, his fastest brig to warn the Admiralty.
Villeneuve, if he picked up the Ferrol and Rochefort squadrons, would
arrive off Brest with forty line-of-battle ships; if he raised the
blockade, and added Ganteaume's squadron to his own, he might appear
off Boulogne with sixty great ships! Napoleon calculated on British
blunders to aid him. "We have not to do with a far-sighted, but with a
very proud Government," he wrote. The blunder Napoleon hoped the
British Admiralty would make was that of weakening the blockading
squadrons in order to pursue Villeneuve's fleet, and thus release the
imprisoned French squadrons, making a great concentration possible.

But this was exactly the blunder into which the Admiralty refused to be
tempted. When the news that Villeneuve was on his way back to Europe
reached the Admiralty, the First Lord, Barham, an old sailor, eighty
years of age, without waiting to dress himself, dictated orders which,
without weakening the blockades at any vital point, planted a fleet,
under Sir Robert Calder, west of Finisterre, and right in Villeneuve's
track; and if Calder had been Nelson, Trafalgar might have been fought
on July 22, instead of October 21. Calder fought, and captured two of
Villeneuve's ships, but failed to prevent the junction of Villeneuve's
fleet with the squadron in Ferrol, and was court-martialled for his
failure--victory though he called it. But this partial failure does
not make less splendid the promptitude shown by the British Admiralty.
"The English Admiralty," Napoleon reasoned, "could not decide the
movements of its squadron in twenty-four hours." As a matter of fact,
Barham decided the British strategy in almost as many minutes!

Meanwhile Nelson had reached the scene; and, like his ship, worn out
with labours, sailed for Portsmouth, for what proved his last visit to
England. On August 13, Villeneuve sailed from Ferrol with twenty-nine
ships. He had his choice between Brest, where Cornwallis was keeping
guard, with Boulogne beyond, and where Napoleon was watching eagerly
for the white topsails of his fleet; or Cadiz, where Collingwood with a
tiny squadron held the Spanish fleet strictly bottled up.

Villeneuve's true course was Boulogne, but Cornwallis lay in his path
with over thirty sail of the line, and Villeneuve's nerve failed him.
On August 21 he swung round and bore up for Cadiz; and with the turn of
the helm which swung Villeneuve's ship away from Boulogne, Napole