In 1763 Rodney returned home and hauled down his flag. He did not hoist it again in war time for sixteen years, though in the interval he held a peace command in the West Indies. Before again going to sea—from 1765, in fact, to 1771—he had the governorship of Greenwich Hospital. In 1764 he was made a baronet. In the same year he married for the second time. The lady was apparently of Dutch descent, and by name Henrietta Clies, the daughter of one John Clies of Lisbon, who again was probably a man of business. During these years of quiet he rose steadily in rank. In 1762 he became Vice-Admiral of the Blue, in 1771 Vice-Admiral of the White, and in the following year of the Red. This division of the navy into the Blue, White, and Red Squadrons, which has now been entirely given up, was purely formal in Rodney’s own time. It had been invented in the seventeenth century when fleets of eighty or a hundred ships of all sorts and sizes were collected in the North Sea to fight the Dutch. A sub-division had to be made if they were to be handled at all. They were split into three squadrons, which were distinguished by the colour of their ensigns—the blue, now used only by yachts or naval reserve ships; the red, now used by merchant ships; and the white, the red cross of St. George, which was at all times emphatically known as the English ensign, and is now the flag of the navy. The highest in dignity, though we have named it second here, was the red—the royal colour. Until late in the reign of George the Third, not long before the division was given up altogether, there was no Admiral of the Red Squadron, but only Vice and Rear. Admiral of the White was the highest rank an officer looked to reach. The classification was kept up in theory, because it was supposed to answer to the natural division of all forces into van, centre, and rear, though in practice it was not much attended to. Among the admirals a man’s colour simply marked his seniority. It may not be thought out of place to name the successive steps in order. They were—

The establishment of the Navy also provided that there should be one Admiral of the Fleet who flew the union at the main; but this was with few exceptions an honorary, and not an active, post.

The governorship of Greenwich Hospital, which Rodney, now Sir George, held from 1765 to 1771, was such a comfortable post as might very properly be given to a naval officer who had served with credit. If family tradition is to be trusted, and it is doubtless substantially correct, Rodney was a good-natured Governor to the pensioners. The Hospital was at that time a hotbed of the dirtiest conceivable jobbery and thieving of the lowest type of the eighteenth century. A few years after Sir George had left it, Captain Baillie, who had become Lieutenant-Governor in 1773, published an account of its condition which led to a famous scandal, and a famous trial. From Baillie’s narrative and the evidence produced in support of it, and in his defence in Court, it was shown that the funds were habitually pilfered; that dependents of great political personages were foisted on an institution established for the benefit of seamen; that the pensioners were starved and neglected. In point of fact the sailors who did get in were looked upon as a technical excuse for drawing the funds of the hospital, which were then divided among a mob of placemen. To be named a minor official and authorised to deal with contractors was to be provided for for life. It seems to me superfluous to say that Rodney never so much as put out his little finger to amend this sort of thing. His own friend Sandwich was one of the worst sinners connected with it all. To expect that a gentleman who was in the way of meeting Sandwich frequently at dinner, was on his side in politics, and looked to an alliance with him as a means of obtaining promotion, was going to hurt his own prospects and disturb the comforts of social intercourse merely because the office he happened to hold—partly, too, by the goodwill of this same Sandwich—was reeking with corruption, precisely as every other office was, would have been foolish indeed. Rodney would, no doubt, have allowed that it was all very contemptible; but then, so were so many other things, and as public business could not be carried on without jobbery, this piece of jobbery must be taken in with the rest. What, however, he could do was to be good-natured to the individual pensioner; and this, it seems, he was. On the general principle that the least possible proportion of the funds of the Hospital should be devoted to the purpose for which they were originally assigned, it had been the rule that greatcoats should only be given to the men as a special favour. The Governor had power to grant this indulgence. Rodney was much too good-natured a man to refuse a favour—which cost him nothing—to a poor old sailor, and accordingly greatcoats soon became the rule, and not the exception, in Greenwich. The story also says that there was a naval Bumble, by the name of Boys, at the Hospital, who was outraged by this lavish treatment of paupers. He was Rodney’s Lieutenant-Governor, and himself a naval officer. At the weekly Board he expressed his surprise at his superior’s extravagance. An anonymous writer in the Naval Chronicle speaks of the look which the Admiral was wont to put on when things were sprung on him. We can imagine it—a mixture of surprise, indignation, and contempt, all kept in order by the instinctive self-control of an English gentleman. Boys had the benefit of it now as he heard Sir George Rodney’s answer, which is reported as follows:—

The form of this rebuke may owe something to the reporter, but Rodney was just the man to have said the substance. To do a good-natured thing, repel an intrusion on his authority, and remind an officer who had come in through the hawse-hole of the respect he owed his social superiors, while fully acknowledging his merit, was quite in the Admiral’s way. For the rest, Boys richly deserved his snubbing. Rodney also showed a wholesome dislike to useless dirt. He first established the practice of clearing away from the shore in front of the Hospital the garbage thrown up by the river. The administrative garbage he left alone, and perhaps it was as well for us that he did. If he had meddled with it he would certainly have come in contact with Sandwich, and the result of that collision would have been that he would have been left on shore throughout the American War, as both Duncan and Campbell were. They were the friends of Keppel, and therefore the enemies of Sandwich, and therefore also were left unemployed—at a time when England had need of every man—though known to be among the best officers in the service.

In 1768 Rodney stood, and was elected, for Northampton. The same arts that gained a power, must maintain it. It was necessary for him to keep that position in the House which had hitherto been so useful. But times had changed. He could no longer be “chosen member for Okehampton” by Newcastle, whose day was over—who indeed died in this very year. The King had set himself resolutely to fight the Whig oligarchy with its own weapons, and was doing it with success. Rodney took his place with the King’s friends, and did it this time at his own expense. The fight for Northampton was very severe, which, given the time and place, means that it was very costly. It gave Rodney his seat in the House, but it hung a load of debt round his neck from which he did not shake himself free for years. Nor was electioneering the only “method of evacuation” to which he had recourse, and perhaps it was not even the most effectual. He lived in the great and “fast” society of his time, which may safely be taken to be only another way of saying that he gambled. Between the one form of extravagance and the other he certainly impoverished himself.

In 1771 he was appointed to a command, and again sailed to the West Indies. The dispute about the Falkland Islands seemed likely in that time to lead to another war with Spain. If it had done so, the West Indian command would in all probability have made good the damage done to Rodney’s fortune by his seven years on shore. Money was now very important to him, and as has been already said, he made a claim to be allowed to retain his governorship while in command at sea. With the help of the double salary he might have been able to free himself from his liabilities. But the request was refused, and he sailed for his station, which was on this occasion Jamaica, and not the Leeward Islands. Here again disappointment awaited him. The quarrel with Spain blew over, and there was no war. In the early days of his command Rodney caused His Majesty’s ministers some considerable anxiety. Just after his arrival on the station there had arisen one of those periodical squabbles with the Spanish guardacostas which had been the fertile cause of quarrels and bloodshed in the West Indies. An English tender which was found “prowling with hostile keel,” as Mr. Bright would have said, too close to the Spanish main, was arrested by the Spanish cruisers. It doubtless appeared ominous to the officers of the Catholic king, who must have been perfectly well aware of the nature of the relations of the two countries at the time, that an armed English ship should have been just there just then. Rodney took a high tone, protested fiercely, and sent a line-of-battle-ship to look into Carracas. Technically he was in the right, but his superiors at home were far from pleased at his promptitude. There was no wish in England—not at least among those who were responsible for the government of the country—for a war with Spain. When, therefore, it was known that war-ships had been sent on a mission of remonstrance, and almost of menace, into a Spanish port, ministers who knew what a trick the cannon had of “going off by themselves” in the West Indies were greatly displeased. The Ministry suspected their Admiral of an intention to bring on a quarrel if he could. Rodney was sharply rebuked for sending a subordinate officer to a place where a little want of tact and temper might so easily produce a collision. Sandwich even took very strong measures. In a letter which is a model of official reprimand he told Rodney quite plainly that if he thought a war in the West Indies would do him any good he was greatly mistaken. If war should unfortunately break out, said the Minister, it would be necessary to send out strong reinforcements, and in that case a superior officer would be sent in command. Rodney could be trusted to know what that meant. It was manifestly calculated that he had no wish to repeat his experience in 1762. How far the suspicions of the Ministry were founded no one can say. Probably they were not altogether baseless. No doubt Rodney, like other Englishmen in the West Indies, did long to give the Spaniards a lesson. Sandwich, measuring the corn of others by his own bushel, may have thought that an officer whom he must have known to be embarrassed in his affairs would risk much for the chance of a stroke at a Spanish port or the capture of a treasure-ship. Here, again, he was certainly not altogether wrong. Rodney’s need of, and desire for, place and money in those years was great, and was quite frankly avowed. He was, however, far too capable a man not to know that too much may be risked even for the greatest prize. To fall into disgrace at headquarters would be ruin. When therefore he distinctly understood what the Ministry wanted he conformed precisely to their wishes, and was soon rewarded by being told that the King was pleased with him.

The remainder of Rodney’s three years of command, then as now the fixed term of a commission, were passed in routine work. He showed his natural hatred of slovenly inefficiency by stamping out one scandalous little piece of jobbery. It had become the custom in Jamaica to water the fleet by contract. There was no real need to do so. Good water had been obtained in the immediate neighbourhood of Port Royal by Vernon, and could be obtained again. Nothing more was needed to make it accessible than the construction of a small aqueduct to bring the water down to the beach. Under the pretence that it could only be obtained good in the high ground, a system had arisen of buying it from contractors, who sent it down to the beach in barrels. There it was taken by the ships’ boats. The system was thoroughly bad. It was costly; it imposed a great deal of hard beach work on the seamen, which was bad for their health in the tropics; it caused a great waste of time, the water supplied was inferior, and the length of time during which they were on shore afforded the sailors too many opportunities to get drunk. The one advantage the practice had was that it allowed of many mutually advantageous pecuniary transactions between the government officials and the contractors. On this pleasant commerce Rodney ruthlessly put his foot. In vain was it represented to him that nobody knew where Admiral Vernon had watered, that the spring had disappeared, that, in short, there were a dozen excellent reasons why the water must be brought down in barrels. The Admiral was not to be fooled. He hunted the spring up, and found that only a narrow slip of marshy ground separated it from the beach. After a tussle with red tape, he contrived to get a small aqueduct constructed, and so set up a rational watering-place. He was rewarded, as too many reformers have been, by the ingratitude of those for whom he worked. The sailors ended by hating the aqueduct. At first, indeed, they blessed the Admiral, who had relieved them from the toil of rolling barrels down the beach and shipping them. But soon they discovered that if there was no more beach work there were no more opportunities of “sucking the monkey,” which, as Swinburn explained to Mr. Peter Simple, was the name given to the practice of sucking rum from cocoa-nuts. Then they d——d the Admiral in chorus. To that, however, Rodney was supremely indifferent. His aqueduct was made with notable results, both in economy of money and for the health of the men of the squadron. This story is more to Rodney’s credit than some others we have come across. If the watering contracts had been necessary for electioneering purposes he would doubtless have tolerated them as he did other corruptions—because Parliamentary government could not be carried on without them—and in that case the end would have justified the means. But where there was no such excuse, then Rodney could put himself to some trouble for the good of the service. This is what distinguishes him from meaner men. They would have lazily tolerated the old muddle, or have shared the gains of jobbery. Rodney was not a man of that stamp. When he did attain command he knew what things worked for efficiency, and would insist on having them done.

As his commission drew towards its end Rodney saw the approach of the time when he must return to England—to face his duns on half-pay. It was a disagreeable change, which he would fain have avoided. Nor was it difficult to fix on a method of escape. If he could have passed from the command of the station to the governorship of Jamaica he would be fairly well extricated from this ugly pass. Sir W. Trelawney, the Governor in office when Rodney went out, was in ill health. The Admiral decided to offer himself as candidate for the vacancy, which everybody foresaw would soon be made by the West Indian climate. Some months before poor Trelawney’s shoes were empty—in the summer of 1772, in fact—Rodney was already bestirring himself to secure the friendly offices of Sandwich. It was a cause of bitter anger to the Admiral that these efforts were made in vain. He had very good claims to the office, both on the ground of his services as a naval officer and his knowledge of the West Indies. He must have felt, too, that he had claims of a kind even more deserving to be recognised than any based on service and knowledge, namely, the votes he had given in Parliament and the money he had spent in elections. Sandwich politely ignored both kinds of claim. The tone of his answers to Rodney is that of a politician writing to a gentleman from whom he does not expect useful support in future. His letters are civil, but fusionless, with here and there a point of irony. He begins with a dry remark that Sir W. Trelawney is still alive, and, so far as ministers know, is likely to live; but, of course, if a vacancy should occur it would be most proper that Sir George should have it; and he, Sandwich, writing as a friend, would advise him to stir his, Sir George’s, friends up to exert themselves. For the rest, Sandwich does not object to tell him in confidence that there is no rival in the field. Rodney knew his world too well to be in any doubt as to what that meant. Sandwich would give no effectual help. If he wanted the place for a partisan of his own he would even oppose. The place was obviously wanted for somebody else, the partisan of Sandwich or of whomsoever else had the patronage. When Sir W. Trelawney died in 1773 he was succeeded by Sir Basil Keith. At the very close of this part of their correspondence Sandwich, to judge from a sentence in one of Rodney’s own letters, seems to have hinted that if the Admiral really could not return to England he had better stay in Jamaica as a private person. The suggestion was certainly made, and if it did come from Sandwich it more than trenched on impertinence. Rodney refused to stay on any such footing in a society which had seen him in a great command. When his three years were up he returned to England, and struck his flag at Portsmouth in September, 1774.

He returned to England an embittered and disappointed man, believing and saying that he had been treated with gross ingratitude. It is of course easy to say that this was absurd, that Rodney had held a succession of good commands, and that if he had embarrassed himself by gambling and electioneering, this want of judgment on his part did not entitle him to more places. To this, if it had been said in the society to which he belonged, Rodney might very properly have replied by asking the speaker either to cease his impertinence or clear his mind of cant. As between himself and Sandwich these embarrassments did constitute a claim. It was an understood thing that when a gentleman had spent his money for the right interest at elections he was entitled to compensation for it in the form of office or pensions. If he did not obtain recognition it was not because of any regard for the public service on the part of ministers, but because they felt they could drop him with impunity. At the close of his second West Indian command Rodney had, for the time, fallen into the class of those who can be dropped. He was too much indebted to be useful as a candidate for a borough which must be fought. Men of smaller claims could be found for pocket boroughs. His old political friends were all very sorry but really——! To be dropped as useless can be pleasant to no man, and therefore it is not wonderful that Rodney was savage, and cursed the ingratitude of politicians. For the moment, however, there was nothing for it but to beat a retreat. At the close of 1774, or very early in the following year, he did what many half-pay naval and military gentlemen have been compelled to do since—he betook himself to the Continent to economise, and set up his quarters in Paris.

It is of course needless to say that whatever he did in the capital of France he did not economise. A gentleman who has preserved profuse habits to the age of fifty-six, which Rodney had now attained, may indeed (total abstinence being easier to men of passionate temperaments than moderation) take up with the good old gentlemanly vice of avarice, but he will not economise. As he did not become avaricious, the Admiral naturally went on wasting money. By 1778 he had, without as it would seem shaking off his English claims, contracted French debts to a considerable amount. With these last is connected one of the most famous of all the stories told about him. By this year France and England were notoriously going to war. The House of Bourbon in France and Spain saw in the revolt of the American Plantations an opportunity to revenge the humiliations of the Seven Years’ War. Help was given underhand to the rebels. American naval adventurers were received in French ports. Some of them even found their way to Paris, where they swaggered in a fashion which, so he told Lady Rodney, convinced the Admiral they must be cowards. Finally came open war, the despatch of D’Estaing’s squadron to the coast of America and the West Indies, and the formation of the great French fleet at Brest. All this Rodney had to watch with longing. He went much into the best society in Paris (which helps to account for the fresh debt), and must have seen the growth of the hopes of the Court that at last the time was come in which the “proud islanders” were to be repaid for Quebec, Quiberon, Lagos, and much more. One story—one wild legend which can hardly have even a basis of fact—tells how Rodney was actually offered the command of the French fleet if he would betray his country. A more acceptable tale records his answer to a question from the Duc de Chartres, known to infamy as Philippe ÉgalitÉ, as to what would happen if he, the Duke, met the English at sea off Brest—“That Your Highness will have an opportunity of learning English.” It was well to speak up with spirit for his country, but it would have been better to be in a position to fight for her. This, however, was what Rodney, tied to Paris by his debts, could not do. His creditors became clamorous. Thanks to the “protection of the Lieutenant of Police,” they were not allowed to proceed to extremities. A gentleman was a gentleman in France at that time, and was treated with consideration. If he was a foreigner there was all the more reason why he should be tenderly treated. His duns then were not allowed to imprison him, but they could not be prevented from dunning him, and until they were satisfied he could not leave Paris. Rodney applied for employment. A dry official acknowledgment of the application was the only answer. Lady Rodney returned to London, leaving the Admiral with his daughters in Paris, in the hope that friends might be induced to give help. It was all to no purpose. Rodney remained in Paris, and it seemed not impossible that he might be kept there by his debts all through the war—perhaps even be confined in prison as a debtor if ever the Lieutenant of Police were to withdraw his protection.

From this shameful disaster Rodney was saved by the magnanimity of old MarÉchal Biron. The MarÉchal had been much his friend, and in these days Rodney speaks in his letters to his wife of the old gentleman’s hospitality to himself and his daughters. At last the Frenchman offered to lend him enough to pay his debts and cover the expenses of the journey to England. Rodney was unwilling to accept the generosity of a national enemy, even though he were a personal friend. It was not until the offer had been three times repeated, until all hope of help from England had proved vain, that he at last took the helping hand held out to him. In May, 1778, he took the loan, paid his debts, and immediately left for London, coming himself by Dieppe. The last few days in Paris, he writes, “will be occupied in visiting all those great families from whom I have received so many civilities, and whose attention in paying me daily and constant visits in a great measure kept my creditors from being so troublesome as they otherwise would have been.” It was the best of the Ancien RÉgime that it did at least know how to behave itself like a gentleman.

The exact amount received by Rodney from Biron was 1000 louis. This being a debt of honour was repaid at once by the help of the Drummonds, the bankers. The children, who begin now to be constantly mentioned in his letters, returned under the charge of a servant by way of Calais, and the Admiral was at last able to push his claims at Court himself.