The results were commensurate to the risk.  The action, which began at 4 P.M., lasted till two the following morning, the weather becoming tempestuous with a great sea, so that it was difficult to take possession of the captured vessels.  Many of the heavy British ships continued also in danger during the 17th, and had to carry a press of sail to clear the shoals, on which two of their prizes were actually wrecked.  One Spanish ship-of-the-line was blown up and six struck, among them the flag-ship of Admiral Langara, who was taken into Gibraltar.  Only four escaped.

Two such strokes of mingled good fortune and good management, within ten days, formed a rare concurrence, and the aggregate results were as exceptional as the combination of events.  Sandwich congratulated Rodney that he had already “taken more line-of-battle ships than had been captured in any one action in either of the two last preceding wars.”  Militarily regarded, it had a further high element of praise, for the enemy’s detachment, though in itself inferior, was part of a much superior force; twenty-four allied ships-of-the-line besides it being at the moment in Cadiz Bay.  It is the essence of military art thus to overwhelm in detail.  A technical circumstance like this was doubtless overlooked in the general satisfaction with the event, the most evident feature in which was the relief of the Government, who just then stood badly in need of credit.  “The ministerial people feel it very sensibly,” Lady Rodney wrote him.  “It is a lucky stroke for them at this juncture.”  Salutes were fired, and the city illuminated; the press teemed with poetical effusion.  Sandwich, somewhat impudently when the past is considered, but not uncharacteristically regarded as an officeholder, took to himself a large slice of the credit.  “The worst of my enemies now allow that I have pitched upon a man who knows his duty, and is a brave, honest, and able officer....  I have obtained you the thanks of both houses of Parliament.”  The letter does not end without a further caution against indiscreet talking about the condition of his ships.  It all comes back on the Government, he laments.  What Rodney may have said to others may be uncertain; to his wife, soon after reaching his station, he wrote, “What are the ministers about?  Are they determined to undo their country?  Is it fair that the British fleet should be so inferior to the French, and that the British officers and men are always to be exposed to superior numbers?  What right had the administration to expect anything but defeat?” Then he passes on to remark himself, what has been alluded to above, the change in his personal position effected by his successes.  “Thank God, I now fear no frowns of ministers, and hope never again to stand in need of their assistance.  I know them well.  All are alike, and no dependence is to be placed on their promises.”  It is to be feared his sense of obligation to Sandwich did not coincide with the latter’s estimate.