After some delay, Villeneuve was appointed in his place; but instead of the invasion idea there came plans of oversea enterprises, possibly designed with a view to drawing all British forces of the moment away from the Channel, thus leaving things clear for an invasion. But again there comes the doubt whether Napoleon ever expected this to succeed, whether he really thought of much else than keeping England perturbed and busy while he matured plans for other parts of Europe, and whether he did not realise that “Sea Power” had its limitations as well as its advantages, and never really sought anything further than to cause Britain to spend so much in naval defence that she had little left to subsidise his Continental foes with. Better than most men he was able to estimate Nelson’s limitations. He clearly estimated fully enough that Nelson was no particularly brilliant strategist, and that he was more likely to forecast correctly what Nelson would do, than was Nelson to divine his purpose. He under-estimated indeed what Nelson really did mean,--the particular genius which made Nelson invincible as a leader of men, how Nelson was a tactician able to gauge exactly the competence of the enemy and to win victory by doing seemingly foolish things accordingly. At least, it would appear that there Napoleon erred. But there is no judging Napoleon--the strangest mixture of genius and charlatan that the world has ever seen or is ever likely to. It is even unsafe to say that Napoleon did not foresee Trafalgar; unsafe to believe that, in his view, French fleets had no purpose other than to keep the English occupied. Napoleon is ever the one man in history that no one can ever surely know, whether we take him as the biggest liar who ever lived, or as the greatest genius the world has ever known. In January, 1804, the British Fleet in commission consisted of seventy-five ships of the line, with forty others in reserve; 281 lesser craft were in commission and a few in reserve. The intentions of Spain had long been mistrusted in England. As a precaution, the Spanish treasure fleet was attacked without warning, and over a million pounds’ worth of booty secured. Spain, thereupon, made her intentions clear, and declared war. A few lesser ships changed hands during the year; but even the minor happenings were of small account. In the year 1805, the number of British ships built, building and ordered, stood at 181 ships of the line, and 532 lesser vessels besides troop-ships, store-ships and harbour vessels. The _personnel_ was 120,000 and the Naval Estimates £15,035,630. Napoleon’s “Army of Invasion” now amounted to a nominal 150,000 men[58] in the Boulogne district alone, men all trained in embarking and disembarking. The famous “Let me be master of the Channel but for six hours” had been uttered.[59] If ever invasion were seriously contemplated it was so in this year 1805.