Rodney, George Bridges

RODNEY, GEORGE BRIDGES. (c. 1718–1792). First baron Rodney, British admiral and politician. George Rodney was baptized on 14 February 1718 at St. Giles-in-the-Fields, Middlesex, on the edge of London. His soldier father lost heavily in the South Sea Bubble and George became dependent upon wealthier relatives, an experience which may partly explain his later eye for prize money. Educated at Harrow School he joined HMS Sutherland as a "volunteer per order," a young prospective officer, on 7 July 1732. He became a lieutenant in 1740 and a post captain on 31 March 1743. Rodney distinguished himself in Hawke's "general chase" action off Ushant on 14 October 1747 and was commodore and governor of Newfoundland (1749–1752), after which he turned to politics and the gaming tables. During the Seven Years' War he conveyed Amherst to the siege of Louisburg (1758) and, promoted to rear admiral, bombarded and blockaded a French invasion flotilla at Le Havre. Appointed to the Leeward Islands station, he cooperated with Monckton in the conquest in 1759 of Martinique, St. Lucia, Grenada, and St. Vincent. When ordered to support the attack on Havana he kept back some ships to cover Jamaica, a foretaste of his way with orders he thought inappropriate or unwise. Fortunately for him, the expedition was an outstanding success. In 1763 he was made a baronet and, two years later, governor of Greenwich Hospital.

Rodney now fell into serious financial trouble, and not entirely because of his addiction to gambling. He had been a member of Parliament from 1752 to 1754 and again from 1761, but up to 1768 his election expenses had been defrayed by patrons. However, he had to find thirty thousand pounds for the election in 1768 out of his own pocket which, combined with a foolish agreement with a loan shark, ruined him. The Falkland Islands crisis of 1771 brought him command of the Jamaica squadron, but he was not allowed to keep the Greenwich governorship and its income. He returned home in 1774 to find his pay frozen over some unauthorized dockyard expenditure. When Parliament was dissolved Rodney, having lost his immunity from arrest, obtained leave of absence and fled to France.

When war with France broke out in 1778, Rodney was eager for command but dared not leave that country until the duc de Biron generously lent him one thousand louis to cover his debts. In May 1778 he returned to London, where his arrears of pay were released to him and he repaid his English creditors. Finally, in December 1779 he was appointed commander in chief in the Leeward Islands, with orders to relieve Gibraltar on the way.

NEW TACTICS

On 7 January 1780 he captured most of a large Spanish convoy off Cape St. Vincent and nine days later virtually destroyed a smaller Spanish squadron in the famous Moonlight Battle. Rodney then took his own convoy safely into Gibraltar and sailed to the West Indies with four ships of the line to add to the seventeen under Hyde Parker and Joshua Rowley. On 7 April Rodney led this combined fleet against the comte de Guichen off Martinique, aiming to concentrate on either the enemy's van or rear. Unfortunately, he had not fully explained his tactics to his officers, many of whom stuck to the formal line of battle and rendered the engagement inconclusive. Rodney learned the lesson and drilled the fleet in his new tactics. In encounters on 15 and 19 May the fleet responded better, only to be thwarted by the wind and Guichen's refusal to engage closely. Nevertheless, Rodney had become a leader in the growing revolution in naval tactics. Unwilling to encourage individual initiative or scrap the official fighting instructions, he had nevertheless adapted the general chase technique to concentrate on parts of an enemy line and, where possible, to break it.

POOR RELATIONS WITH SUBORDINATES

As the hurricane season approached, Rodney's penchant for arrogant and tactless handling of subordinates came to the fore. It was customary for squadrons to leave the West Indies at this time of the year and Rodney, fearing that all or part of the French fleet might go to North America, sailed for New York This move, while it violated the letter of his orders, followed Admiralty expectations that the American stations would support each other. Unfortunately, Rodney tactlessly asserted his technical seniority over Vice Admiral Arbuthnot, interfered with his dispositions, appointed his own followers into Arbuthnot's ships, and claimed the commander in chief's share of prize money. On his return to the West Indies in November, Rodney alienated Peter Parker by demanding a monopoly of the overstretched Jamaica dockyards to repair his storm-damaged ships. Finally, on 7 January 1781 Rodney's erstwhile protégé, rear admiral Sir Samuel Hood, arrived to be second in command. Hood was as opinionated and touchy as Rodney and ever ready to criticise his superiors. His first opportunity came on 3 February, when Rodney and general John Vaughan took from the Dutch that emporium of contraband, St. Eustatius. Rodney immediately claimed the booty, much of it belonging to British merchants, as prize and shipped it for home in a special convoy. Hood accused Rodney of neglecting his strategic priorities in order to cover this convoy against any French sorties from Martinique. Thus were laid the seeds of the calamitous failure of cooperation of 1781.

In April, De Grasse brought twenty more ships of the line to the West Indies. Although warned, Rodney did not attempt to intercept him with his whole fleet. Hood, with a detachment, engaged De Grasse indecisively on 29 April and the two fleets did not fight again, apart from a single indecisive encounter off Tobago on 5 June. During this time and later, Rodney failed to keep close track of De Grasse's movements and to keep in touch with Arbuthnot. When the hurricane season came round again, Rodney had intelligence that De Grasse would sail northwards; but he neither gave Arbuthnot's successor, Thomas Graves, adequate information nor sent to him timely and adequate reinforcements. Instead, complaining of ill health and fretting about the lost St. Eustatius convoy, which had been intercepted by the French in European waters, he sailed for home on 1 August. He left Hood in command with instructions to send to Graves help which turned out to be too little and too late.

DEFEAT OF DE GRASSE

At home he retired to Bath and proceeded, as the news of Graves's failure and Cornwallis's surrender filtered through, to compose his own version of events. His famous Bath letter of 19 October, he for example, gave a very misleading view of the intelligence he was supposed to have sent to Graves. The government still thought highly enough of Rodney to send him back to the Caribbean with reinforcements to counter a new French offensive. On 19 February he rejoined Hood at St. Lucia to find St. Eustatius, Demerara, St. Kitts, and Montserrat already lost. With Jamaica known to be De Grasse's next target, Rodney deployed his fleet to stop De Grasse at Martinique joining the rest of the invasion force at Haiti, moves which Hood characteristically denounced as disastrous. He was quite wrong.

On 9 April 1782 Rodney intercepted De Grasse near the islets called the Saints between Guadeloupe and Dominica. For three days Rodney struggled to close with the French as they worked their way to windward. On 12 April he succeeded, forming line of battle and engaging the French center soon after 8 A.M. The wind now veered four points, creating openings in the French line. Rodney at once ordered his ships through the gaps, breaking the French line into fragments. All afternoon Rodney pursued the disorganized survivors and by evening his ships had already taken six ships of the line, a frigate, and a sloop. When De Grasse's flagship, the 110-gun Ville de Paris, struck, Rodney finally called off the chase. In theory, as Hood was all too quick to point out, a chase through the night might have destroyed the French fleet entirely. Rodney, however, had to take account of the damage to his own ships and the dangers of collisions in the dark; his decision was probably wise.

The victory re-established British supremacy in the Caribbean, preserved Jamaica, and strengthened Britain's hand in the Paris peace negotiations. In May, Charles James Fox moved a vote of thanks in the House of Commons, thus embarrassing the new Rockingham administration, which had already sent Pigot to replace Rodney. The government responded by giving Rodney a barony, encouraging the Commons to vote him two thousand pounds per annum, and winding up a committee of inquiry into the St. Eustatius affair. In theory, Rodney should have returned home in September to find himself a wealthy national hero.

It was not to be. His failure to pursue the French into the night was publicly attacked by Hood, who claimed that Rodney was too preoccupied with securing the French flagship to see the bigger picture. Others suggested that the idea of breaking the French line came from Rodney's flag captain, Charles Douglas. Finally, while the Commons inquiry had folded, the merchants with claims against Rodney's St. Eustatius seizures continued to pursue him in the courts. Eventually their claims amounted to more than the total value of the lost convoy, and Rodney spent the last ten years of his life struggling to meet them.

ASSESSMENT

George Rodney was an inspired but flawed leader. There is no doubting his arrogance and tactlessness, his failure to cooperate properly with Graves during the Yorktown crisis, and his near-obsession with prize money. He was unreceptive to the new tactical ideas of Howe, Kempenfelt, and Graves, but his own tactical ideas, which reached triumphant maturity at the Saints, were far ahead of their time. The matter of who actually suggested breaking the line on 12 April 1781 is immaterial, for Rodney's ideas and training lay behind it, and it was Rodney's instantaneous decision that carried it into execution. Those who criticize Rodney for not being Nelson forget that without the Saints, there might have been no Trafalgar.

SEE ALSO Grasse, François Joseph Paul, Comte de; Hood, Samuel.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Breen, Kenneth. "Divided Command in the West Indies and North America, 1780–81." In The British Navy and the Use of Naval Power in the Eighteenth Century. Edited by Jeremy Black and Philip Woodfine. Leicester, U.K.: Leicester University Press, 1988.

Syrett, David. The Royal Navy in American Waters, 1775–1783. Aldershot, U.K.: Scholar Press, 1989.

                           revised by John Oliphant