Part I - Between the Wars, 1763–1778

Summary

Vice Admiral George Brydges Rodney, upon his return to England from the Leeward Islands at the end of the Seven Years’ War in 1763, was a person of substance and position within English society, being a success- ful flag officer in the Royal Navy, the owner of a landed estate and a Member of Parliament. Nevertheless, when he hauled down his flag and came ashore, despite his many professional achievements as an officer in the Royal Navy during both the War of Austrian Succession and the Seven Years’ War, Rodney was in many respects singularly ill-equipped to cope with the pressures generated by the demands of peacetime. In the years between the Seven Years’ and American wars Rodney would, in a stag- gering display of ill judgement, come close to destroying his career as a navy officer, alienate his friends and patrons, and be forced to flee Eng- land in order to escape his creditors after dissipating his fortune through high living, electioneering and gambling. Over-bearing, avaricious and disfunctional, Rodney would pass the years 1763–1778 crashing through life while alternatively squandering money and attempting to grasp it.

In 1764 Rodney married Henrietta Clies. While there is no surviving record telling exactly when this event took place, there is no doubt as to the identity of the bride. Indeed, the marriage probably surprised some of Rodney's friends and acquaintances. He most probably first came into contact with the Clies family when he was a captain at Lisbon. Members of Henrietta Clies's family were retainers and employees of the Compton family when Rodney was courting his first wife Jane Compton. The rela- tionship with the Clies family was transferred to London when Rodney and his first wife established a household in England and the Clies became part of it. Then, when Jane Rodney died, Henrietta's mother assumed the role of looking after Rodney's children. Rodney's marriage to Henrietta Clies can easily be understood in human terms, especially those of loneli- ness, for in 1764, when the marriage took place, Jane Rodney had already been dead for seven years. Nevertheless, Henrietta Clies was twenty years younger than Rodney and there can be no doubt that the Clies family had been dependents.