Kempenfelt, before returning to England, sent off express to Hood in the West Indies the fireship Tisiphone, 8, Commander James Saumarez,[105]—­afterwards the distinguished admiral,—­with news of the French approach.  Saumarez, having been first to Barbados, joined Hood on the 31st of January, 1782, in Basse Terre Roads, on the lee side of St. Kitts; a position from which Hood had dislodged de Grasse six days before by a brilliant manoeuvre, resembling that which he had contemplated[106] as open to Graves the previous September at Chesapeake Bay for the relief of Cornwallis.  The campaign for the year 1782 had opened already with an attack upon St. Kitts by the French army and navy; and the French fleet was even then cruising close at hand to leeward, between St. Kitts and Nevis.

The original intention of de Grasse and de Bouille had been to capture Barbados, the most important of the Eastern Antilles still remaining to the British; but the heavy trade-winds, which in those days made a winter passage to windward so long and dreary a beat, twice drove them back to port.  “The whole French fleet,” wrote Hood, “appeared off Santa Lucia on the 17th of last month, endeavouring to get to windward, and having carried away many topmasts and yards in struggling against very squally weather, returned to Fort Royal Bay on the 23d, and on the 28th came out again with forty transports, manoeuvring as before.”  On the 2d of January it disappeared from Santa Lucia, and, after a short stay again at Martinique, proceeded on the 5th to St. Kitts, anchoring in Basse Terre Roads on the 11th.  The British garrison retired to Brimstone Hill, a fortified position at the north-west of the island, while the inhabitants surrendered the government to the French, pledging themselves to neutrality.  The adjacent island of Nevis capitulated on the same terms on the 20th.

On the 14th of January, an express sent by General Shirley, governor of St. Kitts, had informed Hood at Barbados that a great fleet approaching had been seen from the heights of Nevis on the 10th.  Hood at once put to sea, though short of bread and flour, which could not be had, and with the material of his ships in wretched condition.  “When the President[107] joins,” he wrote the Admiralty, “I shall be twenty-two strong, with which I beg you will assure their Lordships I will seek and give battle to the Count de Grasse, be his numbers as they may.”  On the way a ship reached him with word that the French fleet had invested St. Kitts.  On the 21st he anchored at Antigua for repairs and supplies, indispensable for keeping the sea in the operations which he contemplated, the duration of which could not be foreseen.  About a thousand troops also were embarked, which, with the marines that could be spared from the squadron, would give a landing force of twenty-four hundred men.