rodeney. We are told by his son-in-law and biographer that the Duke of Chandos, a connection by marriage, obtained the command of the Royal yacht for the admiral's father, Henry Rodney. In one of the trips which George I. frequently made between England and Hanover, he asked his captain if there were anything he could do for him. The reply was a request that he would stand sponsor for his son, who accordingly received the name of George; his second name Brydges coming from the family through which Chandos and the Rodneys were brought into relationship. The social position and surroundings resulting from such antecedents contributed of course to hasten the young officer's advancement, irrespective of the unquestionable professional merit shown by him, even in early years; but to them also, combined with narrow personal fortune, inadequate to the tastes thus engendered, was probably due the pecuniary embarrassment which dogged him through life, and was perhaps the moving incentive to doubtful procedures that cast a cloud upon his personal and official reputation.

Rodney was born in February, 1719, and went to sea at the age of thirteen; serving for seven years in the Channel Fleet. Thence he was transferred to the Mediterranean, where he was made lieutenant in 1739. In 1742 he went again to the Mediterranean with Admiral Mathews, who there gave him command of a "post" ship, with which he brought home the trade,—three hundred merchant vessels,—from Lisbon. Upon arriving in England his appointment by Mathews was "confirmed" by the Admiralty. Being then only twenty-four, he anticipated by five years the age at which Hawke reached the same rank of post-captain, the attainment of which fixed a man's standing in the navy. Beyond that, advancement went by seniority; a post-captain might be "yellowed,"—retired as a rear admiral,—but while in active service he kept the advantage of his early promotion.

When Rodney was in later years commander-in-chief in the West Indies, he made his son a post-captain at fifteen; an exercise of official powers which, though not singular to him, is too characteristic of the man and the times to be wholly unmentioned. His own promotion, though rapid, was not too much so for his professional good; but it is likely that neither that consideration, nor the good of the service, counted for much alongside of the influence he possessed. He appears, however, to have justified from the first the favor of his superiors. His employment was continuous, and in a military point of view he was more fortunate than Hawke was at the same period of his career. Within two years, when in command of a forty-gun ship, he fought and took a French privateer of the same nominal force, and with a crew larger by one hundred than his own. Thence he was advanced into the Eagle, sixty, in which, after some commerce-destroying more lucrative than glorious, he bore an extremely honorable part in Hawke's battle with L'Etenduère, already related. The Eagle was heavily engaged, and was one of the three small ships that on their own initiative pursued and fought, though unsuccessfully, the two escaping French vessels. Rodney shared Hawke's general encomium, that "as far as fell within my notice, the commanders, their officers, and ships' companies, behaved with the greatest spirit and resolution." Rodney came under his close observation, for, the Eagle's "wheel being shot to pieces and all the men at it killed, and all her braces and bowlines gone," she drove twice on board the flag-ship. This was before her pursuit of the two fliers.

In the subsequent trial of Captain Fox,—the minutes of which the present writer has not seen,—it appears, according to the biographer of Lord Hawke,[6] that it was Captain Saunders's and Captain Rodney's "sense of being deserted by Fox, and of the two French ships having escaped through his failure of duty, which forms the chief feature of the Court-Martial. Rodney especially describes his being exposed to the fire of four of the enemy's ships, when, as he asserted, Fox's ship might well have taken off some of it." The incident is very noteworthy, for it bears the impress of personal character. Intolerance of dereliction of duty, and uncompromising condemnation of the delinquent, were ever leading traits in Rodney's course as a commander-in-chief. He stood over his officers with a rod, dealt out criticism unsparingly, and avowed it as his purpose and principle of action so to rule. It is not meant that his censures were undeserved, or even excessive; but there entered into them no ingredient of pity. His despatches are full of complaints, both general and specific. When he spared, it was from a sense of expediency,—or of justice, a trait in which he was by no means deficient; but for human weakness he had no bowels. Hawke complains of but this one captain, Fox, and towards him he seems not to have evinced the strong feeling that animated his juniors. Each man has his special gift, and to succeed must needs act in accordance with it.

There are those who lead and those who drive; Hawke belonged to the one class, Rodney to the other.

In direct consequence of this difference of temperament, it will be found, in contrasting the schools of which Hawke and Rodney are the conspicuous illustrations, that the first represents the spirit, and the second the form, which were the two efficient elements of the progress made during the eighteenth century. The one introduces into a service arrested in development, petrified almost, by blindly accepted rules and unintelligent traditions, a new impulse, which transforms men from within, breaking through the letter of the law in order to realize its forgotten intent; the other gives to the spirit, thus freed from old limitations, a fresh and sagacious direction, but needs nevertheless to impose its own methods by constraint from without. It is the old struggle, ever renewed, between liberty and law; in the due, but difficult, combination of which consist both conservation and progress.

And so in the personality of the two great admirals who respectively represent these contrasting schools of practice; while we find in both these two elements, as they must exist in every efficient officer, yet it is to be said that the one inspires and leads, the other moulds and compels. The one, though seemingly reserved, is in character sympathetic, and influences by example chiefly; the other, austerely courteous, is towards associates distant and ungenial, working by fear rather than by love. For these broad reasons of distinction it is Mathews's battle that best measures the reaction of which Hawke is the type, for there was especially illustrated defect of spirit, to cover which the letter of the law was invoked; whereas in Byng's action, extremely bad form, in the attempt to conform to the letter of the Instructions, emphasizes the contrast with Rodney's methods, precise and formal unquestionably, but in which form ceases to be an end in itself and is reduced to its proper function as the means to carry into effect a sound military conception. Of these two factors in the century's progress, it needs hardly to be said that the one contributed by Hawke is the greater. In spirit and in achievement he, rather than Rodney, is the harbinger of Nelson.

A short time after the action with L'Etenduère the cruise of the Eagle came to an end. When she was paid off Rodney was presented at Court by Anson, the First Lord of the Admiralty; a merited and not unusual honor after distinguished service in battle. The King was struck by his youthful appearance, and said he had not known there was so young a captain in the Navy. As he was then nearly thirty, and had seen much and continuous service, it is singular that his face should not have borne clear traces of the facts. Anson replied that he had been a captain for six years, and it was to be wished that His Majesty had a hundred more as good as he. Making allowance for courtly manners and fair-speaking, the incident may be accepted as showing, not only that aptitude for the service which takes its hardships without undue wear and tear, but also an official reputation already well established and recognized.

Professional standing, therefore, as well as family influence, probably contributed to obtain for him in 1749 the appointment of Commodore and Commander-in-chief on the Newfoundland station; for he was still junior on the list of captains, and had ten years more to run before obtaining his admiral's flag. He remained in this post from 1749 to 1752. They were years of peace, but of peace charged full with the elements of discord which led to the following war. Canada was still French, and the territorial limits between the North American possessions of the two nations remained a subject of dispute and intrigue. The uncertain state of political relations around the Gulf of St. Lawrence added to the responsibility of Rodney's duty, and emphasized the confidence shown in assigning him a position involving cautious political action.

Explicit confirmation of this indirect testimony is found in a private letter to him from the Earl of Sandwich, who had succeeded Anson as First Lord in 1748. "I think it necessary to inform you that, if the Governor of Nova Scotia should have occasion to apply to you for succor, and send to you for that purpose to Newfoundland, it would be approved by Government if you should comply with his request. It is judged improper, as yet, to send any public order upon a business of so delicate a nature, which is the reason of my writing to you in this manner; and I am satisfied that your prudence is such as will not suffer you to make any injudicious use of the information you now receive. There are some people that cannot be trusted with any but public orders, but I shall think this important affair entirely safe under your management and secrecy." Language such as this undoubtedly often covers a hint, as well as expresses a compliment, and may have done so in this instance; nevertheless, in after life it is certain that Rodney gave proof of a very high order of professional discretion and of independent initiative. It is therefore perfectly reasonable to suppose that he had thus early convinced the Government that he was a man competent and trustworthy under critical conditions, such as then characterized the intercolonial relations of the two states. The particular incident is farther noteworthy in connection with the backwardness, and even reluctance, of the Government to employ him in the War of the American Revolution, though Sandwich was again First Lord, and Rodney a strong political supporter of the party in power. The precise cause for this is probably not ascertainable; but it is a matter of perfectly reasonable inference that the early promise of the young officer had meanwhile become overclouded, that distrust had succeeded to confidence, for reasons professional, but not strictly military. Rodney's war record continued excellent from first to last; one not good only, but of exceptional and singular efficiency.

In October, 1752, Rodney returned to England, having been elected to Parliament. The Seven Years War, which, after two years of irregular hostilities, began formally in 1756, found him still a captain. With its most conspicuous opening incident, the attempted relief of Minorca, and the subsequent trial and execution of the unsuccessful commander, Admiral Byng, he had no connection, personal or official; nor was he a member of the Court-Martial, although he seems to have been in England at the time, and was senior to at least one of the sitting captains. The abortive naval engagement off Port Mahon, however, stands in a directly significant relation to his career, for it exemplifies to the most exaggerated degree, alike in the purpose of the admiral and the finding of the Court, the formal and pedantic conception of a correctly fought fleet action, according to the rules and regulations "in such cases prescribed" by the Fighting Instructions.[7] It was Rodney's lot to break with this tradition, and to be the first to illustrate juster ideas in a fairly ranged battle, where the enemy awaited attack, as he had done at Malaga in 1704, and at Minorca in 1756. Precisely such an opportunity never came to Hawke; for, although L'Etenduère waited, he did so under conditions and dispositions which gave the ensuing affair a nearer analogy to a general chase than to a pitched battle. Though the British approach then was in a general sense parallel to the enemy's line, it was from the rear, not from the beam; and through this circumstance of overtaking, and from the method adopted, their vessels came under fire in succession, not together. This was perfectly correct, the course pre-eminently suited to the emergency, and therefore tactically most sound; but the conditions were not those contemplated by the Fighting Instructions, as they were in the case of Byng, and also in the battle most thoroughly characteristic of Rodney—that of April 17, 1780. The contrast in conduct between the two commanders is strikingly significant of progress, because of the close approach to identity in circumstances.

Rodney accompanied the Rochefort expedition of 1757, under Hawke, some account of which is given in the life of that admiral; and he commanded also a ship-of-the-line in Boscawen's fleet in 1758, when the reduction of Louisburg and Cape Breton Island was effected by the combined British and colonial forces. After this important service, the necessary and effectual antecedent of the capture of Quebec and the fall of Canada in the following year, he returned to England, where on the 19th of May, 1759, he was promoted to Rear Admiral; being then forty. He was next, and without interval of rest, given command of a squadron to operate against Havre, where were gathering boats and munitions of war for the threatened invasion of England; with the charge also of suppressing the French coastwise sailings, upon which depended the assembling of the various bodies of transports, and the carriage of supplies to the fleet in Brest, that Hawke at the same time was holding in check. The service was important, but of secondary interest, and calls for no particular mention beyond that of its general efficiency as maintained by him.

In 1761, Rodney was again elected to Parliament, and, with a certain political inconsequence, was immediately afterwards sent out of the country, being appointed to the Leeward Islands Station, which embraced the smaller Antilles, on the eastern side of the Caribbean Sea, with headquarters at Barbados; Jamaica, to the westward, forming a distinct command under an admiral of its own. He sailed for his new post October 21, 1761, taking with him instructions to begin operations against Martinique upon the arrival of troops ordered from New York. These reached Barbados December 24th, a month after himself, and on the 7th of January, 1762, the combined forces were before Martinique, which after a month of regular operations passed into the possession of the British on the 16th of February. Its fall was followed shortly by that of the other French Lesser Antilles,—Grenada, Santa Lucia, and St. Vincent. Guadaloupe had been taken in 1759, and Dominica in June, 1761.

Up to this time the contest on the seas had been between Great Britain and France only; but on March 5th a frigate reached Rodney with instructions, then already nine weeks old, to begin hostilities against Spain, whose clearly inimical purpose had induced the British Government to anticipate her action, by declaring war. The same day another vessel came in with like orders from the admiral at Gibraltar, while a third from before Brest brought word that a French squadron of seven ships-of-the-line, with frigates and two thousand troops, had escaped from that port at the end of the year. With these circumstances before him Rodney's conduct was like himself; prompt and officer-like. Lookout ships were stationed along the length of the Caribbees, to windward, to bring timely intelligence of the approach of the enemy's squadron; and as its first destination was probably Martinique, the fall of which was not yet known in Europe, he concentrated his fleet there, calling in outlying detachments.

So far there was nothing in his course markedly different from that of any capable officer, dealing with well ascertained conditions within the limits of his own command. Occasion soon arose, however, to require more exceptional action, and thus to illustrate at once the breadth of view, and the readiness to assume responsibility, which already raised Rodney conspicuously above the average level. On the 9th of March two lookout vessels came in with news that they had sighted a fleet, corresponding in numbers to the Brest division, fifteen miles to windward of Martinique and standing to the southward; the trade wind making it generally expedient to round the south point of the island in order to reach the principal port on the west side,—Fort Royal. The British squadron at once weighed anchor in pursuit; but the enemy, having ascertained that the surrender was accomplished, had turned back north, and were soon after reported from Guadaloupe as having passed there, standing to the westward.

Rodney at once inferred that they must be gone to Santo Domingo. To follow with the object of intercepting them was hopeless, in view of the start they had; but the direction taken threatened Jamaica, the exposed condition of which, owing to inadequate force, had been communicated to him by the military and naval authorities there. His measures to meet the case were thorough and deliberate, as well as rapid; no time was lost either by hesitancy or delay, nor by the yet more facile error of too precipitate movement. Orders for concentration were already out, but the point on which to effect it was shifted to Antigua, where, although inferior in natural resources to Martinique, the established British naval station with its accumulated equipment was fixed; and the work of provisioning and watering, so as to permit long continuance at sea unhampered by necessity of replenishing, there went on apace. It was the admiral's intention to leave his own command to look out for itself, while he took away the mass of his fleet to protect national interests elsewhere threatened.

Such a decision may seem superficially a commonplace matter of course; that it was much more is a commonplace historical certainty. The merit of Rodney's action appears not only in the details of execution, but in its being undertaken at all; and in this case, as in a later instance in his career, his resolution received the concrete emphasis that a sharp and immediate contrast best affords. Prior to the enemy's arrival he had laid the conditions before his colleague in service, General Moncton, commanding the forces on shore, and asked a reinforcement of troops for destitute Jamaica, if necessity arose. The result is best told in his own words; for they convey, simply and without egotistic enlargement, that settled personal characteristic, the want of which Jervis and Nelson in their day noted in many, and which Rodney markedly possessed. This was the capacity, which Sandwich eighteen years later styled "taking the great line of considering the King's whole dominions under your care;" an attribute far from common, as Moncton's reply showed. "I acquainted him that I should certainly assist them with all the naval force that could possibly be spared from the immediate protection of His Majesty's Caribbee islands. I have again solicited the General for a body of troops, since the enemy left these seas, and must do him the justice to say, that he seems much concerned at the present distress of Jamaica, but does not think himself sufficiently authorized to detach a body of troops without orders from England. I flatter myself their Lordships will not be displeased with me if I take the liberty to construe my instructions in such a manner as to think myself authorized and obliged to succor any of His Majesty's colonies that may be in danger; and shall, therefore, without a moment's loss of time, hasten to the succor of Jamaica, with ten sail-of-the-line, three frigates and three bombs."[8]

It was not because, in so doing this, the obligation was absolute, and the authority indisputable, that Rodney's course was professionally meritorious. In such case his action would have risen little above that obedience to orders, in which, as Nelson said, the generality find "all perfection." The risk was real, not only to his station, but to the possible plans of his superiors at home; the authority was his own only, read by himself into his orders—at most their spirit, not their letter. Consequently, he took grave chance of the penalty—loss of reputation, if not positive punishment,—which, as military experience shows, almost invariably follows independent action, unless results are kind enough to justify it. It is, however, only the positive characters capable of rising to such measures that achieve reputations enduring beyond their own day. The incident needs to be coupled with Sandwich's compliment just quoted, as well as with the one paid him when on the Newfoundland command. Taken together, they avouch a personality that needs only opportunity to insure itself lasting fame.

As it happened, Rodney not only took the responsibility of stripping his own station to the verge of bareness in favor of the general interest, but in so doing he came very near traversing, unwittingly, the plans of the general government by his local action, laudable and proper as that certainly was. He was, however, professionally lucky to a proverb, and escaped this mischance by a hair's breadth. The purposed detachment had already started for Jamaica, and he was accompanying it in person, when there joined him on March 25th, off the island of St. Kitt's, not far from Antigua, a frigate bearing Admiralty despatches of February 5th. These required him to desist from any enterprises he might have in hand, in order to give his undivided attention to the local preparations for an expedition, as yet secret, which was shortly to arrive on his station, under the command of Admiral Pocock, with ultimate destination against Havana.

To be thus arrested at the very outset of a movement from which he naturally expected distinction was a bitter disappointment to Rodney. Several years later, in 1771, he wrote to Sandwich, who was not the First Lord when Pocock was sent out, "I had the misfortune of being superseded in the command of a successful fleet, entrusted to my care in the West Indies, at the very time I had sailed on another expedition against the enemy's squadron at Santo Domingo, and was thereby deprived of pursuing those conquests which so honorably attended upon another, and which secured him such great emoluments,"—for Havana proved a wealthy prize. His steps, however, upon this unexpected reversal of his plans, were again characterized by an immediateness, most honorable to his professional character, which showed how thoroughly familiar he was with the whole subject and its possible contingencies, and the consequent readiness of his mind to meet each occasion as it arose; marks, all, of the thoroughly equipped general officer. The order as to his personal movements being not discretional, was of course absolutely accepted; but his other measures were apparently his own, and were instantaneous. A vessel was at once sent off to Barbados to notify Admiral Pocock that the best place in the West Indies for his rendezvous was Fort Royal Bay, in the newly acquired Martinique. The ten sail-of-the-line, accompanied by two large transports from St. Kitt's, were then sent on to Jamaica to move troops from there to join Pocock; the command of the detachment being now entrusted to Sir James Douglas, who received the further instruction to send back his fastest frigate, with all the intelligence he could gather, directing her to keep in the track Pocock would follow, in order to meet him betimes. The frigate thus sent, having first made a running survey of the unfrequented passage north of Cuba, by which the expedition was to proceed, joined Pocock, and, by the latter's report, acted as pilot for the fleet. "Having taken sketches of the land and cayos on both sides, Captain Elphinstone kept ahead of the fleet, and led us through very well." This service is claimed to the credit of Rodney's foresight by his biographer. This may very well be, though more particular inquiry and demonstration by his letters would be necessary to establish specific orders beyond the general instructions given by him. It is, however, safe to say that such particularity and minuteness of detail would be entirely in keeping with the tenor of his course at this period. His correspondence bears the stamp of a mind comprehensive as well as exact; grasping all matters with breadth of view in their mutual relations, yet with the details at his fingers' ends. The certainty of his touch is as obvious as the activity of his thought.

In accordance with the spirit of his instructions, Rodney went in person to Martinique, the spot named by him as best for the rendezvous, there to superintend the preparations; to sow the seed for a harvest in which he was to have no share. Incidental mention reveals that the sending of the ships-of-the-line with Douglas had reduced him to three for his own command; and also that Moncton, having now superior authority to do so, found himself able to spare troops for Jamaica, which were afloat in transports by the time Pocock came. In the same letter the admiral frankly admits his anxiety for his station, under the circumstances of the big detachment he had made; a significant avowal, which enhances the merit of his spontaneous action by all the credit due to one who endures a well-weighed danger for an adequate end.

The despatch of Pocock's expedition, which resulted in the fall of Havana, August 13, 1762, practically terminated Rodney's active service in the Seven Years War. In a career marked by unusual professional good fortune in many ways, the one singular mischance was that he reached a foremost position too late in life. When he returned to England in August, 1763, he was in his full prime, and his conduct of affairs entrusted to him had given clear assurance of capacity for great things. The same evidence is to be found in his letters, which, as studies of official character and competency, repay a close perusal. But now fifteen years of peace were to elapse before a maritime war again broke out, and the fifteen years between forty-five and sixty tell sorely upon the physical stamina which need to underlie the mental and moral forces of a great commander. St. Vincent himself staggered under the load, and Rodney was not a St. Vincent in the stern self-discipline that had braced the latter for old age. He had not borne the yoke in his youth, and from this time forward he fought a losing fight with money troubles, which his self-controlled contemporary, after one bitter experience, had shaken off his shoulders forever.

The externals of Rodney's career during the period now in question are sufficiently known; of his strictly private life we are left largely to infer from indications, not wholly happy. He returned to England a Vice-Admiral of the Blue, and had advanced by the successive grades of that rank to Vice-Admiral of the Red, when, in January, 1771, he was appointed Commander-in-chief at Jamaica. At this time he had been for five years Governor of Greenwich Hospital, and he took it hard that he was not allowed to retain the appointment in connection with his new command, alleging precedents for such a favor; the latest of which, however, was then twenty-five years old. The application was denied by Sandwich. From the earnest tone in which it was couched, as well as the comparatively weak grounds upon which Rodney bases his claims to such a recognition, it can scarcely be doubted that pecuniary embarrassment as well as mortification entered into his sense of disappointment. It is the first recorded of a series of jars between the two, in which, although the external forms of courtesy were diligently observed, an underlying estrangement is evident.

The Jamaica Station at that day required, in an even greater degree than Newfoundland before the conquest of Canada, a high order of political tact and circumspection on the part of the naval commander-in-chief. The island lies in the centre of what was then a vast semi-circular sweep of Spanish colonies—Porto Rico, Santo Domingo, Cuba, Mexico, Central America, and the mainland of South America from the Isthmus to the Orinoco. Over this subject empire the mother country maintained commercial regulations of the most mediæval and exclusive type; outraging impartially the British spirit of commercial enterprise, and the daily needs of her own colonists, by the restrictions placed upon intercourse between these and foreigners. Smuggling on a large scale, consecrated in the practice of both parties by a century of tradition, was met by a coast-guard system, employing numerous small vessels called guarda-costas, which girt the Spanish coasts, but, being powerless to repress effectually over so extensive a shore line, served rather to increase causes of vexation. The British government, on the other hand, not satisfied to leave the illicit trade on which Jamaica throve to take care of itself, sought to increase the scope of transactions by the institution of three free ports on the island,—free in the sense of being open as depots, not for the entrance of goods, but where they could be freely brought, and transshipped to other parts of the world by vessels of all nations; broker ports, in short, for the facilitation of general external trade.

To this open and ingenuous bid for fuller advantage by Spanish resort, Spain replied by doubling her custom-house forces and introducing renewed stringency into her commercial orders. The two nations, with France in Hayti for a third, stood on ceaseless guard one against the other; all imbued with the spirit of exclusive trade, and differing only in the method of application, according to their respective day-to-day views of policy. The British by the free-port system, instituted in their central geographical position, hoped to make the profits of the middleman. Rodney reported that the effect had been notably to discourage the direct Spanish intercourse, and to destroy carriage by British colonial vessels in favor of those of France, which now flocked to Jamaica, smuggled goods into the island, and apparently cut under their rivals by the greater benevolence shown them in Spanish ports. "Commerce by British bottoms has totally ceased." Herewith, he added, disappeared the opportunities of British seamen to become familiar with the Spanish and French waters, while their rivals were invited to frequent those of Jamaica; so that in case of war—which in those days was periodical—the advantage of pilotage would be heavily on the side of Great Britain's enemies. He also stated that the diminution of employment to British merchant vessels had greatly impaired his means of obtaining information from within Spanish ports; for British ships of war were never allowed inside them, even when sent with a message from him. The French permitted them indeed to enter, but surrounded them throughout their visits with flattering attentions which wholly prevented the making of observations.

Under these conditions of mutual jealousy between the governments and officials, with the subjects on either side straining continually at the leashes which withheld them from traffic mutually beneficial, causes of offence were quick to arise. Rodney, like Sandwich, was a pronounced Tory, in full sympathy with traditional British policy, as well as an officer naturally of haughty temper and sharing all the prepossessions of his service; but he found himself almost at once involved in a difference with his superiors in his political party, which throws a good deal of side light on personal as well as political relations. The British man-of-war schooner Hawke was overhauled off the Venezuelan coast by two Spanish guarda-costas and compelled to enter the harbor of Cartagena, under alleged orders from the Governor of the colony. After a brief detention, she was let go with the admonition that, if any British ships of war were found again within twelve leagues of the coast, they would be taken and their crews imprisoned.

Rodney's course was unimpeachable, as far as appears. He wrote a civil letter to the Governor, and sent it by a ship of war, the captain of which was directed to deliver it in person. He was confident, he wrote, that the Governor would disavow the action by calling to strict account the officers concerned, and would also confirm his own belief that it was impossible such a menace could have proceeded from any adequate authority. A sufficient intimation of what would follow an attempt to carry out the threat was conveyed by the words: "The British officer who has dishonoured his King's colours by a tame submission to this insult has been already dismissed the service."

It is difficult to see what less could have been done; but the British government was at the moment extremely reluctant to war, and sensitive to any step that seemed to make towards it. Spain was thought to be seeking a quarrel. She had entered the Seven Years War so near its termination as not to feel exhaustive effects; and the capture of Havana and Manila, with the pecuniary losses involved, had left her merely embittered by humiliation, prone rather to renew hostilities than to profit by experience. At the same time the foreign policy of Great Britain was enfeebled by a succession of short ministries, and by internal commotions; while the discontent of the American continental colonies over the Stamp Act emphasized the weakness of her general position. Barely a year before the Hawke incident the insult by Spain at the Falkland Islands had brought the two nations to the verge of rupture, which was believed to have been averted only by the refusal of Louis XV., then advanced in years, to support the Spanish Bourbons at the cost of another war.

Under these circumstances Rodney's report of the occurrences at Cartagena filled the ministry with apprehensions, and brought him from Sandwich an expression of dissatisfaction little removed from a reprimand. The communication is remarkable rather for what it intimates, and from the inferences naturally deducible, than for its direct utterances. "I cannot help cautioning you, as a friend, to be upon your guard, to avoid by every justifiable means the drawing this country into a war, which, if it comes on too speedily, I fear we shall have cause to lament." The warning is renewed in a later part of the letter, but in itself has little significance compared with other hints, rather personal than official. "I cannot conceal from you, that many people have industriously spread stories here, that, among the foreign ministers and others, you have expressed your wishes for a Spanish war." Such expressions—if used—were asserted of the time succeeding his appointment to Jamaica, and near his departure for it; for Sandwich adds, "This sort of declaration is too little founded on your instructions, and too indiscreet, to allow me to give them the least credit." It is clear, however, that he thought them not improbable,—a Spanish war was popular with seamen for the prize-money it brought, and Rodney was poor,—for he adds, "I shall discredit the idea till I have received your answer to this letter." He concludes with a warning, not to be misunderstood, that a war, so far from helping Rodney, would probably cause his supersession. "I will add one word more: Upon a declaration of war larger squadrons must be sent out, and, very probably, senior officers to most of our stations in foreign parts." In face of an intimation thus thinly veiled, one scarcely needs to be told what was being said round the table of the Cabinet.

That Rodney would have welcomed war for reasons personal as well as professional, for money and for glory, can readily be believed; but his measures in this case give no ground for such an innuendo as Sandwich conveyed. Therefore, after making full allowance for the panic of ministers ready to fear the worst, and to throw blame on anybody, it is the more significant that he should have been suspected of an unworthy personal motive underlying a worthy official act. It is an indication of reputation already compromised by damaging association with pecuniary embarrassments; an evidence of latent distrust easily quickened into active suspicion. An officer of his rank and service, so far from home, and with the precedents of his day, could scarcely be faulted for what he had done to uphold the honor of the country; and his manner of doing it was dignified and self-restrained, as well as forcible. There was no violence like that of Hawke at Gibraltar, less than twenty years before, which that admiral had boldly vindicated to Pitt himself; but there were no weak joints in Hawke's armor. In the particular instance, time and cooler judgment set Rodney right in men's opinion; but subsequent events showed that his general reputation did not recover, either then, or through his Jamaica career.

After immediate apprehension had subsided, Rodney's action was justified by the government. Sandwich wrote him, a little later, that no commander-in-chief stood upon a better footing, and assured him that his private interests were safe in his hands. Sandwich, however, was an extremely practical politician, who had much personal use for his own patronage; and Rodney's necessities were great. Fulfilment therefore fell far short of promise. Employment was necessary to the admiral, and his hopes fixed upon a colonial governorship when his present appointment should expire; Jamaica being his first choice. Sandwich renewed assurances, but advised a personal application also to the Prime Minister and other Cabinet officers. New York was mentioned, but nothing came of it all. After three years Rodney was superseded, with permission to remain in the island instead of returning to England. This he declined. "I cannot bear to think of remaining here in a private station, after commanding in chief with the approbation of the whole island." How far this approbation was universal, or unqualified, is perhaps doubtful; but the letters quoted by his biographer from his correspondence bear continuous evidence, in this peace employment, of the activity and perspicacity of mind characteristic of his more strictly military proceedings.

In September, 1774, Rodney landed again in England, a disappointed man and in embarrassed circumstances. Professional occupation was almost hopeless, for in peace times there were few positions for an officer of his rank; and, although recognized for able, he had not then the distinction by which he is known to us. It is also evident, from subsequent events, that he just now lacked the influence necessary to obtain a preference over rivals in quest of employment. Under the circumstances, his debts determined his action, and to escape harassments he before long passed over into France and settled in Paris. In that capital, as in London, he mixed with the best society; and there, as before, the mode of life among his associates led him beyond his means and involved him in further distresses. Consequently, when war between France and Great Britain became imminent, in 1778, the vigilance of his creditors prevented his going home in person to offer his services. In February of that year, however, he made formal application to the Admiralty to be sent at a moment's warning on any enterprise. To this Sandwich, who was still First Lord, despite his previous assurances of friendship, paid no attention beyond the formal customary acknowledgment given to all such letters when they came from officers of Rodney's standing. No indication was shown of intention, or even of wish, to employ him.

Rodney was therefore compelled to look on idly while others, of well-earned reputation indeed but as yet of less experience than himself in high command, were preferred before him. Howe had already been sent to North America in 1776, on a mission at once diplomatic and military; and there he still was when war began. As it became imminent, Keppel was appointed to the Channel Fleet, and Byron to the North American command, from which Howe had asked to be relieved. All these were junior to Rodney; and, as though to emphasize the neglect of him, rear-admirals were sent to the two West India stations, Jamaica and the Leeward Islands, which he had formerly commanded, and to which it would seem, from one of his letters, that he desired to return. He had, too, now reached the rank, the want of which had formed the burden of Sandwich's warning that he was in danger of supersession at Jamaica; for in a general flag promotion in January, 1778, he had become Admiral of the White Squadron, than which no higher then obtained, commissions as Admirals of the Red not being issued. For this persistent ignoring of an officer of his unquestionable ability there were necessarily reasons more controlling than appears on the surface; for the naval conditions and the national emergency called for men of demonstrated high capacity. Such Rodney was professionally; and although his age—he was now in his sixtieth year—was against him, this consideration did not in those days weigh; nor should it, unless accompanied by probable indication of powers sapped.

The conclusion is inevitable that the objection lay in personal record as bearing upon military efficiency. The Administration, responsible for results, knew Rodney's capacity, though its full extent was yet to be revealed; the question in their minds clearly must have been, "Can we depend upon its exertion, full, sustained, and disinterested?" Sandwich, despite the coldness with which he had received Rodney's application,—going so far as to refuse to support it actively,—was apparently in a minority among his colleagues in believing that they could. He declared in the House of Lords that, "When it was first proposed in the Council to employ Sir George, I, who knew him from a very young man, declared that Rodney once afloat would do his duty." Naval officers will recognize a familiar ring in these words, and will recall instances where high professional ability has been betrayed by personal foible. Nor does Sandwich stand alone in offering a clue to the hesitation of the Government. Rodney's biographer and son-in-law quotes without reprobation the account of Mr. Richard Cumberland, who professed to have interested himself warmly for Rodney's employment and to have secured the support of the Secretary for War, Lord George Germaine. "The West India merchants had been alarmed, and clamoured against the appointment so generally and so decidedly as to occasion no small uneasiness in my friend and patron, Lord George, and drew from him something that resembled a remonstrance for the risk I had exposed him to. But in the brilliancy of the capture of Langara's squadron all was done away, and past alarms were only recollected to contrast the joy which this success diffused." The opposition of the commercial class in the West Indies might arise from an officer's over-faithfulness to duty, as Nelson found to his cost; but it seems clear that in this case distrust rested upon personal observation, which raised doubts as to the singlemindedness of Rodney's administration of a command. Of the particulars of observation or experience from which the feeling sprang, we have no information; but St. Eustatius was destined to show that apprehension was not wholly unfounded.

A summons to active employment would at once have silenced Rodney's creditors by the assurance of increase of means, both through regular income and probable prize-money; Admiralty neglect left him in fetters. Lady Rodney returned to England to negotiate the means for his liberation; but the matter dragged, and in the end he owed his release to the friendly intervention of a French nobleman, the Maréchal Biron, who volunteered in warm terms to make him an advance to the amount of £2,000. This chivalrous offer was for some time declined; but finally conditions became so threatening, and his position so intolerable, that he accepted a loan of about a thousand louis. "Nothing but a total inattention to the distressed state I was in," he wrote to his wife, "could have prevailed upon me to have availed myself of his voluntary proposal; but not having had, for a month past, a letter from any person but Mr. Hotham and yourself, and my passport being expired, it was impossible for me to remain in this city at the risk of being sued by my creditors, who grew so clamorous it was impossible to bear it; and had they not been overawed by the Lieutenant of police, would have carried their prosecutions to the greatest length. Their demands were all satisfied this day,"—May 6th, 1778. Friends in England enabled him to repay Biron immediately after his return.

This benevolent interference on behalf of a national enemy, although in its spirit quite characteristic, at once of the country and of the class to which the individual extending it belonged, has retained a certain unique flavor of its own among military anecdotes; due undoubtedly to the distinction subsequently acquired by Rodney at the expense of the people to which his liberator belonged, rather than to anything exceptional in its nature. As it is, it has acquired a clear pre-eminence among the recorded courtesies of warfare. It is pleasant to add that Great Britain had the opportunity in after times to requite Biron's daughters an act from which she had so greatly benefited. They having sought refuge, though with loss of fortune, from the early excesses of the French Revolution, received for some time pensions from the British Government.

Rodney came back to England feeling anything but cordial towards Sandwich, whose decided support he had found wanting throughout a very critical period of his career. More than any one else the First Lord had had both the opportunity and the insight to see his professional value. Tory though Rodney was, he hoped that "Lord Chatham (Pitt) would be minister, and another First Lord of the Admiralty be appointed." "We hear of a change of Administration. I hope it is true, and that I may have a chance of being employed, should another be at the Admiralty." "The refusal of Lord Sandwich does not surprise me. He cannot say but I have offered my services, and some friend will let the King know I have so done." Apparently he was to be ignored as well as overlooked.

Circumstances, however, soon compelled his employment. Sandwich was an able man, but his personal character inspired mistrust. Not only was he controlled by political considerations in administration; he was suspected of corruptly using the Navy for party advantage. Whatever might be thought of Byng's conduct, his execution, but twenty years before, was commonly ascribed to political exigency, making him a vicarious sacrifice to cover the neglects of a Government. As in Byng's case, the material of the service was believed to be now inadequate to the emergency come upon it; and it was known to have deteriorated gravely during the seven years of Sandwich's tenure of office. He was a Tory, as were his colleagues of the Cabinet; the leaders of the Navy in professional estimation, Hawke and Keppel, with other distinguished officers, were pronounced Whigs, whom it was thought the Administration would be willing to destroy. Keppel evidently feared an intention to ruin him by the command of the Channel Fleet, and the public discussion of the Courts-Martial which followed his indecisive action with D'Orvilliers, in July, 1778, assumed a decided and rancorous party tone. His accuser then was his third-in-command, Vice-Admiral Palliser, who had left his place on the Admiralty Board to take this position in the fleet; and popular outcry charged him with having betrayed his chief in the battle. So far was professional feeling moved that twelve prominent admirals,—not all of whom were Whigs,—with Hawke at their head, presented to the King a memorial, deprecating "particularly the mischief and scandal of permitting men, who are at once in high office and subordinate military command, previous to their making recriminating accusations against their commander-in-chief, to attempt to corrupt the public judgment by the publication of libels on their officers in a common newspaper, thereby exciting mutiny in your Majesty's Navy," etc. The words italicized show that this was aimed at Palliser; and at Sandwich, who inferentially had "permitted" his action, and ultimately rewarded him with the Governorship of Greenwich Hospital.

In this demoralized condition of professional sentiment the Admiralty could no longer command the services of the best men. Howe came home in disgust from America. Keppel threw up the command of the Channel Fleet, and Barrington subsequently refused it on the expressed ground of self-distrust, underlying which was real distrust of the ministry. He would serve as second, but not as first. Byron, after relieving Howe in New York, went to the West Indies, there made a failure, and so came home in the summer of 1779. The Channel squadron fell into the hands of men respectable, indeed, but in no way eminent, and advanced in years, whose tenures of office were comparatively short. Hardy was sixty-three, Geary seventy; and on both Hawke, who was friendly to them, passed the comment that they were "too easy." The first had allowed "the discipline of the fleet to come to nothing," and he feared the same for the other. Not until the fall of the ministry, consequent upon Cornwallis's surrender, was the post filled by a distinguished name, when Howe took the command in 1782.

The Administration was thus forced back upon Rodney; fortunately for itself, for, as far as history has since revealed, there was no other man then in the service, and of suitable rank, exactly fitted to do the work he did. Samuel Hood alone, then an unproved captain, and practically in voluntary retirement, could have equalled and surpassed him. Howe, like Rodney, was an accomplished tactician, and in conception far in advance of the standards of the day. In his place he did admirable service, which has been too little appreciated, and he was fortunate in that the work which fell to him, at the first, and again at the last of this war, was peculiarly suited to his professional characteristics; but he was not interchangeable with Rodney. In the latter there was a briskness of temper, a vivacity, very distinguishable from Howe's solidity of persistence; and he was in no sense one to permit "discipline to come to nought," the direction in which Howe's easy though reserved disposition tended. The West Indies were to be the great scene of battles, and, while the tactical ideas of the two appear to have been essentially alike, in the common recognition of combination as imperative to success, the severity of Rodney was needed to jerk the West India fleet sharply out of sleepy tradition; to compel promptness of manoeuvre and intelligent attention to the underlying ideas which signals communicate. Flexibility of movement, earnestness and rapidity of attack, mutual support by the essential coherence of the battle order without too formal precision,—these were the qualities which Rodney was to illustrate in practice, and to enforce by personal impression upon his officers. The official staff of the fleet had to pass under the rod of the schoolmaster, to receive new ideas, and to learn novel principles of obedience,—to a living chief, not to a dead letter crusted over by an unintelligent tradition. Not till this step had been made, till discipline had full hold of men's affections and understanding, was there room for the glorious liberty of action which Nelson extended to his officers; preaching it in word, and practising it in act. Hawke re-begat the British Navy in the spirit he imparted to it; Rodney, first of several, trained its approaching maturity in habits which, once acquired, stand by men as principles; Nelson reaped the fulness of the harvest.

On October 1, 1779, Rodney was again appointed to the command of the Leeward Islands Station. The year had been one of maritime misfortune and discouragement. The French declaration of war in 1778 had been followed by that of Spain in June, 1779; and a huge allied fleet—sixty-six ships-of-the-line, to which the British could oppose only thirty-five—had that summer entered and dominated the English Channel. Nothing was effected by it, true; but the impression produced was profound. In the West Indies Grenada had been lost, and Byron badly worsted in an attempt to relieve it. On assuming his command, Rodney could not but feel that he had more to do than to establish a reputation; he had a reputation to redeem, and that under a burden of national depression which doubly endangered the reputation of every officer in responsible position. He must have known that, however undeservedly, he had not the full confidence of the government, although party and personal ties would naturally have predisposed it in his favor. He therefore entered upon his career under the necessity to do and to dare greatly; he had not a strong hand, and needed the more to play a game not only strong, but to some extent adventurous.

To the radical difference between his personal standing at this opening of his command, and that which he had at its close, in 1782, may reasonably be attributed the clear difference in his action at the two periods. The first was audacious and brilliant, exhibiting qualities of which he was capable on occasion, but which did not form the groundwork of his professional character. The display was therefore exceptional, elicited by exceptional personal emergency. It was vitally necessary at the outset, if opportunity offered, to vindicate his selection by the government; to strike the imagination of the country, and obtain a hold upon its confidence which could not easily be shaken. This prestige once established, he could safely rest upon it to bear him through doubtful periods of suspense and protracted issues. It would have been well had he felt the same spur after his great battle in 1782. A necessity like this doubtless lies upon every opening career, and comparatively few there be that rise to it; but there is an evident distinction to be drawn between one in the early prime of life, who may afford to wait, who has at least no errors to atone, and him who is about to make his last cast, when upon the turning of a die depends a fair opportunity to show what is in him. Rodney was near sixty-one, when he took up the command which has given him his well earned place in history.

He experienced at once indications of the attitude towards him; and in two directions, from the Admiralty and from his subordinates. A month before he was ready, Sandwich urges him, with evident impatience, to get off. "For God's sake, go to sea without delay. You cannot conceive of what importance it is to yourself, to me, and to the public" (this very order of importance is suggestive), "that you should not lose this fair wind; if you do, I shall not only hear of it in Parliament, but in places to which I pay more attention.... I must once more repeat to you that any delay in your sailing will have the most disagreeable consequences." On the other hand, he had to complain not only of inattention on the part of the dockyard officials, but of want of zeal and activity in the officers of the fleet, many of whom behaved with a disrespect and want of cordiality which are too often the precursor of worse faults. Rodney was not the man to put up with such treatment. That it was offered, and that he for the moment bore with it, are both significant; and are to be remembered in connection with the fast approaching future.

Gibraltar was then at the beginning of the three years siege, and his intended departure was utilized to give him command of the first of the three great expeditions for its relief, which were among the characteristic operations of this war. He sailed from Plymouth on the 29th of December, 1779, having under him twenty-two sail-of-the-line, of which only four were to continue with him to the West Indies. With this great fleet, and its attendant frigates, went also a huge collection of storeships, victuallers, ordnance vessels, troop ships, and merchantmen; the last comprising the "trade" for Portugal and the West Indies, as the other classes carried the reinforcements for the Rock.

On January 7th, the West India trade parted company off Cape Finisterre, and the next day began the wonderful good fortune for which Rodney's last command was distinguished. It is no disparagement to his merit to say that in this he was, to use Ball's phrase about Nelson, "a heaven-born admiral." A Spanish convoy of twenty-two sail, seven of which were ships of war, the rest laden with supplies for Cadiz, were sighted at daylight of the 8th, and all taken; not one escaped. Twelve loaded with provisions were turned into the British convoy, and went on with it to feed the Gibraltar garrison. A prince of the blood-royal, afterwards King William IV., was with the fleet as a midshipman. One of the prizes being a line-of-battle ship, Rodney had an opportunity to show appositely his courtliness of breeding. "I have named her the Prince William, in respect to His Royal Highness, in whose presence she had the honor to be taken."

Repeated intelligence had reached the admiral that a Spanish division was cruising off Cape St. Vincent. Therefore, when it was sighted at 1 P.M. of January 16th, a week after the capture of the convoy, he was prepared for the event. A brief attempt to form line was quickly succeeded by the signal for a general chase, the ships to engage to leeward as they came up with the enemy, who, by taking flight to the southeast, showed the intention to escape into Cadiz. The wind was blowing strong from the westward, giving a lee shore and shoals to the British fleet in the approaching long hours of a wintry night; but opportunity was winging by, with which neither Rodney nor the Navy could afford to trifle. He was already laid up with an attack of the gout that continued to harass him throughout this command, and the decision to continue the chase was only reached after a discussion between him and his captain, the mention of which is transmitted by Sir Gilbert Blane, the surgeon of the ship, who was present professionally. The merit of the resolution must remain with the man who bore the responsibility of the event; but that he reached it at such a moment only after consultation with another, to whom current gossip attributed the chief desert, must be coupled with the plausible claim afterwards advanced for Sir Charles Douglas, that he suggested the breaking of the enemy's line on April 12th. Taken together, they indicate at least a common contemporary professional estimate of Rodney's temperament. No such anecdote is transmitted of Hawke. The battle of Cape St. Vincent, therefore, is not that most characteristic of Rodney's genius. Judged by his career at large, it is exceptional; yet of all his actions it is the one in which merit and success most conspicuously met. Nor does it at all detract from his credit that the enemy was much inferior in numbers; eleven to twenty-one. As in Hawke's pursuit of Conflans, with which this engagement is worthy to be classed, what was that night dared, rightly and brilliantly dared, was the dangers of the deep, not of the foe. The prey was seized out of the jaws of disaster.

The results were commensurate to the risk. The action, which began at 4 P.M., lasted till two the following morning, the weather becoming tempestuous with a great sea, so that it was difficult to take possession of the captured vessels. Many of the heavy British ships continued also in danger during the 17th, and had to carry a press of sail to clear the shoals, on which two of their prizes were actually wrecked. One Spanish ship-of-the-line was blown up and six struck, among them the flag-ship of Admiral Langara, who was taken into Gibraltar. Only four escaped.

Two such strokes of mingled good fortune and good management, within ten days, formed a rare concurrence, and the aggregate results were as exceptional as the combination of events. Sandwich congratulated Rodney that he had already "taken more line-of-battle ships than had been captured in any one action in either of the two last preceding wars." Militarily regarded, it had a further high element of praise, for the enemy's detachment, though in itself inferior, was part of a much superior force; twenty-four allied ships-of-the-line besides it being at the moment in Cadiz Bay. It is the essence of military art thus to overwhelm in detail. A technical circumstance like this was doubtless overlooked in the general satisfaction with the event, the most evident feature in which was the relief of the Government, who just then stood badly in need of credit. "The ministerial people feel it very sensibly," Lady Rodney wrote him. "It is a lucky stroke for them at this juncture." Salutes were fired, and the city illuminated; the press teemed with poetical effusion. Sandwich, somewhat impudently when the past is considered, but not uncharacteristically regarded as an officeholder, took to himself a large slice of the credit. "The worst of my enemies now allow that I have pitched upon a man who knows his duty, and is a brave, honest, and able officer.... I have obtained you the thanks of both houses of Parliament." The letter does not end without a further caution against indiscreet talking about the condition of his ships. It all comes back on the Government, he laments. What Rodney may have said to others may be uncertain; to his wife, soon after reaching his station, he wrote, "What are the ministers about? Are they determined to undo their country? Is it fair that the British fleet should be so inferior to the French, and that the British officers and men are always to be exposed to superior numbers? What right had the administration to expect anything but defeat?" Then he passes on to remark himself, what has been alluded to above, the change in his personal position effected by his successes. "Thank God, I now fear no frowns of ministers, and hope never again to stand in need of their assistance. I know them well. All are alike, and no dependence is to be placed on their promises." It is to be feared his sense of obligation to Sandwich did not coincide with the latter's estimate.

In his official report Rodney gave much credit to his officers for the St. Vincent affair. "The gallant behaviour of the admirals, captains, officers and men, I had the honour to command, was conspicuous; they seemed animated with the same spirit, and were eager to exert themselves with the utmost zeal." Here also, however, he was biding his time for obvious reasons; for to his wife he writes, "I have done them all like honour, but it is because I would not have the world believe that there were officers slack in their duty. Without a thorough change in naval affairs, the discipline of our navy will be lost. I could say much, but will not. You will hear of it from themselves;" that is, probably, by their mutual recriminations. Such indulgent envelopment of good and bad alike in a common mantle of commendation is far from unexampled; but it rarely fails to return to plague its authors, as has been seen in instances more recent than that of Rodney. He clearly had told Sandwich the same in private letters, for the First Lord writes him, "I fear the picture you give of the faction in your fleet is too well drawn. Time and moderation will by degrees get the better of this bane of discipline. I exceedingly applaud your resolution to shut your ears against the illiberal language of your officers, who are inclined to arraign each other's conduct." In this two things are to be remarked: first, the evident and undeniable existence of serious cause of complaint, which was preparing Rodney for the stern self-assertion soon to be shown; and, second, that such imputations are frequent with him, while he seems in turn to have had a capacity for eliciting insubordination of feeling, though he can repress the act. It is a question of personal temperament, which explains more than his relations with other men. Hawke and Nelson find rare fault with those beneath them; for their own spirit takes possession of their subordinates. Such difference of spirit reveals itself in more ways than one in the active life of a military community.

If there was joy in England over Rodney's achievement, still more and more sympathetic was the exultation of those who in the isolation of Gibraltar's Rock, rarely seeing their country's flag save on their own flagstaff, witnessed and shared the triumph of his entrance there with his train of prizes. The ships of war and transports forming the convoy did not indeed appear in one body, but in groups, being dispersed by the light airs, and swept eastward by the in-drag of the current from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean; but the presence of the great fleet, and the prestige of its recent victory, secured the practical immunity of merchant vessels during its stay. Of the first to come in, on January 15th, an eye-witness wrote, "A ship with the British flag entering the Bay was so uncommon a sight that almost the whole garrison were assembled at the southward to welcome her in; but words are insufficient to describe their transports on being informed that she was one of a large convoy which had sailed the latter end of the preceding month for our relief." The admiral himself had been carried beyond and gone into Tetuan, in Morocco, whence he finally arrived on January 26th, having sent on a supply fleet to Minorca, the garrison of which was undergoing a severance from the outer world more extreme even than that of Gibraltar. Upon the return thence of the convoying ships he again put to sea, February 13th, with the entire fleet, which accompanied him three days sail to the westward, when it parted company for England; he with only four ships-of-the-line pursuing his way to his station. On March 27th he reached Santa Lucia, where he found seventeen of-the-line, composing his command. Three weeks later he met the enemy; barely three months, almost to a day, after the affair at St. Vincent.

The antecedent circumstances of the war, and the recent history of the French navy, gave a singular opportuneness of occasion, and of personal fitness, to Rodney's arrival at this moment. The humiliations of the Seven Years War, with the loss of so much of the French colonial empire, traceable in chief measure to naval decadence, had impressed the French government with the need of reviving their navy, which had consequently received a material development in quality, as well as in quantity, unparalleled since the days of Colbert and Seignelay, near a century before. Concomitant with this had been a singular progress in the theory of naval evolutions, and of their handmaid, naval signalling, among French officers; an advance to which the lucid, speculative, character of the national genius greatly contributed. Although they as yet lacked practice, and were numerically too few, the French officers were well equipped by mental resources, by instruction and reflection, to handle large fleets; and they now had large fleets to handle. No such conjunction had occurred since Tourville; none such recurred during the Revolution.

The condition was unique in naval history of the sail period. To meet it, assuming an approach to equality in contending fleets, was required, first, a commander-in-chief, and then a competent body of officers. The latter the British had only in the sense of fine seamen and gallant men. In courage there is no occasion to institute comparisons between the two nations; in kind there may have been a difference, but certainly not in degree. The practical superiority of seamanship in the British may be taken as a set-off to the more highly trained understanding of military principles and methods on the part of their enemy. For commander-in-chief, there were at this time but two, Howe and Rodney, whose professional equipment, as shown in practice, fitted them to oppose the French methods. Of these Rodney was the better, because possessed of a quicker power of initiative, and also of that personal severity required to enforce strict conformity of action among indifferent or sullen subordinates.

Rodney has therefore a singularly well defined place among British naval chiefs. He was to oppose form to form, theory to theory, evolution to evolution, upon the battle ground of the sea; with purpose throughout tactically offensive, not defensive, and facing an adversary his equal in professional equipment. Had he arrived a year before he would have met no fair match in D'Estaing, a soldier, not a sailor, whose deficiencies as a seaman would have caused a very different result from that which actually followed his encounter with Byron, who in conduct showed an utter absence of ideas and of method inconceivable in Rodney. The French were now commanded by De Guichen, considered the most capable of their officers by Rodney, whose recent abode in Paris had probably familiarized him with professional reputations among the enemy. Everything therefore conspired to make the occasion one eminently fitted to his capacities. Such are the conditions—the man and the hour—that make reputations; though they do not form characters, which are growths of radically different origin.

De Guichen put to sea from Martinique on April 15th, with a convoy for Santo Domingo which he intended to see clear of British interference. Rodney, whose anchorage was but thirty miles away, learned instantly the French sailing and followed without delay. On the evening of April 16th, the two fleets were in sight of each other to leeward of Martinique, the British to windward; an advantage that was diligently maintained during the night. At daylight of the 17th the two enemies were twelve to fifteen miles apart, ranged on nearly parallel lines, the British twenty heading northwest, the French twenty-three southeast. The numerical difference represents sufficiently nearly the actual difference of force, although French vessels averaged more powerful than British of the same rates.

At 6.45 A.M. Rodney signalled that it was his intention to attack the enemy's rear with his whole force. This was never annulled, and the purpose governed his action throughout the day. This combination—on the rear—is the one generally preferable to be attempted when underway, and the relative situations of the fleets at this moment made it particularly opportune; for the British, in good order, two cables interval between the ships, were abreast the rear centre and rear of the enemy, whose line was in comparison greatly extended,—the result probably of inferior practical seamanship. To increase his advantage, Rodney at 7 ordered his vessels to close to one cable, and at 8.30, when the antagonists were still heading as at daybreak, undertook to lead the fleet down by a series of signals directive of its successive movements. In this he was foiled by De Guichen, who by wearing brought what was previously his van into position to support the extreme threatened. "The different movements of the enemy," wrote Rodney, "obliged me to be very attentive and watch every opportunity of attacking them at advantage;" a sentence that concisely sums up his special excellencies, of which the present occasion offers the most complete illustration. It may be fully conceded also that it would have vindicated his high title to fame by conspicuous results, had the intelligence of his officers seconded his dispositions.

The forenoon passed in manoeuvres, skilfully timed, to insure a definite issue. At 11.50 Rodney considered that his opportunity had arrived. Both fleets were then heading in the same direction, on the starboard tack, and he had again succeeded in so placing his own that, by the words of his report, he expected to bring "the whole force of His Majesty's fleet against the enemy's rear, and of course part of their centre, by which means the twenty sail of British ships would have been opposed to only fifteen sail of the enemy's, and must in all probability have totally disabled them before their van could have given them any assistance." It would be difficult to cite a clearer renouncement of the outworn "van to van," ship to ship, dogma; but Rodney is said to have expressed himself in more emphatic terms subsequently, as follows: "During all the commands Lord Rodney has been entrusted with, he made it a rule to bring his whole force against a part of the enemy's, and never was so absurd as to bring ship against ship, when the enemy gave him an opportunity of acting otherwise." Though not distinctly so stated, it would seem that his first movement on the present occasion had failed because of the long distance between the fleets permitting the enemy to succor the part threatened, before he could close. He was now nearer, for at this second attempt only an hour proved to be needed for the first British ship to open fire at long range. It may be for this reason, also, that he at this stage threw himself upon his captains, no longer prescribing the successive movements, but issuing the general signal to bear down, each vessel to "steer," according to the 21st Article of the Additional Fighting Instructions, "for the ship of the enemy which from the disposition of the two squadrons it must be her lot to engage, notwithstanding the signal for the line ahead will be kept flying: making or shortening sail in such proportion as to preserve the distance assigned by the signal for the line, in order that the whole squadron may, as near as possible, come into action at the same time."

Unfortunately for his manoeuvre, the Admiral here ran up against the stolid idea of the old—and still existing—Fighting Instructions concerning the line-of-battle in action, embodied in a typical representative in the senior captain of his fleet. This gentleman, Robert Carkett, had risen from before the mast, and after a lieutenancy of thirteen years had become post in 1758, by succeeding to the command when his captain was killed, in one of the most heroic single-ship fights of the British navy. Unluckily, his seniority gave him the lead of the fleet as it was now formed on the starboard tack, and he considered that the signal for attacking the enemy's rear was annulled by the present situation. "Both fleets," he stated in a letter to the Admiralty, "were at 11.15 parallel to and abreast of each other. As I was then the leading ship, it became my duty to engage the leading ship of the French fleet, as this signal disannulled all former ones relative to the mode of attack." The word "abreast," critically used, would imply that the fleets were abreast, ship to ship, van to van; but there appears no reason to question Rodney's statement of the facts made to Carkett himself: "Forgetting that the signal for the line was only at two cables length distance from each other, the van division was by you led to more than two leagues distance from the centre division, which was thereby exposed to the greatest strength of the enemy, and not properly supported." Rodney, in short, meant by opposite the enemy's ship opposite at the moment the signal was made; and he also expected that the movements of his ships would be further controlled by the words of the 21st Article, "preserve the distance assigned by the signal for the line," which distance was to be taken from the centre; or, as sometimes worded in the Instructions, "the distance shall be that between the admiral and the ships next ahead and astern of him." Carkett conceived that he was to attack the ship opposite him in numerical order, that is, the leader of the enemy, and that the remaining British would take distance from him.

Why the rest of the van should also have been led thus astray can be explained only on the ground that Carkett's general views were shared by the divisional commander, a rear-admiral, who, as was proved a year later, possessed high courage of the pure game-cock order, but was wholly thoughtless of gaining an unfair advantage, two against one, by tactical ingenuity. The result was that the van as a body left the centre to itself, and thereby not only wrecked the concentration at which Rodney aimed, but was out of hand to support his flag and his division, when badly battered by the enemy's fire. This was the great tactical blunder which brought to nought Rodney's patient, wary manoeuvres of the past six hours. To it especially, but not to it alone, he referred in the stinging words of his despatch: "'T is with concern inexpressible, mixt with indignation, that the duty I owe my sovereign and country obliges me to acquaint their Lordships that, during the action with the French fleet on the 17th instant [and] His Majesty's, the British flag was not properly supported." To the specific error of the van was added a widespread disregard of the order for close action, despite the example of the commander-in-chief, who pressed the enemy so hard that towards the end his flag-ship was to leeward of De Guichen's wake. "Perceiving several of our ships engaging at a distance, I repeated the signal for close action. With truth, but sorrow, I must say it was little attended to." It is noticeable that one of the ships thus censured, the Cornwall, next ahead of Rodney, lost as heavily in killed and wounded as did the flag-ship herself; one of many instances showing that distance lessened efficiency without increasing safety. The forwardness of Rodney's flag on this occasion proves clearly enough his consciousness that tactics, to succeed, must be more than a veil for timidity; that hard hitting is as essential as skilful leading.

This combination of steady, patient, wary, skilful guidance, with resolute and tenacious personal leadership, constituted the firm tissue of Rodney's professional character, and at no time received such clear illustration as in the case before us; for no like opportunity recurred. One experience was enough for De Guichen; he did not choose again to yield the advantage of the weather gage, and he had the tactical skill necessary to retain it in his future contacts with this adversary. The battle of April 12, 1782, upon which Rodney's fame has rested, was rather an accident than an achievement, and as a revelation of character its most conspicuous feature is wariness exaggerated into professional timidity. He himself has weighed the relative professional value of the two affairs. A letter published in 1809, anonymous, but bearing strong internal evidence of being written by Sir Gilbert Blane, long on a trusted physician's terms of intimacy with Rodney, states that he "thought little of his victory on the 12th of April." He would have preferred to rest his reputation upon this action with De Guichen, and "looked upon that opportunity of beating, with an inferior fleet, such an officer, whom he considered the best in the French service, as one by which, but for the disobedience of his captains, he might have gained an immortal renown."

The misconduct of his officers brought out in full vigor the severity which was a salient feature of Rodney's professional character. In the St. Vincent business he may have been partly actuated to spare, by the reflection that the offenders were not his own captains; that they were about to quit him finally. Moreover, there had been then a very considerable tangible success; results cover a multitude of sins. No such extenuations applied here. The wreck of his reasonable hopes of personal distinction coincided with failure towards the nation itself. Rodney's hand came down heavy upon the offenders; but so far as seen it was the hand always of a gentleman. In private letters his full feelings betrayed themselves in vehemence; but in public they were measured to austerity. To Carkett, when questioned concerning the rumored expressions in his despatch, he is withering in the pointed enumeration of varied shortcomings; but he never lapses into a breach of professional decorum of utterance. The unfortunate man represented to the Admiralty his view of the matter,—already cited; but it bears no indorsement to show that it had passed under Rodney's eye. Captain, ship, and ship's company, were swept away a few months later in the memorable hurricane of October, 1780.

The despatch specified no other delinquent by name; but the selection of five captains to receive personal commendation, and the persistent refusal of the same to all other subordinates, including the junior flag-officers, made censure sufficiently individual; and the admiral's subsequent line of conduct emphasized rebuke bitterly. The cruise was not yet finished; for the French having taken refuge at Guadaloupe, it was important to prevent them from regaining Martinique, their chief depot and place of repairs. To intercept them there, Rodney at first took station off Fort Royal, and when compelled for a moment to return to Santa Lucia, kept lookouts to warn him betimes of the enemy's appearance. So, when De Guichen approached from the windward side of the islands, on May 9th, he found the British getting underway to meet him. From that time until the 20th—eleven days—the fleets were manoeuvring in sight of one another, beating to windward; the British endeavoring to force action, the French to avoid it. De Guichen's orders from home were "to keep the sea, so far as the force maintained by England in the Windward Islands would permit, without too far compromising the fleet entrusted to him." Such instructions compelled him to defensive tactics; as Rodney's views, and those traditional in his service, impelled him to attack. Hence ensued a struggle of sustained vigilance, activity, and skill, profoundly interesting professionally, but which does not lend itself to other than technical narrative. "For fourteen days and nights," wrote Rodney, "the fleets were so near each other that neither officers nor men could be said to sleep. Nothing but the goodness of the weather and climate could have enabled us to endure so continual a fatigue. Had it been in Europe, half the people must have sunk under it. For my part, it did me good." No evidence of professional aptness could be given clearer than the last words. A man is easy under such circumstances only when they fit him. De Guichen asked to be superseded; "my health cannot endure such continual fatigue and anxiety." Twice the wary Frenchman was nearly caught, but the wind did not favor Rodney long enough to give him the weather position, the only sure one for offence. But, while thus unable to compass results, he gave conclusive evidence of the quickness of his eye, the alertness of his action, and the flexibility which he was enabled to impress upon his fleet by sheer force of personal character. The contest resembled that of two expert swordsmen; more intermittent doubtless, but also much more prolonged.

There can be no trifling with such conditions. A moment's relaxation, or inaptness, may forfeit opportunity, offered only by chance and not to be regained by effort. Rodney was fixed that no such slip should occur through the neglect of others, and his stern supervision, as represented by himself to his wife, was that of a slave driver, lash in hand. "As I had given public notice to all my captains, etc. that I should hoist my flag on board one of my frigates, and that I expected implicit obedience to every signal made, under the certain penalty of being instantly superseded, it had an admirable effect, as they were all convinced, after their late gross behaviour, that they had nothing to expect at my hands but instant punishment to those who neglected their duty. My eye on them had more dread than the enemy's fire, and they knew it would be fatal. No regard was paid to rank,—admirals as well as captains, if out of their station, were instantly reprimanded by signals, or messages sent by frigates: and, in spite of themselves, I taught them to be what they had never been before—officers: and showed them that an inferior fleet, properly conducted, was more than a match for one far superior." Making allowance for exaggeration in the irresponsible utterances of family life, the above is eminently characteristic of temperament. It must be added, as equally characteristic of an underlying justice which Rodney possessed, that in his official account of these last manoeuvres he gave credit to his subordinates as a whole. "I must inform their Lordships, in justice to the commanders and officers of the fleet under my command, that since the action of the 17th of April, and during the pursuit of the enemy's fleet, and in the two rencontres with them, all my officers, of every rank and denomination, were obedient and attentive to orders and signals, and, I am convinced, if the enemy had given them an opportunity, they would have done their duty to their King and Country." The claims of justice against its own strict requirements he also recognized to Carkett. "Nothing but the former service you had done your King and Country, and my firm belief of your being a brave man, could have induced me, as commander of a great fleet, to overlook." It will not escape attention that this exact observance of credit, where due, lends increased weight to censure, when inflicted.

To the pursuit of the French fleet, relinquished forty leagues eastward of Martinique after the brush of May 19th, succeeded a period marked only by the routine administrative cares attendant upon an admiral charged with the defence of a lengthy, exposed chain of islands, and an extensive trade, against enemies numerically much superior. The details serve to show the breadth of intelligence, the sound judgment, and clear professional conceptions that characterized Rodney in small things as well as great; but it would be wearisome to elaborate demonstration of this, and these qualities he had in common with many men otherwise inferior to himself. Reaction from the opening strain of the campaign, with the relaxation of vigor from the approach of the hot rainy season, now began to tell on his health; and to this contributed the harassment of mind due to the arrival of a large Spanish fleet, while reinforcements promised him unaccountably failed to appear. Nevertheless, his personal efficiency was not impaired, and towards the end of July he resolved to execute a project which he had long entertained, of carrying the mass of his fleet from the islands to the Continental waters of North America.

During the year between his return from Paris and his present appointment, he had laid before the Admiralty two papers, containing an admirable summary of the leading strategic conditions of the whole scene of war in the western hemisphere, with suggestions for action amounting to a plan of campaign. One feature of this was based upon the weather differences, which rendered cruising dangerous in the West Indies when most favorable to the northward, and unsure in North America when most certain among the islands. He proposed to utilize this alternation of seasons, by shifting a mobile reinforcement suddenly and secretly from one end to the other of the long front of operations. This is a common enough expedient in military art, but had rarely received the convincing formulation which he gave it; while that such a conception was a novelty to the average naval mind of the day, may be inferred from the startled wrath of the admiral in North America at Rodney's unexpected intrusion upon his bailiwick.

Sandwich, however, had entertained the project, and in October, 1779, just as Rodney's appointment issued, a vessel sailed from England with letters to Admiral Arbuthnot in New York, directing him to send several ships-of-the-line to the West Indies for the winter campaign. The vessel lost a mast, kept off to Nassau in the Bahamas, and after arrival there her captain, while spending some months in repairs, did not think to send on the despatches. Arbuthnot, therefore, received them only on March 16, 1780; too late, doubtless, to collect and equip a force in time to reach Rodney before the affair of April 17th.

At the end of July, 1780, the conditions in the West Indies were that the allied French and Spanish fleets had gone to leeward from Martinique; to Havana, and to Cap François, in Hayti. At the latter port was assembling a large trade convoy—three hundred ships, according to Rodney's information. He reasoned that this must go to Europe, but would not require the full strength of the French fleet; therefore, transferring his own insight to the enemy's mind, he convinced himself that a part of their vessels would seek Narragansett Bay, to reinforce the seven ships-of-the-line that had reached there on July 12th, under De Ternay, of whose arrival Rodney now knew. Great possibilities might be open to such a combination, skilfully handled against the inferior numbers of Arbuthnot. "As it plainly appeared to me that His Majesty's territory, fleet, and army, in America were in imminent danger of being overpowered by the superior force of the public enemy, I deemed it a duty incumbent upon me to forego any emoluments that might have accrued by the enterprise intended by General Vaughan and myself during the hurricane months, and without a moment's hesitation flew with all despatch possible to prevent the enemy's making any impression upon the continent before my arrival there." The protestation of disinterestedness here is somewhat intrusive, and being wholly unnecessary excites rather criticism than confidence.

Although reasonable precautions had been taken for the security of his own station, and all circumstances carefully weighed, there was in this step of Rodney's an assumption of responsibility,—of risk,—as in his similar action of 1762, before noted. This, as well as the military correctness of the general conception, deserves to be noted to the credit of his professional capacity. Making the land about Charleston, South Carolina, he swept along the coast to the northward, until he anchored off Sandy Hook, September 14th. The following day he issued an order to Admiral Arbuthnot, directing him to put himself under his command and to obey his instructions.

Rodney's coming was a grievous blow to Washington, who instead had hoped, as Rodney had feared, the arrival of De Guichen, or at the least of a strong French naval division. The enemy's disappointment is perhaps the best proof of sagacity in a military movement, but Sandwich's clear approval was also forthcoming. "It is impossible for us to have a superior fleet in every part; and unless our commanders-in-chief will take the great line, as you do, and consider the King's whole dominions as under their care, our enemies must find us unprepared somewhere, and carry their point against us." Arbuthnot, nevertheless, saw only personal injury to himself; a natural feeling, but one which should not be allowed display. Rodney had given various particular orders, and had suggested that it would be better that the commander-in-chief on the station should keep headquarters at New York, leaving the blockade of Ternay, a hundred and thirty miles distant, to a junior admiral; also, he intimated the opinion that such a blockade would be better conducted underway than anchored in Gardiner's Bay, fifty miles from the enemy's port. Though suggestion did not override discretion, Arbuthnot resented it in all its forms. After explaining his reasons, he added, "How far, Sir, your conduct (similarly circumstanced as you are) is praiseworthy and proper, consequences must determine. Your partial interference in the conduct of the American War is certainly incompatible with principles of reason, and precedents of service. The frigates attending on a cruising squadron you have taken upon you to counter-order, (a due representation of which and other circumstances I shall make where it will have every possible effect), and thus I have been for some time without even a repeater of signals."

Though Rodney's step was unusual, his position as Arbuthnot's superior officer, locally present, was impregnable. He nevertheless kept his temper under provocation, and the dignified restraint of his reply is notable; indeed, the only significant feature of this incident, from the biographical point of view. "No offence to you was intended on my part. Every respect due to you, as an officer and a gentleman, my inclination as well as my duty led me to pay you in the strictest sense." He leaves no doubt, however, that he does not intend to allow his functions to lapse into a mere official primacy,—that he will rule, as well as reign. "Duty, not inclination, brought me to North America. I came to interfere in the American War, to command by sea in it, and to do my best endeavours towards the putting an end thereto. I knew the dignity of my own rank entitled me to take the supreme command, which I ever shall do on every station where His Majesty's and the public service may make it necessary for me to go, unless I meet a superior officer, in which case it will be my duty to obey his orders." He then proceeds to exercise his authority, by explicit directions and some criticism of existing arrangements.

Afterwards, in submitting the papers to the Admiralty, Rodney wrote, "I am ashamed to mention what appears to me the real cause, and from whence Mr. Arbuthnot's chagrin proceeds, but the proofs are so plain that prize-money is the occasion that I am under the necessity of transmitting them. I can solemnly assure their Lordships that I had not the least conception of any other prize-money on the coast of America but that which would be most honourably obtained by the destruction of the enemy's ships of war and privateers—but when prize-money appeared predominant in the mind of my brother officer, I was determined to have my share of that bounty so graciously bestowed by His Majesty and the public." Nelson's retort to Arbuthnot's successor, two years later, may be recalled. "You have come to a good station for prize-money." "Yes, but the West Indies is the station for honour."

The visit to continental waters was on this occasion productive of little result. Contrary alike to Rodney's anticipations and those of Washington, De Guichen's whole fleet had returned to Europe. Some slight redistribution of cruisers, the more frequent capture of privateers, with increased security to the trade of New York and incidental support to some rather predatory land operations, were all that Rodney could show of tangible consequence from his presence. Arbuthnot alone was superior to Ternay if neither received reinforcements. Rodney's health felt the keener atmosphere, so that he had to go ashore in New York, and he accepted the views of Arbuthnot as to the strength of the French fleet's position in Newport, without examining it himself. Had he done so, however, it is unlikely that he would have formed more strenuous purposes. The disposition of the enemy's squadron there was so imposing that only the genius of a Nelson, mindful as at Revel of the moral influence of a great blow at a critical period of the war, could have risen to the necessity of daring such a hazard. His phrase was there applicable, "Desperate affairs require desperate remedies." There is no indication of this supreme element in Rodney's composition. It is interesting to note, however, that personal observation had given conviction of success at Newport to the officer who was afterwards Nelson's gallant second at Copenhagen,—Sir Thomas Graves.