When the Admiral and his second in command met off Antigua it was manifest that the crisis of the war was fast approaching in the West Indies. Since Grasse had returned from the coast of North America the French had possessed a considerable superiority of force, and had used it to complete their conquest of the English islands. The bolder and more efficacious policy would have been to seek out Hood and crush him before reinforcements arrived from England. But this was at no period in the war the line taken by any French commander except Souffren. Grasse followed the traditional rules and attacked the islands. Before his arrival BouillÉ had retaken St. Eustatius by a dashing surprise. When the French admiral and the governor of Martinique had again joined they fell upon St. Kitts, which lies between St. Eustatius and Antigua. A naval force of twenty-nine sail of the line conveyed BouillÉ’s soldiers, and the expedition landed in January. It was far too strong to be resisted by the small English garrison under General Fraser—the more because the planters, being thoroughly sulky since the confiscation of their goods at St. Eustatius, refused to give him any help. He retired with his soldiers to Brimstone Hill, and fortifying himself there, held out in the hope that relief would come.

The news of the attack reached Hood at Barbadoes, and he saw at once that honour and interest alike required that an effort should be made. He shipped a small force of soldiers under General Prescott and sailed for St. Kitts. The manoeuvring and fighting which followed make what Cortes would have called a muy hermosa cosa—a very pretty piece of work. The French were stronger by seven sail of the line, but Hood had decided to attack them where they were anchored near the Basseterre Bank to cover the troops on shore. His plan was defeated through the gross misconduct of the officer of the watch of one of our frigates, who threw his vessel right across the bows of the leading liner, and caused a collision which entailed a waste of invaluable time. The approaching English fleet was seen by Grasse, who got up anchor and stood to sea. By steady manoeuvring Hood kept between him and the land. Then he ran in and anchored at Basseterre himself, thus cutting Grasse off from BouillÉ. The Frenchman, furious at finding himself outmanoeuvred, made three attacks on the English, but Hood had anchored close on the tail of the bank, and had placed his ships so admirably for mutual support, that the enemy was beaten off with loss. General Prescott was landed, and an effort made to relieve Fraser. But the English military force was too weak to raise the siege of Brimstone Hill, and soon fell back to secure the protection of the guns of the fleet.

For some weeks these various land and sea forces remained in a curiously complicated position. Fraser at Brimstone Hill was besieged by BouillÉ, who was threatened by Prescott from Basseterre. Hood while covering Prescott was threatened by Grasse, who lay out at sea watching him. Reinforcements had arrived which raised the French to over thirty vessels. At last Brimstone Hill surrendered. There was nothing to be gained by holding on to Basseterre any longer. On February 17th Hood re-embarked Prescott’s men, and summoned his captains on board the Barfleur. Every man’s watch was set by the Admiral’s, and orders were given that at ten o’clock exactly every cable was to be cut, and the fleet was to slip to sea under the shadow of the land. At sundown the riding lights of the English fleet were hoisted on boats anchored outside of them. At the appointed time the axes of the carpenter’s gangs fell on the cables from end to end of the fleet, and Hood slipped to sea leaving the lights on the boats to mislead the French till daylight. When it came, a few flecks of white on the horizon made by the topsails of Hood’s ships told Grasse that the enemy, who had outmanoeuvred him all along, had baffled him again. The effort to save St. Kitts had failed from want of means, but it was gallantly made. The success with which an inferior English force had defied the French, and had outmanoeuvred them, greatly raised our spirits after the last unlucky months. His failure had discredited Grasse, and had tended to increase the already existing ill-will between him and his second and third in command, Vaudreuil and Bougainville.

The junction with Rodney had raised the English force nearer to an equality with the French. Grasse was not minded, however, to fight a battle. His orders were to make ready for that attack on Jamaica which was to put a triumphant finish to the war. So, taking BouillÉ on board again, he returned to Fort Royal in Martinique. Rodney went south to Gros Islet Bay in Santa Lucia—his old headquarters—and there resumed his watch on the enemy.

It was known on both sides that a decisive battle lay ahead of them. Rodney had written to Parker at Jamaica immediately on reaching the West Indies, warning him of the approaching attack. The French, he informed him, would certainly make an effort to fall on the Greater Antilles soon. For his part he would do his best to fight them to windward, but if they slipped through his fingers there, then he would follow them to the west, would join Parker, and the battle would be fought off Jamaica. In any case there would be a battle. During March both fleets were making ready. Both expected and received reinforcements. The ships which were fitting out in England when Rodney left, followed him soon, and their arrival raised his force to thirty-six sail of the line with a good proportion of frigates. In the meantime another expedition had been fitted out at Brest to replace that broken up by Kempenfelt in December. It was commanded by Captain Mithon de Genouilly, and it reached Fort Royal safely in spite of us before the end of March. On this occasion, also, one has to confess that Rodney differed in opinion from Hood, and that his measures did not succeed. Hood argued that the French in their anxiety to arrive safely would avoid the neighbourhood of the English station at Santa Lucia, and he asked for leave to cruise well to the north among the Antilles. Rodney replied that the French had always entered the West Indies by the passage between Martinique and Dominica, and would certainly do so again. He therefore stationed Hood off this passage, and ordered him to stay there. The calculation that the French would adhere to the old routine was shrewd enough, and fairly justified by their conduct of the war, but on this occasion it turned out to be mistaken. Mithon de Genouilly steered a more northerly course. He entered the West Indies by Deseada, which is just off Guadaloupe to the east, and then, hugging the leeward side of the islands, got safe into Fort Royal. Whether the disposition preferred by Hood would have barred his road we cannot tell. To have divided our force as widely as he recommended might have been a dangerous step in the presence of a bold enemy, and Rodney perhaps did well to avoid the risk that even Grasse would throw over the cautious French tactics once in a way. But he was certainly keenly disappointed by the escape of Mithon de Genouilly, all the more because he had expressed the fullest confidence in the measures taken to stop him. A squadron being no longer needed to windward of Martinique, Hood was recalled to Santa Lucia, and the English fleet was kept ready to start in pursuit the instant the look-out frigates saw Grasse standing out from Fort Royal. It was Rodney’s last disappointment.

The two fleets were now within one ship equal in point of numbers. Grasse was, however, hampered by a great convoy of merchant vessels which had to be seen safely to San Domingo—a charge which very materially affected his manoeuvres when he did at last get to sea. They were trading vessels, not transports. The troops which were to be landed in Jamaica were embarked on the war-ships, and with them the battering-train. BouillÉ was not to go in command this time, as the Spanish Government insisted that an island which, by the terms of their compact with France, was to be conquered for Spain, should be attacked under the direction of a Spanish general. His supersession made no difference, as things turned out; but if the combined expedition had actually reached Jamaica, it would have been all to our advantage. Until April 8th the two fleets remained at anchor—the French getting ready at Fort Royal; the English waiting to start in pursuit from Santa Lucia, some forty miles to the south. All leave was stopped on our ships. Neither officer nor man landed except on duty. A line of frigates patrolled the space between the two ports within signalling distance of one another.

At last, on the 8th, the Andromache frigate, commanded by Captain Byron—“an active, brisk, and intelligent officer,” according to Rodney—was seen standing in for Santa Lucia with the signal flying which told that the French were getting to sea. Within two hours the English were out, and in pursuit. The shortest route for the French would have been across the Caribbean Sea to their rendezvous with the Spaniards on the coast of San Domingo. But Grasse could not take that course without incurring the certainty of being caught up by the pursuer. There is much dispute between the writers of the time as to which of the two fleets, French and English, sailed better, each asserting that the other had the quicker heels. In this case, however, there could be no doubt that the English, having a greater number of coppered ships, could have overhauled the enemy. Besides, Grasse would have been hampered by his lumbering merchantmen. As it was his duty to save them, and his cue to avoid a battle till he had effected his junction with the Spaniards, it was probable that he would take the alternative route—that he would hug the western or leeward side of the islands and stand to the north, partly because this course would give him the better chance of keeping the weather-gage, and partly because it would enable him to stand in guard over his convoy by keeping it between himself and the land. So Rodney acted on the supposition that Grasse would go northward, and through the night of April 8th he steered in that direction past Martinique. On the morning of the 9th the English fleet was off Dominica, and it was seen that Rodney had judged rightly. There to north and east of our ships were the French fleet and convoy.

Rodney and Grasse were now face to face on their decisive field of battle. This field is the stretch of water which extends along the west side of Dominica to the southern point of Guadaloupe—a length of nearly fifty miles. It is subject to conditions which dictated the course of the next four days of fighting and manoeuvres as effectually as ever mountain, wood, or river shaped a battle on land. The island of Dominica is twenty-seven miles long, it runs from east of south to west of north, and it is full of hills. The Morne Diablotin, about nine miles from the northern point, is four thousand seven hundred and forty-seven feet high. These hills had not a little to do with the coming battles. Twenty-one miles to the north, and a little to the west of Dominica, is the southern point of the French island of Guadaloupe. The passage between the two is not, however, for purposes of navigation twenty-one miles wide. At about fifteen miles from the northern point of Dominica it is interrupted by a string of small islands called the Saints, which extend five miles from E.N.E. to W.S.W. They give its name to the strait—the Saints’ Passage. These fifty miles of water are divided very sharply into two zones, so to speak, by the winds which blow over them. The open water between Dominica and Guadaloupe is swept by the Easterly Trades. But these winds are broken by the high land of Dominica. All along the western side of the island there is a belt of water which is subject to calms, or to variable land and sea breezes. It is obvious, therefore, that a great fleet, manoeuvring in these waters, and extended in a line of battle miles long, might be in two winds. One end of it might be in the “true breeze” blowing through the Saints’ Passage, while the other was in the variable breezes blowing off, or along, or on to the shore. It might even happen that one half of the fleet might have the wind while the other was becalmed under the land. As a matter of fact we shall see that both fleets were subject to these various conditions from the 9th to the 12th April, and that the whole course of the fighting was largely dictated by them.

At daylight on the 9th, English and French were alike becalmed under Dominica. Grasse had his convoy of merchant ships huddled together in Prince Rupert’s Bay, an anchorage about three miles long and one deep on the north-western side of the island. To seaward and to the south of them were the thirty-five liners and the frigates of his fleet. The English were opposite the central and southern parts of the island, arranged in a long roughly-formed line. Sir Samuel Hood with the ships of the van was farthest to the north; Rodney was in the centre to the south of him; farthest south and farthest from the enemy was Rear-Admiral Drake with his division. Two of the French ships, the Auguste and the ZÉlÉ, were at some distance from their own fleet and near the English. As the sun rose the southerly breezes got up along the coast of the island. They were very partial, and broken all day long by calms. The first of the great host of ships now collected under the island to feel them were the nine immediately around Sir Samuel Hood. He at once formed his line, and stretched ahead, aiming to cut off the isolated French ships. One of them might have been actually separated but for the rigidity of the discipline which prevailed in the English fleet. As the breeze reached her, this vessel stood in towards her own fleet, steering close-hauled across the head of the English. She came so near that the leading ship, the Alfred, was compelled to bear up to avoid a collision. Officers and men in Hood’s ships waited eagerly for the order to open fire, but it never came. Hood was watching the mast of the Formidable for the order to begin, but it was never hoisted, for some unexplained reason, and the bold Frenchman rejoined Grasse untouched. This was an instance of the punctilious obedience which is only just better than disobedience—the action of a man who is resolved to accept no responsibility, and to leave his commander all the burden; but it was not disapproved by Rodney.

When the wind reached the French ships, Grasse at once ordered his convoy to make their way to Guadaloupe to the north-west and leeward. Two liners were sent with them, and before night they were all out of sight. With the thirty-three ships which remained to him, Grasse resolved to work to windward past the Saints. He knew that Rodney would follow him and not the traders, which would therefore be safe, and he calculated on his own power of avoiding a battle by keeping to windward. It is just possible that if he had gone off at once he might have worked through the passage, while only half the English had the wind. Some of his vessels were, however, dangerously near Hood, and might have fallen behind. Neither interest nor honour permitted him to sacrifice them, and then, too, he saw a chance of crippling the English pursuit by an attack on the isolated van.

That he had the chance is beyond question. If, in Rodney’s own language, he “had come down as he should,” Hood might have been surrounded, cut off, and crushed by numbers long before our becalmed ships could come up. Some at least of our van must have fallen into the hands of the enemy. But we were saved by that pedantic adherence to the line of battle which had been the rule with both fleets, and then by the rule which bound a French admiral to subordinate an opportunity of immediate advantage to his ultimate object. Grasse would not come to close quarters from fear of being entangled into a damaging battle. He decided to range past Hood’s ships to windward at half-cannon shot, and fire to cripple his rigging. The manoeuvre, such as it was, was neatly performed. During the forenoon of the 9th about half the French ships under the direct command of Vaudreuil were engaged in ranging past Hood, then, when they reached the end of his line, tacking to windward to return to their starting-point, and pass along from end to end again. The English ships lay with their topsails to the mast, taking the Frenchmen’s fire and returning it. More than half the English ships were mere spectators of the battle. The calms kept them helpless, but towards mid-day a few of them, by trimming their sails to every cat’s-paw of wind, contrived to work up. Rodney’s flag-ship the Formidable was one of these, and was steered between the land and Hood in the hope of cutting off some of the French ships. As they were seen to be coming up, Grasse at once hauled off to windward. There was some more distant cannonading, but the Frenchman had thrown away a magnificent chance, and fortune gave him no other. A few of Hood’s ships had indeed been damaged. Captain Bayne of the Alfred had been killed, and the damage to the squadron was sufficiently severe to induce Rodney to order it to change places with the rear, giving a promise, however, that so soon as another battle seemed imminent it should return to the place of honour. For the rest, none of the English ships were so damaged as to be unable to take part in the battle of the 12th. Our fire, too, had been very steady and quick. The French had masts and spars to replace, so that their flight was as much hampered as our pursuit. The action is, in fact, an admirable example of the rule that half-hearted operations in war are always disastrous. Grasse would not risk his fleet in order to crush a part of the English, and so he left his enemy intact to ruin him and his “ultimate object” together three days later.

The night of the 9th and whole of the 10th were spent by the two fleets in repairing damages. Calms and cat’s-paws of wind kept them rolling harmlessly in sight of one another. During the night of the 10th the ZÉlÉ, which was built to bring the French fleet into trouble, ran into the Junon, and so damaged her that she had to be sent off to Guadaloupe. The Caton, too, was found to be so ill rigged that Grasse got rid of her likewise, and thus reduced his fleet to thirty-one vessels. All through the 11th the wind gave Rodney no chance of forcing on an action. The French were beating to windward through the passage, or gradually wriggling out from under the land. By evening most of them were out of sight. Rodney had hitherto kept his fleet in line of battle, but when he saw that the escape of the French had become a question of an hour or two, he ordered a general chase of the few which still remained to leeward of the Saints. The best sailers of the English fleet were soon close upon them, and they were signalling for help. It was, of course, impossible for Grasse to leave them to their fate, and he came bowling back before the wind to protect them. He saved them from capture, but he lost all the advance he had made by a day of laborious tacking. Before dark the whole French fleet was back to leeward of the Saints. Rodney recalled his chasing ships, and stood with his whole fleet to the south. It was too late to fight a battle now, but he wished to draw the French on and so make it double sure that he would find them on the, for them, wrong side of the passage next morning. The orders of the English fleet were to stand to the south till two in the morning, and then tack to the north. Rodney turned in with the well-grounded conviction that when day broke the French would be seen by the morning watch much where they had been left over-night.

It was extremely unlikely that the French fleet would in any case succeed in doing by night what it had failed to do by day, but at two in the morning, just when the English fleet was coming round to the north again, an event happened which made the battle of the following day inevitable. The ZÉlÉ with the others was tacking at the mouth of the passage, endeavouring not to lose if she could not gain ground in the trade wind. In the dark she met the Ville de Paris, Grasse’s own splendid flag-ship. The ZÉlÉ was on the port, the Ville de Paris on the starboard tack. According to the express orders of the admiral, and according to what is now the universal rule of the road at sea, it was the duty of the ZÉlÉ to put her helm up and go under the stern of the flag-ship. But the great gods were weary of Grasse’s peddling. They blinded the officer of the watch on the ZÉlÉ. He luffed, endeavoured to cross the bow of the flag-ship, and ran smash into her. The ZÉlÉ had her bowsprit snapped off short, and her foremast carried away just above the deck. The two vessels were entangled, wind and current swept them to leeward before they could be got clear. Then Grasse ordered the AstrÉe frigate, commanded by the famous and unlucky La Perouse, to take the ZÉlÉ in tow.

It was two hours before the cable was made fast, and they were on their way to Guadaloupe. By daylight, about five o’clock, Grasse and the ships closest to him had fallen to leeward. When the first rays of the sun showed them to the English fleet, now heading towards them, they were stretching over from nine to fifteen miles of water to westward of the Saints. Sir Charles Douglas, who was already up on board the Formidable, saw that the course of the English would cut right through them. He hurried down to the Admiral’s cabin to report that “God had given him his enemy on the lee bow.” From Rodney to the youngest middy in the fleet, all men saw that the battle was coming now.