Shipbuilding still continued to proceed with unabated vigour along the coasts of Holland and of Northern France. Three-deckers, gay with new paint, left the slips and took their first plunge into sea-water. In the Texel, and at Brest, Rochefort, and Toulon, squadrons came into being, but, like unfledged birds in a cage, they had little opportunity to try their wings. The men on England’s floating bulwarks saw to that, watching every movement. When the various blockading squadrons had to vacate their station, as occasionally happened, the frigates, “the eyes of the fleet,” as Nelson happily termed them, were usually present, although he complained that he had far too few of these useful vessels at his disposal. Napoleon never thoroughly understood the difficulties of naval warfare. He was disposed to think that a naval squadron could carry out a manœuvre with the almost mathematical exactness of a regiment. Tides and wind meant little or nothing to him; Sir Neil Campbell, the Commissioner at Elba for Great Britain during Napoleon’s short-lived rule of that island, perceived and noted this in his diary. And yet it must be conceded that the strategy which the Emperor had been secretly conceiving for the concentration of his scattered fleets was as clever as it was bold. “The wet ditch that lay around England” was not to be crossed by the flotilla alone; he had long since abandoned that plan as impracticable. The navy proper was to have a share in the downfall of the United Kingdom. By feints in directions calculated to deceive the enemy as to his real designs he hoped to assemble sufficient ships to command the Channel, if only for a few days. This would enable him to slip across with his army, although how he proposed to get out of England is not quite clear. A sufficient military force was to be left in France to provide for the possibility that other enemies might take advantage of so favourable an opportunity to cross the French frontiers. Napoleon’s general design was changed again and again as circumstances dictated, and twice an attempt was made to rally the naval forces. Suffice it to say that Missiessy with the Rochefort squadron eluded the English fleets and reached the West Indies, where he was to be joined by Villeneuve, his colleague at Toulon, the idea being that while the British were chasing them the ships at Brest under Ganteaume should land a force in Ireland and afterwards return to convoy the flotilla. Villeneuve, owing to stress of weather, was forced to return to port, Ganteaume being hemmed in by Cornwallis, a hero who has not had full justice done to him, largely because the naval annals of the time are dominated so completely by Nelson. Even the latter was deceived when he found Toulon empty, and he chased an entirely spectral fleet in the direction of Egypt, sufficient proof of the cleverness of Napoleon’s elusive plan.