Rodney was detained at Port Royal until the 10th of July. Then with all the fleet repaired and fit for service, just as he was on the point of sailing to blockade the enemy off Cape Haitien, a ship from England, the _Jupiter_, arrived bringing a curt order from the Admiralty to 'strike his flag and come home.' It was the first word of any kind he had had from England since the battle; indeed, since the beginning of April, when he was in Gros Islet Bay before the battle. To add to the sting of the blow Rodney's successor was on board the ship that brought the order:--Admiral Pigot, an absolute nonentity, a man who had never served at sea since he was a captain, and then without distinction. That was the sort of man sent out to supersede the first naval commander of the age on the morrow of his greatest triumph. It was all a matter of party politics, a shameless political job. Rodney was a Tory in politics and had been appointed by a Tory First Lord. The Whigs had come into power since he last heard from England, and the new Ministry on coming into office had promptly cancelled his appointment and sent out one of their own partisans, hitherto only known as a naval M.P., to replace, in the presence of the enemy, the ablest sea officer that Great Britain possessed. The Ministry having discarded Rodney, what took place when the startling news of Rodney's victory, with the capture of De Grasse and the finest man-of-war in the world, reached England, was indeed the irony of fate. It made up a striking and intensely dramatic situation. When Rodney was ordered home the news of the battle had not arrived. It came on the 18th of May, when Captain Byron of the _Andromache_, and Lord Cranstoun, who had accompanied him, arrived with Rodney's despatches at the Admiralty at two in the morning. Admiral Pigot had only left London for Plymouth two or three days before. The Admiralty and the Ministry were aghast, amazed, absolutely nonplussed. They had recalled the victor in the hour of the greatest victory that the Royal Navy had ever won perhaps since the defeat of the Spanish Armada. It was an extremely awkward position. Admiral Pigot must be stopped at all cost, and Rodney's order of recall torn up. That was the only thing to be done. A King's messenger with relays of horses was sent galloping down to Plymouth as fast as man could ride. He carried with him a letter of compliment and congratulation to Rodney, written at seven on the morning of the 18th, which was to go instead of the other. The messenger got to Plymouth just too late. He arrived there at two in the afternoon of the 19th, to find that Pigot had sailed on the evening before. A swift cutter was sent after the _Jupiter_, but failed to catch her up. So the Whig Ministry were left face to face with the unenviable situation that their own narrow partisanship had created.