At the end of July the _Victory_, having been returned to the fleet by Cornwallis, again became Nelson’s flagship. As to the ultimate destination of the Toulon fleet Nelson was in doubt; that it was to sail before long he felt convinced owing to the activity manifest in the harbours. He rightly judged Napoleon’s character: “We know he is not very scrupulous in the honourable means of accomplishing his darling object.... My firm opinion is, that the Mediterranean will again be an active scene; and if Ministers do not look out, I shall have the Brest fleet to pay me a visit; for as the army can only be moved by the protection of a superior fleet, that fleet they will try to have, and a month’s start of us would do all the mischief.” At that time (July) he believed that Napoleon would make an attempt on the Morea, perhaps in concert with Russia, the downfall of the Turkish Empire in Europe would follow, and “Candia and Egypt would, of course, if this plan is followed, be given to the French, when, sooner or later, farewell India!” Of the enormous flotilla which Napoleon was building at Boulogne and elsewhere, Nelson thought little, if at all. “What! he begins to find excuses!” he writes to Ball. “I thought he would invade England in the face of the sun! Now he wants a three-days’ fog, that never yet happened! and if it did, how are his craft to be kept together? He will soon find more excuses or there will be an end of Bonaparte, and may the devil take him!” He was more concerned, and with reason, as to the whereabouts of the fleet returning from San Domingo, which he thought would “come to the Mediterranean--perhaps, first to Cadiz, to get the Spaniards to escort them. If so, I may have two fleets to fight; but if I have the ships, the more the merrier.” In August the Admiral tells Addington: “I am looking out for the French squadron--perhaps you may think impatiently; but I have made up my mind never to go into port till after the battle, if they make me wait a year, provided the Admiralty change the ships, who cannot keep the sea in the winter, except _Victory_, _Canopus_, _Donegal_, and _Belleisle_.” The fitting out of an expedition at Marseilles led Nelson to think that the invasion of Sardinia was contemplated. He therefore detached the only two frigates he had with him at the moment to cruise off Ajaccio to endeavour to intercept the enemy should they come that way. “Of course they will say that we have broken the neutrality if we attack them in the ports of Sardinia before their conquest, and if we do not I shall be laughed at for a fool. Prevention is better than cure.... My station to the westward of Toulon, an unusual one, has been taken upon an idea that the French fleet is bound out of the Straits, and probably to Ireland. It is said 10,000 men are collecting at Toulon. I shall follow them to the Antipodes.”