a battle, but they did part without a decisive battle; they were not
kept in sight afterwards; they joined and were incorporated with
Napoleon's great armada; they had further wide opportunities of
mischief; and there followed for the people of Great Britain a period
of bitter suspense and wide-spread panic. "What a game had Villeneuve
to play!" said Napoleon of those moments. "Does not the thought of the
possibilities remaining to Villeneuve," wrote Lord Radstock of
Calder's fruitless battle, "make your blood boil when you reflect on
the never to be forgotten 22d of July? Notwithstanding the inferiority
of Lord Nelson's numbers," he says at the same time, with keen
appreciation of the man he knew so well, "should he be so lucky as to
fall in with the enemy, I have no doubt that _he would never quit
them_[105] until he should have destroyed or taken some of the French
ships; and that he himself would seek the French admiral's ship, if
possible, I would pledge my life on it." "There is such an universal
bustle and cry about invasion, that no other subject will be listened
to at present by those in power. I found London almost a desert, and
no good news stirring to animate it; on the contrary, the few faces I
saw at the Admiralty at once confirmed the truth of the report of the
combined squadron having safely arrived at Ferrol." This was after
Calder had met and fought them, and let them get out of his sight.

Lord Minto, speaking of the same crisis, says: "There has been the
greatest alarm ever known in the city of London, since the combined
fleet [Villeneuve's] sailed from Ferrol. If they had captured our
homeward-bound convoys, it is said the India Company and half the city
must have been bankrupt." These gleams of the feelings of the times,
reflected by two men in close contact with the popular apprehensions,
show what Nelson was among British admirals to the men of his day, and
why he was so. "Great and important as the victory is," wrote Minto,
three months later, after the news of Trafalgar, "it is bought too
dearly, even for our interest, by the death of Nelson. We shall want
more victories yet, and to whom can we look for them? The navy is
certainly full of the bravest men, but they are mostly below the rank
of admiral; and brave as they almost all are, there was a sort of
heroic cast about Nelson that I never saw in any other man, and which
seems wanting to the achievement of _impossible things_ which became
eas