This was the more incumbent because Rodney himself, writing to Admiral Parker in Jamaica on April 16th, said, “As the enemy hourly expect a great fleet in these seas, I have scarcely a sufficient number of line-of-battle-ships to blockade the island of Martinique, or to engage the enemy’s fleet should they appear, if their number should be so large as reported,”—­twenty-four.  This report came from French sources, and it will be noted, from the date of his letter, was in his possession twelve days before the enemy arrived.  It was both specific and antecedently probable, and should have determined the admiral’s action.  Whether he had similar news from home does not appear.  Sandwich writing him on March 21st, the day before the French left Brest, professed ignorance of their destination, but added, “the most prevailing and most probable opinion is that they are to go to the West India Islands, and afterwards to North America.”  Their number he estimated at twenty-five, which tallied with Rodney’s intelligence of twenty-four.  The latter was exact, save that four were armed en flute; that is, as transports, with their guns below, to be subsequently mounted.  Despite everything, the admiral remained at St. Eustatius until May 4th, when the arrival of a crippled ship from Hood brought him the news of the skirmish.  He was attending, doubtless, to details pertaining to his command, but he was chiefly occupied with the disposition of the property seized on the island; a matter which he afterwards found to his cost would have been much better committed to administrators skilled in the law.  “Had they abided by the first plan settled before I left them,” wrote Hood, “and not have interfered, but have left the management to the land and sea folk appointed for that purpose, all would have gone smooth and easy.”

However this might have proved, the immediate supervision of the island and its spoils was no business for a commander-in-chief in active war time; particularly when it entailed leaving the charge of his main fleet, at a critical moment, to a junior admiral of very recent appointment, and still unproved.  It was not the separate importance of the position intrusted to Hood that made it peculiarly the station for the commander-in-chief.  It might have been intrinsically as important, yet relatively secondary; but actually it was the centre and key upon which, and upon which alone, the campaign could turn and did turn.  Neither was the question one of the relative merits, as yet unknown, of Rodney and Hood.  A commander-in-chief cannot devolve his own proper functions upon a subordinate, however able, without graver cause than can be shown in this instance.  The infatuation which detained Rodney at a side issue can only be excused—­not justified—­by a temporary inability to see things in their true proportion, induced on more than one occasion by a temperamental defect,—­the lack of the single eye to military considerations,—­which could find contentment in partial success, and be indifferent to further results to be secured by sustained action.