he booty shut his eyes to every other
consideration. As on the evening of the 12th of April, the great day of
glory in his career, the captures already made assumed sufficiency in
his eyes, and co-operating with surmisings as to what the beaten and
scattered French might do deterred him from further action; so now the
prize already secured at St. Eustatius combined with the imaginative
"picture he made for himself"--to use Napoleon's phrase--of its possible
dangers, to blind him to the really decisive needs of the situation. It
is clear, however, that local naval provision for the safety of a petty
island was in point of difficulty, as of consequence, a secondary
matter, within the competence of many of his captains; and that the
primary factor, on which all depended, was the control of the sea, by
the British fleet predominating over the enemy's. Consequently the
commander-in-chief should have been where his second was, at the centre
of decisive action, where an enemy's fleet was to be expected.

This was the more incumbent because Rodney himself, writing to Admiral
Parker in Jamaica on April 16th, said, "As the enemy hourly expect a
great fleet in these seas, I have scarcely a sufficient number of
line-of-battle-ships to blockade the island of Martinique, or to engage
the enemy's fleet should they appear, if their number should be so large
as reported,"--twenty-four. This report came from French sources, and it
will be noted, from the date of his letter, was in his possession
twelve days before the enemy arrived. It was both specific and
antecedently probable, and should have determined the admiral's action.
Whether he had similar news from home does not appear. Sandwich writing
him on March 21st, the day before the French left Brest, professed
ignorance of their destination, but added, "the most prevailing and most
probable opinion is that they are to go to the West India Islands, and
afterwards to North America." Their number he estimated at twenty-five,
which tallied with Rodney's intelligence of twenty-four. The latter was
exact, save that four were armed _en flute_; that is, as transports,
with their guns below, to be subsequently mounted. Despite everything,
the admiral remained at St. Eustatius until May 4th, when the arrival of
a crippled ship from Hood brought him the news of the skirmish. He was
attending, doubtless, to details pertaining to his command, but he was
chiefly occupied with the disposition of the