At Cap Francois, de Guichen found urgent entreaties from the French Minister to the United States, and from Lafayette, to carry his fleet to the continent, where the clear-sighted genius of Washington had recognised already that the issue of the contest depended upon the navies.  The French admiral declined to comply, as contrary to his instructions, and on the 16th of August sailed for Europe, with nineteen sail of the line, leaving ten at Cap Francois.  Sealed orders, opened at sea, directed him to proceed to Cadiz, where he anchored on the 24th of October.  His arrival raised the allied force there assembled to fifty-one sail of the line, besides the ninety-five sugar and coffee ships which he had convoyed from Haiti.  It is significant of the weakness of Great Britain in the Mediterranean at that time, that these extremely valuable merchant ships were sent on to Toulon, instead of to the more convenient Atlantic ports, only five ships of the line accompanying them past Gibraltar.  The French government had feared to trust them to Brest, even with de Guichen’s nineteen sail.

The allied operations in the Windward Islands for the season of 1780 had thus ended in nothing, notwithstanding an incontestable inferiority of the British to the French alone, of which Rodney strongly complained.  It was, however, contrary to the intentions of the Admiralty that things so happened.  Orders had been sent to Vice-Admiral Marriot Arbuthnot, at New York, to detach ships to Rodney; but the vessel carrying them was driven by weather to the Bahamas, and her captain neglected to notify Arbuthnot of his whereabouts, or of his dispatches.  A detachment of five ships of the line under Commodore the Hon. Robert Boyle Walsingham was detained three months in England, wind-bound.  They consequently did not join till July 12th.  The dispositions at once made by Rodney afford a very good illustration of the kind of duties that a British Admiral had then to discharge.  He detailed five ships of the line to remain with Hotham at Santa Lucia, for the protection of the Windward Islands.  On the 17th, taking with him a large merchant convoy, he put to sea with the fleet for St. Kitts, where the Leeward Islands “trade” was collecting for England.  On the way he received precise information as to the route and force of the Franco-Spanish fleet under de Guichen, of the sickness on board it, and of the dissension between the allies.  From St. Kitts the July “trade” was sent home with two ships of the line.  Three others, he wrote to the Admiralty, would accompany the September fleet, “and the remainder of the ships on this station, which are in want of great repair and are not copper-bottomed, shall proceed with them or with the convoy which their Lordships have been pleased to order shall sail from hence in October next.”  If these arrived before winter, he argued, they would be available by spring as a reinforcement for the Channel fleet, and would enable the Admiralty to send him an equivalent number for the winter work on his station.