The exit of the French was hard fate for Nelson, who had fired his enthusiasm with the hope of a great conflict and a sure victory.  It was a creeping nightmare to him which was only relieved by his resolute opinion that his fame and the terror of his name had caused Villeneuve to fly from inevitable destruction.  The idea of strategy did not enter into his calculations.  A further consolation to him was that his arrival had saved the islands and two hundred ships loaded with sugar from being captured, so that the gain was all on his side.  So far as the West Indies were concerned, the French expedition ended not only in a dead loss, but was a humiliating fiasco, unless, as I have stated before, it was a preconceived decoy for some other purpose.  But whether it were strategy or decoy, it taxes one’s intelligence to conceive why the French fleet did not proceed to bombard the British possessions on arrival, then steal into safe obscurity and make their way back to European waters.  The evasion of Nelson’s scouts in any case was a matter of adroit cunning.  Had a man of Nelson’s nimble wits and audacious courage commanded the enemy’s fleet, the islands would have been attacked and left in a dilapidated condition.  Nelson’s opinion was that the Spanish portion of the expedition had gone to Havana, and that the French would make for Cadiz or Toulon, the latter he thought most likely, with the ultimate object of Egypt.  And with this vision floating in his mind, he determined to make for the Straits.  On the 13th June, 1805, he sailed from Antigua, and was almost merry at the thought of getting close at their heels, and toppling them into ruin before they had got into the Mediterranean.  He regarded them in the light of miserable naval amateurs that could be whacked, even with the odds against him.  Five days after sailing, one of his scout ships brought the news given by a vessel they spoke that she had sighted them steering north on the 15th, and as the colours of each dying day faded away and brought no French fleet in view or intelligence of them, he grew restive and filled with apprehension.  He had no delusions about the accuracy of his perceptions, or the soundness of his judgment, nor the virtue of his prudence.  Without a disturbing thought he pursued his course towards the Mediterranean, and unless intelligence came to him that would justify a diversion, no wild fancies would be permitted to take possession of him.  On the 18th July he sighted Cape Spartel, and any sailor will say that no grass had been allowed to grow under the bottoms of the ships that made so quick a passage.  But Nelson was “sorrowful” that no results had accrued.  Like a strong man who has opinions and carries them through to the bitter end, he did not “blame himself.”  He blew off some of the pent-up bitterness of an aching heart by writing to a friend, “But for General Brereton’s damned information, I would have been living or dead, and the greatest man England ever saw, and now I am nothing and perhaps would incur censure for misfortunes which may happen and have.  Oh!  General Brereton!  General Brereton!”