in the Spaniards on the coast of San Domingo,
and Rodney, whose fleet was raised by his junction with Hood and the
arrival of reinforcements to thirty-seven ships of the line, lay on the
watch at St. Lucia. On April 8 the French stood out to sea, and the next
day Rodney found them off Dominica. An indecisive action took place in
which, owing to baffling calms, only the British van was engaged. Grasse
then beat to windward between Dominica and the Iles des Saintes, but in
consequence of various accidents made little way. The British followed
him, and early on the 12th Sir Charles Douglas, the captain of the
fleet, awakened Rodney with the stirring tidings that "God had given him
the enemy on the lee-bow".

The English fleet was numerically the stronger, but the French had finer
ships and heavier batteries. The action began about 7.30 A.M. At first
it seemed likely to be as indecisive as usual, the two fleets passing
each other on opposite tacks and cannonading, the French being to
windward. As they sailed slowly with a light breeze, and at a short
distance from each other, the British guns and especially the carronades
were highly effective, for the enemy's ships were crowded with soldiers
for the attack on Jamaica. Before long the battle took a form which
rendered it memorable in the annals of naval warfare, for Rodney,
without previous design, practised the manoeuvre known as breaking the
enemy's line, and by that means was enabled to bring the engagement to a
decisive issue, such as he hoped for in the battle of April 17, 1780.
This manoeuvre, afterwards deliberately adopted with triumphant
success by Howe, Nelson, and other great captains, though often
practised in the naval battles between the English and the Dutch in the
seventeenth century,[166] had fallen into complete oblivion, so firmly
did admirals believe in the necessity of keeping their line of battle.
By cutting through the enemy's line an admiral could concentrate his
attack on any portion of it which could least easily receive help from
the rest, and could throw the line into confusion; the ships to the rear
of the point of penetration would be stopped, massed up, and might be
caught together, while those ahead pursued their course. This mode of
attack was worked out by a landsman, Clerk of Eldin, and though his
_Essay_ was not fully printed until 1782, parts of it were privately
circulated in 1780.

As Rodney's flagship, the _Formidable_ (98), which wa