ng a light which it is scarcely an exaggeration to say had
been momentarily extinguished.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] For the account of Mathews's action, including Hawke's personal
share in it, see _ante_, pp. 21-47.

[4] By express orders from the Ministry Councils of War had to be held.

[5] An application for four days' leave for private business had been
refused.

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
promoti