with a supporting fleet by keeping one of his ships
well out in the offing, and frequently signalling through her to imaginary
consorts below the horizon.

On the very day that Villeneuve anchored at Cadiz, Napoleon sent off from
Boulogne this pressing dispatch to him at Brest:--

"Admiral, I trust you have arrived at Brest. Start at once. Do
not lose a moment. Come into the Channel with our united
squadrons, and England is ours. We are all ready. Everything is
embarked. Come here for twenty-four hours and all is ended, and
six centuries of shame and insult will be avenged."

When he heard that the admiral had lost heart and turned back he was
furious. But he had already formed plans for an alternative enterprise. The
English ministry had succeeded in forming a new coalition with Austria and
Russia as a means of keeping the Emperor occupied on the Continent. On 27
August Napoleon issued his orders for the march of the Grand Army to the
Danube, and on 1 September he started on the career of victory, the stages
of which were to be Ulm, Austerlitz, Jena, and Friedland.

To Villeneuve he sent, through Decres, bitter reproaches and new orders for
a naval campaign in the Mediterranean. Decres, writing to his old comrade,
transmitted the new plan of campaign and softened down the Emperor's angry
words. Villeneuve reported that he could not leave Cadiz for some time. He
was doing all that was possible to refit his fleet and find full crews for
the French and Spanish ships. For the latter men were provided by pressing
landsmen into the service. "It is pitiful," wrote a French officer, "to see
such fine ships manned with a handful of seamen and a crowd of beggars and
herdsmen." In the councils of war held at Cadiz there were fierce disputes
between the French and Spanish officers, the latter accusing their allies
of having abandoned to their fate the two ships lost in Calder's action.
The jealousy between the two nations rose so high that several French
sailors were stabbed at night in the streets.

The English Government knew nothing of the inefficient state and the
endless difficulties of the great fleet concentrated at Cadiz, and regarded
its presence there as a standing danger. Collingwood was reinforced, and it
was decided to send Nelson out to join him, take over the command, blockade
the enemy closely, and bring him to action if he ventured out.

Nelson sailed from Spithead on 15 September in his o