Negotiations for peace were in progress, but the war still went on, and its last great events were glorious. The navy was far stronger than in 1778; the dockyards were busy during the war, and the number of ships was much larger. Improvements of various kinds were adopted; ships were coppered, the rapidity and accuracy of their fire was increased by new inventions, and carronades--light guns with a large bore mounted on the upper deck, for use at close quarters--not yet adopted by the French, were added to their armament. The discipline and ardour of the _personnel_ of the navy reached a high pitch. The British sailor was keen to fight the Frenchman, and 93,168 seamen and marines are entered as borne during the present year. We left the French and Spanish fleets in the West Indies preparing to conquer Jamaica (p. 227). Grasse was at Fort Royal, and was to join the Spaniards on the coast of San Domingo, and Rodney, whose fleet was raised by his junction with Hood and the arrival of reinforcements to thirty-seven ships of the line, lay on the watch at St. Lucia. On April 8 the French stood out to sea, and the next day Rodney found them off Dominica. An indecisive action took place in which, owing to baffling calms, only the British van was engaged. Grasse then beat to windward between Dominica and the Iles des Saintes, but in consequence of various accidents made little way. The British followed him, and early on the 12th Sir Charles Douglas, the captain of the fleet, awakened Rodney with the stirring tidings that "God had given him the enemy on the lee-bow".