an dealers and Dutch merchants traded with one another
as in a time of peace. English planters and merchants also used it as a
place of deposit, believing that their goods would be safer there than
in their own islands, which were open to attacks from the French. The
wealth of the island was prodigious; the rents of the dwellings and
warehouses hastily constructed on it amounted to a million a year; it
had, as Burke said, risen from the waters like another Tyre to become
the mart of the world. Like the British island of Nassau during the
American civil war, it carried on along with legitimate commerce a brisk
contraband trade, and its merchants supplied the Americans and French,
their principal and most favoured customers, with vast quantities of
naval stores and ammunition. It was practically undefended, and,
together with its dependencies, St. Martin and Saba, was surrendered to
Rodney without resistance on February 3, 1781. Over 150 vessels were
taken in the bay, besides a richly laden convoy of Dutch ships which had
lately put to sea. Rodney held that the island was a "nest of villains,"
and that its "infamous and deceitful inhabitants" owed their wealth to
their support of the king's enemies by contraband trading; they
"deserved scourging," and he vowed that they should get it. He
confiscated all the property on the island, private as well as public,
save what belonged to the French, who were open enemies. There was much
truth in his indictment, but his indiscriminate confiscation was
monstrously unjust.

The spoil of the island was estimated at L4,000,000. The king granted
his rights over the booty to the captors. Rodney was a poor man, and was
greedy for wealth; he seized more than the king could grant, or he could
lawfully hold, for part of the booty belonged to English merchants. His
conduct was severely and, though with some exaggeration, justly attacked
by Burke in parliament, and in after years he was harassed by suits
brought against him for unlawful spoliation. The booty sold on the spot
fetched far less than its value, and much that was sent home fell into
the hands of the French; for while Darby was engaged in the relief of
Gibraltar, a French squadron intercepted the convoy which was bringing
it to England, and carried off several ships laden with spoil. The
capture of the island proved disastrous to England. A French fleet under
Count de Grasse was unfortunately allowed to leave Brest in March, for
Eng