ones which placed Nelson's
mind, however fretted by disappointment, at ease concerning any future
harm the enemy might be able to do. Another wreath of laurel, which
seemed almost within his grasp, had indeed evaded him, and no man felt
more keenly such a loss; but he was reasonably sure that, if
Villeneuve were gone to Europe, he could not outstrip pursuit by long
enough to do much harm. The harassing fear, which he had borne through
the long beat down the Mediterranean and the retarded voyage to
Martinique, had now disappeared. Going out he had gained ten days upon
the allies; they had only five days' start of him in the return. He
recognized, moreover, the great significance of their inactivity
during the three weeks they had the Windward Islands, if not all the
West Indies, defenceless before them. "If they were not able to make
an attack for three weeks after their arrival, they could not hope for
greater success after our means of resistance increased, and their
means of offence were diminished." If this consideration, on the one
hand, showed the improbability of their proceeding against Jamaica,
after Nelson's coming, when they had not ventured before, it gave also
an inkling of their probable efficiency for immediate action in
Europe. "They will not give me credit for quitting the West Indies for
a month to come;" therefore it was unlikely that they would think it
necessary to proceed at once upon their next enterprise, after
reaching port. "I must not despair of getting up with them before they
enter the Straits," he writes Elliot. "At least, they will have no
time to carry any of their future plans into execution, and do harm to
any of the countries under my charge." If his thirst for glory was
unslaked, his fears of disaster had disappeared.

Villeneuve, guided by instructions recently received from Napoleon, to
meet the case of the Brest squadron not getting away, had gone
actually for Ferrol, where he was to join a squadron of five French
and nine Spanish ships, which would raise his own force to thirty-four
of the line; but Nelson, unable to know this, argued correctly that,
in the uncertainty, he must leave this chance to the Biscay ships, and
that for himself the Mediterranean possessed the first claim. At noon
of June 13th, nine days after reaching Barbadoes, he got away from
Antigua. The necessity for gaining the westerly winds made his course
for some time the same as that of Villeneuve, and left him