Rodney was now sixty. In the June of this year 1778 he attained the rank of Admiral of the White Squadron. He had for some time been Rear-Admiral of England, an honorary rank, to which however a salary was attached. The Vice and Rear-Admirals of England were, and indeed are—for the titles are still to be seen in the navy lists—supposed to be second and third in command to the Lord High Admiral when there is one. In rank, therefore, he was at the head of his profession, but his reputation was still to make. The forty years or so of service which he had accomplished had gained him distinction, but not more than had been won by several of his contemporaries. When the American War broke out, Keppel, Byron, Barrington, and Howe were as well known as himself. Keppel at least was far more popular. It was the work of the next three years which secured him his unique position in his own generation. What has been recorded hitherto must be looked upon as introduction. What is coming is the real work of his life. Up till now his career has been divided by commissions and periods of years. The rest will be told in campaigns and days of battle.

It is therefore interesting to be able to see what kind of man he was, now when his great career was about to begin. His own deeds and letters have told something, and will tell more, as to his character, but one must go to his contemporaries for what he looked like, and what the world thought of him. Sir N. Wraxall took care to leave some knowledge on both points duly recorded in his reminiscences. Wraxall is no doubt a writer whom it is advisable to use with caution. Not being of opinion that it is worse to tell lies about Whigs than about other people, nor even convinced that every discreditable story told about a member of that virtuous party must needs be a lie, I do not know that the Mendacium Wraxallianum deserves particular condemnation. Still the book is largely composed of an old man’s reminiscences of other men’s tittle-tattle. Such an authority is only to be used safely by those who can distinguish and divide. When, for instance, Wraxall, under the attractive head of “Rodney’s Amours,” tells us that scandal associated the Admiral’s name with the frail reputation of very “exalted females,” we need not take his words as more than what they really are—evidence of what people said. This again is evidence of what was thought sufficiently credible to be worth repeating in that world and at that time. Society then did not think it manifest nonsense to whisper that this naval officer was the father of one of the limited number of royal bastards who are of royal blood on the mother’s side. Supposing the story true, it only proves what is otherwise abundantly known, namely, that Rodney—living as he did when not at sea in the pleasure-loving society of London, at a time when it did those things which it always has done, perhaps more, and certainly more openly than it has done since—was not morally either better or worse than most men of the world.

For the rest, these days lay far behind Rodney in 1778. The heat of his youth had been tamed by age and pain and disappointment. His affection was now given to those to whom it belonged of right—to his second wife, and to his children by both his marriages. There is a reference to the death of his second son by his first marriage, in the shipwreck of the Ferret, in one of his letters to Lady Rodney, which has a very genuine ring of grief. His eldest son, now an officer in the Guards, seems to have lived much apart, as was only natural, but from Lady Rodney’s letters it appears that he was on friendly terms with her and with his half-brother and sisters. This half-brother went to sea with the father, and was treated with the best of all forms of kindness—that namely which insisted on making a man of him, and refused him promotion till he knew his business. Lady Rodney herself had her husband’s affection and entire confidence. His letters to her put that beyond dispute. Collingwood himself, the most tender-hearted of men, did not write of and to his daughters more lovingly than Rodney. Their names occur constantly in his correspondence, and thoughts for them, their good, and their future, were never absent from his mind. The natural instinct, and sometimes the cant, of the moralist lead him at times to assert that these domestic virtues in later years are in themselves disproof of the truth of such stories as are told of Rodney’s earlier life. When that is not an affectation it is a very innocent belief. Whether it is better or worse for a man to go through the “mud bath” may be doubtful. What is certain is that many men do go through it and live to be clean. In 1778 the passion which remained strongest in Rodney was ambition.

Wraxall’s picture of the Admiral’s appearance and manner may be accepted without any interpretation. He says that he was slight with delicate features. In that Wraxall is borne out by Sir Joshua Reynolds’s fine portrait. The features are refined rather than strong, and are small. Having been taken when the Admiral was old, the face is that of a man who has suffered much pain. We do not need Wraxall to tell us that the Admiral’s manners were those of a gentleman and not of a tarpaulin. Given his birth and training, what else should they be? Again it is very credible that the Admiral was a copious talker, vehement in the expression of his likes and dislikes, not at all averse to talk about himself, nor even to boast. The sailor has always, perhaps to console himself for much compulsory silence at sea, been open to reproaches touching his loquacity on shore. Moreover, he is by tradition hearty, given to speaking out his mind, not so conscious as other Englishmen of the decency of reticence—whereby if he is a good friend he is also liable to make enemies. Rodney made many enemies, and the tone of his letters bears out Wraxall’s assertion that it was by the vigour with which he condemned what he thought worthy of condemnation.

Rodney’s age at the time of taking his great command is a fact to be kept in mind. His years had necessarily some effect on his energy. The state of his health, too, is not to be forgotten. He was older than his years. The sea life, always a wearing one, was particularly hard in those times. No man could have inhabited such a floating pest-house as the Dublin without suffering for it. Besides, gout had made its home with Rodney long before this. He was liable to be laid up by it at any moment, and was so well aware of the danger that he took a doctor to sea with him to attend upon himself exclusively. It is no small drawback to the efficiency of a commander that he should be for ever compelled to struggle with an infirmity. There are no want of examples to prove that the misfortune is one which can be conquered. Rodney’s contemporary, Maurice of Saxony, beat or manoeuvred the allies out of the Low Countries though he was a cripple with the same disease. Still, ill-health was a terrible addition to the difficulties of an otherwise trying position. Age and infirmity must be allowed for in his case, either for excuse or for honour. It will be necessary sometimes to remember that if he had been younger and stronger he might have done more, or that if he had not been old and sickly it would have been less honourable for him to have done as much as he did. His gout, too, had inevitably much influence on his relations to his officers. To say nothing of the notorious effect of this disease on the temper even of less nervous and passionate men than Rodney, it compelled him to seclude himself a great deal, and so intensified his natural disposition to hold himself aloof from his captains. His relations with his subordinates were rarely friendly, and this had, as it could not but have, effects which were not for the good of the service. One thing more must be noted, namely, the extent of his pecuniary embarrassments. This was at the time public property. All men knew, and Rodney himself never affected to deny, that command was necessary to him for the money’s sake. It will be seen that this impecuniosity was one of the excuses found for attacks on him at a later period. For the present it will be enough to remember that there was the need, and there was the general knowledge that it existed.

Throughout the second half of 1778 and the greater part of 1779 Rodney was established in London at lodgings in Cleveland Street, straining every nerve to secure a command. He pressed his claims and his views on the Ministry. His desire was to get back to the West Indies, which, as the enemy never made any but half-hearted attacks on us in the Channel, was destined to be the great scene of the war. Those seas were well known to him, and in a series of able papers he explained to Sandwich how, in his opinion, we could best conduct operations there so as not only to defend the islands, but to give the utmost possible help to the King’s forces on the northern continent. Later on, and after Rodney’s first successes, the minister hastened to claim credit for having listened to his arguments and secured his appointment. Rodney himself asserted emphatically that he owed his command to the King alone. It was to the King certainly that he applied. For a time he had necessarily to wait. All the great commands were filled when he returned from Paris. Neither his rank nor his wish allowed him to serve as a subordinate. He was therefore compelled to look on as a spectator at the first year and a half of the war. During that period events were working for him. The general course of operations was not of a nature to raise the reputation of other men to his detriment. On the North American coast, indeed, Howe beat off the superior force of D’Estaing stoutly and by dint of wary manoeuvring. In the West Indies Barrington seized and held Santa Lucia—a position of immense value, as Rodney well knew—in the teeth of a far stronger French force. The whole subsequent course of the war was influenced in our favour by this timely capture. Still these successes were not of a kind to impose the victorious commander on the Ministry as a necessary man.

In the Channel the course of the war had removed a whole batch of formidable rivals from Rodney’s path. Keppel’s feeble action with D’Orvilliers off Ushant in July, 1778, was a bitter disappointment to the nation. It was followed by a series of quarrels and courts-martial more discreditable and more injurious to the country than a defeat could well have been. The Tory admiral, Sir George Palliser, was egged on by Sandwich to discredit the Whig admiral, Keppel. There followed court-martial and counter court-martial. The mob of London took sides for Keppel, sacked the houses of Palliser and Alexander Hood, and burned the gates of the Admiralty in Whitehall. The navy went by the ears in a Whig and Tory quarrel. In the mind of the King and minister there arose a determination to employ no more Whigs if it could be helped. When the excesses to which faction carried men in that time are remembered, the resolution can be fairly justified. Mean things were done by the Ministry, no doubt. It was scandalous, for instance, that Duncan—he who afterwards conquered at Camperdown—should have been left on shore throughout the war, as punishment for the resolution he showed in securing fair play for his friend Keppel in the court-martial. Still, when it is remembered that the Whigs as a party were openly opposed to the coercion of the American colonists, and that they seldom scrupled to help the enemies of their country if their “connection” could profit thereby, it is only natural that the King should prefer not to employ them. If the work was to be done at all, it had better not be put in the hands of men who were half-hearted in the doing. Now, as this party had had the whole distribution of patronage for the greater part of the century, it follows, as the night the day, that the very great majority of admirals were Whigs. When to be a Whig became not an advantage but a disadvantage to the officer who was seeking command, great was the improvement in the position, and unaffected was the joy, of the admirals who were Tories.

Rodney was a Tory. At what period reflection and experience of public affairs brought him to these opinions I do not know. He can hardly have been a Tory when he was writing the letters quoted above to Newcastle. Probably he went to the side to which his instincts took him as soon as he saw that England had a king who meant to be king. For himself the conversion, if there was any conversion, was wholly for his good. I do not speak of his fortunes, but of his character. In future when he is found expressing devotion to a master it is not to a party manager, but to him to whom it was due of right—to his Sovereign. For his fortunes, too, his creed was advantageous. It must have been a real pleasure to George the Third to find an admiral who so thoroughly agreed with himself as to the proper view to be taken of the American insurgents. There was no doubt about Rodney’s opinions. They were rebels, piratical rebels, who were to be hunted down and crushed. Through 1778 and 1779 his mobile face and eager eloquence must have been familiar at levees and drawing-rooms, as he explained with vehement eloquence that it ought to be done, how it was to be done, and who ought to do it.

In the autumn of 1779 the right officer was chosen. Rodney was appointed to the command in the West Indies to replace Byron. He was to have the supreme command in the Leeward Islands and Jamaica, with freedom to intervene on the American coast. On his way a preliminary piece of service was to be done. Since the beginning of the war Gibraltar had been besieged by land and sea. The many claims upon us, and above all the necessity of standing on our guard in the Channel against an attack by the immense fleet formed by the combination of the French under M. d’Orvilliers and the Spaniards under Don Luis de Cordova, had compelled us to leave our outposts in the Straits, and our other outpost at Minorca, to their own resources. The cruise of the combined fleets had done us little harm, owing partly to the diseases which devastated their ships’ companies, and partly to those qualities of the Spaniard which have at all times made him the most exasperating of all mankind in a co-operation. The allies separated with mutual reproaches, and we were left free to strike a counter-blow. A great convoy was collected in the Channel. Twenty-one line-of-battle ships were to protect it. Of this force Rodney was to have the command. His duties were to proceed to Gibraltar, relieve the fortress, send a convoy up the Mediterranean to Minorca, then go on himself to the West Indies with four ships, leaving his second in command, Rear-Admiral Digby, to bring back the empty transports, the sick and wounded from the garrisons.

From October till the end of the year Rodney was at Portsmouth with his flag flying in the Sandwich, a ninety-gun ship, driving on the preparation of the fleet and the convoy. His hands were abundantly full. The dockyards as usual required incessant spurring and whipping up. An immense correspondence had to be attended to, legitimate and illegitimate. The official work was bad enough, and it was aggravated by appeals from all sorts and conditions of persons, from the anxious mother down to the First Lord of the Admiralty imploring him to take care of Dowb—to find places, promotion, and favourable attention for their sons and nephews, and the deserving offspring of important constituents. Rodney was driven wild by it all, and wrote almost passionately to his wife, instructing her to inform at least one most pertinacious acquaintance that Admiral of the White, Sir George Brydges Rodney, was not a schoolmaster, and would not stand in loco parentis to an indefinite number of hopeful small boys. Then the wind joined in the dance. When at last transports and war-ships were ready, and collected at the back of the Isle of Wight, the westerly gales settled down to it, and blew right up Channel, whirling rain and mist along, wrapping up headland and landmark in an impenetrable cloak of salt haze. To take a heavy convoy of clumsy sailing ships in the teeth of that wind, between the overlapping headlands which shut in the Channel, surpassed the resources of seamanship. There was nothing for it but to wait till it pleased the wind to blow from another point of the compass. In the meantime the Admiral had to pace the quarter-deck of the Sandwich, or sit in her cabin, receiving and answering pathetic appeals from the First Lord imploring him to get to sea, for God’s sake to get to sea, and save not only Gibraltar, but his old friend, who will be driven rabid by questions in Parliament, and reproaches in places “to which he pays more attention,” from the King, to wit, if something is not done and that quickly. During these days the dockyards, the officers of the war-ships, and the masters of the transports were kept on the stretch by a rattling fire of orders and rebukes. The Admiral’s doctor also, Gilbert Blane, had his hands full, no doubt. This gentleman, for the rest, deserves more than passing notice, for he will be a conspicuous figure during the great years of Rodney’s life. He is, in the first place, one of the best of our authorities, and then he has an honourable place of his own in the history of the navy. With Rodney’s help and encouragement he did more than any man, except Cook, to drive the scurvy out of the fleet, and in so doing contributed very materially to the final victories by providing the admirals with healthy crews. It is to be noted that the circumstances of this struggle to be off in 1779 were so closely repeated when Rodney was going to sea on his last great cruise at the end of 1781, that some of his letters of the later date have been printed under the earlier in his published correspondence.

In the last days of December, 1779, the wind first fell and then shifted round to the east. With its help the great fleet got under way, and at last swept clear of the Channel. An immense feeling of relief must have come to Rodney when at last he saw the Land’s End sink below the horizon, and he knew that his priceless charge was clear of those narrow waters which, even in these days of steam, lighthouses, and fog-horns, the seaman navigates with that wise fear which is the mother of safety. His convoy consisted all told of over three hundred sail, and must have covered miles of sea from wing to wing. In the centre were the transports and merchant vessels. On either side of these sailed the line-of-battle ships. Ahead, and on the outlook for dangers, went the frigates, except a few told off to come behind the flock and bark at laggards. The wind continued fair and the great armament cleared Ushant, crossed the bay, and had passed Cape Finisterre, when the first of two well-deserved pieces of luck fell in the way of our fleet. The same change of wind which had released Rodney from the Channel had opened the way for a Spanish convoy from Ferrol. It consisted of sixteen vessels laden partly with merchandise and naval stores, partly with provisions destined for the Spanish force besieging Gibraltar. A sixty-four-gun ship, the Guipuzcoano, and six frigates or corvettes had been told off to protect it. Whether it was that luck or their own incorrigibly lazy habits were against them, the Spaniards were just too late in getting round Finisterre. As they turned to go south the English dropped right upon them at daybreak on January 9th, 1780. A general chase was at once ordered. A Spanish ship chased was a Spanish ship caught, according to a French naval officer of the time, and in a few hours every one of them was in possession of an English prize crew. “Help from Spain comes late or never,” was a proverb in the days when the tercios in the Low Countries, or in Tunis, looked in vain for help from the procrastinating government of Philip the Second. It has proved true ever since. On this occasion the succour came never to the Spaniards in the camp at San Roque. The provision ships were carried on to Gibraltar for the use of Elliot and his garrison. The bale goods and naval stores went to England under charge of the America and the Pearl. In order that they might be the safer from recapture Rodney manned the Guipuzcoano, renamed her the Prince William, and sent her also to convoy to England what had been meant for the help of England’s enemies. The name was taken in honour of Prince William, afterwards King William the Fourth, who was serving in the fleet as a midshipman on Admiral Digby’s flag-ship.

A week later a greater capture fell into his hands. On the 16th the convoy turned Cape St. Vincent, and at one o’clock was at a distance of about four leagues to the south of it. Rodney knew that the Spaniards had a squadron at sea to intercept reliefs for the besieged fortress. He was prepared for them, and had his war-ships now in front. At one the Bedford signalled that the enemy was visible in the south-east, ahead of the English between them and Gibraltar. At once the order was given to form in line abreast (side by side in land language), and approach the enemy. The wind was from the west or north-west, all in our favour now, and it rested with us to force the battle on. It was also our policy to force an action on, as we were in overwhelming superiority of force. The squadron now in front of Rodney consisted of eleven line-of-battle ships, one of eighty and ten of seventy guns, and two frigates. It was absurd to suppose that such a force could offer resistance to twenty-one line-of-battle ships containing three three-deckers. The Spaniards were commanded by Don Juan de Langara. With the extraordinary fatuity which has distinguished the modern Spanish admiral and general, he had—so he seems to have actually said himself—taken it for granted that the English would do the most imbecile thing possible in the circumstances. He knew that a convoy was on its way to Gibraltar, and he must have known how important it was for us that the garrison should be relieved. Yet he made his mind up that the convoy would not be protected by war-ships. In this belief he waited quietly below Cape St. Vincent till the English convoy was good enough to run into his jaws. He kept no frigates to windward; he did nothing but lie there and wait. When Rodney bore down on him he allowed an enemy of crushing superiority to come close upon him, while he wasted invaluable time in forming “a line of battle on the starboard tack,” with the intention apparently of going off in seemly order, instead of doing the only thing he could do at once, namely, put his ships’ heads on Cadiz, and fly under every stitch of canvas he could set without carrying his masts away. So much mismanagement had, could have, and deserved to have, but one end.

At four o’clock Rodney, seeing that he need not stand on ceremony with an enemy half his size, hauled down the signal for the line abreast, and hoisted that for a general chase. There was no time to lose, for in that latitude the twilight is short, and in that season of the year darkness was not far off at four o’clock in the afternoon. It was advisable to get to handgrips before it came on. The English ships were therefore ordered to go into action as fast as they could, and to take the lee-gauge. With the wind at west this would be on the eastern side of the Spaniard. This was for two reasons the best position. It would put the English between the enemy and his port of refuge at Cadiz, which lay to south of east of him; and it had this advantage, which at all conditions belonged to the lee-gauge, that if any of the Spaniards were crippled in the spars they would be driven by the wind among the English ships. But in the circumstances the course was a dangerous one, for it would necessarily bring the English close to the shore in the dark. The wind was rising, and there was every prospect of a stormy night. It was not without some hesitation, and after consultation with his flag-captain, Young, that Rodney finally decided to run the risk. Decide he did, however, and very shortly after four the quickest of the English ships were up with the slowest of the Spaniards, who were now—all futile attempts to keep order having been given up—flying for Cadiz “like a shoal of frightened porpoises a swarm of sharks pursue.” Ranging up on the eastern side of them, the leading English ships opened a fire which was answered with spirit, but, to judge from the very trifling loss in our fleet, with exceedingly bad aim. Our vessels did not loiter by the Spaniards they had caught up, but pressed on to those ahead, sure that the English behind would answer for the lagging enemy. The order to the sailing-master of the Sandwich was, that no attention was to be paid to small enemies; she was to be steered for the biggest—for the admiral if he could be discovered.

The action had not lasted half an hour when one of the Spaniards, the San Domingo, of seventy guns, blew up. One mangled survivor was picked out of the water, but died before his English captors could carry him to Gibraltar. At six another of the Spaniards struck. The wind rose steadily, and the night came, but not the darkness. There was a brilliant moon, and by its light the English could follow the Spaniards, who struck one after another. By two in the morning the Sandwich was alongside of the leading Spanish ship, the Monarca. After a few broadsides she too struck. Then, knowing that the enemy was practically annihilated, and knowing, too, that the headlong pursuit had brought the dangerous shoals of San Lucar under his lee, Rodney signalled the order to stop pursuit, and lie to for the night. By this time the wind had risen to a gale. For the remainder of the night our squadron was hard at work. It had to keep off shore itself, and to secure its prizes by shifting the Spanish officers, and part at least of the men, which, in the midst of the storm and the darkness which came on at last, were not easy tasks. Thanks to the difficulties thrown on us by the wind and the want of light, two of the Spaniards slipped through our fingers after we had taken possession. One ran on shore with her prize crew, and became a total wreck. Another was retaken by the Spanish prisoners who remained on board, and was by them carried into Cadiz. Four of the liners and the two frigates got away before they could be compelled to strike. The San Domingo, as has been already said, had been blown up. There remained in Rodney’s possession four line-of-battle ships, including Don Juan de Langara’s own vessel the Fenix, with the Don himself on board grievously wounded. The day following the battle was spent in laboriously working off shore. Several of our liners, the Sandwich among them, had got into shoal water in the battle and the darkness, and were in great danger, in Rodney’s own opinion. But the seamanship of officers and men was equal to the danger, and before night the war-ships were out of shoal water, and had rejoined the transports of the convoy, which had been kept out to sea.

The relief of Gibraltar had now been practically effected. The Spanish squadron had been swept out of the way, and no other was ready to replace it. The road therefore was open, but the winds and currents of the Straits presented difficulties of their own, and it was some days before the convoy got in—nor did it get in all at once. When the storm had blown itself out the wind fell, and the fleet was carried by the currents into the Mediterranean as far as Marbella. From thence Rodney wrote to Logie, the English Consul at Tangiers, to buy up cattle from the Moors to be carried over to the garrison, and sent word to Elliot of the victory. In Gibraltar however it was already known. A midshipman who was prize-master of one of the Spaniards taken from the Carracas convoy had brought his vessel into Gibraltar on the 17th. He had passed the fleets after the engagement began, and had actually seen the explosion of the San Domingo. Then Rodney himself had been seen from the look-out on the Rock by the help of the flashes of lightning during the gale, before he was swept out of sight again to Cape Spartel. With their knowledge of the strength of the Spanish squadron, and what they learnt from the prize-master of the force under Rodney’s command, the garrison could have no fear as to the result. They waited in confidence for the plenty which was to replace their recent short commons. It soon came pouring in. First Admiral Digby arrived with the wounded Spanish admiral in his captured flag-ship, and part of the convoy. A few days later Rodney followed. He had sent his second in command on before, because he had pilots for the Straits with him and there were none on the flag. A few days later he came in himself from Tetuan.

He remained at Gibraltar till February 13th, when he sailed for the West Indies. In the interval there was much to be done. The part of the convoy destined for Minorca had to be sent on its way, and Rodney had to wait till the ships protecting it returned. Then in Gibraltar the squadron had to be looked after, preparations made for the next voyage, and a ticklish negotiation carried on with the Spaniards as to exchange of prisoners. It was all successfully done. Minorca was relieved, and the ships returned. After much correspondence, conducted with infinite courtly politeness between Rodney and Langara, the exchange of prisoners was at least partially arranged, and at last the English fleet got off. Two days later it divided at sea—Admiral Digby to return to the Channel with the bulk of the force and the homeward-bound convoy—Rodney to make his way with four ships to the West Indies.

The events of this month of January had completely altered Rodney’s position. When it began he was a distinguished officer like many others. When it ended he was the first man in his profession, and the most popular man in England. The capture of the two convoys, the taking of an enemy’s admiral and four of his line-of-battle ships, and the relief of Gibraltar, were by far the most brilliant events of the war so far as it had yet gone. It was true that we had had the odds in our favour; but then after nearly two years of depressing dulness the country had begun to suspect that even when numbers were in their favour its admirals had not spirit to make use of them. The suspicion was unjust, and no doubt either Howe or Barrington would have done the work equally well. As for Byron, “Foul Weather Jack,” his ill luck was really so persistent that if he had been there the wind would probably have blown a gale from the east till he gave up attempting to get through the Gut altogether. But though others might have done the work, as a matter of fact it was Rodney who did do it, and he reaped the credit as a matter of course. Besides, although the odds were in our favour, the circumstances had been of a nature to somewhat redress the balance. The fiery pursuit of the Spanish fleet in the night and the gale, and on to a lee shore, had about it something of the “Quiberon touch”—a flavour of the old daring and seamanship. Here was a man of the old Blake and Hawke stamp—one who would not come back with a tale of a lee shore as an excuse for letting the enemy off.

With the King and the minister too the success had done Rodney infinite good. He had established a claim to their gratitude. That this timely piece of service should have been done by their Tory admiral was a great point in their favour. There was something they could throw in the teeth of Keppel as he sat surrounded by the Whig connection in the House, snarling at the officers who succeeded him in the Channel command, and predicting disaster. From this time Sandwich’s letters become not only most cordial but at times almost submissive. He is quite eager that the Admiral should tell people that he, Sandwich, had the credit of making so good a selection of an officer to command. From that one may judge how pleased the King was. George the Third had chosen Rodney at least as much as the minister, and he assuredly believed in the justice of the war in which he was engaged. That his admiral should have scored a victory in his war was a most legitimate source of joy to the King. For King, minister, and people alike the substantial results of the cruise were undeniably admirable. The relief of Gibraltar had shown that if the Spaniards were to get back the Rock it would not be by starvation. If they were to get it by other weapons there would need to be a great change in their methods of attack. The garrison was indeed much less effectually relieved than the nation supposed; but the failure was the fault not of the Admiral, but of the Ministry, which had organised the convoy very ill.