Collingwood was now the commander-in-chief of the British fleet, and to him fell the task of notifying the victory.  I insert the documents in full.

LONDON GAZETTE EXTRAORDINARY.

    ADMIRALTY OFFICE, 6th November, 1805.

Despatches, of which the following are copies, were received at the Admiralty this day, at one o’clock a.m. from Vice-Admiral Collingwood, Commander-in-Chief of his Majesty’s ships and vessels off Cadiz.

    “EURYALUS”, OFF CAPE TRAFALGAR, October 22, 1805.

SIR,—­The ever-to-be-lamented death of Vice-Admiral Lord Viscount Nelson, who, in the late conflict with the enemy, fell in the hour of victory, leaves me the duty of informing my lords commissioners of the Admiralty, that on the 19th instant, it was communicated to the Commander-in-Chief, from the ships watching the motions of the enemy in Cadiz, that the combined fleet had put to sea.  As they sailed with light winds westerly, his Lordship concluded their destination was the Mediterranean, and immediately made all sail for the Straits’ entrance, with the British squadron, consisting of twenty-seven ships, three of them sixty-fours, where his Lordship was informed, by Captain Blackwood (whose vigilance in watching and giving notice of the enemy’s movements has been highly meritorious), that they had not yet passed the Straits.

On Monday, the 21st instant, at daylight, when Cape Trafalgar bore E. by S. about seven leagues, the enemy was discovered six or seven miles to the eastward, the wind about west, and very light; the Commander-in-Chief immediately made the signal for the fleet to bear up in two columns, as they are formed in the order of sailing; a mode of attack his Lordship had previously directed, to avoid the delay and inconvenience in forming a line of battle in the usual manner.  The enemy’s line consisted of thirty-three ships (of which eighteen were French and fifteen Spanish, commanded in chief by Admiral Villeneuve, the Spaniards under the direction of Gravina), bore with their heads to the northwards and formed their line of battle with great closeness and correctness.  But as the mode of attack was unusual, so the structure of their line was new; it formed a crescent convexing to leeward; so that in leading down to their centre I had both their van and rear abaft the beam before the fire opened; every alternate ship was about a cable’s length to windward of her second ahead and astern, forming a kind of double line, and appeared, when on their beam, to leave a very little interval between them, and this without crowding their ships.  Admiral Villeneuve was in the Bucentaure in the centre, and the Prince of Asturias bore Gravina’s flag in the rear, but the French and Spanish ships were mixed without any apparent regard to order of national squadron.

As the mode of our attack had been previously