First Salute - Barbara Wertheim Tuchman [104]
Rodney’s numerical superiority at Cape St. Vincent reduced the victory from the heroic scale, but it was intrepidity and perfect command that brought him glory. Horace Mann, Walpole’s faithful correspondent, wrote from Florence that Rodney’s victory “caught like wild fire about the town” and Mann received congratulations from everyone he met. Rodney was greeted at home as the rescuer not only of Gibraltar but of the honor of the navy and, more than that, the honor of the flag. Guns were fired from the Tower of London and fireworks blazed for two nights running. “Everybody almost adores you,” wrote his eldest daughter, “and every mouth is full of your praise.” It was impossible to describe, wrote his wife, “the general applause that is bestowed upon you; or to mention the number of friends who have called to congratulate me on this happy event.” Many of them without doubt were the same friends who had left him without a word when he was down and out in Paris. How quick is the leap to catch on to the coattails of success! Rodney’s reward was the rather ephemeral gift of the thanks of Parliament, voted by both Houses, and the freedom of the City of London presented in a gold casket. More gratifying was his election unopposed on the floodtide of his victory as M.P. for the borough of Westminster.
Later, Rodney’s flag captain, Walter Young, claimed that he himself had given the order to chase and engage to leeward and that Rodney, because of the ill state of his health and his “natural irresolution,” had tried to call off the ships from the chase. Confined to his bed, Rodney had obviously had to rely on someone else’s sight of the situation, but Sir Gilbert Blane, the fleet physician, testified that the Admiral had discussed the leeward course with Young at sunset, when it was then decided on. Irresolution was not a characteristic that could credibly be attributed to Rodney. The order for a leeward course would have had to come from the Admiral and the action be his responsibility. That there had been no confusion and no hanging back by the captains indicated that much. In his report, Rodney expressed himself highly pleased by the promptitude and bravery of “all ranks and ratings” and by the advantage of coppered bottoms, which made it possible to bring the enemy to action. “Without them we should not have taken one Spanish ship.”
Sandwich wrote congratulations on the naval combat in terms which, in view of his earlier abandonment of Rodney, can only be described by use of the modern word “crust”: “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.” Having been informed by one of Rodney’s captains, Sir John Ross, that our expedition “in nine weeks [had] taken from the enemy 36 sail of merchant ships valued by them at a million sterling and nine sail of the line [and] have supplied the garrisons of Gibraltar and Mahon with two years’ of provisions and stores of all kinds,” Sandwich at least had the decency to add that he hoped “to prevail on his Majesty to give some more substantial proofs of his approbation.” This he did, and the coming reward was to be ample.
News of the victory of Cape St. Vincent evoked from Horace Walpole an odd comment that does not quite seem to fit the occasion. “It is almost my systematic belief,” he wrote to the Reverend William Cole, another of his regular correspondents, “that as cunning and penetration are seldom exerted for good ends, it is the absurdity of mankind that … carries on and maintains the equilibrium that heaven designed should subsist.” Inapplicable to the Moonlight Battle, as it was soon everywhere known, Walpole’s remark was presumably intended as a philosophic maxim on human affairs rather than a reference to Rodney. “Adieu my dear Sir,” he concluded, “shall we live to lay down our heads in peace?” John Adams, too, felt peace to be elusive. With a bold and enterprising naval captain in action, he saw the British desire for a settlement receding, because “naval victories excite them to