neuve had other contingent instructions, which
became inoperative through the persistent pursuit of Nelson.

The French fleet sailed during the night of March 30, with a light
northeast wind, and steered a course approaching due south, in
accordance with Villeneuve's plan of going east of Minorca. The
British lookout frigates, "Active" and "Phoebe," saw it at eight
o'clock the next morning, and kept company with its slow progress till
eight P.M., when, being then sixty miles south by west, true, from
Toulon, the "Phoebe" was sent off to Nelson. During the day the wind
shifted for a time to the northwest. The French then hauled up to
southwest, and were heading so when darkness concealed them from the
British frigates, which were not near enough for night observations.
After the "Phoebe's" departure, the "Active" continued to steer as the
enemy had been doing when last seen, but at daybreak they were no
longer in sight. Just what Villeneuve did that night does not appear;
but no vessel of Nelson's knew anything more about him till April
18th, when information was received from a chance passer that he had
been seen on the 7th off Cape de Gata, on the coast of Spain, with a
fresh easterly wind steering to the westward.

Villeneuve doubtless had used the night's breeze, which was fresh, to
fetch a long circuit, throw off the "Active," and resume his course to
the southward. It was not till next day, April 1st, that he spoke a
neutral, which had seen Nelson near Palmas. Undeceived thus as to the
British being off Cape San Sebastian, and the wind having then come
again easterly, the French admiral kept away at once to the westward,
passed north of the Balearic Islands, and on the 6th appeared off
Cartagena. The Spanish ships there refusing to join him, he pressed
on, went by Gibraltar on the 8th, and on the 9th anchored off Cadiz,
whence he drove away Orde's squadron. The "Aigle," with six Spanish
ships, joined at once, and that night the combined force, eighteen
ships-of-the-line, sailed for Martinique, where it arrived on the 14th
of May. By Villeneuve's instructions it was to remain in the West
Indies till the 23d of June.

When the captain of the "Active" found he had lost sight of the
French, he kept away for Nelson's rendezvous, and joined him at 2 P.M.
of April 4th, five or six hours after the "Phoebe." Prepossessed with
the opinion that Naples, Sicily, or Egypt was the enemy's aim, an
opinion which the frigate's ne