The first move occurred in January 18o5 when the Rochefort squadron of five ships escaped and sailed for the West Indies, but it proved an isolated effort. On March 3o, however, Admiral Villeneuve used a gale to elude Nelson who was watching him off Toulon, and got clear away with eleven ships which he increased to eighteen by picking up the Cadiz Squadron, reaching Martinique on May 14. He was joined on June 1, by two ships from Roche fort, but no others put in an appearance. He should have waited until nearly the end of the month before sailing back to Europe to try and pick up those squadrons which failed to join him, pre liminary to making for Brest, whence Admiral Gantheaume was trying unsuccessfully to emerge from time to time. Only a week later, however, information reached Villeneuve that Nelson was already in the West Indies in search of him, and he decided to make for European waters immediately. Nelson, after having been evaded off Toulon should, according to his orders, have fallen back on Cornwallis, but he preferred, not for the first time, to follow his own course. It has often been said that Villeneuve induced Nelson to follow him and that, in doing so, the latter was playing into Napoleon's hands. The foolishness of this can be seen in the fact that the mere information that Nelson was in the neighbourhood caused Villeneuve to make for home a con siderable time before he was due to depart, and any hope of a West Indian concentration was thus lost. When Napoleon hoped that the English blockading squadrons would scatter, he meant to places where the French had not gone. Foiled by false infor mation of his hope of catching Villeneuve, Nelson sent a fast brig home to warn the Admiralty of the former's return, and himself sailed for Gibraltar. The Admiralty despatched Sir Robert Calder to intercept Villeneuve ; this he did, off Finisterre, and, in a not very satisfactory action, fought in a fog, deprived him of two Spanish battleships, but let him make Ferrol. Here the French Admiral received reinforcements, and his next move, according to his programme, should have been to make for the Channel in an attempt to unite with the Brest fleet. But he conceived, rightly, that Napoleon's scheme had already been foiled and that his task would be impossible; thus when he left Ferrol he made, not for the Channel, but for Cadiz. Here he was blockaded by Nelson and Collingwood. The Trafalgar Campaign, as a campaign, was over, and the invasion scheme was a failure. Napoleon broke up his camp and marched his troops against Austria. A natural corol lary of the Trafalgar Campaign was the battle of Trafalgar, but it must be realised that it was the former that saved England from invasion. In the autumn Napoleon needed a fleet in the Medi terranean and ordered Villeneuve to proceed there. The latter, after a protest, attempted to comply, and was beaten, as all the world knows, on Oct. 21, 1805 with a loss of twenty ships.
The victory of Trafalgar, while it did not end the war, con ferred upon England the complete command of the sea. There after naval activity was most pronounced, and the British Navy was employed in numerous undertakings in all parts of the world; but it becomes impossible to trace out any broad policy. It only
remains to point out some of the more prominent incidents. Napoleon's operations with Russia produced some naval activity. England attempted to assist that country when in 1807 Napoleon was preparing a final blow against her, by forcing the Dardanelles —Turkey being then allied with France. Admiral Duckworth was selected for the operation, and he actually silenced the batteries in the Straits and appeared off Constantinople. There he was helpless for lack of bombships, and had to retire under a damaging fire. Later in the same year the third coalition against France came to a final end when Napoleon and the Tsar of Russia signed the Treaty of Tilsit, by which they agreed to cease war and both plot for England's overthrow. One scheme they hatched was to seize all the neutral fleets in Europe and employ them against their common enemy. The largest neutral navy was Denmark's, and Canning, having providentially heard of this peculiar ar rangement, anticipated a Franco-Russian breach of Danish neu trality by sending Admiral Gambier to "borrow" this fleet for the duration of the war. Gambier bombarded Copenhagen and re turned with 7o out of 72 of the Danes' fighting ships.
Napoleon's Berlin and Milan Decrees, by which he hoped to break England's merchant marine, and England's reply with the Orders in Council, also gave the British navy opportunities to show its command of the sea. Napoleon forbade continental coun tries to import British goods either in British or foreign ships. England in turn seized neutral ships that called at a continental port without also calling at a British port. The struggle forced England to open new markets in the East and South America, but several countries rebelled against Napoleon's system and England was always ready to help. The revolt of Portugal began in 18°8 and produced the Peninsular War which ought to be thought of as partly a naval operation, for the fleet took off the army after Corunna, was always behind Wellington's lines at Torres Vedras, and finally followed, as nearly as possible, his victorious advance. The revolt of Austria in 1809 produced the combined expedition against Antwerp, commanded by Admiral Strachan and Lord Chatham, which hoped to find some sympathy among the Netherlanders for their Austrian ex-rulers. Walcheren and Flushing were captured, but the expedition had to retreat after the collapse of Austria. Finally, England's resistance to Napoleon's decrees involved her in 1812 in war with America who considered herself illtreated in the matter of the seizure of ships. The British lost many single-ship actions with the Ameri cans—their only success being that of the "Shannon" over the "Chesapeake," but America let her very natural jubilation rather blind her to the fact that her coasts were blockaded without serious challenge.
This is but a small selection from the numerous incidents that make up the naval side of the Napoleonic War after Trafalgar. The main point is that British sea supremacy was unchallenged after that battle, and the British Navy remained Napoleon's worst enemy to the end, for it was the British "Bellerophon" which intercepted him when, after Waterloo, he sought to escape to America to carve out an empire in a new world.