Neither can it be said that our first aim was to prevent his attempting to concentrate.  Every one of his naval ports was watched by a squadron, but it was recognised that this would not prevent concentration.  The escape of one division might well break the chain.  But that consideration made no difference.  The distribution of our squadrons before his naval ports was essential for preventing sporadic action.  Their distribution was dictated sufficiently by the defence of commerce and of colonial and allied territory, by our need, that is, to exercise a general command even if we could not destroy the enemy’s force.

The whole of Nelson’s correspondence for this period shows that his main object was the protection of our Mediterranean trade and of Neapolitan and Turkish territory.  When Villeneuve escaped him, his irritation was caused not by the prospect of a French concentration, which had no anxieties for him, for he knew counter-concentrations were provided for.  It was caused rather by his having lost the opportunity which the attempt to concentrate had placed within his reach.  He followed Villeneuve to the West Indies, not to prevent concentration, but, firstly, to protect the local trade and Jamaica, and secondly, in hope of another chance of dealing the blow he had missed.  Lord Barham took precisely the same view.  When on news of Villeneuve’s return from the West Indies he moved out the three divisions of the Western Squadron, that is, the Ushant concentration, to meet him, he expressly stated, not that his object was to prevent concentration, but that it was to deter the French from attempting sporadic action.  “The interception of the fleet in question,” he wrote, “on its return to Europe would be a greater object than any I know.  It would damp all future expeditions, and would show to Europe that it might be advisable to relax in the blockading system occasionally for the express purpose of putting them in our hands at a convenient opportunity.”

Indeed we had no reason for preventing the enemy’s concentration.  It was our best chance of solving effectually the situation we have to confront.  Our true policy was to secure permanent command by a great naval decision.  So long as the enemy remained divided, no such decision could be expected.  It was not, in fact, till he attempted his concentration, and its last stage had been reached, that the situation was in our hands.  The intricate problem with which we had been struggling was simplified down to closing up our own concentration to the strategical centre off Ushant.  But at the last stage the enemy could not face the formidable position we held.  His concentration was stopped.  Villeneuve fell back on Cadiz, and the problem began to assume for us something of its former intricacy.  So long as we held the mass off Ushant which our great concentration had produced, we were safe from invasion.  But that was not enough.  It left the seas open to sporadic action from Spanish ports.  There were