he 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