n days upon the allies. The
actual gain was ten, the latter being thirty-four days from Cadiz to
Martinique, the British twenty-four to Barbadoes. The enemy were
therefore three weeks in the West Indies before Nelson arrived; but in
that time they neither accomplished nor undertook anything but the
recapture of Diamond Rock, a precipitous islet off the south end of
Martinique, which the British had held for some time, to the great
annoyance of the main island.

Reaching Barbadoes on the afternoon of June 4th, Nelson found that the
day before information had been received from General Brereton,
commanding the troops at Santa Lucia, that the allied fleets had
passed there, going south, during the night of May 28-29. The
intelligence was so circumstantial that it compelled respect, coming
from the quarter it did. "There is not a doubt in any of the Admirals'
or Generals' minds," wrote Nelson to the Admiralty, in the despatch
announcing his arrival, "but that Tobago and Trinidada are the enemy's
objects." Nelson himself was sceptical,--the improbability seemed
great to his sound military perceptions; but, confident as he was in
his own conclusions in dilemmas, his mind was too sane and well
balanced to refuse direct and credible evidence. Summing up the
situation with lamentations, six weeks later, he said to Davison:
"When I follow my own head, I am, in general, much more correct in my
judgment, than following the opinion of others. I resisted the opinion
of General Brereton's information till it would have been the height
of presumption to have carried my disbelief further. I could not, in
the face of generals and admirals, go N.W., when it was _apparently_
clear that the enemy had gone south." His purpose had been not to
anchor, but to pick up such ships-of-the-line as he found there,--two
seventy-fours,[101] as it turned out,--and to proceed with them to
Martinique, which he naturally assumed to be the enemy's headquarters.
As it was, receiving a pressing request from the commanding general at
Barbadoes to let him accompany the fleet with two thousand troops, he
anchored in Carlisle Bay at 5 P.M. At half-past nine the next morning
he was again under way for Trinidad. Some curious misunderstandings
maintained this mistaken impression as to the enemy's actions, until
communication with Trinidad was had on the evening of June 7th. It was
found then that no hostile force had appeared, although the British
fleet for a momen