same energy as
Howe. The transports arrived on the 10th; the troops were kept on
board; sailed on the morning of the 12th for Sta. Lucia, and anchored
there at three P.M. the 13th. The same afternoon half the troops were
landed, and the rest the next morning. They seized at once a better
port, to which the admiral was about to move the transports when the
appearance of D'Estaing prevented him. All that night the transports
were being warped inside the ships-of-war, and the latter anchored
across the entrance to the bay, especial care being taken to
strengthen the two extremities of the line, and to prevent the enemy
from passing inside the weather end, as the English ships in after
years did at the battle of the Nile. The French was much more than
double the English fleet; and if the latter were destroyed, the
transports and troops would be trapped.

D'Estaing stood down along the English order twice from north to
south, cannonading at long range, but did not anchor. Abandoning then
his intentions against the fleet, he moved to another bay, landed some
French soldiers, and assaulted the position of the English troops.
Failing here also, he retired to Martinique; and the French garrison,
which had been driven into the interior of the island, surrendered.

It seems scarcely necessary to point out the admirable diligence of
Admiral Barrington, to which and to the skill of his dispositions he
owed this valuable strategic success; for such it was. Sta. Lucia was
the island next south of Martinique, and the harbor of Gros Ilot at
its northern end was especially adapted to the work of watching the
French depot at Fort Royal, their principal station in the West
Indies. Thence Rodney pursued them before his great action in 1782.

The absence of precise information causes hesitation in condemning
D'Estaing for this mortifying failure. His responsibility depends upon
the wind, which may have been light under the land, and upon his power
to anchor. The fact, however, remains that he passed twice along the
enemy's line within cannon-shot, yet did not force a decisive action.
His course was unfavorably criticised by the great Suffren, then one
of his captains.[133]

The English had thus retrieved the capture of Dominica, which had been
taken on the 8th of September by the French governor of the West India
Islands. There being no English squadron there, no difficulty had been
met. The value of Dominica to the French has been poin