that distant Northumberland home, had been elated by a vision which
contained for him a strange element of great promise. In his sleep he had
seen with extraordinary vividness the English Fleet in battle array; the
details of their position were clear to him, and, later, he beheld an
engagement in progress the incidents of which were extraordinarily
realistic. Finally, the glory of a great victory came upon him, to fill
his waking moments with delight and haunt his recollection. So minute, so
circumstantial had been the particulars of the dream, that, profoundly
impressed at the time, he had related them in full detail to his wife. In
much imaginative, Collingwood was not without the vein of superstition
which seems inseparable from his profession, and he had the simple faith
of a child. He believed in the ultimate fulfilment of that vision and the
thought pursued him.

Meanwhile, his letter to Stanhope of September 23rd, reached its
destination at a moment of increased national suspense. Napoleon's
elaborately planned ruse to entice Nelson to the West Indies had succeeded
only too well. And while Nelson sought his decoy Villeneuve off Barbadoes,
the French Admiral, as pre-arranged, was hastening back to effect, in the
absence of his dupe, the release of the French Fleet blockaded by
Cornwallis. But luck and wit saved England. Nelson chanced upon a ship
which had seen the returning enemy; he succeeded in warning the Admiralty
in time; Villeneuve, intercepted by Calder, suffered an ignominious
defeat, and Napoleon consummated his own disaster by the tactlessness of
his wrath against his unfortunate admiral who had thus succumbed to a
force inferior in numbers. Villeneuve, stung by the bitter taunt of
cowardice, rashly left Cadiz to fight Nelson--a manoeuvre which, at best,
could little advance the cause of the Emperor, which, as the event proved,
courted a catastrophe out of all proportion to any possible gain, and
which was undertaken by the luckless Frenchman for no other end save that