The plan nearly succeeded. Villeneuve, the French admiral, did slip out of Toulon. Nelson was deceived, and went off on a false scent. When, however, news arrived that the French fleet had sailed for the West Indies, Nelson dashed after it in hot pursuit, and went half-way round the world and back again before he caught it up. Villeneuve had thirty-five days’ start, but Nelson arrived at Gibraltar on the return voyage only three days after the French fleet sighted Cape Finisterre. Here it found a British squadron under Admiral Calder. An indecisive battle took place; and though the result was considered in England as a failure, and almost a disgrace, it ended the grand invasion scheme. Villeneuve was obliged to put into Ferrol to refit, and, meanwhile, Nelson had arrived. Napoleon’s plan had failed, and Britain could breathe freely once more. In disgust, Napoleon broke up his camp at Boulogne, and rapidly marched his army across France into Germany, where he met the Austrians and Russians, who had formed a new league against him. Now began a series of triumphs which laid the Austrian empire open to the invaders. While Napoleon was rejoicing in his victories, terrible news reached him. The greatest sea-fight in the history of the world had been fought, and the combined fleets of France and Spain were no more. The beginning of the end had arrived for the “terror of Europe.” Villeneuve, with thirty-three Franco-Spanish vessels, lay in Cadiz harbour, and outside was Nelson with twenty-seven British ships. The French admiral had been stung to the quick by a bitter, taunting letter from the emperor, accusing him of cowardice. To vindicate his courage, Villeneuve gave the order to put to sea. On the morning of October 20, 1805, the fleets came in sight of each other. “The sun never rose on a grander and more impressive ocean-picture. As the courses and hulls of the hindmost of the British vessels floated up the sea-line, the blue girdle of the deep became a field of ships; giant structures bristling with guns, canvas swelling in clouds to the heavens from their tall sides black with grim and formidable defences, crowds of sailors motionless in expectation, quarter-decks glittering with uniforms, and stillness everywhere, broken only by the creaming wash of the bow-surge as it was shouldered off into yeast by the towering battleships.”