Bouillé. Rodney's dream of wealth thus vanished, and all that remained was a number of vexatious and costly lawsuits, which swallowed up the greater part of his lawful gains.
Meanwhile he had sent Hood with a strong force to blockade Fort Royal off Martinique. It was rumoured that a powerful French fleet was expected, and Rodney's post was clearly off Martinique. But he could not tear himself away from the fascinations of St. Eustatius, and he refused to believe the rumour. The result was that the French fleet, when it arrived, forced its way into Martinique, and that Hood, having been unable to prevent it, rejoined Rodney at Antigua. Rodney's ill-health was doubtless largely responsible for his blunder. He was obliged to resign the command to Hood, and on 1 Aug. he sailed for England. On 6 Nov. he was appointed vice-admiral of Great Britain.
A few months' rest at home restored his health, and on 16 Jan. 1782 he sailed from Torbay with his flag in the 90-gun ship Formidable. On 19 Feb. he rejoined Hood at Barbados. The position of affairs was critical. The French had just captured St. Kitts, and were meditating an attack in force on Jamaica. Some fourteen Spanish ships of the line and eight thousand soldiers were assembled at Cape Français, where they were to be joined by the Comte de Grasse from Martinique, with thirty-five sail of the line, five thousand troops, and a large convoy of storeships. But timely reinforcements had brought Rodney's force up to thirty-six sail of the line, with which he took up a position at St. Lucia, waiting for De Grasse to move. On the morning of 8 April he had the news that the French fleet was putting to sea. In two hours he was in pursuit, and the next morning sighted the enemy under the lee of Dominica, where the trade wind was cut off by the high land and blew in fitful eddies, alternating with calms and sea breezes. A partial action followed, without any result, and De Grasse, drawing off, attempted to get to windward through the Saintes Passage. Various accidents prevented his doing so, and, on the morning of the 12th, Sir Charles Douglas [q. v.], the captain of the fleet, awakened Rodney with the glad news that ‘God had given him the enemy on the lee bow.’
De Grasse was tempted still further to leeward to cover a disabled ship, and then, seeing that he could no longer avoid an action, he formed his line of battle and stood towards the south, while the English, on the opposite tack, advanced to meet him. About eight o'clock the battle began, the two lines passing each other at very close quarters. But as the French line got more to the southward, and under the lee of Dominica, it was broken by the varying winds, and at least two large gaps were made, through one of which the Formidable passed, and almost at the same moment the Bedford, the leading ship of the rear division, passed through the other [see Affleck, Sir Edmund]. The ships astern followed; the French line was pulverised, and endeavoured to run to leeward to reform. But for this they had no time; a rout ensued, and their rearmost ships, attacked in detail, were overpowered and taken. Just as the sun set, De Grasse's flagship, the Ville de Paris, surrendered to the Barfleur, and Rodney made the signal to bring to.
Hood was astounded. Douglas begged Rodney to continue the chase. He refused, on the ground that the ships, getting in among the enemy in the dark, would run great danger, while some of the French ships, remaining behind, might do great damage among the islands to windward; all which, as Captain Mahan has said, is ‘creditable to his imagination,’ for the French were thoroughly beaten and could not have had any idea of aggression (Influence of Sea-Power upon History, p. 497). Hood's opinion was that at least twenty ships might have been captured, and wrote, ‘Surely there never was an instance before of a great fleet being so completely beaten and routed, and not pursued.’ The neglect, he thought, was ‘glaring and shameful,’ and he did not scruple to attribute it to the admiral's childlike vanity in the possession of the Ville de Paris, which he could not bring himself to part from (Letters of Sir Samuel Hood, Navy Records Society, pp. 129, 130, 136–7). It is impossible to say that Rodney was not influenced by some such motive. Hood fully believed it, and his criticisms, though very bitter, are generally just. But it is probable that a large part of the neglect should be ascribed to the physical weakness and mental lassitude of a man prematurely old, racked by gout and gravel, and worn out with a long day's battle, following the three days' chase. That, having won a glorious and remarkable victory, he failed to make the most of it must be admitted. Still, the victory restored the English prestige, which had been sorely shaken by the defeat of Graves and the surrender of Cornwallis; and it enabled the government to negotiate on much more favourable terms. That the victory was Rodney's there can be no reasonable doubt. The attempt which was made to assign the credit of it to John Clerk (1728–1812) [q. v.] of Eldin, or to Sir Charles Douglas,
