s 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'Etenduere 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