Contrary winds from the westward delayed his sailing for some days after this decision. Reefs and local currents made it difficult to work a large fleet out of Cadiz without a fair wind. A smaller but better-trained fleet than that of Villeneuve had once taken three days to get out, and a portion of the fleet at sea and unsupported would be in deadly peril. On 17 October the wind began to work round to the eastward. Next day it fell almost to a calm, but it increased towards evening, and Villeneuve, after a conference with his Spanish colleague, Admiral Gravina, signalled that the ships were to weigh anchor at sunrise on the 19th. Nelson had been watching Cadiz for three weeks, keeping his fleet well out at sea, with his frigates close in to the port, and a chain of ships acting as connecting links with them to pass on information by signalling with flags by day and lanterns by night. The system of signalling had been lately so improved that it was fairly rapid and reliable, and Nelson kept his fleet out of sight, and requested that the names of ships sent to reinforce him should not appear in the papers, as he hoped to delude Villeneuve into a false idea that he had a very inferior force before Cadiz. He feared that if the whole array of his fleet were visible from the look-out stations of the port the allies would remain safe at anchor. During this period of waiting he had had more than one conference with his captains, and had read and explained to them a manuscript memorandum, dated 9 October, setting forth his plans for the expected battle. His plan of battle excited an enthusiasm among them, to which more than one of them afterwards bore testimony. They said that "the Nelson touch" was in it, and it is generally taken for granted that they saw in it something like a stroke of genius and a new departure in tactics. I hope it is not presumption on my part to suggest that their enthusiasm was partly the result of their seeing that their trusted leader was thoroughly himself again and, to use a familiar phrase, meant business, and they had a further motive for satisfaction in seeing how thoroughly he relied on them and how ready he was to give them a free hand in carrying out his general ideas. The "Nelson touch" memorandum of 9 October and the whole plan of the battle have been, and still are, the subject of acute controversy, the various phases of which it would be far too long to discuss. It is strange that after the lapse of a hundred years and the publication of a vast mass of detailed evidence--British, French, and Spanish--there are still wide differences of opinion as to how the most famous naval battle in history was actually fought out. There is even much uncertainty as to the order in which the British ships came into action.