The length of Villeneuve's passage, which so happily concurred to assure the success of Barham's masterly move, was due not only to the inferior seamanship of the allies, but also to the mistaken rendezvous off the Azores, [220]—assigned by the French admiral when leaving the West Indies. The westerly gales, which prevail in the North Atlantic, blow during the summer from the south of west, west of the Azores, and from the north of west when east of them. A fleet bound for a European port north of the islands—as Ferrol is—should therefore so use the south-west winds as to cross their meridian well to the northward. Nelson himself sighted one of the group, though his destination was in a lower latitude. In consequence of his mistake, Villeneuve was by the north-west winds forced down on the coast of Portugal, where he met the north-easters prevalent at that season, against which he was struggling when encountered by Calder. This delay was therefore caused, not by bad luck, but by bad management.
Napoleon himself was entirely misled by Barham's measures, whose rapidity he himself could not have surpassed. He had left Turin on the 8th of July, and, travelling incessantly, reached Fontainebleau on the evening of the 11th. About the 20th he appears to have received the news brought ten days before by the "Curieux," and at the same time that of the Rochefort blockade being raised. [221] Not till the 27th did he learn that the British squadron off Ferrol had also disappeared, after being joined by the Rochefort ships. "The 'Curieux' only reached England on the 9th," he wrote to Decrès; "the Admiralty could not decide the movements of its squadrons in twenty-four hours, yet the Rochefort division disappeared on the 12th. On the 15th it joined that off Ferrol, and the same day, or at latest the next, these fourteen ships departed by orders given prior to the arrival of the 'Curieux.' What news had the English before the arrival of that brig? That the French were at Martinique; that Nelson had then but nine ships. What should they have done? I should not be surprised if they have sent another squadron to strengthen Nelson, ... and that it is these fourteen ships from before Ferrol they have sent to America." [222]
On the 2d of August the emperor set out for Boulogne, and there on the 8th received news of Villeneuve's action with Calder and of his subsequent entry into Ferrol. The fleets had fought on the afternoon of July 22, and two Spanish ships-of-the-line had been taken. Night-fall and fog parted the combatants; the obscurity being so great that the allies did not know their loss till next day. One of the British ships lost a foretopmast, and others suffered somewhat in their spars; but these mishaps, though pleaded in Calder's defence, do not seem to have been the chief reasons that deterred him from dogging the enemy till he had brought him again to action. He was preoccupied with the care of the prizes, a secondary matter, and with the thought of what would happen in case the Ferrol and Rochefort squadrons sailed. "I could not hope to succeed without receiving great damage; I had no friendly port to go to, and had the Ferrol and Rochefort squadrons come out, I must have fallen an easy prey. They might have gone to Ireland. Had I been defeated it is impossible to say what the consequences might have been." [223] In short, the British admiral had fallen into the error against which Napoleon used to caution his generals. He had "made to himself a picture," and allowed the impression produced by it to blind him to the fact (if indeed he ever saw it) that he had before him the largest and most important of the several detachments of the enemy, that it was imperatively necessary not to permit it to escape unharmed, and that at no future day could he be sure of bringing his own squadron into play with such decisive effect. The wisdom of engaging at any particular moment was a tactical question, to be determined by the circumstances at the time; but the duty of keeping touch with the enemy, so as to use promptly any opportunity offered, was a strategic question, the answer to which admits of no doubt whatever. On the evening of the 24th the wind was fair to carry him to the enemy, but he parted from them. During the night it blew fresh; and on the morning of the 25th, says a French authority, the fleet was without order, several vessels had lost sails, and others sustained injuries to their spars. [224] Calder, however, was not on hand.
It is related of Nelson that, on his return voyage from the West Indies, he used to say to his captains, speaking of the fleet which Calder allowed to escape, "If we meet them we shall find them not less than eighteen, I rather think twenty, sail-of-the-line, and therefore do not be surprised if I should not fall on them immediately; we won't part without a battle. I will let them alone till we approach the shores of Europe, or they give me an advantage too tempting to be resisted." [225] And again, after reaching England, he found on the 23d of August great anxiety prevailing about Calder, who with eighteen ships was then again cruising for Villeneuve, supposed to have been re-enforced to twenty-eight by the Ferrol squadron. "I am no conjuror," he wrote, "but this I ventured without any fear, that if Calder got fairly alongside their twenty-eight sail, by the time the enemy had beat our fleet soundly, they would do us no harm this year." [226] These two utterances of this consummate warrior sufficiently show how Calder should have viewed his opportunity in July.
Villeneuve had no more wish to renew the action than had Calder. Less even than that admiral could he rise to the height of risking a detachment in order to secure the success of a great design. In the eighteen ships left to him were over twelve hundred men so ill that it was necessary to put them ashore. Constrained by the winds, he put into Vigo on the 28th of July. Calder, on the other hand, having seen his prizes so far north as to insure their safety, returned off Cape Finisterre where he hoped to meet Nelson. Not finding him, he on the 29th resumed the blockade of Ferrol. On the 31st Villeneuve, leaving three of his worst vessels in Vigo, sailed for Ferrol with fifteen ships, of which two only were Spaniards. The fleet, having a strong south-west gale, kept close along shore to avoid meeting Calder; but the latter, having been blown off by the storm, was not in sight when Villeneuve reached the harbor's mouth. The allied ships were entering with a fair wind, when the French admiral received dispatches forbidding him to anchor in Ferrol. If, from injuries received in battle, or losses from any causes whatever, he was unable to carry out the plan of entering the Channel, the emperor preferred that, after rallying the Ferrol and Rochefort squadrons, he should go to Cadiz; but, the Brest fleet being ready and the other preparations complete, he hoped everything from the skill, zeal, and courage of Villeneuve. "Make us masters of the Straits of Dover," he implored, "be it but for four or five days." [227] Napoleon leaned on a broken reed. Forbidden to enter Ferrol, Villeneuve took his ships into the adjacent harbor of Coruña, [228] where he anchored August 1.
Thus was effected the junction which Calder had been expected to prevent. His absence on the particular day may have been unavoidable; but, if so, it does but emphasize his fault in losing sight of the allies on the 24th of July, when he had a fair wind. Twenty-nine French and Spanish ships were now concentrated at Ferrol. The popular outcry was so great that he felt compelled to ask an enquiry. The Admiralty having, by a movement both judiciously and promptly ordered, secured a meeting with the enemy's force so far from Ferrol as to deprive it of the support of the ships there, was justly incensed at the failure to reap the full advantage. It therefore ordered a court-martial. The trial was held the following December; and the admiral, while expressly cleared of either cowardice or disaffection, was adjudged not to have done his utmost to renew the engagement and to take or destroy every ship of the enemy. His conduct was pronounced highly censurable, and he was sentenced to be severely reprimanded.
This was after Trafalgar. The immediate result of the junction in Ferrol was the abandonment of the blockade there. On the 2d of August Calder sent five ships to resume the watch off Rochefort, whence the French squadron had meantime escaped. Not till August 9 did he know of Villeneuve's entrance into Ferrol. Having with him then but nine ships, he fell back upon the main body before Brest, which he joined on the 14th,—Cornwallis then having under him seventeen ships, which Calder's junction raised to twenty-six.
The next day, August 15, Nelson also joined the fleet. On the 25th of July, a week after reaching Gibraltar, he had received the "Curieux's" news. Obeying his constant rule to seek the French, he at once started north with the eleven ships which had accompanied him from the West Indies,—intending to go either to Ferrol, Brest, or Ireland, according to the tidings which might reach him on the way. After communicating with Cornwallis, he continued on to England with his own ship, the "Victory," and one other whose condition required immediate repairs. On the 18th he landed in Portsmouth, after an absence of over two years.
Cornwallis had now under his command a concentrated force of thirty-four or thirty-five sail-of-the-line, all admirably seasoned and disciplined. The allies had in Brest twenty-one, in Ferrol twenty-nine; two great bodies, neither of which, however, was equal in number, nor still less in quality, to his. Adrift somewhere on the sea were the five French ships from Rochefort. For more than five months these vessels, which sailed on the 17th of July, five days after the blockading ships had left to join Calder, ranged the seas without meeting an equal British division,—a circumstance which earned for them from the French the name of "the Invisible Squadron." But, while thus fortunately unseen by the enemy, Napoleon found it equally impossible to bring them within the scope of his combinations; [229] and it may be doubted whether commerce-destroying to the sum of two million dollars compensated for the loss of so important a military factor.
The ships in Cadiz being blocked by Collingwood, and those in Cartagena remaining always inert, the naval situation was now comparatively simple. Cornwallis was superior to either of the enemy's detachments, and he held an interior position. In case Villeneuve approached, it was scarcely possible that the two hostile squadrons, dependent upon the wind, which if fair for one would be foul to the other, could unite before he had effectually crushed one of them. It ought to be equally improbable, with proper lookouts, that Villeneuve could elude the British fleet and gain so far the start of it as to cover the Straits of Dover during the time required by Napoleon. In his concentrated force and his interior position Cornwallis controlled the issue,—barring of course those accidents which cannot be foreseen, and which at times derange the best-laid plans.