Rodney, who had the reputation of being an able officer, but nothing more, got home in 1779. In 1780, having secured a command for the West Indies, he left Portsmouth with twenty sail of the line and a convoy for the relief of Gibraltar. Off Finisterre, he captured a Spanish convoy carrying provisions to the besiegers. Off Cape St. Vincent he fell in with eleven Spanish ships and attacked them at night, in a gale, blowing up one, and capturing six. Thence he proceeded to Gibraltar, relieved it from all immediate danger, Minorca also; and then sailed for the West Indies. Here, on April 17th, some three weeks after arrival, he met the French under Guichen, and made the first attempt at that “breaking the line” associated with his name. The attempt was not a success, as his orders were misunderstood by several of his own captains and his intentions realised and foiled by his opponents.[37] This action was indecisive; as also were two more that followed. In this year (1780), Captain Horatio Nelson, then only twenty-two years old, made his first appearance in the _Hinchinbrook_ (28), in an attack on San Juan, Nicaragua. He succeeded, after terrible loss of _personnel_ from disease. A Spanish squadron then joined the French, but an epidemic--that most fruitful of all sources for the upsetting of naval plans--overtook it. The Spaniards were incapacitated and the French returned home. Rodney went to New York, where his operations delayed the cause of the Colonists; then returning to the West Indies, operated against the Dutch, who had by now joined the French and Spaniards. The general position of Great Britain, in 1781 and 1782, was well nigh desperate. Gibraltar was only held by a remarkable combination of luck and resolution. To quote Mahan, “England stood everywhere on the defensive.” She fought with her back to the wall. In the East Indies, Suffren kept the French flag flying: and things were generally at a very low ebb, when in 1782 Rodney “broke the line” in the victory of the Battle of the Saints. On April 9th, the fleets had come into contact without much result on either side. On the 12th, De Grasse, being then in some disorder, with thirty-four ships, encountered the English with thirty-six in good order. Rodney and Hood broke the line in two places. Admiral Mahan has been at pains to show us that this result was much a matter of luck and change of wind, and that the victory was by no means followed up as it might have been. One French ship was sunk and five were taken, including De Grasse himself, whose losses in his flagship, the _Ville de Paris_, were greater than those in the entire English fleet. To the nation at this juncture, however, anything savouring of victory was a thing to be made the utmost of, and Rodney has probably received more than his meed of merit over what was mainly a matter of luck.