all night in Gibraltar Gut.  About four o’clock, next morning, the Termagant joined, with an account of the combined fleet’s having been seen, the 19th of June, by the Curieux brig, standing to the northward.  At eight, the Spaniards fired a few shot, from Tariffa, at the Victory; which, however, took no effect.  At noon, they saw Admiral Collingwood’s squadron; and Lord Nelson sent letters to the admiral, with arrangements for preventing the combined fleet from entering Cadiz, while his lordship proceeded to seek them nearer home.  On the 26th, the Spartiate got on board the Victory; but, fortunately, neither ship suffered any material damage.  Having traversed the Bay of Biscay, without discovering any thing of the enemy, his lordship, on the 28th, at day-light, came abreast of Cape St. Vincent; from whence, with faint hopes of finding them, he pursued his northerly course toward the north-west of Ireland, By foul winds, and very unfavourable weather, this proved a most tediously vexatious voyage.  Unable, after all, to fetch Ireland, on account of the northerly winds, his lordship, in the afternoon of August 12, was informed by the Niobe, Captain Scott, three weeks from the channel fleet, that there had not, at that time, been the smallest intelligence of the enemy’s arrival in any of the ports.  He also learned, that they had not been heard of on the Irish coast.  Having exhausted every rational conjecture with regard to their situation, he resolved on reinforcing Admiral Cornwallis with his squadron; lest the combined fleet of France and Spain should, by approaching Brest, either facilitate the escape of the squadron so long confined by this commander’s blockade of that port, or place him aukwardly between two fires.

Accordingly, on the 15th, at six in the morning, Lord Nelson got within eighteen leagues of Ushant; and, at half past eleven, saw a fleet.  At two in the afternoon, they exchanged private signals with the channel fleet; and, in the evening, his lordship, having detached the rest of his fleet, received orders from Admiral Cornwallis, as commander in chief, to proceed with the Victory and Superb to Portsmouth.  His lordship now first gained information of Sir Robert Calder’s having defeated the combined fleet from the West Indies, on the 22d of July, sixty leagues west of Cape Finisterre; which, at length, relieved him from the anxiety of suspence, though the action had been too indecisive compleatly to satisfy his lordship’s mind.  He regretted, exceedingly, that it had not been his own good fortune to encounter them; and felt less comforted, than he ought to have done, by the consideration, that this squadron, under Sir Robert Calder, had been sent out to intercept their return, in consequence of his, lordship’s suggestions, judiciously transmitted to the Admiralty for that purpose, the moment he was satisfied that the combined French and Spanish fleet were on their return from the West Indies.