Two features of special interest in connection with this battle are that, though up to it, British ships had recently, owing to coppering, proved better sailers than the French; in the sequel to this fight, the French proved equal to sail away. The rapid deterioration of coppering, already mentioned, may account for some of this, but in this battle there is also reason to believe that the French fleet instituted firing at the rigging. Contemporary statements exist as to the French having made a wonderful number of holes in English hulls without much material result, but these may be dismissed as pardonable temporary bluster. More germane is the fact that the English ships were supplied with carronades[38]--harmless at long range and deadly at short--for which reason the French tried to keep them at a distance, so that altogether superior efficiency with men and weapons would seem to have played a greater part than any tactical genius on the part of Rodney, in whom a dogged insistence to get at the enemy was ever the main characteristic rather than “thinking things out.” The Mahan estimate of him sorts better with known facts than the estimate of his accomplishment at the time. As regards Rodney himself, it is interesting to record that Navy and Party were so synonymous at the time that he, being a strong Tory, had already been superseded by political influence when he won the battle that broke French power in the West Indies. It lies to the credit of the Whigs that both he and Hood, his second in command, received peerages; but the most difficult thing of all to understand to-day is, that in a life and death struggle such as this war was, the personal political element should have managed to find expression. In 1782, Gibraltar, which had been twice relieved, was once more in grievous straits. The French had evolved floating batteries for the attack, similar in principle to those which, some seventy years later, were to figure so prominently in the Crimea. Being merely armoured with heavy wood planks, however, they were easily set on fire with red-hot shot, and the great bombardment failed long before the relieving force, under Howe, arrived. The garrison, however, were in great straits for supplies, and their real relief was Howe’s fleet, which the combined Franco-Spanish squadrons did not dare to attack. The Treaty of Versailles, in 1783, followed soon afterwards. By it the United States of America were recognised, Minorca was given up, but most of the captured West Indian islands restored to Great Britain. Just before the close of the war, the relative naval strengths were assessed as follows:--[39]