Three months later a third preposterous scheme for mystifying England was divulged, the Indian expedition being held still in reserve. This time the apparent object was to effect a union of all the French naval forces in the West Indies, and orders were given accordingly. Thence under the command of Villeneuve the vast fleet, forty ships of the line, should return, by the tremendous detour around Scotland and through the North Sea to sweep the Channel clear and keep it so until the flotilla of transports could cross. The whole scheme has been stigmatized as a landsman's conception. In fact, viewed as a serious design, it makes every quality of Napoleon's mind the reverse of what it really was. The monstrous expense of sustaining for such a length of time, and without the usual war indemnities, both a fleet and a large army entirely disproportionate to the demands of invasion; the theatrical character of all these arrangements; the apparent carelessness of indefinite delay; the calmness with which the news of Trafalgar was heard by the great captain--all these are considerations which cumulatively lead to the conclusion that he was in earnest neither with the maritime campaign nor with the invasion, and that his real armament was the costly land force which was prepared for the purpose of conquering Austria, the enemy against whom, in the following year, it was actually used; while the naval armament, including the Boulogne flotilla, was intended to prevent, as it did, the active interference of England to destroy his own so-called blockade of the continental ports, and thereby to renew her commerce.