From October till the end of the year Rodney was at Portsmouth with his flag flying in the Sandwich, a ninety-gun ship, driving on the preparation of the fleet and the convoy. His hands were abundantly full. The dockyards as usual required incessant spurring and whipping up. An immense correspondence had to be attended to, legitimate and illegitimate. The official work was bad enough, and it was aggravated by appeals from all sorts and conditions of persons, from the anxious mother down to the First Lord of the Admiralty imploring him to take care of Dowb—to find places, promotion, and favourable attention for their sons and nephews, and the deserving offspring of important constituents. Rodney was driven wild by it all, and wrote almost passionately to his wife, instructing her to inform at least one most pertinacious acquaintance that Admiral of the White, Sir George Brydges Rodney, was not a schoolmaster, and would not stand in loco parentis to an indefinite number of hopeful small boys. Then the wind joined in the dance. When at last transports and war-ships were ready, and collected at the back of the Isle of Wight, the westerly gales settled down to it, and blew right up Channel, whirling rain and mist along, wrapping up headland and landmark in an impenetrable cloak of salt haze. To take a heavy convoy of clumsy sailing ships in the teeth of that wind, between the overlapping headlands which shut in the Channel, surpassed the resources of seamanship. There was nothing for it but to wait till it pleased the wind to blow from another point of the compass. In the meantime the Admiral had to pace the quarter-deck of the Sandwich, or sit in her cabin, receiving and answering pathetic appeals from the First Lord imploring him to get to sea, for God’s sake to get to sea, and save not only Gibraltar, but his old friend, who will be driven rabid by questions in Parliament, and reproaches in places “to which he pays more attention,” from the King, to wit, if something is not done and that quickly. During these days the dockyards, the officers of the war-ships, and the masters of the transports were kept on the stretch by a rattling fire of orders and rebukes. The Admiral’s doctor also, Gilbert Blane, had his hands full, no doubt. This gentleman, for the rest, deserves more than passing notice, for he will be a conspicuous figure during the great years of Rodney’s life. He is, in the first place, one of the best of our authorities, and then he has an honourable place of his own in the history of the navy. With Rodney’s help and encouragement he did more than any man, except Cook, to drive the scurvy out of the fleet, and in so doing contributed very materially to the final victories by providing the admirals with healthy crews. It is to be noted that the circumstances of this struggle to be off in 1779 were so closely repeated when Rodney was going to sea on his last great cruise at the end of 1781, that some of his letters of the later date have been printed under the earlier in his published correspondence.
In the last days of December, 1779, the wind first fell and then shifted round to the east. With its help the great fleet got under way, and at last swept clear of the Channel. An immense feeling of relief must have come to Rodney when at last he saw the Land’s End sink below the horizon, and he knew that his priceless charge was clear of those narrow waters which, even in these days of steam, lighthouses, and fog-horns, the seaman navigates with that wise fear which is the mother of safety. His convoy consisted all told of over three hundred sail, and must have covered miles of sea from wing to wing. In the centre were the transports and merchant vessels. On either side of these sailed the line-of-battle ships. Ahead, and on the outlook for dangers, went the frigates, except a few told off to come behind the flock and bark at laggards. The wind continued fair and the great armament cleared Ushant, crossed the bay, and had passed Cape Finisterre, when the first of two well-deserved pieces of luck fell in the way of our fleet. The same change of wind which had released Rodney from the Channel had opened the way for a Spanish convoy from Ferrol. It consisted of sixteen vessels laden partly with merchandise and naval stores, partly with provisions destined for the Spanish force besieging Gibraltar. A sixty-four-gun ship, the Guipuzcoano, and six frigates or corvettes had been told off to protect it. Whether it was that luck or their own incorrigibly lazy habits were against them, the Spaniards were just too late in getting round Finisterre. As they turned to go south the English dropped right upon them at daybreak on January 9th, 1780. A general chase was at once ordered. A Spanish ship chased was a Spanish ship caught, according to a French naval officer of the time, and in a few hours every one of them was in possession of an English prize crew. “Help from Spain comes late or never,” was a proverb in the days when the tercios in the Low Countries, or in Tunis, looked in vain for help from the procrastinating government of Philip the Second. It has proved true ever since. On this occasion the succour came never to the Spaniards in the camp at San Roque. The provision ships were carried on to Gibraltar for the use of Elliot and his garrison. The bale goods and naval stores went to England under charge of the America and the Pearl. In order that they might be the safer from recapture Rodney manned the Guipuzcoano, renamed her the Prince William, and sent her also to convoy to England what had been meant for the help of England’s enemies. The name was taken in honour of Prince William, afterwards King William the Fourth, who was serving in the fleet as a midshipman on Admiral Digby’s flag-ship.
A week later a greater capture fell into his hands. On the 16th the convoy turned Cape St. Vincent, and at one o’clock was at a distance of about four leagues to the south of it. Rodney knew that the Spaniards had a squadron at sea to intercept reliefs for the besieged fortress. He was prepared for them, and had his war-ships now in front. At one the Bedford signalled that the enemy was visible in the south-east, ahead of the English between them and Gibraltar. At once the order was given to form in line abreast (side by side in land language), and approach the enemy. The wind was from the west or north-west, all in our favour now, and it rested with us to force the battle on. It was also our policy to force an action on, as we were in overwhelming superiority of force. The squadron now in front of Rodney consisted of eleven line-of-battle ships, one of eighty and ten of seventy guns, and two frigates. It was absurd to suppose that such a force could offer resistance to twenty-one line-of-battle ships containing three three-deckers. The Spaniards were commanded by Don Juan de Langara. With the extraordinary fatuity which has distinguished the modern Spanish admiral and general, he had—so he seems to have actually said himself—taken it for granted that the English would do the most imbecile thing possible in the circumstances. He knew that a convoy was on its way to Gibraltar, and he must have known how important it was for us that the garrison should be relieved. Yet he made his mind up that the convoy would not be protected by war-ships. In this belief he waited quietly below Cape St. Vincent till the English convoy was good enough to run into his jaws. He kept no frigates to windward; he did nothing but lie there and wait. When Rodney bore down on him he allowed an enemy of crushing superiority to come close upon him, while he wasted invaluable time in forming “a line of battle on the starboard tack,” with the intention apparently of going off in seemly order, instead of doing the only thing he could do at once, namely, put his ships’ heads on Cadiz, and fly under every stitch of canvas he could set without carrying his masts away. So much mismanagement had, could have, and deserved to have, but one end.
At four o’clock Rodney, seeing that he need not stand on ceremony with an enemy half his size, hauled down the signal for the line abreast, and hoisted that for a general chase. There was no time to lose, for in that latitude the twilight is short, and in that season of the year darkness was not far off at four o’clock in the afternoon. It was advisable to get to handgrips before it came on. The English ships were therefore ordered to go into action as fast as they could, and to take the lee-gauge. With the wind at west this would be on the eastern side of the Spaniard. This was for two reasons the best position. It would put the English between the enemy and his port of refuge at Cadiz, which lay to south of east of him; and it had this advantage, which at all conditions belonged to the lee-gauge, that if any of the Spaniards were crippled in the spars they would be driven by the wind among the English ships. But in the circumstances the course was a dangerous one, for it would necessarily bring the English close to the shore in the dark. The wind was rising, and there was every prospect of a stormy night. It was not without some hesitation, and after consultation with his flag-captain, Young, that Rodney finally decided to run the risk. Decide he did, however, and very shortly after four the quickest of the English ships were up with the slowest of the Spaniards, who were now—all futile attempts to keep order having been given up—flying for Cadiz “like a shoal of frightened porpoises a swarm of sharks pursue.” Ranging up on the eastern side of them, the leading English ships opened a fire which was answered with spirit, but, to judge from the very trifling loss in our fleet, with exceedingly bad aim. Our vessels did not loiter by the Spaniards they had caught up, but pressed on to those ahead, sure that the English behind would answer for the lagging enemy. The order to the sailing-master of the Sandwich was, that no attention was to be paid to small enemies; she was to be steered for the biggest—for the admiral if he could be discovered.
The action had not lasted half an hour when one of the Spaniards, the San Domingo, of seventy guns, blew up. One mangled survivor was picked out of the water, but died before his English captors could carry him to Gibraltar. At six another of the Spaniards struck. The wind rose steadily, and the night came, but not the darkness. There was a brilliant moon, and by its light the English could follow the Spaniards, who struck one after another. By two in the morning the Sandwich was alongside of the leading Spanish ship, the Monarca. After a few broadsides she too struck. Then, knowing that the enemy was practically annihilated, and knowing, too, that the headlong pursuit had brought the dangerous shoals of San Lucar under his lee, Rodney signalled the order to stop pursuit, and lie to for the night. By this time the wind had risen to a gale. For the remainder of the night our squadron was hard at work. It had to keep off shore itself, and to secure its prizes by shifting the Spanish officers, and part at least of the men, which, in the midst of the storm and the darkness which came on at last, were not easy tasks. Thanks to the difficulties thrown on us by the wind and the want of light, two of the Spaniards slipped through our fingers after we had taken possession. One ran on shore with her prize crew, and became a total wreck. Another was retaken by the Spanish prisoners who remained on board, and was by them carried into Cadiz. Four of the liners and the two frigates got away before they could be compelled to strike. The San Domingo, as has been already said, had been blown up. There remained in Rodney’s possession four line-of-battle ships, including Don Juan de Langara’s own vessel the Fenix, with the Don himself on board grievously wounded. The day following the battle was spent in laboriously working off shore. Several of our liners, the Sandwich among them, had got into shoal water in the battle and the darkness, and were in great danger, in Rodney’s own opinion. But the seamanship of officers and men was equal to the danger, and before night the war-ships were out of shoal water, and had rejoined the transports of the convoy, which had been kept out to sea.
The relief of Gibraltar had now been practically effected. The Spanish squadron had been swept out of the way, and no other was ready to replace it. The road therefore was open, but the winds and currents of the Straits presented difficulties of their own, and it was some days before the convoy got in—nor did it get in all at once. When the storm had blown itself out the wind fell, and the fleet was carried by the currents into the Mediterranean as far as Marbella. From thence Rodney wrote to Logie, the English Consul at Tangiers, to buy up cattle from the Moors to be carried over to the garrison, and sent word to Elliot of the victory. In Gibraltar however it was already known. A midshipman who was prize-master of one of the Spaniards taken from the Carracas convoy had brought his vessel into Gibraltar on the 17th. He had passed the fleets after the engagement began, and had actually seen the explosion of the San Domingo. Then Rodney himself had been seen from the look-out on the Rock by the help of the flashes of lightning during the gale, before he was swept out of sight again to Cape Spartel. With their knowledge of the strength of the Spanish squadron, and what they learnt from the prize-master of the force under Rodney’s command, the garrison could have no fear as to the result. They waited in confidence for the plenty which was to replace their recent short commons. It soon came pouring in. First Admiral Digby arrived with the wounded Spanish admiral in his captured flag-ship, and part of the convoy. A few days later Rodney followed. He had sent his second in command on before, because he had pilots for the Straits with him and there were none on the flag. A few days later he came in himself from Tetuan.
He remained at Gibraltar till February 13th, when he sailed for the West Indies. In the interval there was much to be done. The part of the convoy destined for Minorca had to be sent on its way, and Rodney had to wait till the ships protecting it returned. Then in Gibraltar the squadron had to be looked after, preparations made for the next voyage, and a ticklish negotiation carried on with the Spaniards as to exchange of prisoners. It was all successfully done. Minorca was relieved, and the ships returned. After much correspondence, conducted with infinite courtly politeness between Rodney and Langara, the exchange of prisoners was at least partially arranged, and at last the English fleet got off. Two days later it divided at sea—Admiral Digby to return to the Channel with the bulk of the force and the homeward-bound convoy—Rodney to make his way with four ships to the West Indies.
The events of this month of January had completely altered Rodney’s position. When it began he was a distinguished officer like many others. When it ended he was the first man in his profession, and the most popular man in England. The capture of the two convoys, the taking of an enemy’s admiral and four of his line-of-battle ships, and the relief of Gibraltar, were by far the most brilliant events of the war so far as it had yet gone. It was true that we had had the odds in our favour; but then after nearly two years of depressing dulness the country had begun to suspect that even when numbers were in their favour its admirals had not spirit to make use of them. The suspicion was unjust, and no doubt either Howe or Barrington would have done the work equally well. As for Byron, “Foul Weather Jack,” his ill luck was really so persistent that if he had been there the wind would probably have blown a gale from the east till he gave up attempting to get through the Gut altogether. But though others might have done the work, as a matter of fact it was Rodney who did do it, and he reaped the credit as a matter of course. Besides, although the odds were in our favour, the circumstances had been of a nature to somewhat redress the balance. The fiery pursuit of the Spanish fleet in the night and the gale, and on to a lee shore, had about it something of the “Quiberon touch”—a flavour of the old daring and seamanship. Here was a man of the old Blake and Hawke stamp—one who would not come back with a tale of a lee shore as an excuse for letting the enemy off.
With the King and the minister too the success had done Rodney infinite good. He had established a claim to their gratitude. That this timely piece of service should have been done by their Tory admiral was a great point in their favour. There was something they could throw in the teeth of Keppel as he sat surrounded by the Whig connection in the House, snarling at the officers who succeeded him in the Channel command, and predicting disaster. From this time Sandwich’s letters become not only most cordial but at times almost submissive. He is quite eager that the Admiral should tell people that he, Sandwich, had the credit of making so good a selection of an officer to command. From that one may judge how pleased the King was. George the Third had chosen Rodney at least as much as the minister, and he assuredly believed in the justice of the war in which he was engaged. That his admiral should have scored a victory in his war was a most legitimate source of joy to the King. For King, minister, and people alike the substantial results of the cruise were undeniably admirable. The relief of Gibraltar had shown that if the Spaniards were to get back the Rock it would not be by starvation. If they were to get it by other weapons there would need to be a great change in their methods of attack. The garrison was indeed much less effectually relieved than the nation supposed; but the failure was the fault not of the Admiral, but of the Ministry, which had organised the convoy very ill.