he signal for a
general chase, and cutting in to leeward of the enemy, between them
and their port, Rodney, despite a dark and stormy night, succeeded in
blowing up one ship and taking six. Hastening on, he relieved
Gibraltar, placing it out of all danger from want; and then, leaving
the prizes and the bulk of his fleet, sailed with the rest for his
station.

Despite his brilliant personal courage and professional skill, which
in the matter of tactics was far in advance of his contemporaries in
England, Rodney, as a commander-in-chief, belongs rather to the wary,
cautious school of the French tacticians than to the impetuous,
unbounded eagerness of Nelson. As in Tourville we have seen the
desperate fighting of the seventeenth century, unwilling to leave its
enemy, merging into the formal, artificial--we may almost say
trifling--parade tactics of the eighteenth, so in Rodney we shall see
the transition from those ceremonious duels to an action which, while
skilful in conception, aimed at serious results. For it would be
unjust to Rodney to press the comparison to the French admirals of his
day. With a skill that De Guichen recognized as soon as they crossed
swords, Rodney meant mischief, not idle flourishes. Whatever
incidental favors fortune might bestow by the way, the objective from
which his eye never wandered was the French fleet,--the organized
military force of the enemy on the sea. And on the day when Fortune
forsook the opponent who had neglected her offers, when the conqueror
of Cornwallis failed to strike while he had Rodney at a disadvantage,
the latter won a victory which redeemed England from the depths of
anxiety, and restored to her by one blow all those islands which the
cautious tactics of the allies had for a moment gained, save only
Tobago.

De Guichen and Rodney met for the first time on the 17th of April,
1780, three weeks after the arrival of the latter. The French fleet
was beating to windward in the Channel between Martinique and
Dominica, when the enemy was made in the southeast. A day was spent in
manoeuvring for the weather-gage, which Rodney got. The two fleets
being now well to leeward of the islands[140] (Plate XI.), both on the
starboard tack heading to the northward and the French on the lee bow
of the English, Rodney, who was carrying a press of sail, signalled to
his fleet that he meant to attack the enemy's rear and centre with his
whole force; and when he had reached the position h