property seized on the
island; a matter which he afterwards found to his cost would have been
much better committed to administrators skilled in the law. "Had they
abided by the first plan settled before I left them," wrote Hood, "and
not have interfered, but have left the management to the land and sea
folk appointed for that purpose, all would have gone smooth and easy."

However this might have proved, the immediate supervision of the island
and its spoils was no business for a commander-in-chief in active war
time; particularly when it entailed leaving the charge of his main
fleet, at a critical moment, to a junior admiral of very recent
appointment, and still unproved. It was not the separate importance of
the position intrusted to Hood that made it peculiarly the station for
the commander-in-chief. It might have been intrinsically as important,
yet relatively secondary; but actually it was the centre and key upon
which, and upon which alone, the campaign could turn and did turn.
Neither was the question one of the relative merits, as yet unknown, of
Rodney and Hood. A commander-in-chief cannot devolve his own proper
functions upon a subordinate, however able, without graver cause than
can be shown in this instance. The infatuation which detained Rodney at
a side issue can only be excused--not justified--by a temporary
inability to see things in their true proportion, induced on more than
one occasion by a temperamental defect,--the lack of the single eye to
military considerations,--which could find contentment in partial
success, and be indifferent to further results to be secured by
sustained action.

There is a saying, apt to prove true, that war does not forgive. For his
initial error Rodney himself, and the British campaign in general, paid
heavily throughout the year 1781. The French fleet in undiminished vigor
lay a dead weight upon all his subsequent action, which, like the
dispositions prior to its arrival, underwent the continued censure of
Hood; acrid, yet not undiscriminating nor misplaced. As already
observed, the surrender of Cornwallis can with probability be ascribed
to this loss of an opportunity afforded to strike a blow at the outset,
when the enemy was as yet divided, embarrassed with convoy, raw in
organization and drill, in all which it could not but improve as the
months passed. The results began at once to be apparent, and
embarrassments accumulated with time. Hood's ships, though no one