that your chief is not out of our thoughts at this critical moment.
Should Providence once more favour him, he will be considered our
guardian angel; but, on the other hand, should he unfortunately take a
wrong scent, and the Toulon fleet attain their object, the hero of the
14th of February and of Aboukir will be--I will not say what, but the
ingratitude of the world is but too well known on these occasions."

A week before, on the 13th of May, the same officer had written:
"Where are you all this time?[94] for that is a point justly agitating
the whole country more than I can describe. I fear that your gallant
and worthy chief will have much injustice done him on this occasion,
for the cry is stirring up fast against him, and the loss of Jamaica
would at once sink all his past services into oblivion. All I know for
certain is that we ought never to judge rashly on these occasions, and
never merely by the result. Lord Barham[95] told me this morning that
the Board had no tidings of your squadron. This is truly melancholy,
for certainly no man's zeal and activity ever surpassed those of your
chief.... The world is at once anxious for news and dreading its
arrival." The Admiralty itself, perplexed and harassed by the hazards
of the situation, were dissatisfied because they received no word from
him, being ignorant of the weather conditions which had retarded even
his frigates so far beyond the time of Villeneuve's arrival at Cadiz.
Radstock, whose rank enabled him to see much of the members of the
Board, drew shrewd inferences as to their feelings, though mistaken as
to Nelson's action. "I fear that he has been so much soured by the
appointment of Sir John Orde, that he has had the imprudence to vent
his spleen on the Admiralty by a long, and, to the Board, painful
silence. I am sure that they are out of humour with him, and I have my
doubts whether they would risk much for him, were he to meet with any
serious misfortune."

Through such difficulties in front, and such clamor in the rear,
Nelson pursued his steadfast way, in anguish of spirit, but constant
still in mind. "I am not made to despair," he said to Melville, "what
man can do shall be done. I have marked out for myself a decided line
of conduct, and I shall follow it well up; although I have now before
me a letter from the physician of the fleet, enforcing my return to
England before the hot months." "Brokenhearted as I am, at the escape
of the Toulon fleet," he tells the governor of Gibraltar, "yet it
cannot prevent my thinking of all the points intrusted to my care,
amongst which Gibraltar stands prominent." "My good fortune seems
flown away," he cries out to Ball. "I cannot get a fair wind, or even
a side wind. Dead foul!--dead foul! But my mind is fully made up what
to do when I leave the Straits, supposing there is no certain
information of the enemy's destination. I believe this ill-luck will
go near to kill me; but as these are times for exertions, I must not
be cast down, whatever I feel." A week later, on the 26th of April, he
complains: "From the 9th I have been using every effort to get down
the Mediterranean, but to this day we are very little advanced. From
March 26th, we have had nothing like a Levanter,[96] except for the
French fleet. I have never been one week without one, until this very
important moment. It has half killed me; but fretting is of no use."
On the 1st of May he wrote to the Admiralty, "I have as yet heard
nothing of the enemy;" beyond, of course, the fact of their having
passed the Straits.

On the 4th of May the squadron was off Tetuan, on the African coast, a
little east of Gibraltar, and, as the wind was too foul for progress,
Nelson, ever watchful over supplies, determined to stop for water and
fresh beef, which the place afforded. There he was joined by the
frigate "Decade" from Gibraltar, and for the first time, apparently,
received a rumor that the allied fleets had gone to the West Indies.
He complains, certainly not unreasonably, and apparently not unjustly,
that Sir John Orde, who had seen the French arrive off Cadiz, had not
dogged their track and ascertained their route; a feat certainly not
beyond British seamanship and daring, under the management of a dozen
men that could be named off-hand. "I believe my ill luck is to go on
for a longer time, and I now much fear that Sir John Orde has not sent
his small ships to watch the enemy's fleet, and ordered them to return
to the Straits mouth, to give me information, that I might know how to
direct my proceedings: for I cannot very properly run to the West
Indies, without something beyond mere surmise; and if I defer my
departure, Jamaica may be lost. Indeed, as they have a month's start
of me, I see no prospect of getting out time enough to prevent much
mischief from being done. However, I shall take all matters into my
most serious consideration, and shall do that which seemeth best under
all circumstances." "I am like to have a West India trip," he wrote to
Keats, one of his favorite captains; "but that I don't mind, if I can
but get at them."

The wind hauling somewhat to the southward on the 5th, allowed the
fleet to lay a course for Gibraltar. The operation of getting bullocks
was stopped at once, and the ships weighed. In this brief stay, the
water of the fleet had been completed and another transport cleared.
Next day Gibraltar was reached. The wind, westerly still, though fair
for this stretch, remained foul for beating out of the Straits against
a current which ever sets to the eastward; and many of the officers,
presuming on a continuance of the weather that had so long baffled
them, hurried their washing ashore. Nelson, however, keenly vigilant
and with long experience, saw indications of a change. "Off went a gun
from the Victory, and up went the Blue Peter,[97] whilst the Admiral
paced the deck in a hurry, with anxious steps, and impatient of a
moment's delay. The officers said, 'Here is one of Nelson's mad
pranks.' But he was right."[98] The wind came fair, a condition with
which the great admiral never trifled. Five hours after the anchors
dropped they were again at the bows, and the fleet at last standing
out of the Mediterranean; the transports in tow of the ships of war.
Nelson's resolve was fast forming to go to the West Indies. In fact,
at Tetuan, acting upon this possibility, he had given conditional
orders to Bickerton to remain in command of the Mediterranean
squadron, assigning to that service half a dozen frigates and double
that number of smaller cruisers, and had transferred to him all
station papers necessary for his guidance,--a promptness of decision
which sufficiently shows one of the chief secrets of his greatness.
"If I fail," said he to Dr. Scott, "if they are not gone to the West
Indies, I shall be blamed: to be burnt in effigy or Westminster Abbey
is my alternative." Evidently he was not unmindful of the fickle
breath of popular favor, whose fluctuations Radstock was noting. Dr.
Scott, who witnessed his chief's bearing at this time, always
considered that he never exhibited greater magnanimity than in this
resolution, which Jurien de la Graviere also has called one of his
finest inspirations.

Great, indeed, was his promptitude, alike in decision and in act; but
he was no less great in his delays, in the curb he placed on his
natural impetuosity. "God only knows, my dear friend," he wrote at
this moment to Davison, "what I have suffered by not getting at the
enemy's fleet;" but, in all his impatience, he would not start on that
long voyage until he had exhausted every possibility of further
enlightenment. "Perseverance _and_ patience," he said, "may do much;"
but he did not separate the one from the other, in deed or in word.
Circumspection was in him as marked a trait as ardor. "I was in great
hopes," he wrote the Admiralty, "that some of Sir John Orde's frigates
would have arrived at Gibraltar, from watching the destination of the
enemy, from whom I should have derived information of the route the
enemy had taken, but none had arrived." Up to April 27th nothing had
been heard of them at Lisbon. "I am now pushing off Cape St. Vincent,
and hope that is the station to which Sir John Orde may have directed
his frigates to return from watching the route of the enemy. If
nothing is heard there, I shall probably think the rumours which are
spread are true, that their destination is the West Indies, and in
that case think it my duty to follow them." "I am as much in the dark
as ever," he wrote on the same date, May 7th, to Nepean, one of the
puisne lords. "If I hear nothing, I shall proceed to the West Indies."

The wind continued fair for nearly forty-eight hours, when it again
became westerly; but the fleet was now in the Atlantic. On the 9th of
May the "Amazon" rejoined, bringing a letter from another ship of war,
which enclosed a report gathered from an American brig that had left
Cadiz on the 2d. According to this, while there were in Cadiz diverse
rumors as to the destination of the allied fleets, the one most
generally accepted was that they were bound to the West Indies. That
night the fleet anchored in Lagos Bay, to the eastward of Cape St.
Vincent, and the unending work of discharging transports was again
resumed. Nelson, shortly before leaving Gibraltar, had received
official notification that a convoy carrying five thousand troops was
on its way to the Mediterranean, and would depend upon him for
protection. He felt it necessary to await this in his present
position, and he utilized the time by preparing for a very long chase.

At Lagos, Rear-Admiral Campbell of the Portuguese Navy, who had served
with the British in the Mediterranean six years before, visited the
"Victory," and certain intelligence that Villeneuve was gone to the
West Indies was by him given to Nelson. The latter had now all the
confirmation needed, by such an one as he, to decide upon his line of
action. "My lot is cast, my dear Ball, and I am going to the West
Indies, where, although I am late, yet chance may have given them a
bad passage, and me a good one: I must hope the best." "Disappointment
has worn me to a skeleton," he writes to his late junior in the
Mediterranean, Campbell, "and I am in good truth, very, very far from
well." "If I had not been in pursuit of the enemy's fleet, I should
have been at this moment in England, but my health, or even my life,
must not come into consideration at this important crisis; for,
however I may be called unfortunate, it never shall be said that I
have been neglectful of my duty, or spared myself." "It will not be
supposed I am on a party of pleasure," he wrote to the Secretary of
the Admiralty, "running after eighteen sail of the line with ten, and
that to the West Indies;" but, he summed up his feelings to Davison,
"Salt beef and the French fleet, is far preferable to roast beef and
champagne without them."

On the 10th of May only was his purpose finally and absolutely formed,
for on that day he sent a sloop to Barbadoes, his intended point of
arrival, to announce his coming; requesting that an embargo might be
laid at once on all vessels in port, to prevent the news reaching the
enemy at Martinique or elsewhere. In the morning of the 11th the fleet
weighed, and at 4 P.M. the expedition from England arrived. It was
accompanied by two ships-of-the-line, to which Nelson joined a third,
the "Royal Sovereign," which sailed so badly, from the state of her
bottom, that she would retard a movement already too long delayed. At
seven that evening the fleet was under full sail for the West Indies.

The voyage across was uneventful; the ships, as customary for this
passage, stood to the southward and westward into the trade winds,
under whose steady impulse they advanced at a daily average speed of
one hundred and thirty-five miles, or between five and six miles an
hour. This rate, however, was a mean between considerable extremes,--a
rate of nine miles being at times attained. The slackest winds, which
brought down the average, are found before reaching the trades, and
Nelson utilized this period to transmit to the fleet his general plan
for action, in case he found the allies at sea. The manner in which
this was conveyed to the individual ships is an interesting incident.
The speed of the fleet is necessarily that of its slowest member; the
faster ships, therefore, have continually a reserve, which they may at
any moment bring into play. The orders being prepared, a frigate
captain was called on board the "Victory" and received them. Returning
to his own vessel, he made all sail until on the bow[99] of one of the
ships-of-the-line. Deadening the way of the frigate, a boat was
dropped in the water and had only to pull alongside the other vessel
as it came up. The frigate remained slowed until passed, and the boat,
having delivered its letter, came easily alongside again,--the whole
operation being thus conducted with the least expenditure of time and
exertion.[100]

There was in the fleet one ship that had been steadily in commission
since 1801, and was now in very shaky condition. This was the
"Superb," seventy-four. She had only been kept out by the extreme
exertions of her commander, Keats, one of the most distinguished
captains of the day, and he had entreated that he should not be sent
away now, when the moment of battle seemed near. By a singular irony
of fate, this zealous insistence caused him to miss Trafalgar, at
which the "Royal Sovereign," that parted at Lagos, was present,
repaired and recoppered,--a new ship. Keats, whose energy and
readiness made him a great favorite with Nelson, obtained permission
not to stop when other ships did, but always to carry a press of sail;
and he lashed his studding-sail booms to the yards, as the constant
direction of the trade-winds allows them to be carried steadily.
Notwithstanding all that could be done, the "Superb" seems to have set
the pace, and slower than could have been wished; which drew from
Nelson's customary kindly thoughtfulness a few lines too
characteristic to be omitted.

MY DEAR KEATS,--I am fearful that you may think that the Superb
does not go so fast as I could wish. However that may be, (for
if we all went ten knots, I should not think it fast enough,)
yet I would have you be assured that I know and feel that the
Superb does all which is possible for a ship to accomplish; and
I desire that you will not fret upon the occasion.... Whatever
may happen, believe me ever, my dear Keats, your most obliged
and sincere friend,

NELSON AND BRONTE.

A week seems to have elapsed before he could get a suitable
opportunity for sending this, and he then, on the 27th of May, added:
"Our passage, although not very quick, has been far from a bad one;"
and he thought that they would gain fourteen days upon the allies. The
actual gain was ten, the latter being thirty-four days from Cadiz to
Martinique, the British twenty-four to Barbadoes. The enemy were
therefore three weeks in the West Indies before Nelson arrived; but in
that time they neither accomplished nor undertook anything but the
recapture of Diamond Rock, a precipitous islet off the south end of
Martinique, which the British had held for some time, to the great
annoyance of the main island.

Reaching Barbadoes on the afternoon of June 4th, Nelson found that the
day before information had been received from General Brereton,
commanding the troops at Santa Lucia, that the allied fleets had
passed there, going south, during the night of May 28-29. The
intelligence was so circumstantial that it compelled respect, coming
from the quarter it did. "There is not a doubt in any of the Admirals'
or Generals' minds," wrote Nelson to the Admiralty, in the despatch
announcing his arrival, "but that Tobago and Trinidada are the enemy's
objects." Nelson himself was sceptical,--the improbability seemed
great to his sound military perceptions; but, confident as he was in
his own conclusions in dilemmas, his mind was too sane and well
balanced to refuse direct and credible evidence. Summing up the
situation with lamentations, six weeks later, he said to Davison:
"When I follow my own head, I am, in general, much more correct in my
judgment, than following the opinion of others. I resisted the opinion
of General Brereton's information till it would have been the height
of presumption to have carried my disbelief further. I could not, in
the face of generals and admirals, go N.W., when it was _apparently_
clear that the enemy had gone south." His purpose had been not to
anchor, but to pick up such ships-of-the-line as he found there,--two
seventy-fours,[101] as it turned out,--and to proceed with them to
Martinique, which he naturally assumed to be the enemy's headquarters.
As it was, receiving a pressing request from the commanding general at
Barbadoes to let him accompany the fleet with two thousand troops, he
anchored in Carlisle Bay at 5 P.M. At half-past nine the next morning
he was again under way for Trinidad. Some curious misunderstandings
maintained this mistaken impression as to the enemy's actions, until
communication with Trinidad was had on the evening of June 7th. It was
found then that no hostile force had appeared, although the British
fleet for a moment had been believed to be such.

Nelson at once started north again. A report reached him that a second
squadron, of fourteen French and Spanish ships from Ferrol, had
arrived at Martinique. He said frankly that he thought this very
doubtful, but added proudly: "Powerful as their force may be, they
shall not with impunity make any great attacks. Mine is compact,
theirs must be unwieldy, and although a very pretty fiddle, I don't
believe that either Gravina or Villeneuve know how to play upon it."
On the 9th he for the first time got accurate information. An official
letter from Dominica[102] announced that eighteen ships-of-the-line,
with smaller vessels, had passed there on the 6th of June. But for the
false tidings which on the 4th had led him, first to pause, and then
to take a wrong direction, Nelson argued, and not unjustly, that he
would have overtaken them at this point, a bare hundred miles from
Barbadoes. "But for wrong information, I should have fought the battle
on June 6th where Rodney fought his." The famous victory of the latter
was immediately north of Dominica, by which name it is known in French
naval history. "There would have been no occasion for opinions," wrote
Nelson wrathfully, as he thought of his long anxieties, and the narrow
margin by which he failed, "had not General Brereton sent his damned
intelligence from St. Lucia; nor would I have received it to have
acted by it, but that I was assured that his information was very
correct. It has almost broke my heart, but I must not despair." It was
hard to have borne so much, and then to miss success from such a
cause. "Brereton's wrong information could not be doubted," he told
his intimates, "and by following it, I lost the opportunity of
fighting the enemy." "What a race I have run after these fellows; but
God is just, and I may be repaid for all my moments of anxiety."

When Villeneuve, with his ill-trained and sickly[103] fleet, left
Martinique on the 4th of June, he had, of course, no knowledge of
Nelson's approach. Nearly up to that date it was not known, even in
London, where the latter had gone. A frigate had reached the French
admiral on the 29th of May, with orders from Napoleon to make some
attempts against the British islands during the time he was awaiting
the Brest squadron. For this reason he sailed, and just outside the
harbor was joined by two ships from France, raising his force to
twenty of the line. He steered north, intending to gain to windward,
and thence return upon Barbadoes, his first proposed conquest. On the
8th of June, off Antigua, were captured fourteen British
merchant-ships, which had imprudently put to sea from that island.
From these Villeneuve got a report that Nelson had arrived with
fourteen ships-of-the-line, to which his imagination added five he
believed to be at Barbadoes. He decided at once to return to Europe,
abandoning all his projects against the British possessions.
Transferring hastily a number of troops to frigates, as garrisons for
the French islands, he sailed the next day for the northward to gain
the westerly winds which prevail in the higher latitudes. Of the forty
days he was to remain in the West Indies--reduced to thirty-five by
subsequent instructions--only twenty-six had passed. Whatever else
might result in the future, Nelson was justified in claiming that his
pursuit, effected under such discouragements, had driven the enemy out
of the West Indies, saved the islands, and, as he added, two hundred
sail of sugar ships. Only extreme imprudence, he fairly maintained,
was responsible for the loss of the fourteen from Antigua.

Nelson himself was off Antigua on the 12th of June, exactly one week
after he left Barbadoes. There he received all the information that
has just been mentioned as to the enemy's movements. A rapid decision
was necessary, if he might hope yet to overtake his fortune, and to
baffle finally the objects of the allies, whatever they might be. "I
must be satisfied they have bent their course for Europe before I push
after them, which will be to the Straits' mouth;" but later in the
same day he has learned that they were standing to the northward when
last seen, and had sent back their troops to Guadaloupe, therefore, "I
hope to sail in the morning after them for the Straits' mouth." That
night the troops were landed, and a brig of war, the "Curieux," was
despatched to England with word of his intentions. At the same time,
while believing the allies were bound back to the Mediterranean, he
recognized that it was possible they might be going farther north, to
one of the Biscay ports, and consequently took measures to notify the
commanding officer off Ferrol to be on his guard. The frigate charged
with this communication was kept with the fleet until the 19th, by
which time he had obtained at sea additional and more precise
knowledge of Villeneuve's direction. This important warning was duly
received, and in advance of the enemy's appearance, by the admiral for
whom it was intended.

In taking this second decision, to abandon the West Indies once more
to themselves, as a month before he had abandoned the Mediterranean,
Nelson had to rely only upon his own natural sagacity and practised
judgment. "I hear all, and even feel obliged, for all is meant as
kindness to me, that I should get at them. In this diversity of
opinions I may as well follow my own, which is, that the Spaniards are
gone to the Havannah, and that the French will either stand for Cadiz
or Toulon--I feel most inclined to the latter place; and then they may
fancy that they will get to Egypt without any interruption." "So far
from being infallible, like the Pope, I believe my opinions to be very
fallible, and therefore I may be mistaken that the enemy's fleet has
gone to Europe; but I cannot bring myself to think otherwise,
notwithstanding the variety of opinions which different people of good
judgment form."

Still, as before, his judgments, if rapid, are not precipitate. Though
characterized by even more of insight than of reasoning, no conditions
are left out of sight, nor, as he declared, was a deaf ear turned to
any suggestion. Upon the whole, one is more struck by the accuracy of
the inferences than by the antecedent processes as summarized by
himself; yet the weight of evidence will be found on the side he
espouses. Erroneous in particulars, the general conclusions upon which
he bases his future course are justified, not only by the results now
known to us, but to impartial review of their probability at the
moment. Most impressive of all, however, is the strength of
conviction, which lifts him from the plane of doubt, where unaided
reason alone would leave him, to that of unhesitating action,
incapable of looking backward. In the most complete presentation of
all his views, the one he wished brought before the Prime Minister, if
his conduct on this momentous occasion were called in question, he
ends thus: "My opinion is firm as a rock, that some cause, _orders_,
or _inability_ to perform any service in these seas, has made them
resolve to proceed direct for Europe, sending the Spanish ships to the
Havannah." It is such conviction, in which opinion rather possesses a
man than is possessed by him, that exalts genius above talent, and
imbues faith with a power which reason has not in her gift.

There were among his conclusions certain ones which placed Nelson's
mind, however fretted by disappointment, at ease concerning any future
harm the enemy might be able to do. Another wreath of laurel, which
seemed almost within his grasp, had indeed evaded him, and no man felt
more keenly such a loss; but he was reasonably sure that, if
Villeneuve were gone to Europe, he could not outstrip pursuit by long
enough to do much harm. The harassing fear, which he had borne through
the long beat down the Mediterranean and the retarded voyage to
Martinique, had now disappeared. Going out he had gained ten days upon
the allies; they had only five days' start of him in the return. He
recognized, moreover, the great significance of their inactivity
during the three weeks they had the Windward Islands, if not all the
West Indies, defenceless before them. "If they were not able to make
an attack for three weeks after their arrival, they could not hope for
greater success after our means of resistance increased, and their
means of offence were diminished." If this consideration, on the one
hand, showed the improbability of their proceeding against Jamaica,
after Nelson's coming, when they had not ventured before, it gave also
an inkling of their probable efficiency for immediate action in
Europe. "They will not give me credit for quitting the West Indies for
a month to come;" therefore it was unlikely that they would think it
necessary to proceed at once upon their next enterprise, after
reaching port. "I must not despair of getting up with them before they
enter the Straits," he writes Elliot. "At least, they will have no
time to carry any of their future plans into execution, and do harm to
any of the countries under my charge." If his thirst for glory was
unslaked, his fears of disaster had disappeared.

Villeneuve, guided by instructions recently received from Napoleon, to
meet the case of the Brest squadron not getting away, had gone
actually for Ferrol, where he was to join a squadron of five French
and nine Spanish ships, which would raise his own force to thirty-four
of the line; but Nelson, unable to know this, argued correctly that,
in the uncertainty, he must leave this chance to the Biscay ships, and
that for himself the Mediterranean possessed the first claim. At noon
of June 13th, nine days after reaching Barbadoes, he got away from
Antigua. The necessity for gaining the westerly winds made his course
for some time the same as that of Villeneuve, and left him not without
hopes that he might yet fall in with the allies, especially if, as he
thought, they were destined to the Straits. On the 17th an American
schooner was spoken, which had seen the combined squadron two days
before, steering also to the northward. This report, wrote Nelson to
the Admiralty, "can leave me no room to doubt but that I am hard upon
the heels of the enemy's fleet. I think we cannot be more than eighty
leagues from them at this moment, and by carrying every sail, and
using my utmost efforts, I shall hope to close with them before they
get to either Cadiz or Toulon." The news was sent ahead by two
vessels, which parted from the fleet on the 19th of June,--one for
Gibraltar, with despatches and letters for the admiral and ministers
in the Mediterranean; one for Lisbon, whence this important
intelligence would be forwarded to England and to the commanding
officer off Ferrol. Still believing them bound for the Straits, Nelson
expressed in the fleet the opinion that they would keep well to the
southward of the Azores, so as not to be seen by British cruisers
centred there. In this he was mistaken, as he was in their final
destination; both fleets sighted the islands,--- the French on the
30th of June to the northward of the group, while the British passed
through it on the 8th of July. He admitted, however, that he was
doubtful in the matter. "It is very uncertain whether they will go to
Ferrol or Cadiz;" and nothing can indicate more clearly his
perplexity, and his sense of the urgency of the case, than his parting
on the same day with two of the four small cruisers he had with him,
in order to insure that Ferrol as well as Gibraltar should have prompt
warning.

It was at about this time that Nelson expressed, to one or more of his
captains, his views as to what he had so far effected, what he had
proposed to do if he had met the hostile fleets, and what his future
course would be if they were yet found. "I am thankful that the enemy
have been driven from the West India Islands with so little loss to
our Country. I had made up my mind to great sacrifices; for I had
determined, notwithstanding his vast superiority, to stop his career,
and to put it out of his power to do any further mischief. Yet do not
imagine I am one of those hot brained people, who fight at an immense
disadvantage, _without an adequate object_.[1] My object is partly
gained," that is, the allies had been forced out of the West Indies."
If we meet them, we shall find them not less than eighteen, I rather
think twenty sail of the line, and therefore do not be surprised if I
should not fall on them immediately: _we won't part without a
battle_.[104] I think they will be glad to leave me alone, if I will
let them alone; which I will do, either till we approach the shores
of Europe, or they give me an advantage too tempting to be resisted."

It is rare to find so much sagacious appreciation of conditions,
combined with so much exalted resolution and sound discretion, as in
this compact utterance. Among the external interests of Great Britain,
the West Indies were the greatest. They were critically threatened by
the force he was pursuing; therefore at all costs that force should be
so disabled, that it could do nothing effective against the defences
with which the scattered islands were provided. For this end he was
prepared to risk the destruction of his squadron. The West Indies were
now delivered; but the enemy's force remained, and other British
interests. Three months before, he had said, "I had rather see half my
squadron burnt than risk what the French fleet may do in the
Mediterranean." In the same spirit he now repeats: "Though we are but
eleven to eighteen or twenty, we won't part without a battle." Why
fight such odds? He himself has told us a little later. "By the time
the enemy has beat our fleet soundly, they will do us no harm this
year." Granting this conclusion,--the reasonableness of which was
substantiated at Trafalgar,--it cannot be denied that the sacrifice
would be justified, the enemy's combinations being disconcerted. Yet
there shall be no headlong, reckless attack. "I will leave them alone
till they offer me an opportunity too tempting to be resisted,"--that
speaks for itself,--or, "until we approach the shores of Europe," when
the matter can no longer be deferred, and the twenty ships must be
taken out of Napoleon's hosts, even though eleven be destroyed to
effect this. The preparedness of mind is to be noted, and yet more the
firmness of the conviction, in the strength of which alone such deeds
are done. It is the man of faith who is ever the man of works.

Singularly enough, his plans were quickly to receive the best of
illustrations by the failure of contrary methods. Scarcely a month
later fifteen British ships, under another admiral, met these twenty,
which Nelson with eleven now sought in vain. They did not part without
a battle, but they did part without a decisive battle; they were not
kept in sight afterwards; they joined and were incorporated with
Napoleon's great armada; they had further wide opportunities of
mischief; and there followed for the people of Great Britain a period
of bitter suspense and wide-spread panic. "What a game had Villeneuve
to play!" said Napoleon of those moments. "Does not the thought of the
possibilities remaining to Villeneuve," wrote Lord Radstock of
Calder's fruitless battle, "make your blood boil when you reflect on
the never to be forgotten 22d of July? Notwithstanding the inferiority
of Lord Nelson's numbers," he says at the same time, with keen
appreciation of the man he knew so well, "should he be so lucky as to
fall in with the enemy, I have no doubt that _he would never quit
them_[105] until he should have destroyed or taken some of the French
ships; and that he himself would seek the French admiral's ship, if
possible, I would pledge my life on it." "There is such an universal
bustle and cry about invasion, that no other subject will be listened
to at present by those in power. I found London almost a desert, and
no good news stirring to animate it; on the contrary, the few faces I
saw at the Admiralty at once confirmed the truth of the report of the
combined squadron having safely arrived at Ferrol." This was after
Calder had met and fought them, and let them get out of his sight.

Lord Minto, speaking of the same crisis, says: "There has been the
greatest alarm ever known in the city of London, since the combined
fleet [Villeneuve's] sailed from Ferrol. If they had captured our
homeward-bound convoys, it is said the India Company and half the city
must have been bankrupt." These gleams of the feelings of the times,
reflected by two men in close contact with the popular apprehensions,
show what Nelson was among British admirals to the men of his day, and
why he was so. "Great and important as the victory is," wrote Minto,
three months later, after the news of Trafalgar, "it is bought too
dearly, even for our interest, by the death of Nelson. We shall want
more victories yet, and to whom can we look for them? The navy is
certainly full of the bravest men, but they are mostly below the rank
of admiral; and brave as they almost all are, there was a sort of
heroic cast about Nelson that I never saw in any other man, and which
seems wanting to the achievement of _impossible things_ which became
easy to him, and on which the maintenance of our superiority at sea
seems to depend against the growing navy of the enemy." "The clamour
against poor Sir Robert Calder is gaining ground daily," wrote
Radstock, condemnatory yet pitiful towards the admiral who had failed
duly to utilize the opportunity Nelson then was seeking in vain, "and
there is a general cry against him from all quarters. Thus much one
may venture to say, that had your old chief commanded our squadron,
the enemy would have had but little room for lying or vapouring, as I
have not a shadow of a doubt but that he would either have taken or
destroyed the French admiral."

But there was but one Nelson, and he meantime, faint yet pursuing,
toiled fruitlessly on, bearing still the sickness of hope deferred and
suspense protracted. "Midnight," he notes in his private diary of June
21st. "Nearly calm, saw three planks which I think came from the
French fleet. Very miserable, which is very foolish." "We crawled
thirty-three miles the last twenty-four hours," he enters on the 8th
of July. "My only hope is, that the enemy's fleet are near us, and in
the same situation. All night light breezes, standing to the eastward,
to go to the northward of St. Michael's.[106] At times squally with
rain." Amid these unavoidable delays, he was forecasting and
preparing that no time should be lost when he reached the Straits and
once more came within the range of intelligence. The light winds, when
boats could pass without retarding the ships, were utilized in
preparing letters to the officials at Gibraltar and Tangiers, to have
ready the stores necessary for the fleet upon arrival. These papers
were already on board the two frigates remaining with him, with the
necessary instructions for their captains, so that they might part at
any moment judged fitting, irrespective of weather conditions. Again
he cautions the authorities to keep his approach a profound secret. No
private letters for Gibraltar were permitted in the mail-bags, lest
they should unwittingly betray counsel. The vessels were directed to
rejoin him forty miles west of Cape Spartel, giving him thus time to
decide upon his course before he reached Gibraltar; for it was quite
on the cards that he might find it imperative to hurry north without
anchoring. On the 13th of July, five hundred miles from Cape St.
Vincent, one of these ships left him, probably the last to go.

On the 18th of July, Cape Spartel was sighted. "No French fleet,"
wrote the admiral in his diary, "nor any information about them: how
sorrowful this makes me, but I cannot help myself!" "I am, my dear Mr.
Marsden," he wrote to the Secretary of the Admiralty, "as completely
miserable as my greatest enemy could wish me; but I blame neither
fortune or my own judgment. Oh, General Brereton! General Brereton!"
To his friend Davison he revealed yet more frankly the bitterness of
his spirit, now that the last hope was dashed, and it was even
possible that the mis-step of going to Trinidad had caused him to
incur a further mistake, by leaving the allies in the West Indies.
"But for General Brereton's damned information, Nelson," he said, half
prophetically, "would have been, living or dead, the greatest man in
his profession that England ever saw. Now alas! I am nothing--perhaps
shall incur censure for misfortunes which may happen, and have
happened."

But if he himself were disappointed, and foreboded the discontent of
others, the greatness of what he had done was quickly apparent, and
received due recognition from thoughtful men. "Either the distances
between the different quarters of the globe are diminished," wrote Mr.
Elliot from Naples, "or you have extended the powers of human action.
After an unremitting cruise of two long years in the stormy Gulf of
Lyons, to have proceeded without going into port to Alexandria, from
Alexandria to the West Indies, from the West Indies back again to
Gibraltar; to have kept your ships afloat, your rigging standing, and
your crews in health and spirits--is an effort such as never was
realised in former times, nor, I doubt, will ever again be repeated by
any other admiral. You have protected us for two long years, and you
saved the West Indies by only a few days." Thus truly summarized, such
achievements are seen to possess claims to admiration, not to be
exceeded even by the glory of Trafalgar.

Although no French fleet was visible, as Nelson approached the
Straits, there were a half-dozen British ships-of-the-line, under the
command of his old friend Collingwood, blockading Cadiz. When Orde was
driven off that station by Villeneuve on the 9th of April, and retired
upon Brest, he had already sent in an application to be relieved from
a duty which he himself had sought, and had held for so short a time;
alleging a bundle of grievances which show clearly enough the
impracticable touchiness of the man. His request was at once granted.
Early in May, Collingwood was sent from England with eight
sail-of-the-line for the West Indies; but learning on the way that
Nelson had gone thither, he detached to him two of his swiftest
seventy-fours, and, with great good judgment, himself took position
off Cadiz, where he covered the entrance of the Mediterranean, and
effectually prevented any ships from either Cartagena or Ferrol
concentrating in the neighborhood of the Straits.

Nelson received word from some of his lookouts appointed to meet him
here, that nothing had been heard of the allied squadrons. The anxiety
which had never ceased to attend him was increased by this prolonged
silence. He had no certainty that the enemy might not have doubled
back, and gone to Jamaica. He would not stop now to exchange with
Collingwood speculations about the enemy's course. "My dear
Collingwood, I am, as you may suppose, miserable at not having fallen
in with the enemy's fleet; and I am almost increased in sorrow by not
finding them [here]. The name of General Brereton will not soon be
forgot. I must now only hope that the enemy have not tricked me, and
gone to Jamaica; but if the account,[107] of which I send you a copy,
is correct, it is more than probable that they are either gone to the
northward, or, if bound to the Mediterranean, not yet arrived." His
surmise remains accurate. He then continues, with that delicate and
respectful recognition of the position and ability of others, which
won him so much love: "The moment the fleet is watered, and got some
refreshments, of which we are in great want, I shall come out and make
you a visit; not, my dear friend, to take your command from you, (for
I may probably add mine to you,) but to consult how we can best serve
our Country, by detaching a part of this large force." Circumstances
prevented his neighborly intention from taking effect. A week later
Nelson returned north with his squadron, and the friends did not meet
until shortly before Trafalgar.

In reply to Nelson's letter, Collingwood summed up his view of the
situation as so far developed. "I have always had an idea that Ireland
alone was the object they had in view, and still believe that to be
their ultimate destination--that they will now liberate the Ferrol
squadron from Calder, make the round of the Bay,[108] and, taking the
Rochefort people with them, appear off Ushant--perhaps with
thirty-four sail, there to be joined by twenty more. Admiral
Cornwallis collecting his out squadrons may have thirty and upwards.
This appears to be a probable plan; for unless it is to bring their
great fleets and armies to some point of service--some rash attempt at
conquest--they have been only subjecting them to chance of loss, which
I do not believe the Corsican would do, without the hope of an
adequate reward."

It is upon this letter, the sagacious and well-ordered inferences of
which must be candidly admitted, that a claim for superiority of
discernment over Nelson has been made for its writer. It must be
remembered, however, not as a matter of invidious detraction from one
man, but in simple justice to the other, whose insight and belief had
taken form in such wonderful work, that Nelson also had fully believed
that the enemy, if they left the Mediterranean, would proceed to
Ireland; and further, and yet more particularly, Collingwood's views
had been confirmed to him by the fact, as yet unknown to Nelson, that
the Rochefort squadron, which sailed at the time Villeneuve first
escaped in January, had since returned to Europe on the 26th of May.
"The flight to the West Indies," Collingwood said, in a letter dated
the day after the one just quoted, "was to take off our naval force,
which is the great impediment to their undertaking. The Rochefort
Squadron's return confirmed me." "I well know what your lordship's
disappointment is," he wrote, with generous sympathy; "and I share the
mortification of it. It would have been a happy day for England, could
you have met them; small as your force was, I trust it would have been
found enough. This summer is big with events. Sincerely I wish your
Lordship strength of body to go through--_and to all others, your
strength of mind_." Testy even to petulance as these two great seamen
were at times in small matters, when overwrought with their manifold
anxieties, they nowhere betray any egotistic concern as to the value
attached by others to their respective speculations, the uncertainties
of which none knew better than they, who had to act upon their
conclusions.

Meantime, at the very moment they were exchanging letters, pregnant
movements were taking place, unknown to either. The brig "Curieux,"
despatched to England by Nelson the night before he left Antigua, had
fallen in with the allied squadrons, nine hundred miles
north-northeast from Antigua, on the 19th of June--just a week after
she sailed. Keeping company with them long enough to ascertain their
course and approximate numbers, the captain then hastened on,
anchoring in Plymouth on the 7th of July. "I am sorry," wrote Nelson
when he heard of this meeting, "that Captain Bettesworth did not stand
back and try to find us out;" but grateful as the word would have been
to him, the captain was better advised to make for a fixed and certain
destination. At daylight of the 9th the news was in the hands of the
First Lord, who issued instant orders for the blockading squadrons off
Rochefort and Ferrol to unite, and to take post one hundred miles west
of Cape Finisterre. On the 19th of July Admiral Calder was in this
position, with fifteen ships-of-the-line, and received through Lisbon
the information of the French movements, which Nelson had forwarded
thither an exact month before. On the 20th Nelson's fleet anchored at
Gibraltar, and he went ashore, "for the first time since the 16th of
June, 1803." On the 22d Calder and Villeneuve met and fought. Two
Spanish ships-of-the-line were captured, but the battle was otherwise
indecisive. Calder hesitated to attack again, and on the 26th lost
sight of the enemy, who, on the 28th, put into Vigo Bay; whence, by a
lucky slant of wind, they reached Ferrol on the first of August with
fifteen ships, having left three in Vigo. Calder sent five of his
fleet to resume the blockade of Rochefort, and himself with nine
joined Cornwallis off Brest, raising the force there to twenty-six.
This junction was made August 14th. The next day appeared there the
indefatigable Nelson, with his unwearied and ever ready squadron of
eleven ships--veterans in the highest sense of the word, in
organization, practice, and endurance; alert, and solid as men of
iron.

This important and most opportune arrival came about as follows.
Anchoring on the 19th of July at Gibraltar, Nelson found everything
ready for the re-equipment of his ships, owing to his foresight in
directing it. All set to work at once to prepare for immediate
departure. When I have "completed the fleet to four months'
provisions, and with stores for Channel service," he wrote to the
Admiralty, "I shall get outside the Mediterranean, leaving a
sufficient force to watch Carthagena, and proceed as upon a due
consideration, (on reading Vice-Admiral Collingwood's orders, and
those which Rear-Admiral Sir Richard Bickerton may have received
during my absence,) may suggest to be most proper. Should I hear that
the enemy are gone to some of the ports in the Bay, I shall join the
squadron off Ferrol, or off Ushant, as I think the case requires."
There will be observed here the same striking combination of rapidity,
circumspection, and purpose prepared by reflection for instant action
in emergencies, that characterized him usually, and especially in
these four months of chase. "The squadron is in the most perfect
health," he continues, "except some symptoms of scurvy, which I hope
to eradicate by bullocks and refreshments from Tetuan, to which I will
proceed to-morrow." The getting fresh beef at Tetuan, it will be
remembered, had been stopped by a fair wind on the 5th of May. Since
then, and in fact since a month earlier, no opportunity of obtaining
fresh provisions had offered during his rapid movements. "The fleet
received not the smallest refreshment, not even a cup of water in the
West Indies," he told the Queen of Naples. The admiral himself got
only a few sheep, in the nine days' round.

Even now, the intention to go to Tetuan, advisable as the step was,
was contingent upon the opportunity offering of reaching a position
whence he could move with facility. Nelson did not mean to be
back-strapped again within the Mediterranean, with a west wind, and a
current setting to leeward, if the enemy turned up in the Atlantic.
"If the wind is westerly," he wrote on the early morning of the 22d,
"I shall go to Tetuan: if easterly, out of the straits." At half-past
nine that day the fleet weighed, and at half-past seven in the evening
anchored at Tetuan, whither orders had already gone to prepare
bullocks and fresh vegetables for delivery. At noon of the 23d the
ships again lifted their anchors, and started. "The fleet is
complete," he wrote the First Lord that day, "and the first easterly
wind, I shall pass the Straits." Fortune apparently had made up her