The combined fleets escaped into Vigo, where they refitted; and, venturing to sail from that port, they proceeded to Ferrol,[185] united themselves with the squadron which was lying there, and continued their course for Cadiz, which they entered in safety. This did not consist with the plans of Buonaparte, who would have had the whole naval force united at Brest to be in readiness to cover the descent upon England. "General terror was spread," he said, "throughout that divided nation, and never was England so near to destruction."[186] Of the general terror, few of the British, we believe, remember any thing, and of the imminent danger we were not sensible. Had the combined fleets entered the British Channel, instead of the Mediterranean, they would have found the same admiral, the same seamen, nay, in many instances, the same ships, to which Villeneuve's retreat into Cadiz gave the trouble of going to seek him there. [Sidenote: NELSON IN THE MEDITERRANEAN.] When the certainty was known that the enemy's fleets were actually in Cadiz, Nelson was put at the head of the British naval force in the Mediterranean,[187] which was reinforced with an alertness and secrecy that did the highest honour to the Admiralty. Villeneuve, in the meantime, had, it is believed, his master's express orders to put to sea;[188] and if he had been censured for want of zeal in the action off Cape Finisterre with Calder, he was likely, as a brave man, to determine on running some risk to prove the injustice of his Emperor's reproaches. Cadiz also, being strictly blockaded by the English, the fleets of France and Spain began to be in want of necessaries. But what principally determined the French admiral on putting to sea, was his ignorance of the reinforcements received by the English, which, though they left Nelson's fleet still inferior to his own, yet brought them nearer to an equality than, had he been aware of it, would have rendered their meeting at all desirable to Villeneuve. It was another and especial point of encouragement, that circumstances led him to disbelieve the report that Nelson commanded the British fleet.[189] Under the influence of these united motives, and confiding in a plan of tactics which he had formed for resisting the favourite mode of attack practised by the English, the French admiral sailed from Cadiz on the 19th October, 1805, in an evil hour for himself and for his country.