."
If we meet them, we shall find them not less than eighteen, I rather
think twenty sail of the line, and therefore do not be surprised if I
should not fall on them immediately: _we won't part without a
battle_.[104] I think they will be glad to leave me alone, if I will
let them alone; which I will do, either till we approach the shores
of Europe, or they give me an advantage too tempting to be resisted."

It is rare to find so much sagacious appreciation of conditions,
combined with so much exalted resolution and sound discretion, as in
this compact utterance. Among the external interests of Great Britain,
the West Indies were the greatest. They were critically threatened by
the force he was pursuing; therefore at all costs that force should be
so disabled, that it could do nothing effective against the defences
with which the scattered islands were provided. For this end he was
prepared to risk the destruction of his squadron. The West Indies were
now delivered; but the enemy's force remained, and other British
interests. Three months before, he had said, "I had rather see half my
squadron burnt than risk what the French fleet may do in the
Mediterranean." In the same spirit he now repeats: "Though we are but
eleven to eighteen or twenty, we won't part without a battle." Why
fight such odds? He himself has told us a little later. "By the time
the enemy has beat our fleet soundly, they will do us no harm this
year." Granting this conclusion,--the reasonableness of which was
substantiated at Trafalgar,--it cannot be denied that the sacrifice
would be justified, the enemy's combinations being disconcerted. Yet
there shall be no headlong, reckless attack. "I will leave them alone
till they offer me an opportunity too tempting to be resisted,"--that
speaks for itself,--or, "until we approach the shores of Europe," when
the matter can no longer be deferred, and the twenty ships must be
taken out of Napoleon's hosts, even though eleven be destroyed to
effect this. The preparedness of mind is to be noted, and yet more the
firmness of the conviction, in the strength of which alone such deeds
are done. It is the man of faith who is ever the man of works.

Singularly enough, his plans were quickly to receive the best of
illustrations by the failure of contrary methods. Scarcely a month
later fifteen British ships, under another admiral, met these twenty,
which Nelson with eleven now sought in vain. They did not part without