Calder and Collingwood “sat tight” outside the harbour with one eye on the enemy and the other searching for signs of the British ships which they knew would be with them before long. Nelson, after spending a short time in England, hove in sight off Cadiz on the day before his forty-seventh birthday and assumed supreme command. The officers trooped into his cabin to congratulate him. “The reception I met with on joining the fleet,” he declared, “caused the sweetest sensation of my life.”
On the 19th October the signal, “The enemy are coming out of port,” flew from the mast-heads of the frigates stationed to watch the goings-on in the harbour. Thirty-three sail-of-the-line, five frigates, and two brigs had passed out by the following day. Nelson’s force consisted of twenty-seven men-of-war, four frigates, a schooner, and a cutter. The enemy therefore had the advantage as regards numbers of six first-class ships. In armament the combatants were nearly equal, as in bravery and daring, but the French were very inferior in seamanship and general _morale_. The 21st October 1805, on which the Battle of Trafalgar was fought, is a red-letter day in the history of the British Empire, perhaps of the world. The story belongs rather to the life of Nelson than of Napoleon, and as such cannot be dealt with here. Eleven ships only escaped of the thirty-three which had ventured to contest England’s command of the sea. The conflict in Trafalgar Bay was Napoleon’s maritime Waterloo. It cost the life of the greatest naval commander of modern times, but it sealed the supremacy of his country on the element which she has made particularly her own. On land, success still remained with the man whose gigantic schemes for invasion were so completely shattered; at sea, it was never to attend his efforts.
Swift decision was as essentially a characteristic of Napoleon as was his policy of having an alternative scheme to fall back upon should the first and more important plan miscarry. A typical example in which both are to be seen is afforded by a study of the War of the Third Coalition, against the allied Powers, Austria, Russia, and Great Britain. Disappointed at the failure of his preparations for the invasion of England, but clinging to his pet project, the humiliation of that country, the Emperor suddenly, and with apparently little forethought, led his legions in the opposite direction. England remained unviolated, but he saw a chance of stealing a march on Austria, her faithful friend.