It was well for Jack Mackenzie that he arrived off Cadiz in his swift _Tonneraire_[B] about a week before the great battle of St. Vincent. I do not mean to describe this fight at any length; every school-boy knows all about it. I merely wish to remind the reader of some of its chief events, because to me it has always seemed such a blood-stirring battle. The haughty Don had a fleet of twenty-seven sail of the line and two frigates. Some of his ships, like the _Santissima-Trinidad_, were perfect _montes belli_--thunder-bergs. Fancy a four-decker carrying one hundred and thirty guns! and the Spaniards had six that carried one hundred and twenty; while we had only two of one hundred guns, the _Victory_ and _Britannia_. [B] Fictitious name, the reader of history will note. On the 1st of February Lord St. Vincent, then Sir John Jervis, was in the Tagus with only ten ships; but as the great fleet of the Don sailed from Carthagena to effect a junction with the French fleet at Toulon, Jervis set sail after them. He meant to spoil some of the paint-work about that fine Spanish fleet. It was very brave of him, and quite British. Luckily on the 6th he was joined by Admiral Parker with five ships, and on the 13th--hurrah!--by Commodore Nelson himself. Strangely enough, Nelson on the previous night seems to have sailed right through the Spanish fleet. St. Valentine's Day 1797 will ever be memorable in the naval annals of this country, for, in a driving mist and fog, our fleet that morning forgathered with the might of Spain off Cape St. Vincent. The majestic appearance of the ships of the Don could not but have impressed our officers and men, but it did not awe them. The bigger the ship the larger the target, our Nelson used to say. Our fleet advanced in two beautiful lines. The Spaniards somehow had got divided into two groups--one of nineteen ships, the other group some distance to leeward--and these two made haste to unite. But Jervis spoiled that move by getting between them and attacking the main body. After the battle had fairly commenced, and each ship of ours had her orders, Nelson noted an attempt on the part of Don Josef de Cordova to pass round Jervis's rear and join the other portion of the fleet; and despite the fact that he was disobeying orders--"They can but hang me," he said to Captain Miller--he slipped back and threw his ship, the _Captain_, right athwart the mighty _Santissima-Trinidad_, thus driving the Don's fleet back. It was, as the reader knows, this daring action on the part of Nelson that decided the battle. But how terribly the fight raged after that; how pluckily Nelson, with his vessel a wreck, boarded and captured ship after ship; how the hell of battle raged for three long hours, let history tell, as well as speak of cases of individual heroism. Suffice it for me to say that the battle was won and the Don was thrashed, among the captured ships being the mighty _Trinidad_ herself, the Spanish admiral's castle.