victory, he said to Captain Hardy, and the other officers by whom he was surrounded—­“They cannot now escape us!  I think, we shall, at least, make sure of twenty of them.  I may, probably, lose a leg; but that will be cheaply purchasing a victory.”  However, it is an undoubted fact, that when the Honourable Captain Blackwood, in taking leave of his lordship, previous to the action, observed that, he hoped they should, in a few hours, meet again; the hero replied, in a firm tone—­“My dear Blackwood, I shall never again speak to you!” This was no sentiment of despondency, but a strong sense of the danger to be apprehended from so unequal a contest.  The enemy’s line consisting of thirty-three ships, eighteen of which were French, and fifteen Spanish; and the British fleet only twenty-seven:  and, by the advantage of size, as well as numbers, they had a superiority of about three hundred and fifty guns.  Ten thousand of their choicest troops were also distributed throughout the fleet, to ensure success by boarding; and their ships were furnished with fire-balls and combustibles of every description, in the hope of setting our’s on fire.  The French were commanded, in chief, by Admiral Villeneuve; and not by Admiral Decrees, as Lord Nelson had lately supposed would be the case; with Rear-Admirals Dumanoir and Magon:  The Spaniards, by Admiral Gravina, commander in chief; with Admirals Don Ignacio Morea D’Alva, Don Domingo Guadalharas, and Commodore Don Baltazar.  The structure of the enemy’s line was somewhat new, as well as the intended mode of attacking them.  It formed a crescent, convexing to leeward:  every alternate ship being about a cable’s length to windward of it’s second a-head and a-stern, so as to seem a kind of double-line; leaving between them, when on their beam, a very small interval, and this without crouding their ships.  Admiral Villeneuve, in the Bucentaure, occupied the centre; and Admiral Gravina’s flag was borne by the Prince of Asturias, in the rear:  but the French and Spanish ships appear to have been mixed, without any regard to national arrangement.

The mode of attack having been long determined on by Lord Nelson, and recently communicated, as has been seen, on the 10th instant, to the flag officers and captains, few signals were necessary.  On first discovering the combined fleet, his lordship had immediately made the signal to bear up in two columns, as formed in the order of sailing, to avoid the inconvenience and delay of forming a line of battle in the usual manner.  Lord Nelson, as commander in chief, led the weather column, in the Victory; and Vice-Admiral Collingwood, as second in command, that of the lee, in the Royal Sovereign.  The following are the respective ships of which the two British lines were composed—­

BRITISH VAN, OR WEATHER COLUMN.

Ships.  Guns.  Commanders.