All this was too late to avert the loss of the American colonies, however; meanwhile the French were threatening the lucrative sugar trade in the Caribbean, reckoned at the time as being of more importance to British interests than the 13 colonies. The sugar trade was paying for the costs of the American Revolutionary War and the Anglo-French War (1778–1783). The Royal Navy's newly coppered ships, as yet untested, were used successfully by Rodney in defeating the French at the Battle of the Saintes off Dominica in 1782.