Rochambeau, Jean Baptiste Donatien de Vimeur, Comte de, Commander of the French Army in America

News of the Count de Grasse's action in the West Indies only months after his glorious action on the coast of Virginia causing the fall of Yorktown and the settling of the war in America's favor. "I have the honor to send you ... the particulars of the naval engagement between Count de Grasse and Mr. [British Admiral] Rodney, extract from a Gazette of Grenada which I have in my possession, and this gazette had taken it from the Martinico Gazette. This intelligence arrived to me by a vessell arrived at Portsmouth, and confirmates those received from Martinico at Philadelphy by a Privateer (see also Rochambeau's letter of 13 May 1782 to Washington.)

"We have nothing more here at present, I have ordered three volleys of artillery to be fired on this occasion, as this battle has occasioned the joining of the spanish fleet by Count de Grasse at St. Domingo, and consequently, the advantage being entirely on our side, having filled our proposed object." Little did Rochambeau know that De Grasse had met with stunning defeat. Sir George Rodney, who with reinforcements, baffled the French and Spanish plan by a series of operations that culminated in the Battle of the Saint Passage 12 April 1782 in which De Grasse was defeated and captured aboard his battered flagship the Ville de Paris.