On the North American station the British squadron had been commanded since the latter part of 1779 by Rear-Admiral Marriott Arbuthnot, a somewhat dull man of impracticable temper. During May he had co-operated with Sir Henry Clinton in the occupation of Charlestown, but during the rest of the year he had been checked by the appearance on the coast of a French squadron of nine sail of the line under the Chef d’escadre D’Arzac de Ternay. Ternay had sailed from Brest on the 2nd May, escorting 9000 troops under Rochambeau. On the 20th June, near Bermuda, he fell in with four British sail of the line under Cornwallis, who was escorting a flock of merchant-ships homeward bound through the Florida Straits. The two squadrons cannonaded one another feebly. Ternay having “his mission to fulfil,” would not stop to crush Cornwallis, and went on to Rhode Island, which he reached on the 11th July. Arbuthnot, who was reinforced by Graves on the 13th July, made preparations to co-operate with the army in an attack on the French; but delays followed one another, and no attack was made. The brief stay of Rodney on the station was not marked by any active operation. Arbuthnot looked upon him chiefly as a competitor for shares of prize money, and was angry at his intrusion. Sir George, whose health suffered in the keen air of a northern autumn, reached New York on the 22nd September, and was back in the West Indies on the 12th December. In home waters the war was conducted with languor on both sides after Rodney’s relief of Gibraltar. The British Government having to meet calls all over the world, could only collect some thirty sail of the line in the Channel, which were successively led by Admiral Geary, a worn-out veteran, and Admiral Darby. Geary, after a cruise in June and July, during which he made a few prizes of merchant-ships, resigned in August. One object of his cruise was to see a large convoy of ships bound to the East and West Indies safe out of reach of the French and Spanish fleets. It was to be guarded when clear of European waters by Captain Moutray in the =Ramillies=, 74, with the =Thetis= and =Southampton= frigates. The convoy consisted of five East India Company’s ships, of eighteen transports carrying a regiment to the West Indies, and of forty West Indian merchant-ships. Moutray left Spithead on the 29th July. He was allowed two other line-of-battle ships till he was 300 miles beyond the Scilly Isles. He met Geary at sea, and was escorted by the grand fleet till he was some 340 miles west. Then he was left, the admiral thinking that he was now safe. But he was running into extreme peril. The French had sent the Chef d’escadre Bausset with seven of the line and the Spanish ships at Brest to join Don Luis de Córdoba at Cadiz. While they were there, secret information of the sailing of the convoy and of the weakness of Moutray is said, by Spanish historians, to have reached the Prime Minister of Spain, the Count of Floridablanca.