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opposing fleets contended were to be immortalised twenty-five years later when Nelson was to conquer and die off Cape Trafalgar, but the night action of the 16th/17th January 1780 was to be known by no geographical name.
    In an age when admirals were absolutely bound, upon pain of death, to the tactical concept of the unbroken line ranged against that of the enemy, Rodney’s unleasing of his ships was an innovation of the utmost importance, and the manner of its doing in that wild Moonlight Battle was an act of daring unsurpassed by sailing warships in such large numbers.
    Tregembo had been right. An hour after Bedford’s sighting of eleven Spanish battleships and two frigates the sky had clouded over. The wind backed westerly and began to freshen.
    At Bedford’s signal Rodney had thrown out the ‘General Chase’ to his warships. Each captain now sought to out-do the rest and the vessels fitted with the new copper bottoms forged ahead. The two-deckers Defence, Resolution and Edgar began taking the lead. Officers anxiously checked their gear as captains, reckless as schoolboys, held on to sail. Still the wind rose. Telescopes trained with equal anxiety on the Spaniards who, faced with such overwhelming odds, turned away to leeward and the shelter of Cadiz.
    Seeing the retrograde movement Rodney signalled his ships to engage from leeward, thereby conveying to his captains the tactical concept of overhauling the enemy and interposing themselves between the Spanish and safety.
    It had become a race.
    As the British ships tore forward dead before the wind, puffs of smoke appeared from their fo’c’s’les as gunners tried ranging shots. At first the plumes of water, difficult to see among breaking wave crests, were a long way astern of the Spaniards. But slowly, as the minutes ran into an hour, they got nearer.
    Aboard Cyclops Devaux stood poised on the fo’c’s’le glass to eye as the frigate’s long nine-pounders barked at the enemy as she lifted her bow. Almost directly above Drinkwater watched eagerly. His inexperienced eyes missed the fall of shot but the excitement of the scene riveted his attention. Cyclops trembled with the thrill of the chase and giving expression to the corporate feeling of the ship, O’Malley, the mad Irish cook, sat cross-legged on the capstan top scraping his fiddle. The insane jig was mixed with the hiss and splash of the sea around them and the moan of the gale as it strummed the hempen rigging.
    Captain Hope had taken Cyclops across the slower Bedford’s bows and was heading for the northernmost Spaniard, a frigate of almost equal size. To the south of their quarry the high stern of the Spanish line of battleships stretched in a ragged line, the second frigate hidden behind them to the east.
    A sudden column of white rose close to the Cyclops’s plunging bowsprit. Drinkwater looked up. Held under the galleries of a Spanish two-decker by the following wind a puff of white smoke lingered.
    Tregembo swore. ‘That’s good shooting for Dagoes,’ he said. It was only then that Drinkwater realised he was under fire.
    As Cyclops crossed the stern of the two-decker in chase of the frigate the battleships had tried a ranging shot. Suddenly there was a rush of air and the sound of two corks being drawn from bottles. Looking up Drinkwater saw a hole in the fore-topsail and another in the main. It was uncomfortably close. As their sterns rose to the following seas the Spaniards were firing at the oncoming British silhouetted against the setting sun.
    Drinkwater shivered. The brief winter warmth was gone and the fresh breeze had become a gale. He looked again at the Spanish fleet. They were appreciably nearer. Then he saw two plumes of white rise under the Spaniard’s quarter. Their own guns were silent. He looked interrogatively at Tregembo.
    ‘What theЕ?’ Then the seaman pointed.
    To starboard, hidden from the huddling midshipman by the mast, Resolution, a newly coppered seventy-four, was