In the allied force there were four three-decked ships, of from one hundred to one hundred and thirty guns, all Spanish, of which one, the “Santisima Trinidad,” was the largest vessel then afloat.  Among Nelson’s twenty-seven there were seven three-deckers, of ninety-eight to one hundred guns; but in the lower rates the British were at a disadvantage, having but one eighty-gun ship and three sixty-fours, whereas the allies had six of the former and only one of the latter.  All the other vessels of the line-of-battle were seventy-fours, the normal medium type, upon which the experience of most navies of that day had fixed, as best fitted for the general purposes of fleet warfare.  Where more tonnage and heavier batteries were put into single ships, it was simply for the purpose of reinforcing the critical points of an order of battle; an aim that could not be as effectively attained by the combination of two ships, under two captains.

As Nelson said in his celebrated order, so large a body as thirty-three heavy vessels is not easily handled, even at sea; and leaving port with them is an operation yet more difficult.  Consequently, the movement which began soon after daylight on the 19th was not completed that day.  Owing to the falling of the wind, only twelve ships got fairly clear of the bay, outside of which they lay becalmed.  The following morning the attempt was resumed, and by two or three o’clock in the afternoon of the 20th the whole combined fleet was united, and standing with a fresh southwest wind to the northward and westward, to gain room to windward for entering the Straits.

As has been said, the movement that Blackwood recognized at 7 A.M. of the 19th was communicated to the admiral at half-past nine.  According to his announced plan, to cut the enemy off from the Mediterranean, he at once made signal for a General Chase to the southeast,—­towards Cape Spartel,—­and the fleet moved off in that direction with a light southerly wind.  At noon Nelson sat down in his cabin to begin his last letter to Lady Hamilton.  The words then written he signed, as though conscious that no opportunity to continue might offer; nor is it difficult to trace that some such thought was then uppermost in his mind, and sought expression in the tenderness of farewell.  The following day, however, he added a few lines, in which the dominant note was fear that the enemy might again elude him, by returning into port; an apprehension that expelled the previous haunting sense of finality.  There he laid down the pen, never again to address her directly.  The letter, thus abruptly closed by death, was found open and unsigned upon his desk after the battle.

    Victory, October 19th, 1805, Noon.  CADIZ, E.S.E., 16 Leagues.