Rodney’s course was unimpeachable, as far as appears.  He wrote a civil letter to the Governor, and sent it by a ship of war, the captain of which was directed to deliver it in person.  He was confident, he wrote, that the Governor would disavow the action by calling to strict account the officers concerned, and would also confirm his own belief that it was impossible such a menace could have proceeded from any adequate authority.  A sufficient intimation of what would follow an attempt to carry out the threat was conveyed by the words:  “The British officer who has dishonoured his King’s colours by a tame submission to this insult has been already dismissed the service.”

It is difficult to see what less could have been done; but the British government was at the moment extremely reluctant to war, and sensitive to any step that seemed to make towards it.  Spain was thought to be seeking a quarrel.  She had entered the Seven Years War so near its termination as not to feel exhaustive effects; and the capture of Havana and Manila, with the pecuniary losses involved, had left her merely embittered by humiliation, prone rather to renew hostilities than to profit by experience.  At the same time the foreign policy of Great Britain was enfeebled by a succession of short ministries, and by internal commotions; while the discontent of the American continental colonies over the Stamp Act emphasized the weakness of her general position.  Barely a year before the Hawke incident the insult by Spain at the Falkland Islands had brought the two nations to the verge of rupture, which was believed to have been averted only by the refusal of Louis XV., then advanced in years, to support the Spanish Bourbons at the cost of another war.

Under these circumstances Rodney’s report of the occurrences at Cartagena filled the ministry with apprehensions, and brought him from Sandwich an expression of dissatisfaction little removed from a reprimand.  The communication is remarkable rather for what it intimates, and from the inferences naturally deducible, than for its direct utterances.  “I cannot help cautioning you, as a friend, to be upon your guard, to avoid by every justifiable means the drawing this country into a war, which, if it comes on too speedily, I fear we shall have cause to lament.”  The warning is renewed in a later part of the letter, but in itself has little significance compared with other hints, rather personal than official.  “I cannot conceal from you, that many people have industriously spread stories here, that, among the foreign ministers and others, you have expressed your wishes for a Spanish war.”  Such expressions—­if used—­were asserted of the time succeeding his appointment to Jamaica, and near his departure for it; for Sandwich adds, “This sort of declaration is too little founded on your instructions, and too indiscreet, to allow me to give them the least credit.”  It is clear, however, that he thought them not improbable,—­a