e was there close to the
storeships, whose safe entrance to the port was at once the main object
of the enterprise and the one most critically uncertain of achievement,
because of the general bad behavior of convoys. There he could control
them more surely, and at the same time by his own conduct indicate his
general purposes to subordinates, who, however deficient in distinctly
tactical proficiency, had the seamanship and the willingness adequately
to support him.

At 6 P.M. the supply ships were off the mouth of the bay, with the wind
fair for their anchorage; but, although full and particular instructions
had been issued to them concerning currents and other local conditions,
all save four missed the entrance and were swept to the eastward of the
Rock. The fleet of course had to follow its charge, and by their failure
a new task confronted Howe's professional abilities and endurance.
Fortunately he had an able adviser in the captain of the fleet, who had
had long experience of the locality, invaluable during the trying week
that ensued. The allies had not yet stirred. To move near fifty
sail-of-the-line in pursuit of an enemy, inferior indeed, but ranged for
battle, and the precise moment of whose appearance could not have been
foreseen, was no slight undertaking, as Nelson afterwards said. It may
be recalled that before Trafalgar over twenty-four hours were needed for
the allied thirty-three to get out of Cadiz Bay. On the 13th, however,
the combined French and Spaniards sailed, intent primarily, it would
seem, not on the true and vital offensive purpose of frustrating the
relief, but upon the very secondary defensive object of preserving two
of their own numbers, which in a recent gale had been swept to the
eastward. Thus trivially preoccupied, they practically neglected Howe,
who on his part stripped for action by sending the supply vessels to the
Zaffarine Islands, where the vagarious instincts of their captains would
be controlled by an anchor on the bottom. On the 14th the allies bore
north from the British, close under the Spanish coast, and visible only
from the mastheads. On the 15th the wind came east, and the convoy and
fleet began cautiously to move towards Gibraltar, the enemy apparently
out of sight, and certainly to the eastward. On the evening of the 16th
eighteen supply ships were at the mole, and on the 18th all had arrived.
Gibraltar was equipped for another year's endurance.

We have less than co