"Whilst Admiral Sir George Rodney remained at St. Eustatius to stock-take the booty from his capture of the Dutch island, his second-in-command, the skilful Rear-Admiral Sir Samuel Hood, was detached southwards on 12 February with eleven ships of the line to rendezvous with six already off Martinique, the whole comprising the major part of the British Leeward Islands fleet. Hood's orders were ostensibly to intercept the Rochefort squadron of ten sail of the line under Charles-Auguste Levassor de la Touche Tréville, which having been spotted in the Bay of Biscay on a course for the West Indies on New Year's Eve was suspected to be heading for the main base on Martinique, Fort Royal.
For a month Hood patrolled to windward of Martinique, which is to say to the east, where he had the greatest opportunity of preventing any French attempt to enter Fort Royal. But with no sign of the enemy, Rodney then amended the instruction to his junior admiral by ordering him to patrol to leeward, or to the west of Martinique, as he felt that Hood would be better employed preventing four French sail of the line already in Fort Royal from sailing out to attack the British possessions. He also believed that in this position Hood could detach his ships south to St. Lucia for replenishment and repair, and still have time to recall them before any French fleet coming in from the west could enter Fort Royal. Hood maintained that in stationing his ships to leeward of Fort Royal, Rodney was forgoing the possible interception of any incoming French fleet so as to protect his St. Eustatius treasure trove from the Martinique squadron. The younger man would prove to be right, but Rodney, whose gout was particularly distressing at this time, and whose flag-captain, Walter Young, lay on his deathbed, could not be dissuaded.
On 28 April a French fleet did arrive off Martinique, but instead of de Tréville's Rochefort ten sail of the line it was in fact the totally unexpected Brest fleet of twenty sail of the line, two 50 gun ships and three hundred transports carrying 6,000 troops. The naval element of the force was under the command of the unusually tall 57 year-old Vice-Admiral Francois Joseph Paul de Grasse-Tilli, who was flying his flag aboard the world's largest man of war, the Ville de Paris 110, and who had left his home port on 22 March in company with Captain Pierre de Suffren's East India-bound squadron…."
Main page
link
Amicalement
Armand
