First Salute - Barbara Wertheim Tuchman [103]
He led a great fleet of 22 ships of the line, 8 frigates and 66 storeships and transports loaded together with a convoy of no fewer than 300 merchantmen bringing the trade to the West Indies. With his long train of followers that stretched over miles of ocean, he sailed south into the Atlantic, heading for the coast of Spain. En route he came upon a Spanish convoy on its way to supply the besieging force at Gibraltar. When the Spaniards in greatly inferior force surrendered without a fight, he took over the 54-gun escort, 6 frigates and 16 supply ships, which, with their cargo, were added to his train. Sailing on, he sighted on January 16 a Spanish squadron off Cape St. Vincent, on the coast of Portugal just north of Cádiz. It was lying in wait to intercept the Gibraltar relief force, of which the Spaniards had been warned. With only 11 ships of the line and 2 frigates, half the size of Rodney’s fleet, the Spaniards should have run for safety to Cádiz. Now, facing Rodney’s numbers, they chose to seek shelter in some harbor of the Cape.
Rodney, commanding from his cabin where he was lying ill with gout, chased them through the night under a rising moon until 2 a.m. Not to be deprived of a triumph while bedridden, he took a decision of instant boldness that few but he would have dared. With a hard gale blowing, giving promise of a storm, he raised the signal to engage to leeward—that is, to come between the enemy and the land, with the object of preventing the Spaniards from running to safety into a harbor. Leeward was a helpless position that every captain would normally avoid, with the added danger, in this case, of darkness and being dashed on the rocks by the rising storm. No council of war in advance had prepared his captains for any such unorthodox action, apart from his giving them all notice “upon my approaching the said Cape to prepare for battle.” Unlike Nelson, Rodney did not believe in holding conference and making friends with his officers. The risk he took in the moonlight depended on his own seamanship and his officers’ belief in him. Considering their attitude at Portsmouth, this appeared less than solid. Perhaps his boldness now inspired belief. They followed him, hoisting all their canvas for maximum speed and jettisoning barrels and lumber overboard to lighten weight.
The “brilliant rush” of the English fleet swept toward the shore while the light of the now full moon showed the fleeing Spaniards “flying for Cadiz like a shoal of frightened porpoises” pursued by sharks. Rodney told his sailing master to pay no attention to the smaller merchantmen but to lay him alongside the largest, “the admiral if there be one.” The Admiral’s ship proved to be the 80-gun Fenix, flagship of Don Juan de Langara, the Spanish commander who struck his flag along with five others. Another Spanish ship blew up with a tremendous explosion and four were taken, entangled with the English in the shoals. With the twilight falling in the short light of January, and the wind at gale force, Rodney had to put crews aboard the prize while keeping his fleet off the rocks. In the morning he could count possession of six enemy warships of the line, including the Admiral’s flagship and the Admiral himself as prisoner. Three more of the enemy line were wrecked on the rocks. Only two of Langara’s squadron escaped. Not forgetting his relief mission, in the midst of his triumph Rodney sent frigates to inform the consul at Tangier that Britain now held the Straits and provisions must be sent across to Gibraltar at once. Through storm wind and a heavy sea he reached the Straits, drove off the blockading squadron and anchored off the Rock, where he found the garrison and inhabitants on short rations close to starvation, with sentries posted at every store to prevent assault on the last produce on the shelves. After supplying Gibraltar and, beyond it, Minorca, with two years’ supply of stores and provisions, Rodney sailed for the Caribbean while cutters hastened back to London with the glorious news of Gibraltar’s relief and the tale of the