sea
and the principle of the fleet in being might seem to be violated in a
crucial fashion. But the men who directed the arms of England in those
days knew what they were about. Long before they allowed the expedition
to start they had established a close and, as they thought, an effective
blockade of all the Atlantic and Mediterranean ports in which either
French or Spanish warships ready for sea were to be found. Nevertheless
we have here a signal illustration of the essential difference between a
command of the sea which has been made absolute by the destruction of
the enemy's available naval forces--as was practically the case after
Trafalgar--and one which is only virtual and potential, because,
although the enemy's fleets have for the time been masked or sealed up
in their ports, they may, should the fortune of war so determine, resume
at any time the position and functions of a true fleet in being. On the
strength of a command of the sea of this merely contingent and potential
character Pitt and his naval advisers had persuaded themselves that the
way to the Mediterranean was open for the transit of troops. Craig's
transports, accordingly, put to sea on April 19. But a week before
Villeneuve with his fleet had left Toulon for the last time, had evaded
Nelson's watch, and passing rapidly through the Straits, had called off
Cadiz, and picking up such Spanish ships as were there had disappeared
into space, no man knowing whither he had gone. He might have gone to
the East Indies, he might have gone to the West Indies, as in fact he
did, or he might be cruising unmolested in waters where he could hardly
fail to come across Craig's transports with their weak escort of two
ships of the line. It was a situation which no one had foreseen or
regarded as more than a contingency too remote to be guarded against
when Craig's expedition was allowed to start. How Nelson viewed the
situation may be seen from his reply to the Admiralty, written on his
receipt of the first intimation that the expedition was about to start.

"As the 'Fisgard' sailed from Gibraltar on the 9th instant, two hours
after the enemy's fleet from Toulon had passed the Straits, I have to
hope she would arrive time enough in the Channel to give their Lordships
information of this circumstance _and to prevent the Rear-Admiral and
Troops before mentioned_"--that is Craig's expedition--"_from leaving
Spithead_." In other words, Nelson held quite plainly that ha