The stringent blockade, and the fears for the specie ships, weighed heavily on the Spaniards, who were not as a nation hearty in support of a war into which they had been coerced by France.  Their authorities were petitioned to compel the fleet to go out.  Whatever the event, the British would at least have to retire for repairs; while if the Lima and Havana ships—­to look for which the Cadiz people every morning flocked to the walls, fearing they might be already in the enemy’s hands—­should be captured, the merchants of Spain would be ruined.  Better lose ten ships-of-the-line, if need be, than this convoy.  With rumors of this sort daily reaching him, Nelson’s faculties were in a constant state of pleasing tension.  He was in his very element of joyous excitement and expectation.  “We are in the advance day and night, prepared for battle; bulkheads down, ready to weigh, cut, or slip,[56] as the occasion may require.  I have given out a line of battle—­myself to lead; and you may rest assured that I will make a vigorous attack upon them, the moment their noses are outside the Diamond.  Pray do not send me another ship,” he implores; “if you send any more, they may believe we are prepared, and know of their intention.”  “If they come out,” he writes later to a naval friend, when he had ten sail under him, “there will be no fighting beyond my squadron.”

To increase yet further the pressure upon the Spanish fleet to come out, a bombardment was planned against the town and the shipping, the superintendence of which also was intrusted to the commander of the inshore squadron.  Only one bomb-vessel was provided, so that very extensive results could scarcely have been anticipated; but Nelson saw, with evident glee, that the enemy’s gunboats had taken advanced positions, and intended to have a hand in the night’s work.  “So much the better,” wrote he to Jervis; “I wish to make it a warm night in Cadiz.  If they venture from their walls, I shall give Johnny[57] his full scope for fighting.  It will serve to talk of better than mischief.”  “It is good,” he writes to another, “at these times to keep the devil out of their heads.  I had rather see fifty shot by the enemy, than one hanged by us.”

The bombardment, which was continued upon two successive nights, did little direct harm; but it led to a sharp hand-to-hand contest between the British and Spanish boats, in which Nelson personally bore a part, and upon which he seems afterwards to have dwelt with even greater pride and self-satisfaction than upon the magnificent victories with which his name is associated.  “It was during this period that perhaps my personal courage was more conspicuous than at any other part of my life.”  On the first night the Spaniards sent out a great number of mortar gunboats and armed launches.  Upon these he directed a vigorous attack to be made, which resulted in their being driven back under the walls of Cadiz; the British, who pursued them, capturing two boats and a launch.  In the