he scantiest resources for the
refitting of the ships. He was already thinking of going back to Cadiz. He
moved his fleet to Corunna, but there he found things in such a condition
that he reported that he could not even find hospital room for the sick.

From Napoleon came pressing orders to push on to the Channel at all risks.
On 11 August Villeneuve put to sea, picking up a combined French and
Spanish squadron from the neighbouring port of Ferrol. He meant to sail to
Brest, bring out the squadron there, and call up the ships at Rochefort by
sending on a frigate in advance with orders for that port. (The frigate was
captured on the way by a British cruiser.) He sent a dispatch overland to
Napoleon to say that at last he was coming.

In the Bay of Biscay, two days out from Corunna, he was told by a Danish
merchant-ship that there was a great fleet of British battleships close at
hand to the northward. The news was false. A few hours before the captain
of a British cruiser had stopped the Dane and purposely given him this
false information, in the hope that it would reach the French and mislead
them. Except a few scattered cruisers, there was nothing between Villeneuve
and the ports of Brest and Rochefort--nothing that could stop his projected
concentration. Nelson had waited a few days at Gibraltar, where the news of
Calder's fight had not arrived. He communicated with Collingwood, who was
watching Cadiz with six ships, and then, conjecturing that the object of
the French expedition might be Ireland, he sailed north and was off the
Irish coast on 12 August, the day after Villeneuve left Corunna. Finding no
trace of the enemy, he joined the squadron of Cornwallis off Ushant on 15
August, and then, broken in health and depressed at what seemed a huge
failure, he went back to England to spend some time with Lady Hamilton at
Merton.

Villeneuve had hardly heard of the imaginary fleet when the wind, which had
so far been fair, went round to the north. This decided the irresolute
admiral. To the dismay of his captains he suddenly altered his course and
ran before the wind southward to Cadiz, where he arrived on 22 August,
contenting himself with watching the retirement of Collingwood's six ships
and making no effort to envelop and cut them off with his enormously
superior force. Collingwood promptly resumed the blockade when the French
and Spanish anchored, and deluded Villeneuve into the belief that the
blockade was in touch