Nowadays tourists visit the West Indies by air, and sooner or later most of them avail themselves of one or other of the local services that, originating in Puerto Rico, hop from island to island southeastward along the chain of the Lesser Antilles to Trinidad and Georgetown, on the coast of British Guiana. During the brief passage from Pointe-à-Pitre in Guadeloupe to Roseau in Dominica—a scant hundred miles—the tourist might well spare a glance through his window down at the blue Caribbean. Should he do so he will find himself flying over a basin of water some fifty miles by twenty, delimited by Guadeloupe and Dominica to the north and south, by Marie Galante to the east, and the group of the Saintes to the west. The scene is very beautiful, dominated by the towering heights of the Grande Soufrière and Morne Diablotin; and it was there that 69 ships of the line fought the battle which ended in a staggering defeat for America’s Revolutionary War ally, France, and yet, oddly enough, contributed powerfully to the final recognition of American independence.

It was April, 1782, six months alter the surrender at Yorktown, and now the Comte de Cirasse, the French admiral whose fleet had played a decisive’ part in that event, was back in the West Indies (lushed with victor), determined upon delivering the final blow that would compel England to make peace. He was a man of sixty, courtly and gallant, and of vast naval experience, having served at sea since his early teens and taken honorable part in a do/en naval actions. Now lie had 35 ships of the line under his command; on board, besides very large dews, he had the nearly 6,000 troops that had been conquering the British islands one by one.

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