Hood proposed to surprise de Grasse at anchor and attack him at daybreak on the morning of the 24th of January. He knew that the enemy were lying in Basseterre Roads, a few miles from Brimstone Hill. To counterbalance the numerical superiority of the French fleet, Hood, in his plan of attack, proposed to throw the entire British squadron on one portion of the enemy, which he hoped to overwhelm before the rest could weigh and come to the rescue. Then he would be able, he expected, to match himself effectively against what would remain of the French. The plan was foiled at the outset by the blundering of the officer of the watch on board the _Nymphe_, a frigate, which, during the night of the 23rd, in the dark got across the bows of the _Alfred_, a seventy-four, the leader of the battle-line. She caused a collision that damaged the _Alfred_ very seriously, and nearly cut the _Nymphe_ in two. Owing to the collision Hood’s entire plan had to be altered. The repairs to the _Alfred_ took all day on the 24th and until ten o’clock on the morning of the 25th, before the ship was again fit for service, and during that time the rest of the British fleet lay-to. They were already in sight of St. Kitts, with the result that the news of Hood’s arrival in the neighbourhood, up to then unsuspected, reached the French Admiral. Now there was no longer a question of surprise. Before he actually sighted the British fleet, de Grasse had got ready for Hood, and had had time to get under way and stand out to meet him. Hood, disappointed though he was, was not baffled. He had a second plan of action in his mind. He next began to manœuvre as if he did not wish to come to close quarters with de Grasse—as, indeed, might well be the case, looking at the odds. He made a series of feints, as though he desired to shirk a battle and slip away, on which the French Admiral, becoming more and more confident, stood boldly out to sea after him. That was Hood’s game. He drew de Grasse clear of St. Kitts and to leeward of the island, manœuvring meanwhile so as to keep the weather-gage for himself. Then, suddenly hauling his wind, Hood dashed in, making for the anchorage the French had quitted in Basseterre Roads. He swept in so close along the shores of Nevis—to prevent the enemy getting within him—that one of his frigates, the _Solebay_, “was wrecked from not having room to pass between the line-of-battle ship she was abreast of and the western point of Nevis.”