Madalena Islands, belonging to Sardinia, which Nelson afterwards made a rendezvous for his fleet.  Algiers, too, had attracted the First Consul’s attention.  “Algiers will be French in one year after a peace,” wrote Nelson in August, 1804.  “You see it, and a man may run and read; that is the plan of Buonaparte.”  “The Ministers of the Dey must know, that an armament at Toulon, and a large army, after the peace with Great Britain, was intended to land and plunder Algiers, which they doubtless would have effected, had not a British fleet been placed in Oristan Bay [Sardinia] to watch their motions.”  These and similar reasons had led the British Government to maintain the Mediterranean Squadron nearly upon a war footing during the peace.  But, if Bonaparte’s purpose was fixed to control the Mediterranean some day, it now was set also upon the invasion of England; and although he looked and plotted in many directions, taking long views, and neglecting no opportunity to secure advanced footholds for future uses, he had not yet reached the stage in his development when he would divide his energies between two gigantic undertakings.  One at a time, and with an accumulation of force abundantly adequate to the end in view, was his policy all the days of Nelson.  The Mediterranean with its varied interests was to him at this time one of several means, by which he hoped to distract British counsels and to dissever British strength; but it was no part of his design to provoke Great Britain to measures which would convert her alarm for the Mediterranean peninsulas into open war with them, or in them, compelling France either to recede from thence, or to divert thither a force that might weaken his main effort.  His aim was to keep anxiety keenly alive, and to cut short the resources of his enemy, by diplomatic pressure upon neutral states, up to the last extreme that could be borne without war against them being declared, as the lesser evil; and the nearer he could approach this delicate boundary line, without crossing it, the greater his success.  “I do not think a Spanish war [that is, a declaration by Spain] so near,” wrote Nelson in November, 1803.  “We are more likely to go to war with Spain for her complaisance to the French; but the French can gain nothing, but be great losers, by forcing Spain to go to war with us; therefore, I never expect that the Spaniards will begin, unless Buonaparte is absolutely mad, as many say he is.  I never can believe that he or his counsellors are such fools as to force Spain to begin.”

The course instinctively advocated by Nelson, transpiring through occasional utterances, was directly contrary to Bonaparte’s aims and would have marred his game.  “We never wanted ten thousand troops more than at this moment,” Nelson wrote shortly after he had reached the station and become acquainted with the state of affairs.  “They might save Naples, Sicily, the Morea and Egypt, by assisting and giving confidence to the inhabitants.”