during the fight. Some desultory firing
at the nearest fugitives ended the battle. Crowds on the breakwater of
Cadiz and the nearest beaches had watched all the afternoon the great bank
of smoke on the horizon, and listened to the rumbling thunder of the
cannonade. After sunset ship after ship came in, bringing news of disaster,
and all the night wounded men were being conveyed to the hospitals.

More than half the allied fleet had been taken or destroyed. The four ships
that escaped with Dumanoir were captured a few days later by a squadron
under Sir Richard Strachan. The French ships that escaped into Cadiz were
taken possession of by the Spanish insurgents, when Spain rose against the
French, and Cadiz joined the revolt.

As the battle ended, the British fleet was, to use the expression of the
"Neptune's" log, "in all directions." The sun was going down; the sky was
overcast, and the rising swell and increasing wind told of the coming
storm. Most of the prizes had been dismasted; many of them were leaking
badly; some of the ships that had taken them were in almost as damaged a
condition, and many of them were short-handed, with heavy losses in battle
and detachments sent on board the captured vessels. The crews were busy
clearing the decks, getting up improvised jury masts, and repairing the
badly cut-up rigging, where the masts still stood. Nelson's final order had
been to anchor to ride out the expected gale. Collingwood doubted if this
would be safer than trying to make Gibraltar, and he busied himself getting
the scattered fleet and prizes together, and tacking to the south-westward.

The gale that swept all the coasts of Western Europe caught the disabled
fleet with the hostile shore under its lee. Only four of the prizes, and
those the poorest ships of the lot, ever saw Gibraltar. Ship after ship
went down, others were abandoned and burnt, others drove ashore. In these
last instances the British prize crews were rescued and kindly treated by
the Spanish coast population. One ship, the "Algeciras," was retaken by the
French prisoners, and carried into Cadiz. Another, the big "Santa Ana," was
recaptured as she drifted helplessly off the port.

But though there were few trophies left after the great storm, Trafalgar
had finally broken the naval power of Napoleon, freed England from all fear
of invasion, and given her the undisputed empire of the sea. Yet there were
only half-hearted rejoicings at home. The loss