The news that St. Eustatius was fair prize reached Rodney on the 27th January. On the 3rd February he seized the island. The neighbouring port of Saba was taken at the same time, and a Dutch convoy was followed and captured. From that moment and for the ensuing weeks Rodney became blind to the interest of his country and to his own honour in the contemplation of the stupendous mass of booty which was at last to make him a rich man. A part of his force was to have sailed to seize the Dutch possessions on the mainland of South America. The admiral would not part with a ship. Essequibo and Surinam were left to be taken by a swarm of privateers. There was no French force in the Leeward Islands except four of the line at Fort Royal. Lest they should come to molest him at St. Eustatius Rodney stationed the bulk of his fleet outside that port. In vain did Hood, who was detached for the blockade, point out that the belt of calm under the land of Martinique, the fitful breezes, and the westerly set of the current in the Caribbean Sea made it impossible to lie close up to the land and intercept reinforcements coming to the French from Europe. In vain did he ask leave to cruise to windward of Martinique on the track of any French force which might be coming. Rodney, reduced to the moral level of a buccaneer, would think of nothing except that if Hood were to windward of the island, the French at Fort Royal might slip out and recapture the booty at St. Eustatius. There he himself remained superintending the sorting and packing of the spoil. In that position they were at the end of April when Grasse was seen coming round the south end of Martinique on the 28th April.
While the French admiral was crossing the Atlantic Darby had carried out the relief of Gibraltar. He saw the ships ordered to the East Indies safe on their way, and on the 11th April was off Cadiz. His look-out frigates counted thirty-six Spanish sail of the line at anchor in the port. They had grown foul while blockading the fortress, and had run out of stores. They were in fact “wanting in everything at the critical moment,” as Wellington was to find the Spanish armies at no distant day. Córdoba, their admiral, was a man of childlike faith and piety. When a French officer came to expostulate on the scandalous spectacle presented by a fleet of thirty-six sail which allowed a weaker force to relieve the fortress under its eyes, he left his cabin with his rosary in his hand. He listened to the carnal arguments of the Frenchman, and then replied with saintly unction, that it had pleased God to make the English stronger on the present occasion, but that he would doubtless give the superiority to the Spaniards in his own good time. He then went back to his prayers. Darby was allowed to carry his convoy into Gibraltar, and to despatch others to Mahon not yet besieged. He met no opposition from the Spaniards except from a few rowing gunboats, which fired at him from a respectful distance, when the breeze had fallen. On the 19th April he sailed for home—his work done. He swept close by Cadiz, “lifting his leg on the Spaniards” as Horace Walpole puts it, but they would not come out.
On his way back he missed a piece of service which would have given him a well-earned reward. While he was to the south the convoy which Rodney had taken from the Dutch, together with much of his booty, was on its way home. Another rich convoy was due from Jamaica. The French Government had news of them, and sent six sail of the line and four frigates and sloops to intercept them. La Motte Picquet fell in with Rodney’s prize convoy about sixty miles to the west of the Scilly Isles. They were under the protection of Commodore Hotham with two line-of-battle ships and three frigates. Seeing the superiority of the French, Hotham ordered his convoy to disperse, and drew his warships into a line. But the Frenchman followed the booty and Hotham was not alert enough to molest him. Twenty of the convoy were taken. La Motte Picquet, satisfied with his gains, now turned home to Brest. It was well for him that he did. Darby was informed of the capture of Hotham’s convoy, and at once sent Rear-Admiral Digby with a squadron to effect its recapture. But Digby never sighted the chase. The look-out ship of the main force with Darby, the Nonsuch, 64, commanded by Captain Sir James Wallace, fell in with one of La Motte Picquet’s ships, the Actif, 74, commanded by M. de Boades, and the two fought a desperate action, which lasted through hours of the night of the 14th May. Both were severely mauled. The Nonsuch lost twenty-six men killed, and sixty-four wounded; the Actif fifteen killed and thirty-eight wounded. The action may be quoted to prove that there was at this time no difference in efficiency between the best ships in the French navy and our own. La Motte Picquet took his prizes into Brest, and with them the fortune of Rodney. Little was left to the admiral except a ruinous series of lawsuits, brought against him by British merchants engaged in the authorised trade at St. Eustatius, whose goods he had impounded without discrimination. The Jamaica convoy got safe to port. Darby anchored at Spithead on the 22nd May.
On that very day Rodney was hurrying from Antigua to Barbadoes to make good the consequences of his mismanagement in March and April. On the 28th April the Comte de Grasse was seen coming round the southern end of Martinique, and now began a series of operations in which all the movements of the British fleet were dictated by the French admiral, and all led up to loss. Hood, held back to leeward by Rodney’s orders, the wind, the calm, and the current, could do nothing to prevent his opponent from hugging the shore and reaching Fort Royal with his warships and convoy. On the 29th Grasse was joined by the four line-of-battle ships in the fort. On that day, on the 30th and on the 1st May, encounters took place between the two fleets. Grasse, having ulterior objects to achieve, would not allow himself to be drawn into close action. The well-trained French captains of guns made excellent practice. Several of Hood’s ships suffered severe damage in their spars, and one, the Russell, 74, was badly injured on the water-line. All of course were proportionately disabled for working to windward. Hood, finding himself outmatched in force and his fleet diminished by damage, drew off to the north and sent the injured Russell into St. Eustatius. She reached it on the 4th May, and brought Rodney the first news that Grasse had reached Martinique. He sailed to join Hood on the 6th with the two ships of the line he had kept with him, and on the 9th joined his subordinate between Montserrat and Antigua. Injuries to ships and want of stores made it necessary for him to take the whole fleet to the dockyard at Antigua.
Grasse, having the Caribbean Sea open before him, free to go where he pleased and strike where he chose, left Fort Royal on the 9th May to retake Santa Lucia. The attack was made on the 11th and 12th without success. The strength of the British posts on Pigeon Island, the Morne Fortuné, and the Vigil enabled General St. Leger to hold out. He was aided by a small squadron under Commodore Linzee. The discovery that the British posts were strong, and apprehension that Rodney might appear, induced the French admiral to embark the soldiers he had landed and return to Fort Royal. Rodney was indeed at sea, and had steered to assist Santa Lucia. He received news of the retreat of the enemy when near Barbadoes on the 23rd May. As that island was ill prepared for an attack, and his fleet still in need of stores with many sick in the crews, Rodney anchored in Carlisle Bay. Grasse had decided to fly at lesser game, and was content to retake Tobago. An advance squadron of his fleet first appeared off the island. It had been detached before the attack—which the French historians, with some economy of truth, call a false attack—on Santa Lucia. Colonel Ferguson, the Governor of Tobago, appealed for help to Rodney, and the admiral, who received the message on the 27th May, sent Rear-Admiral Sir Samuel Drake on the 29th with three ships of the line, three frigates, and three sloops to his assistance. Hardly was Drake out of sight before news came that Grasse had sailed on the 22nd from Fort Royal apparently bound for Tobago. Rodney was in no small anxiety for his subordinate, but Drake, who sighted the whole French fleet off Tobago on the 30th, retreated in time. The French had landed at Great Courland Bay on the 24th, and Ferguson, who had but four hundred men and some armed blacks, retreated into the hills, hoping to hold out till Rodney could come. But Bouillé arrived on the 31st May. He was ever a partisan of “thorough,” and well knew there was no time to waste. By his orders two plantations were fired in terrorem, and the clamours of the planters, who formed a large part of his force, compelled the governor to surrender on the 2nd June. When Rodney came from Barbadoes on the 3rd the mischief was done. Until the 9th both fleets manœuvred along the string of small islands called the Grenadines, till Rodney, finding that he could not bring his enemy to close action, returned to Barbadoes, and Grasse went north to Fort Royal.
Strenuous futility continued to be the note of the operations on both sides. The end of all this display of force by Grasse had been the transfer of a small island from England to France. In Paris there was indeed a very general belief that Grasse had not done enough. His nephew, who carried home his despatches reporting the operations off Fort Royal from the 29th April to 1st May, had a very cold reception from the king. The admiral’s excuse that the British ships were all coppered and sailed better than his own was grimly received. If we are to accept it the French officer deserved high credit for baffling Rodney’s efforts to bring him to battle between the 3rd and 9th June—credit, that is, for skill if not for high spirit. The English reader may be excused for not accepting it at once, for, if it is well founded, Rodney was grievously to blame for allowing himself to be baffled. But this lament of want of speed is heard on both sides, till we are almost forced to regard it as a standing excuse. Sir George’s failure can be sufficiently explained by the fact that his mind had been clouded by a passion of avarice at St. Eustatius, and that his health was breaking down. He was not free either in body or mind to give minute attention to his command. His solitary habits grew on him, and his second in command, Hood, angered by the distant hauteur of his chief, paid sullen and exact obedience to orders and held his peace. In his letters he repaid himself by scornful invective.
On his return to Fort Royal Grasse prepared for the vigorous campaign which was to redeem his reputation and to decide the war in North America. All through the war Washington had been eagerly pressing for a combined attack on the British forces either in New York or in the South, and Grasse had orders to co-operate. Washington would have preferred the first, but when he found that the French preferred the second he accepted the alternative. Grasse left Fort Royal on the 5th July for Cape Français (now Cape Haytien) in San Domingo, taking with him a convoy of 200 merchant ships. At Cape Français he received the pressing appeals of Washington and the French authorities to come on to North America with ships, troops, and bullion. The ships he had, and he increased them by taking the vessels already at Cape Français which were destined to convoy the trade home. The merchant ships were ordered to remain in the colony till the next season—a bold measure, which would probably have been beyond the courage of a British admiral who served a commercial state. Three thousand two hundred troops with ten field pieces and a siege train were lent him by M. de Lillancourt, governor of Saint Domingo. Bullion he could not obtain in the French colony. An appeal to the Spaniards at Havana produced about £60,000. On the 28th July Grasse sent the Concorde frigate with the announcement that he was coming, and on the 5th August he sailed through the Bahama Channel for the Chesapeake, carrying the troops in his warships so as not to be hampered by transports.
Rodney was informed by Captain Forde of La Nymphe, who had seen the French at sea on the 5th July, that Grasse had sailed. He at once concluded that the French admiral was bound to the coast of America, and he prepared to reinforce the British squadron on the station. For himself he could not go. His health had broken down, and it was impossible for him to face an autumn campaign in the searching cold of the North. He handed over his command to Hood with orders to take fourteen sail of the line to America, and then on the 1st August sailed with a convoy for Europe.
All now began to move to the decisive point at Yorktown. Arbuthnot had resigned his command and had gone home on the 2nd July. His successor, Rear-Admiral Graves, began by sending information to Rodney that the French fleet was believed to be coming from the West Indies. Then leaving Captain Edmond Affleck at New York he went to sea himself with six ships of the line, to intercept reinforcements from Europe for the enemy, to cover the movements of our own convoys, to watch Boston, and, if possible, to meet whatever ships Rodney might send him from the West Indies. Sir George had acted, as we have seen, on his own initiative, and had sent the sloop Swallow to report the approaching arrival of Hood. The Swallow reached New York on the 27th July, and was sent on by Affleck to meet Graves at sea. She unhappily fell in with two privateers, by whom she was driven on shore and destroyed. The Active, sent by Hood to report that he was coming, was also taken, and neither message reached Graves. Hearing nothing, and being in want of stores, the admiral returned to Sandy Hook on the 16th August. Hood in the meantime had sailed from Antigua on the 10th August, and on the 27th he was off the Chesapeake. Finding no British force there he went on to Sandy Hook on the 28th. Forty-eight hours after he had gone Grasse arrived with twenty-eight sail of the line, and two 50-gun ships. He anchored at Lynn Haven. Thus Lord Cornwallis, who had been compelled to evacuate the Carolinas, and had marched through Virginia to Yorktown, where all his troops were collected by the 22nd August, was cut off from communication with New York by sea, while Washington, with the American troops, and Rochambeau, with the French, were gathering round him by land.
Whether he could have been saved from the superior forces collecting about him is perhaps doubtful. Whatever chance he had was lost through want of aid from General Clinton in New York, who continued to believe that he, and not Cornwallis, would be attacked. The violent controversy between the generals does not require to be dealt with here. On the return of Graves, Clinton urged him to attack the French squadron at Newport. The admiral had, however, to reprovision his ships, and he received two pieces of information in quick succession which disposed of any plan for an attack on Newport. On the 16th August La Nymphe joined him with the report that Hood was on his way, and a few days later he learnt that the French squadron, commanded since the 6th May by the Chef d’escadre Barras de San Laurent who had superseded Destouches, had sailed to the southward. When Hood appeared off the bar of Sandy Hook, Graves came out to join him on the 1st September, and their united forces steered for the Chesapeake to intercept Barras. On the 5th September the British fleet of twenty-one sail of the line was off Cape Henry, and the advance ship, the Solebay, signalled the presence of a French fleet in Lynn Haven. Admiral Graves formed his line of battle and stood on. Grasse shipped his cables and stood out with twenty-four of the line, forming his array as he went. When the two were nearly opposite one another, the British to windward in a fine breeze from the N.N.E., Graves wore his fleet together, and bore down on the enemy, both lines being on the port tack and heading to sea. A sudden shift of the wind and a shoal called the Middle Ground hampered the movements of the fleets. The British line was not all brought into action, for it struck on the enemy at an angle, thus only the van under Rear-Admiral Drake was closely engaged. The rear under Hood might have brought the enemy to close action if it had been allowed to break the line. But Graves adhered to the old rule which prescribes the maintenance of the same formation throughout a battle. So the French were once more allowed to slip away after crippling several ships of the British van, and damaging one, the Terrible, 74, so severely that it was found necessary to take her men and stores out, and set her on fire on the 11th. Both fleets remained out for some days without again coming to action. On the 9th Grasse returned to Lynn Haven. During his absence Barras had slipped in with six sail of the line, bringing with him the battering train about to be used against Cornwallis at Yorktown. He found two British frigates, detached by Graves to cut away the buoys left by Grasse on his anchors, and captured them both. After destroying the Terrible, Graves looked into the Chesapeake again, and finding the enemy too strong to be attacked, sailed away to Sandy Hook, which he reached on the 19th September. Cornwallis was left to his fate. Graves was joined on the 24th by Rear-Admiral Digby with three sail of the line, and the news of his appointment to the Jamaica station, and a few days later by two other ships from the West Indies. He sailed on the 17th October on a forlorn effort to save Cornwallis, who had been forced to surrender on that very day. The British fleet looked again into the Chesapeake, saw that all was over, and returned to Sandy Hook. Graves then handed over the command to his successor, Digby, and left for his new station.