therefore, had the misfortune to act under orders that forbade him to fight unless with such odds in his favour as would ensure success, the other was also controlled, in some degree, by extraneous circumstances ; sufficient, if not to excuse him for declining to assail an equal force, to justify him in acting a peculiarly cautious part, when himself assailed by a force decidedly superior. Sir Robert Calder knew that the very ships composing his fleet had been abstracted from watching as many enemy's ships, as had composed the combined fleet on his first meeting it ; he himself, with 10, had been ordered from off a port in which lay 15, waiting, as he had every reason to believe, solely for his departure, to slip out and join M. Villeneuve. Rear-admiral Stirling, also, with five ships, had been called from off another port, out of which he knew, and informed Sir Robert, that five French ships had been seen getting under way, just as the blockading squadron was disappearing from the coast ; * and which five ships, since known to have sailed on the 16th, were endeavouring to effect their junction, either with M. Villeneuve at sea, or with Rear-admiral Gourdon at Ferrol. So well grounded were Sir Robert Calder's apprehensions on this head, that, on the 23d of July, Rear-admiral Allemand, with his squadron, was on the very spot on which the battle of the preceding day had been fought. Moreover, Sir Robert had been ordered by the admiralty, and by the commanders-in-chief of the Channel and of the Mediterranean fleets, to be on his guard in case of a junction between the fleet of M. Villeneuve and the squadron from Ferrol : whose united force would have been at least 35, and, if the Rochefort squadron had joined, 40 sail of the line.

Matters would have passed off, and Sir Robert Calder's success, in having, with a fleet of 15 sail of the line, captured two out of an enemy's fleet of 20 sail of the line, been taken as an earnest of how much more would have been effected, had the parties met on fairer terms. But the accounts on shore marred all. The British admiralty suppressed an important paragraph in Sir Robert's letter to Admiral Cornwallis ; taking care that the published extract (to confirm the delusion, stated to be a, "copy" of the official letter) should end where hopes were held out of a renewal of the engagement ; thus : "They are now in sight to windward ; and, when I have secured the captured ships and put the squadron to rights, I shall endeavour to avail myself of any opportunity that may offer to give you a further account of these combined squadrons." The suppressed paragraph this: "At the same time it will behove me to be on my guard against the combined squadrons in Ferrol, as I am led to believe

*  See Minutes of the court-martial upon Sir Robert Calder, Rear-admiral Stirling's evidence.

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