8. A few months before her triumph at Gibraltar, Britain won a signal victory over the French in the West Indies. A French fleet, under Admiral De Grasse, consisting of thirty-six war-ships, with five thousand troops on board, was ordered to join a Spanish fleet of fourteen men-of-war, carrying eight thousand troops, off Hayti, and then clear the British out of Jamaica and all their West India possessions. Had the junction taken place, the combined armada of fifty ships might have accomplished the task. But the scheme came to nought in consequence of a splendid victory over the French fleet by Admiral Rodney. 9. The battle was fought in April, 1782, near a group of islets called the _Saints_, which gives its name to the battle. For four days the two fleets manoeuvred, circling round each other like two birds of prey on the wing, each admiral trying to place his antagonist at a disadvantage. At last Rodney's chance had come. The signal was given for attack. The British fleet glided on, each ship a cable's length, or about two hundred yards, from her neighbour; and so perfect was the line, we are told, "that a bucket dropped from the leading ship might have been picked up by almost any ship that followed." Rodney drew his ships within musket-shot of the enemy's, and then began a cannonade that soon wrapped the two lines in smoke and flame through their whole length. All the time the ships are in movement, the two lines sailing in opposite directions, and pouring in their shot as ship passes ship. 10. At length the crisis has come. One of the French ships is disabled and leaves a gap between itself and the next. Rodney immediately pushes his ship through the gap, thus breaking the French line. In breaking the line, says an eye-witness, "we passed so near the lame French ship that I could see the gunners throwing away their sponges and hand-spikes in order to save themselves by running below." The captains coming next to the admiral follow him through the fatal gap, thus crumpling up the French centre, and placing the French flag-ship and six others between two fires. 11. De Grasse fought his flag-ship like a gallant sailor. She was the finest ship afloat carrying 106 guns and a crew of 1300 men. In vain he signalled for help. The ships that had formed his van and his rear were flying in opposite directions. The British ships, one after another, drew round the doomed ship. When his cartridges were exhausted, De Grasse ordered powder barrels to be hoisted from the hold, and loose powder to be poured into the guns with a ladle. By sunset there were but three unwounded men on the upper deck. More slain or wounded men lay around her guns than in Rodney's whole fleet. At six o'clock, the unfortunate admiral, with his own hands, hauled down his flag.