As the battle ended, the British fleet was, to use the expression of the "Neptune's" log, "in all directions." The sun was going down; the sky was overcast, and the rising swell and increasing wind told of the coming storm. Most of the prizes had been dismasted; many of them were leaking badly; some of the ships that had taken them were in almost as damaged a condition, and many of them were short-handed, with heavy losses in battle and detachments sent on board the captured vessels. The crews were busy clearing the decks, getting up improvised jury masts, and repairing the badly cut-up rigging, where the masts still stood. Nelson's final order had been to anchor to ride out the expected gale. Collingwood doubted if this would be safer than trying to make Gibraltar, and he busied himself getting the scattered fleet and prizes together, and tacking to the south-westward. The gale that swept all the coasts of Western Europe caught the disabled fleet with the hostile shore under its lee. Only four of the prizes, and those the poorest ships of the lot, ever saw Gibraltar. Ship after ship went down, others were abandoned and burnt, others drove ashore. In these last instances the British prize crews were rescued and kindly treated by the Spanish coast population. One ship, the "Algéciras," was retaken by the French prisoners, and carried into Cadiz. Another, the big "Santa Ana," was recaptured as she drifted helplessly off the port. But though there were few trophies left after the great storm, Trafalgar had finally broken the naval power of Napoleon, freed England from all fear of invasion, and given her the undisputed empire of the sea. Yet there were only half-hearted rejoicings at home. The loss of Nelson seemed a dear price to pay even for such a victory. Some 2500 men were killed and wounded in the victorious fleet. Of the losses of the Allies it is difficult to give an estimate. Every ship that was closely engaged suffered severely, and hundreds of wounded went down in several of those that sank in the storm. For weeks after search-parties, riding along the shores from Cadiz to Cape Trafalgar gathered every day a grim harvest of corpses drifted to land by the Atlantic tides. The allied loss was at least 7000 men, and may have been considerably greater. The news came to England, just after something like a panic had been caused by the tidings of the surrender of a whole Austrian army at Ulm. It reached Napoleon in the midst of his triumphs, to warn him that his power was bounded by the seas that washed the shores of the Continent. Well did Meredith say that in his last great fight Nelson "drove the smoke of Trafalgar to darken the blaze of Austerlitz." CHAPTER X THE COMING OF STEAM AND ARMOURED NAVIES THE FIGHT IN HAMPTON ROADS MARCH, 1862