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to Rhode Island than English captains of mail packets from London to New York. It was because American captains, advised by the whales, understood the location of the Gulf Stream and crossed over it, instead of running against it for days. From Folger’s chart and written directions instructing shipmasters how to track the stream by dropping thermometers at regular intervals and measuring the speed of surface bubbles and noticing changes in the color of the water, Franklin in 1770, before the war, offered the information to Anthony Todd, Secretary of the British Post Office. British sea captains, not inclined to take advice from American colonials and fishermen, ignored it. Franklin himself made a test on a voyage in 1776, dropping his thermometer two to four times a day from seven in the morning until eleven at night. His report on the Gulf Stream was withheld until after the war, when it could no longer help the British, but Folger’s map, the first map of the Gulf Stream, was published in 1768, before the outbreak of overt hostility and revolution.

With the West Indies as his first concern, Sandwich wrote again to Rodney saying that unless he could intercept de Grasse before he reached Martinique, the French would have a superior number of ships, so that England must depend “on the skill and conduct of our commander in chief and the bravery of the officers and people under him,” as there was no possibility of sending him reinforcements. Expecting the French any day, Rodney detached three sail of the line to Hood with orders to cruise windward of Martinique on the lookout for the enemy. Shortly afterward, Hood was moved inshore to keep a close watch on Fort Royal, in order to prevent four French liners stationed there from emerging to add their numbers to de Grasse when he should arrive, and to prevent de Grasse from entering to take possession of the “noblest and best harbour,” as Rodney had named it. Hood did not like the inshore position and repeatedly asked Rodney to let him go back to his former place, which Rodney refused. Strong disagreements about the proper position from which to watch for and intercept the enemy added to their quarrel.

On St. Eustatius, Rodney had appointed a commission to superintend disposal of the seized property and documents. The more he learned of the business operations of the traitorous British merchants, the more it fed his anger. The whole of the confiscated property “I have seized for the King and the state and I hope will go to the public revenue of my country. I do not look upon myself as entitled to one sixpence nor do I desire it. My happiness is having been the instrument of my country in bringing this nest of villains to condign punishment. They deserve scourging and they shall be scourged.” Whether or not this entire lack of interest in personal gain should be taken at face value, Rodney’s desire to bring the villains to judgment and wield the whip of their scourging was clearly what held him at St. Eustatius through the month of March and early April while his opponent was advancing toward him across the Atlantic.

With a strong fleet of twenty ships of the line, three frigates, and a swollen convoy of 150 transports bringing supplies and men to the West Indies, de Grasse sailed from Brest on March 22 aboard his huge flagship, the three-decker Ville de Paris of 110 guns, monarch of the French fleet, and the largest ship afloat. He expected to meet Hood or Rodney in combat in the West Indies. After supplying the needy islands, he was to give what aid was necessary to Spanish forces in Cuba and Santo Domingo and then, at the approach of winter, move on to America. Joined by an East India squadron of forty merchantmen, which were slow sailors and had to be taken in tow by the warships, he reached the offshore waters of Martinique at the end of April, 1781.

In America news came to Newport on May 8, like an arrow piercing the curtain of discouragement, that de Grasse was actually on his way, headed for the West Indies with America as his next destination. Coming just a month since