West Indian waters in 1782, and culminated in
the world-renowned victories of Nelson, who was a young captain on the
North American station "when Rodney beat the Comte de Grasse" in the battle
of the Saints' Passage.

Born when George I was King, Rodney was a veteran of many wars when he won
his West Indian triumph. He had fought the French under Hawke, and was with
Boscawen at the taking of Louisburg. In 1759 he bombarded Havre, and burned
the transport flotilla collected at the mouth of the Seine for a raid on
England. Three years later, as commander-in-chief on the Leeward Islands
station, he captured Martinique, St. Lucia, and Grenada, and learned the
ways of the West Indian seas. Then came years of political disfavour,
half-pay and financial embarrassment, until in an hour of darkness for
England, with the American colonies in successful revolt and Frenchman and
Spaniard besieging Gibraltar by land and sea, the veteran admiral was
recalled to active service, and found and seized the great opportunities of
his life. Sailing south with a relieving fleet, he fell in with and
captured a Spanish convoy off Finisterre, and then surprised and destroyed
Lungara's Spanish squadron, taking seven ships out of eleven, and chasing
the rest into Cadiz. The appearance of his fleet before Gibraltar saved the
fortress, and then in February, 1780, he sailed across the Atlantic to try
conclusions with De Guichen, whose powerful fleet based on Martinique was
threatening all the English possessions in the West Indies. So far numbers
and opportunity had been on his side. He had now to depend more on skill
than fortune, and meet a more equal opponent.

At his head-quarters at St. Lucia in April, 1780, Rodney heard that the
French fleet under De Guichen had sailed from Martinique. On the 17th he
fought an indecisive action with the enemy, an action notable for what
Rodney attempted, not for what he accomplished. Twice again on later days
Rodney met De Guichen, but none of the three battles did more than inflict
mutual loss on the combatants, without producing any decisive result. The
campaign was, like so many others in the West Indies, a struggle for the
temporary possession of this or that port or island, De Guichen's whole
strategy being based on the idea of avoiding the risks of a close
engagement that might imperil his fleet, and trying to snatch local
advantages when he could elude his enemy.

In 1781 Rodney was compelled by ill-he