oney to embark in the extensive preparations, which
afterwards gave assurance that he was in earnest in his threats. An
adept in making false demonstrations, perfectly appreciative of the
power of a great name, he counted upon his own renown, and his amazing
achievement of the apparently impossible in the past, to overawe the
imagination of a nation, whose will, rather than whose strength, he
hoped to subdue. Boulogne and the small neighboring ports, whose
nearness clearly indicated them as the only suitable base from which
an invasion could start, were in that year in no state to receive the
boats necessary to carry an army. This the British could see with
their own eyes; but who could be sure that the paper flotilla at
Boulogne, like the paper Army of Reserve at Dijon a year before, had
not elsewhere a substantial counterpart, whose sudden appearance might
yet work a catastrophe as unexpected and total as that of Marengo? And
who more apt than Bonaparte to spread the impression that some such
surprise was brewing? "I can venture to assure you that no embarkation
of troops can take place at Boulogne," wrote Nelson, immediately after
his first reconnoissance; but he says at the same time, "I have now
more than ever reason to believe that the ports of Flushing and
Flanders are much more likely places to embark men from, than Calais,
Boulogne, or Dieppe; for in Flanders we cannot tell by our eyes what
means they have collected for carrying an army." "Great preparations
at Ostend," he notes a week later; "Augereau commands that part of the
Army. I hope to let him feel the bottom of the Goodwin Sand." It was
just this sort of apprehension, specific in direction, yet vague and
elusive in details, that Bonaparte was skilled in disseminating.

St. Vincent, and the Government generally, agreed with Nelson's
opinion. "We are to look to Flanders for the great effort," wrote the
Earl to him. Neither of them had, nor was it possible for clear-headed
naval officers to have, any substantial, rational, fear of a descent
in force; yet the vague possibility did, for the moment, impress even
them, and the liability of the populace, and of the commercial
interests, to panic, was a consideration not to be overlooked.
Besides, in a certain way, there was no adequate preparation for
resistance. The British Navy, indeed, was an overwhelming force as
compared to the French; but its hands were fully occupied, and the
fleet Nelson had just left