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