Rodney's thirty-six sail of the line in Gros Islet Bay were thus made up: five three-deckers (four of 98 guns, _Formidable_, _Barfleur_, _Prince George_, and _Duke_, and one of 90, the _Namur_), and thirty-one two-deckers (twenty of them 74's, one a 70-gun ship, and ten 64's). They were as a rule older and slower vessels than the French ships: nearly a third of them, in fact, had seen service in the Seven Years' War. In guns the British fleet mounted 2620 pieces all told, against 2526 on the French side, but the enemy's metal was considerably the heavier. Most of De Grasse's ships carried 36-pounders (French weight, equivalent to 42-pounders by British reckoning), as against the 32-pounders that were Rodney's heaviest guns. According to the British Flag Captain, Sir Charles Douglas, the difference between the fleets in weight of metal worked out at 4396 lbs. (nearly two tons) in favour of the enemy. It made the French stronger, Douglas held, by 'the weight of metal of four 84's.' That was the difference on paper. In point of fact, certain details of equipment reversed the disparity. Most of Rodney's ships had their guns fitted with locks and priming-tubes, in place of the old port-fires and powder-horns which the French still used. Also, they had been supplied with certain devices for quickening the service of the guns, increasing their rate of fire, and giving them a wider arc of training on the broadside. All that gave Rodney a very real advantage in hard-hitting power, without counting the carronades[22] or 'smashers' that most of the British ships mounted as extra to their regulation armaments. In all respects Rodney's fleet was in the very highest order, and its discipline and general smartness left little to be desired. Thanks to the energy and skill of Dr. Blane, Rodney's Physician of the Fleet, no previous British fleet in time of war perhaps had ever been so free from sickness. In some ships there was not a man unfit to go to quarters. The _Ajax_, to name one ship, had no sick list. In the _Formidable_, out of 900 men on board, only two were unfit for duty. Before leaving Plymouth, Dr. Blane had had Teneriffe wine supplied to the flagship instead of rum, together with molasses and pickled cabbages, and the dietary had had a marvellous effect on the health of the men. For the first four months of the commission there was not a single death from sickness.[23]