considering the position of the land, they must be standing to the northwest, so that the British fleet wore and steered the same course, keeping parallel to the enemy and spreading lookouts in their direction.  Soon after noon, the weather clearing, Blackwood saw the combined fleets where he believed them to be, under low sail, and so close that the “Euryalus” went about immediately.  At 1 P.M. he left the squadron in temporary charge of a junior captain, and with his own ship kept away south to speak the admiral.  At two he sighted the main body, and at 3.20 was near enough to send the telegraphic message, “The enemy appears determined to push to the westward.”  “That,” wrote Nelson in his diary, “they shall not do, if in the power of Nelson and Bronte to prevent them,” and he telegraphed back, “I rely upon your keeping sight of the enemy.”  The frigates and lookout ships, he noted in his journal, had so far discharged their duties most admirably, informing him promptly of all the hostile movements; he was justified therefore in the confidence that they would do as well in the night now approaching.

While Blackwood was communicating, Nelson himself was much of the time on the “Victory’s” poop.  Seeing there a number of midshipmen assembled, he observed to them, “This day or to-morrow will be a fortunate one for you, young gentlemen,” alluding to their prospect of promotion after a successful battle.  The same day at dinner, he said to some of the company, “To-morrow I will do that which will give you younger gentlemen something to talk and think about for the rest of your lives, but I shall not live to know about it myself;” and he added that he expected to capture twenty to twenty-two of the hostile fleet.[133] It may be inferred from this remark that by the dinner hour, between three and five, he had become satisfied that the enemy either would not, or could not, return into port, according to the fear he had expressed to Lady Hamilton, and that a battle therefore was certain.  The letter to her, from its mention of the weather as thick, must have been written in the forenoon.  His expectation that the morrow would prove the decisive day was reinforced by one of those prepossessions for coincidences, half jesting, half serious, which are natural to men, but fall too far short of conviction to be called superstitious.  On the 21st of October, 1757, his uncle Maurice Suckling had commanded one of three ships-of-the-line which had beaten off a superior force.  Nelson had several times said to Captain Hardy and Dr. Scott, “The 21st will be our day;” and on the morning of the battle, when the prediction was approaching fulfilment, he again remarked that the 21st of October was the happiest day in the year for his family; but he mentioned no reason other than that just given.