or from the frigates I may find off Cape St Vincent, I shall probably think the rumours which are spread are true, that their destination is the West Indies, and in that case think it my duty to follow them, or to the Antipodes, should I believe that to be their destination. I shall detach a sloop of war to England from off the Cape, when my mind is made up from either information or the want of it.” Nelson’s idea as to the destination of the allied fleet was corroborated by Commodore Donald Campbell, a Scotsman who had entered the Portuguese navy. After clearing transports and taking on board sufficient provisions for five months, he set out from Lagos Bay with ten sail-of-the-line and a number of smaller craft on his long chase. “My lot is cast,” he hurriedly informs Ball, “and I am going to the West Indies, where, although I am late, yet chance may have given them a bad passage and me a good one. I must hope the best.” Many minds, many opinions. What had become of the Allied fleet? Even more important, what had it accomplished? Such questions must have been ever present in the mind of Nelson and his officers. Everything about the enemy was so vague as almost to suggest a phantom fleet. “I still think Jamaica is their object,” is Nelson’s comment on the 27th of May when making for Barbadoes, “but many think Surinam or Trinidad; and Bayntun, that they will land their troops at the city of San Domingo. In short, everyone has an opinion, but it will soon be beyond doubt. Our passage, although not very quick, has been far from a bad one. They started from Cadiz thirty-one days before we did from St Vincent, and I think we shall gain fourteen days upon them in the passage; therefore they will only arrive seventeen days before us at Martinique, for I suppose them bound there. I shall not anchor at Barbadoes.... I have prayed Lord Seaforth to lay an embargo, that the French may not know of my approach, and thus again elude our vigilance. My mind is not altered that Egypt was their destination last January.” Eight days later, when the fleet was in Carlisle Bay, Barbadoes, and Nelson’s force had been augmented by the addition of two battleships under Cochrane, we are informed that “There is not a doubt in any of the admirals’ or generals’ minds, but that Tobago and Trinidad are the enemy’s objects; and although I am anxious in the extreme to get at their eighteen sail-of-the-line, yet, as Sir William Myers has offered to embark himself with 2000 troops, I cannot refuse such a handsome offer; and, with the blessing of God on a just cause, I see no cause to doubt of the annihilation of both the enemy’s fleet and army.”