He
therefore was also in the position and formation assigned to
him in that diagram.
[Footnote 87: It would necessitate the use of some technicalities
to explain it fully; but it may be said that the bearings of
the extremes of the enemy's line observed from his flag-ship
prove that Collingwood was in the station that he ought to have
occupied when the British fleet was in the Order of Sailing and
close to the wind.]
At a time which, because of the variety in the notations of it,
it is difficult to fix exactly, but somewhere between 7 and 8
A.M., the enemy's ships wore together and endeavoured to form
a line to the northward, which, owing to the direction of the
wind, must have been about N. by E. and S. by W., or NNE. and
SSW. The operation--not merely of wearing, but of both wearing
and reforming the line, such as it was--took more than an hour
to complete. The wind was light; there was a westerly swell;
the ships were under easy sail; consequently there must have
been a good deal of leeway, and the hostile or 'combined' fleet
headed in the direction of Cadiz, towards which, we are expressly
told by a high French authority--Chevalier--it advanced.
Nelson had to direct the course of his fleet so that its divisions,
when about to make the actual attack, would be just opposite the
points to which the respective hostile ships had advanced in
the meantime. In a light wind varying in force a direct course
to those points could not be settled once for all; but that first
chosen was very nearly right, and an alteration of a point, viz.
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