id.
But, as we have seen by Instruction XXIV. of 1799, the old rule of
1790 had been altered, and if Nelson intended to execute Hoste's plan
of attack he, as 'leading ship,' would or should have engaged the
enemy's 'leading ship,' leaving the rest as they could to engage the
enemy of 'greatest force.' The only explanation is that, if he really
intended to attack the van, he again changed his mind when he fetched
up with Villeneuve, and could not resist engaging him. More probably,
however, the signal was wrongly repeated by the Euryalus, and as made
by Nelson it was really an intimation to Collingwood that he meant to
cover the attack on the rear and centre by a feint on the van.[34]

However this may be, the French appear to have regarded Nelson's
movement to port as a real attack. Their best account (which is also
perhaps the best account that exists) says that just before coming
into gun-shot the two British columns began to separate. The leading
vessels of Nelson's column, it says, passed through the same interval
astern of the Bucentaure, and then it tells how 'les vaisseaux de
queue de cette colonne, au contraire, serrerent un peu le vent,
comme pour s'approcher des vaisseaux de l'avant-garde de la flotte
combinee: mais apres avoir recu quelques bordees de ces
vaisseaux ils abandonnerent ce dessein et se porterent vers les
vaisseaux places entre le Redoutable et la Santa Anna ou vinrent
unir leurs efforts a ceux des vaisseaux anglais qui combattaient
deja le Bucentaure et la Santisima Trinidad.'[35] This is to
some extent confirmed by Dumanoir himself, who commanded the allied
van, in his official memorandum addressed to Decres, December 30,
1809. In defending his failure to tack sooner to Villeneuve's relief,
he says, 'Au commencement du combat, la colonne du Nord [_i.e._
Nelson's] se dirigea sur l'avant-garde qui engagea avec elle pendant
quarante minutes.'[36] In partial corroboration of this there is the
statement in the log of the Temeraire, the ship that was
immediately behind Nelson, that she opened her fire on the
Santisima Trinidad and the two ships ahead of her; that is, she
engaged the ships ahead of where Nelson broke the line, so that
Captain Harvey as well as Dumanoir may have believed that Nelson
intended his real attack to be on 'the end of the line.'

In the face of these facts it is impossible to say categorically that
Nelson intended nothing but a feint on the van. It is equally
impossible to