f
action. "My lot is cast, my dear Ball, and I am going to the West
Indies, where, although I am late, yet chance may have given them a
bad passage, and me a good one: I must hope the best." "Disappointment
has worn me to a skeleton," he writes to his late junior in the
Mediterranean, Campbell, "and I am in good truth, very, very far from
well." "If I had not been in pursuit of the enemy's fleet, I should
have been at this moment in England, but my health, or even my life,
must not come into consideration at this important crisis; for,
however I may be called unfortunate, it never shall be said that I
have been neglectful of my duty, or spared myself." "It will not be
supposed I am on a party of pleasure," he wrote to the Secretary of
the Admiralty, "running after eighteen sail of the line with ten, and
that to the West Indies;" but, he summed up his feelings to Davison,
"Salt beef and the French fleet, is far preferable to roast beef and
champagne without them."

On the 10th of May only was his purpose finally and absolutely formed,
for on that day he sent a sloop to Barbadoes, his intended point of
arrival, to announce his coming; requesting that an embargo might be
laid at once on all vessels in port, to prevent the news reaching the
enemy at Martinique or elsewhere. In the morning of the 11th the fleet
weighed, and at 4 P.M. the expedition from England arrived. It was
accompanied by two ships-of-the-line, to which Nelson joined a third,
the "Royal Sovereign," which sailed so badly, from the state of her
bottom, that she would retard a movement already too long delayed. At
seven that evening the fleet was under full sail for the West Indies.

The voyage across was uneventful; the ships, as customary for this
passage, stood to the southward and westward into the trade winds,
under whose steady impulse they advanced at a daily average speed of
one hundred and thirty-five miles, or between five and six miles an
hour. This rate, however, was a mean between considerable extremes,--a
rate of nine miles being at times attained. The slackest winds, which
brought down the average, are found before reaching the trades, and
Nelson utilized this period to transmit to the fleet his general plan
for action, in case he found the allies at sea. The manner in which
this was conveyed to the individual ships is an interesting incident.
The speed of the fleet is necessarily that of its slowest member; the
faster ships, therefore, have