Charles Edward Stuart following his flight from…

The Battle of the Saintes will cause controversy ever after, for three reasons:

   • Rodney’s failure to follow up the victory by a pursuit will be much criticized. Samuel Hood will maintain that the twenty French ships would have been captured had the commander-in-chief maintained the chase.
 
   • The battle will be famous for the innovative tactic of "breaking the line", in which the British ships passed though a gap in the French line, engaging the enemy from leeward and throwing them into disorder. There is however considerable controversy about whether the tactic was intentional and, if so, who was responsible for the idea: Rodney, his Scottish Captain-of-the-Fleet and aide-de-camp Sir Charles Douglas or John Clerk of Eldin. Arguably the battle was not the first time a line had been broken.

   • On the French side, de Grasse blames his subordinates, Vaudreuil and Bougainville, for his defeat.

Nevertheless, France and Spain's plan to invade Jamaica is ruined, and it will remain a British colony with no further threat, as indeed will Barbados, St Lucia and Antigua.

Rodney will be feted a hero on his return; he will present the Comte De Grasse as his prisoner personally to the King.

He will be created a peer with £2,000 a year settled on the title in perpetuity for this victory.

Hood will be elevated to the peerage as well, while Drake and Affleck will be made baronets.

Following the Franco-American victory at Yorktown the previous year, and the change of Government in England, peace negotiations between Britain, the American colonies, France and Spain had begun in early 1782.

The Battle of the Saintes transfers the strategic initiative to the British, with the most likely further military action being an attack on the French sugar islands, and the French, in particular, are consequently inclined to ameliorate their terms.

Britain's dominance at sea is reasserted, and it also becomes clear to the Americans that they can look forward to less French support in the future.

The Siege of Gibraltar exacerbates this, when later in the year the defeat of the huge Franco-Spanish assault and the subsequent relief by Richard Howe leads to the lifting of the siege in February 1783.

Initial articles of peace will be signed in July, with a full treaty following in September 1783.

As a result of the battle, naval warfare will change along the tactical lines employed and will be used again by the British, including in the all-important Battle of Trafalgar, in which Admiral Horatio Nelson will defeat Napoleon’s fleet using similar tactics.

Admiral Comte de Grasse, commander of the French fleet in the West Indies, and Francisco Saavedra de Sangronis, General Bureau for the Spanish Indies, court representative and aide to the Spanish Governor of Louisiana, Bernardo de Gálvez had worked out a plan in October 1781.

The strategic objectives of the Franco-Spanish military forces in the West Indies in this plan were:

    to aid the Americans and defeat the British naval squadron at New York
    to capture the British Windward Islands and
    to conquer Jamaica.

This plan has become known as the "De Grasse – Saavedra Convention", and the first objective had essentially been met with the surrender of the British army under General Cornwallis at the Siege of Yorktown in September 1781.

De Grasse and his fleet played a decisive part in that victory, after which they had sailed to the Caribbean.

On arrival in Saint Domingue in November 1781, he had been notified that the plan to conquer Jamaica would be implemented.

De Grasse captures St. Kitts in February 1782 while waiting for reinforcements to undertake the Jamaica campaign.

De Grasse sets out from Martinique on April 7, 1782, with thirty-five ships of the line, including two fifty-gun ships and a large convoy of more than one hundred cargo ships, to meet with a Spanish fleet of twelve ships of the line.

In addition, de Grasse is to rendezvous with fifteen thousand troops at Saint Domingue earmarked for the conquest by landing on Jamaica's north coast.

Rodney, on learning of this, sails from St Lucia in pursuit with thirty-six ships of the line the following day.

The British hulls by this time have been given copper sheathing to protect them from marine growth and fouling as well as salt water corrosion.

This dramatically improves speed and sailing performance as a whole in good wind.

The copper-hulled British fleet soon catches up with the French, who are surprised by their speed,
on April 9, 1782.

De Grasse orders the French convoy to head into Guadeloupe for repair, forcing him to escort two fifty-gun ships (Fier and Experiment) and placing his fleet in line of battle in order to cover the retreat.

The British fleet's vanguard under Rear-Admiral Samuel Hood moves against de Grasse's retreating ships and wages a fight.

After an inconclusive encounter in which both sides suffer damage, de Grasse soon realizes that the main British fleet will soon be upon them.

He breaks off the engagement to return to protect the merchant convoy.

The British take possession of Glorieux as they press south, and catch up with the French rear at around 3 pm.

In succession, Rodney's ships isolate the other three ships. César, which is soon totally dismasted and in flames, is captured by HMS Centaur.

Hector, a complete dismasted wreck, strikes after having battled HMS Canada and HMS Alcide.

Ardent soon follows, being taken by the rest of the British center.

At 4 pm, de Grasse with Ville de Paris, alone and being battered by Barfleur, with little support and suffering huge losses in men, makes another attempt to signal the fleet and gives the order "to build the line on the starboard tack", but again this is not done.

By this time, most of the French fleet, apart from those ships which are surrounded, has retreated;
Louis Antoine de Bougainville, who commands Auguste, succeeds in rallying eight ships of his own division.

Finally, the isolated Ville de Paris, being overwhelmed and suffering horrific losses, eventually strikes her colors.

Hood takes the surrender; the boarding crew, which includes the British fleet surgeon Gilbert Blane, are horrified at the carnage; remarkably, de Grasse appears not to have a scratch on him, while every one of his officers have either been killed or wounded.

Rodney boards soon after, and Hood presents de Grasse to him.

With his surrender, the battle has effectively ended, except for a few long range desultory shots and the retreat of many of the French ships in disorder.

With a fire out of control, the magazine aboard the César explodes, killing over four hundred French and fifty British sailors, despite many of them jumping overboard.

The two fleets had faced each other parallel in the following days but both sides had kept their distance as they repaired their ships.

The French are sighted a short distance away on April 12, as the two fleets maneuver  between the northern end of Dominica and the Saintes.

A French straggler, Zélé (seventy-four guns), is spotted and was chased by four British ships as De Grasse makes for Guadeloupe.

At the same time Rodney recalls his chasing ships and makes the signal for line of battle.

Rear-Admiral Hood's van division are still making repairs from the action three days earlier, so he directs his rear division, under Rear Admiral Francis S. Drake, to take the lead.

At 7:40, HMS Marlborough, under Captain Taylor Penny, leads the British line and opens the battle when he approaches the center of the French line.

Having remained parallel with the French, the ships of Drake's division now pass the remaining length of de Grasse's line and the two sides exchange broadsides, a typical naval engagement of this time.

As the battle progresses, the strong winds of the previous day and night begin to temper and become more variable.

As the French line passes down the British line, the sudden shift of wind lets Rodney's flagship HMS Formidable and several other ships, including HMS Duke and HMS Bedford, sail towards the French line.

At 8 am, Formidable opens fire and engages the French center and as she slows, duels with de Grasse's flagship, Ville de Paris of one hundred and four guns.

The rest of the ships soon follow, raking the French as they do so, causing huge casualties among the soldiers and sailors.

Within an hour, the wind has shifted to the south and thus forced the French line to separate and bear to the west, as it cannot hold its course into the wind.

This allows the British to use their guns on both sides of their ships without any fear of return fire from the front and rear of the French ships they are passing between.

The effect is greater with the use of carronades, with which the British had just equipped nearly half their fleet; this relatively new short-range weapon is quicker to reload and more can be carried.

Glorieux is the first victim; virtually a sitting duck, she is quickly pounded and dismasted by intense fire.

Four French ships in the confusion begin milling around; Formidable turns to starboard and brings her port guns to bear on them.

As a result, Formidable sails through the French line, blasting her way through; this piercing is followed by five other British ships.

At the same time, Commodore Edmund Affleck, to the south, also immediately capitalizes on the opportunity and leads the rearmost of the British ships through the French line, inflicting significant damage.

The French try to restore order; around 1:30 pm, de Grasse signals line on the port tack, but this is not fulfilled; he is soon battling Hood's ninety-gun HMS Barfleur.

With their formation shattered and many of their ships severely damaged, the French fall away to the southwest in small groups.

Rodney attempts to redeploy and make repairs before pursuing the French.

By 2 pm, the wind has freshened and a general chase ensues.

The Comte de Vaudreuil in Sceptre, learning of de Grasse's fate, assumes command of the scattered French naval fleet.

On April 13, he has ten ships with him and sails towards Cap-Français.

The British have lost two hundred and forty-three killed and eioght hundred and sixtee wounded, and two captains out of thirty-six have been killed.

The French loss in killed and wounded has never been stated, but six captains out of thirty have been killed.

It is estimated that the French may have lost as much as three thousand, and more than five thousand French soldiers and sailors have been captured.

The large number shows what a considerable force the French were willing to put ashore with the invasion of Jamaica.

Of the Ville de Paris' crew, over four hundred have ben killed and more than seven hundred have been wounded—more than the casualties of the entire British fleet.

The French fleet reaches Cap Francois in several waves soon after the defeat; the main contingent, under Vaudreuil, had arrived on April 25; Marseillois, along with Hercule, Pluton and Éveillé, arrive on May 11.

In May, all French ships from the battle arrive from Martinique, now numbering twenty-six ships, and are soon joined by twelve Spanish ships.

Disease now ravages the French forces on Saint Domingue, in particular the soldiers, of whom thousands die.

The allies now hesitate, and indecision soon leads to the abandonment of the attack on Jamaica.