By the end of 1779 the garrison of Gibraltar was reduced to great straits. The West India command had lately been given to Rodney, already a distinguished officer and destined to take a high place among England's sea-captains. Before he proceeded to his station he sailed with a large convoy for Gibraltar and Minorca. On his way he captured a Spanish convoy, sent the sixty-four-gun ship which protected it to England with the merchandise, and carried the provisions destined for the besiegers off Gibraltar to the besieged garrison. Off Cape St. Vincent he came on a Spanish squadron of inferior strength under the command of Don Juan de Langara, cut the Spaniards off from Cadiz, took six of their ships, and destroyed another. He carried out the relief of Gibraltar and on February 13 sailed for the West Indies, where Count de Guichen was commanding in place of D'Estaing. Down to this time the naval battles of the century had generally been inconclusive, except when one fleet was much stronger than the other. Admirals kept strictly to the formation known as the line of battle in which one ship followed another in regular order. If both the admirals of opposing fleets were willing to bring matters to a decided issue, the fleet to windward would attack, and the ships go at one another at close quarters all along the line. English admirals, with sufficient force, always hoped to bring this about. They were seldom successful, for the French admirals were unwilling to fight at close quarters, not because they were afraid to meet the British, but partly because they generally had some other object in view than the destruction of the enemy's fleet, some conquest to make or some place to protect, and partly because the French having fewer ships were indisposed to make free use of them in battle. Accordingly a French admiral preferred the leeward position. This enabled him to avoid a decisive action, for when a British fleet bore down on him, he could cripple our leading ships in their rigging, and then break off the action by running before the wind.