When the development of the British movement was recognized by Villeneuve, he saw that fighting was inevitable; and, wishing to keep Cadiz, then twenty miles to the northward and eastward, under his lee, he ordered the combined fleets to wear together.[135] The scanty wind which embarrassed the British impeded this manoeuvre also, so that it was not completed till near ten o’clock.  Nelson, however, noted its beginning at seven, and with grave concern; for not only would it put the allies nearer their port, as it was intended to do, but it would cause vessels crippled in the action to find to leeward of them, during the gale which he foresaw, the dangerous shoals off Trafalgar instead of the open refuge of the Straits.  The appreciation of the peril thus entailed led him to make a signal for all the ships to be prepared to anchor after the battle, for it was not to be hoped that the spars of many of them would be in a condition to bear sail.  The result of the allied movement was to invert their order.  Their ships, which had been steering south, now all headed north; the van became the rear; Gravina, who had been leading the column, was in the rear ship; and it was upon this rear, but still the southern flank of the hostile array, that the weight of Collingwood’s attack was to fall.

Soon after daylight Nelson, who, according to his custom, was already up and dressed, had gone on deck.  He wore as usual his admiral’s frock coat, on the left breast of which were stitched the stars of four different Orders that he always bore.  It was noticed that he did not wear his sword at Trafalgar, although it lay ready for him on the cabin table; and it is supposed he forgot to call for it, as this was the only instance in which he was known not to carry it when engaged.  At about six o’clock he summoned Captain Blackwood on board the “Victory.”  This officer had had a hard fag during the past forty-eight hours, dogging the enemy’s movements through darkness and mist; but that task was over, and his ambition now was to get command of one of two seventy-fours, whose captains had gone home with Calder to give evidence at his trial.  “My signal just made on board the Victory,” he wrote to his wife.  “I hope to order me to a vacant line-of-battle ship.”  Nelson’s purpose, however, as far as stated by Blackwood, was simply to thank him for the successful efforts of the past two days, and to have him by his side till the flagship came under fire, in order to receive final and precise instructions, as the situation developed, for the conduct of the frigates during and after the battle.  To Blackwood’s congratulations upon the approach of the moment that he had, to use his own word, panted for, he replied:  “I mean to-day to bleed the captains of the frigates, as I shall keep you on board to the very last moment.”