Admiral Rodney at the Battle of the Saintes

In April 1782, in the Caribbean, George Rodney did something the Royal Navy had rarely dared. He drove his ships straight through the French line instead of fighting it broadside to broadside. The victory at the Saintes saved Jamaica and gave Britain a rare bright moment near the end of the American war it was otherwise losing. London wanted pictures of the man, and both Gainsborough and Reynolds obliged. Gainsborough sets the admiral on a deck wreathed in gunsmoke, calm amid the noise. The ship under him is not his own. It is the Ville de Paris, the great French flagship he had just captured, its fleur-de-lis ensign still hanging behind his shoulder.