d, and
when the French in their turn were pursued by the British
line-of-battle ships, as every broadside crashed on the hull of the
ship that held them captive, Cochrane and his men gave a round of
exultant cheers, until the exasperated Frenchmen threatened to shoot
them unless they would hold their tongues--an announcement which only
made the British sailors cheer a little louder. The fight between
Saumarez and Linois ended with a tragedy; but it may be said to have
begun with a farce.

The presence of a French squadron in the Straits of Gibraltar at this
particular moment may be explained in a few sentences. Napoleon had
woven afresh the web of those naval "combinations" so often torn to
fragments by British seamanship and daring. He had persuaded or
bullied Spain into placing under the French flag a squadron of six
line-of-battle ships, including two leviathans of 112 guns each, lying
in the harbour of Cadiz. With haughty, it might almost be said with
insolent daring, a couple of British seventy-fours--sometimes, indeed,
only one--patrolled the entrance to Cadiz, and blockaded a squadron of
ten times their own force. Napoleon's plan was to draw a strong French
squadron, under Admiral Linois, from Toulon, a second Spanish squadron
from Ferrol, unite these with the ships lying in Cadiz, and thus form a
powerful fleet of at least fifteen ships of the line, with a garnishing
of frigates.

Once having got his fleet, Napoleon's imagination--which had a strong
predatory bias--hesitated betwixt two uses to which it could be turned.
One was to make a dash on Lisbon, and require, under threat of an
instant bombardment, the delivery of all British ships and goods lying
there. This ingenious plan, it was reckoned, would fill French pockets
with cash and adorn French brows with glory at one stroke. The amount
of British booty at Lisbon was computed--somewhat airily--at
200,000,000 pounds; its disappearance would send half the mercantile
houses of Great Britain into the insolvency court, and, to quote a
French state paper on the subject, "our fleet, without being buffeted
about the sea, would return to Brest loaded with riches and covered
with glory, and France would once more astonish Europe." The
alternative scheme was to transport some 32,000 new troops to Egypt and
restore French fortunes in that country.

Meanwhile Great Britain took energetic measures to wreck this new
combination. Sir James Saumarez, in the _C