then to make Ferrol, put into Vigo, while Calder, ignorant of their position, joined Cornwallis off Brest.  This retreat of the British admiral subjected him to a court-martial, and consternation reigned in London when Villeneuve was known to be on the Spanish coast unguarded; but the fear was needless; though the French admiral succeeded in rallying the Ferrol squadron, yet, as he was ordered to avoid Ferrol, he put into Corunna, and on August 15th he decided to sail for Cadiz.

To realize the immense importance of this decision we must picture to ourselves the state of affairs just before this time.

Nelson, delayed by contrary winds and dogged by temporary ill-luck, had made for Gibraltar, whence, finding that no French ships had passed the straits, he doubled back in hot haste northwards, and there is clear proof that his speedy return to the coast of Spain spread dismay in official circles at Paris.  “This unexpected union of forces undoubtedly renders every scheme of invasion impracticable for the present,” wrote Talleyrand to Napoleon on August 2nd, 1805.[333] Missing Villeneuve off Ferrol, Nelson joined Cornwallis off Ushant on the very day when the French admiral decided to make for Cadiz.  Passing on to Portsmouth, the hero now enjoyed a few days of well-earned repose, until the nation called on him for his final effort.

Meanwhile Napoleon had arrived on August 3rd at Boulogne, where he reviewed a line of soldiery nine miles long.  The sight might well arouse his hopes of assured victory.  He had ground for hoping that Villeneuve would soon be in the Channel.  Not until August 8th did he receive news of the fight with Calder, and he took pains to parade it as an English defeat.  He therefore trusted that, in the spirit of his orders to Villeneuve dated July the 26th, that admiral would sail to Cadiz, gather up other French and Spanish ships, and return to Ferrol and Brest with a mighty force of some sixty sail of the line: 

“I count on your zeal for my service, on your love for the fatherland, on your hatred of this Power which for forty generations has oppressed us, and which a little daring and perseverance on your part will for ever reduce to the rank of the small Powers:  150,000 soldiers ... and the crews complete are embarked on 2,000 craft of the flotilla, which, despite the English cruisers, forms a long line of broadsides from Etaples to Cape Grisnez.  Your voyage, and it alone, makes us without any doubt masters of England.”

Austria and Russia were already marshalling their forces for the war of the Third Coalition.  Yet, though menaced by those Powers, to whom he had recently offered the most flagrant provocations, this astonishing man was intent only on the ruin of England, and secretly derided their preparations.  “You need not” (so he wrote to Eugene, Viceroy of Italy) “contradict the newspaper rumours of war, but make fun of them....  Austria’s actions are probably the result of fear.”—­Thus, even when the eastern horizon lowered threateningly with clouds, he continued to pace the cliffs of Boulogne, or gallop restlessly along the strand, straining his gaze westward to catch the first glimpse of his armada.  That horizon was never to be flecked with Villeneuve’s sails:  they were at this time furled in the harbour of Cadiz.