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 Marechal Biron,
who volunteered in warm terms to make him an advance to the amount of
L2,000. 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