for Minorca, where Nelson had purposed to reconnoitre Port Mahon,
the frigates next went to Cartagena, and ascertained that the great
Spanish fleet was certainly not there. As Toulon also had been found
empty, it seemed clear that it had gone to the westward, the more so
as the most probable information indicated that the naval enterprises
of the French and their allies at that time were to be outside of the
Mediterranean. Nelson therefore pushed ahead, and on the 9th of
February the "Minerve" and "Romulus" anchored in Gibraltar. All three
divisions from Elba passed the Straits within the same forty-eight
hours.

The Spanish grand fleet had been seen from the Rock, four days before,
standing to the westward into the Atlantic. Two ships-of-the-line and
a frigate had been detached from it, with supplies for the Spanish
lines before Gibraltar, and had anchored at the head of the bay, where
they still were when Nelson arrived. On board them had also been sent
the two British lieutenants and the seamen, who became prisoners when
the "Sabina" was recaptured. Their exchange was effected, for which
alone Nelson was willing to wait. The fact that the Spanish fleet had
gone towards Jervis's rendezvous, and the continuance of easterly
winds, which would tend to drive them still farther in the same
direction, gave him uneasy premonitions of that coming battle which it
would "break his heart" to miss. It was, besides, part of his
ingrained military philosophy, never absent from his careful mind,
that a fair wind may fall or shift. "The object of a sea-officer is to
embrace the happy moment which now and then offers,--it may be to-day,
it may be never." Regretting at this moment the loss even of a tide,
entailed by the engagements of the Viceroy, whom he had to carry to
Jervis, and therefore could not leave, he wrote, "I fear a _westerly_
wind." The Providence in which he so often expresses his reliance, now
as on many other occasions, did not forsake the favored son, who never
by sluggishness or presumption lost his opportunities. The wind held
fair until the 13th of February, when Nelson rejoined the
commander-in-chief. That night it shifted to the westward, and the
following day was fought the Battle of Cape St. Vincent.

Taken in its entirety, the episode of this nearly forgotten mission to
Elba is singularly characteristic, not only of Nelson's own qualities,
but also of those concurrences which, whatever the origin attributed