The English fleet was numerically the stronger, but the French had finer ships and heavier batteries. The action began about 7.30 A.M. At first it seemed likely to be as indecisive as usual, the two fleets passing each other on opposite tacks and cannonading, the French being to windward. As they sailed slowly with a light breeze, and at a short distance from each other, the British guns and especially the carronades were highly effective, for the enemy's ships were crowded with soldiers for the attack on Jamaica. Before long the battle took a form which rendered it memorable in the annals of naval warfare, for Rodney, without previous design, practised the manoeuvre known as breaking the enemy's line, and by that means was enabled to bring the engagement to a decisive issue, such as he hoped for in the battle of April 17, 1780. This manoeuvre, afterwards deliberately adopted with triumphant success by Howe, Nelson, and other great captains, though often practised in the naval battles between the English and the Dutch in the seventeenth century,[166] had fallen into complete oblivion, so firmly did admirals believe in the necessity of keeping their line of battle. By cutting through the enemy's line an admiral could concentrate his attack on any portion of it which could least easily receive help from the rest, and could throw the line into confusion; the ships to the rear of the point of penetration would be stopped, massed up, and might be caught together, while those ahead pursued their course. This mode of attack was worked out by a landsman, Clerk of Eldin, and though his _Essay_ was not fully printed until 1782, parts of it were privately circulated in 1780.