his attention was called to the Madalena Islands, a group off the northeast end of Sardinia, where wood and water could be obtained.  Between them and the main island there was a good harbor, having the decisive advantage of two entrances, by one or other of which it could be left in winds from any quarter.  A survey had been made a year before, during the peace, by a Captain Ryves, now commanding a ship in the fleet.  As winter approached, Nelson decided to examine the spot himself, which he did in the last days of October, taking advantage of a moonlight week when the enemy would be less likely to leave port.  He found it admirably adapted for his purposes, and that fresh provisions, though not of the best quality, could be had.  “It is certainly one of the best anchorages I have met with for a fleet,” he wrote, “but I suppose the French will take it now we have used it.”  This they did not attempt, and the British fleet continued to resort to it from time to time, obtaining water and bullocks.

Such a roadstead as an occasional rendezvous, where transports could discharge their stores to the vessels, and ships be refitted and supplied, would make the fleet as secure of holding its position as were the cruisers that depended upon Malta and Gibraltar.  Its being two hundred miles from Toulon was not a serious drawback, for it was no part of Nelson’s plan to keep the fleet close to Toulon.  When he took command, he found it so stationed, but he soon removed to a position thirty to forty miles west of the harbor’s mouth, which seems to have been his general summer rendezvous.  “Lord Nelson,” wrote a young officer of the fleet,[61] “pursues a very different plan from Sir Richard Bickerton.  The latter kept close to the harbour, but Lord Nelson is scarce ever in sight of the land, and there is but one frigate inshore.”  “I chose this position,” Nelson said, “to answer two important purposes:  one to prevent the junction of a Spanish fleet from the westward; and the other, to be to windward, so as to enable me, if the northerly gale came on to the N.N.W., to take shelter in a few hours under the Hieres Islands, or if N.N.E., under Cape San Sebastian.”  “It is not my intention to close-watch Toulon, even with frigates,” he wrote, and his dispositions were taken rather with a view to encourage the enemy to come out; although, of course, he took every precaution that they should not get far without being observed, and assured himself by frequent reconnoitring that they had not left port.  “My system is the very contrary of blockading,” he told Admiral Pole.  “Every opportunity has been offered the enemy to put to sea,” he says again, “for it is there we hope to realize the hopes and expectations of our Country.”  There was also the obvious advantage that, if habitually out of sight, the enemy could not know his movements, nor profit by his occasional absences in any direction.