th
of the Savannah, August 31st, he decided to attempt to wrest the city
of Savannah from the British. This would have been of real service
to the latter, had it nipped in the bud their ex-centric undertaking;
but, after three weeks of opening trenches, an assault upon the place
failed. D'Estaing then sailed for Europe with the ships designated
to accompany him, the others returning to the West Indies in two
squadrons, under de Grasse and La Motte-Picquet. Though fruitless
in its main object, this enterprise of d'Estaing had the important
indirect effect of causing the British to abandon Narragansett Bay.
Upon the news of his appearance, Sir Henry Clinton had felt that, with
his greatly diminished army, he could not hold both Rhode Island and
New York. He therefore ordered the evacuation of the former, thus
surrendering, to use again Rodney's words, "the best and noblest
harbour in America." The following summer it was occupied in force by
the French.

D'Estaing was succeeded in the chief command, in the West Indies and
North America, by Rear-Admiral de Guichen,[69] who arrived on the
station in March, 1780, almost at the same moment as Rodney.

[Footnote 54: The French accounts say three.]

[Footnote 55: Beatson, "Military and Naval Memoirs," iv. 390.]

[Footnote 56: Santa Lucia being in the region of the north-east trade
winds, north and east are always windwardly relatively to south and
west.]

[Footnote 57: To the westward. These islands lie in the trade-winds,
which are constant in _general_ direction from north-east.]

[Footnote 58: Admiral Keppel, in his evidence before the Palliser
Court, gave an interesting description of a similar scene, although
the present writer is persuaded that he was narrating things as they
seemed, rather than as they were--as at Grenada. "The French were
forming their line exactly in the manner M. Conflans did when attacked
by Admiral Hawke." (Keppel had been in that action.) "It is a manner
peculiar to themselves; and to those who do not understand it, it
appears like confusion. They draw out ship by ship from a cluster."]

[Footnote 59: That is, towards the ships at anchor,--the enemy's rear
as matters then were.]

[Footnote 60: Byron's Report. The italics are the author's.]

[Footnote 61: Byron's Report.]

[Footnote 62: Ibid. Author's italics.]

[Footnote 63: "Naval Researches." London, 1830, p. 22.]

[Footnote 64: Byron's Report.]

[Footnote 65: Pierre A. de Suffre