On the 4th of April, while bearing up for his old station, Toulon, he learnt that Villeneuve had five days previously put to sea, with eleven ships of the line, seven frigates, and two brigs.

At first he searched for them down the Mediterranean, still thinking that Egypt must be their object. At length he heard that the enemy had passed the Straits of Gibraltar, and might be half-way to Ireland or Jamaica, an attack on both of which places had been thought likely.

Beating up against adverse winds, Nelson, who said that his "good fortune had flown away," could only pass the narrow straits on the 5th of May, when a favouring wind at last sprung up.

Just before this, a Scotsman, Donald Campbell, who was at that time an admiral in the Portuguese service, came on board the Victory  with the news that the combined fleets were on their way to the West Indies.

Though the enemy were in far greater numbers than the British, the admiral started off in hot pursuit with only ten sail of the line and three frigates.

"Take you a Frenchman apiece," he told his captains, "and leave me his Spaniards" (there were six Spanish battleships). "When I haul down my colours, I expect you to do the same, and not till then."

Meanwhile Nelson was suffering the same torture of mind and spirit as when once before the enemy escaped him before the battle of the Nile.

"Oh, French fleet! French fleet!" he wrote, "if I can but once get up with you, I'll make you pay dearly for all that you have made me suffer."

By June 4 the British were at Barbadoes, where, misled by reports, they expected to find the enemy. They entered the Gulf of Paria with their ships cleared for action, only to find the enemy gone.

Coming to the rapid but, as it happened, correct decision that the enemy had returned to Europe, Nelson lost no time in sailing after them.

As going out he had been able to gain ten days on them, and they had only five days' start of him on the return to Europe, Nelson thought he would be able to come up with Villeneuve before the latter had done much harm.

For three weeks the combined fleet had the West Indies at their mercy, and as they had not attacked the islands, Nelson felt no great alarm as to what they would do in Europe.

On the 19th of June he was back again at Gibraltar, and the next day he went on shore for the first time since June 18, 1803. Thus for two years he had not had his foot on dry land.

Though he had not found the enemy, he had at least chased them out of the West Indies, which were then among Britain's most wealthy and important colonies.

Had the enemy been met, though they were in far greater numbers, Nelson had determined to attack them, come what might to his own squadron.

"Though we are but eleven to eighteen or twenty, we won't part without a battle," he kept repeating.

That this fight he had in his mind never took place was due to no fault of Nelson's. A few days later, however, Admiral Calder with fifteen ships met twenty of the enemy, and a drawn battle took place. The British admiral, though he had the best of the fight, thought it more prudent to draw off and let the enemy escape, after they had been roughly handled.

This made the people in England very angry, for the country could not but feel how different the result would have been if their beloved admiral had been in Calder's place. Nelson, they knew, would never have left the enemy, even though half his own ships had been destroyed.

Nelson's truly great spirit could not bear that his unfortunate brother admiral should be blamed.

"It most sincerely grieves me," he wrote, "that in any of the papers it should be insinuated that Lord Nelson could have done better. Who can say what will be the event of a battle? I could have fought the enemy, so did my friend Calder; but who can say that he will be more successful than another?"

On August 18 the Victory  anchored at Portsmouth and the long chase was at an end.

Nelson no sooner landed than he posted up to London, where he had much to talk about, not only with the Admiralty but with the Secretary for War.

On this visit to London the famous meeting between Nelson, "the greatest sailor since our world began," and the Duke of Wellington, the conqueror of Napoleon, "the great world's victor's victor," took place. Neither knew who the other was. They were both waiting in the anteroom of the Secretary of State. At first "the Iron Duke" found Nelson's talk trifling and silly. But when the war and the state of Europe were touched upon, then in an instant the somewhat boastful trifler vanished, and Nelson, the statesman, sailor, and saviour of his country appeared in his true colours.

On the 2nd of September Captain Blackwood called at Merton at five in the morning. Nelson, who was already up and dressed, eagerly greeted him with the words, "I am sure you bring me news of the French and Spanish fleets, and I think I shall yet have to beat them."

On Blackwood telling him that the French squadron had arrived off Cadiz, he could scarcely conceal his joy. "Depend upon it, Blackwood," he exclaimed, "I shall yet give Mr. Villeneuve a drubbing."

All haste was made to get ready the fleet Nelson had chosen. He stuck to the Victory  as his flagship. Already a feeling of his coming death was upon him: he knew "they meant to make a dead set at the Victory,"  he told his brother.

In his private journal are found these words:—

"Friday night (Sept. 13), at half-past ten, I drove from dear, dear Merton to go to serve my king and country. May the great God, whom I adore, enable me to fulfil the expectations of my country.

"And, if it is His good pleasure that I should return, my thanks will never cease being offered up to the throne of His mercy.

"If it is His good providence to cut short my days upon earth, I bow with the greatest submission, relying that He will protect those so dear to me, whom I may leave behind! His will be done. Amen! Amen! Amen!"

Nelson had felt his reception at Court after his return from Copenhagen to be a cold one. Now, his leave-taking must have assured him of the love and admiration of a whole nation.

Vast crowds had gathered at Portsmouth to catch a glimpse of, and to bid God-speed to, the national hero.

To quote Southey: "They pressed forward to obtain sight of his face. Many were in tears, and many knelt down before him and blessed him as he passed.

"England has had many heroes, but never one who so entirely possessed the love of his fellow-countrymen as Nelson."

On the 25th the Victory  was off Lisbon, and letters were sent on shore begging that the fleet's arrival might be kept secret.

At all costs Villeneuve was to be tempted to put to sea and give battle.

"Day by day," wrote Nelson, "I am expecting the allied fleet to put to sea—every day, hour, and moment. I am convinced that you estimate, as I do, the importance of not letting those rogues escape us without a fair fight, which I pant for by day and dream of by night."

On September 28 the Victory  reached the fleet; the day after was Nelson's birthday.

The reception he met with, he declared, "caused the sweetest sensation of his life."

The officers who came on board to welcome his return—"the band of brothers," as he called them—forgot his rank as commander-in-chief, in the joy with which they greeted him.

"When I came to explain to them the 'Nelson touch,'" the admiral writes to Lady Hamilton, "it was like an electric shock. Some shed tears; all approved."

The "Nelson touch," which has passed into a saying common in the navy to this day, was the great admiral's plan of attack or conduct of war.

"The business of an English commander-in-chief"—so ran Nelson's famous order—"is first to bring an enemy's fleet to battle, on the most advantageous terms to himself (I mean that of laying his ships close on board the enemy as quickly as possible); and, secondly, to continue them there without separating until their business is decided."

"First, to lay his ships close on board the enemy; and, secondly, to continue them there." Surely this, in a few simple words, is the secret of England's naval greatness, and Nelson's own fame.

On the 19th of October Nelson was to have his longed-for wish granted.

The day previous he had noted in his diary—

"Fine weather; wind easterly: the combined fleets cannot have finer weather to put to sea."

Next morning the signal was flashed throughout the British fleet, with what feelings of joy we can well imagine—