Old Jervis repeated the signal to prepare for action, but he
might have saved the wear and tear of the bunting, for we were all
ready, bulk-heads down, screens up, guns shotted, tackles rove, yards
slung, powder filled, shot on deck, and fire out--and what's more, Mr
Simple, I'll be d----d if we weren't all willing too. About six bells
in the forenoon, the fog and haze all cleared away at once, just like
the raising of the foresail that they lower down at the Portsmouth
theatre, and discovered the whole of the Spanish fleet. I counted them
all. 'How many, Swinburne?' cries Nelson. 'Twenty-six sail, sir,'
answered I. Nelson walked the quarter-deck backwards and forwards,
rubbing his hands, and laughing to himself, and then he called for his
glass, and went to the gangway with Captain Miller. 'Swinburne, keep a
good look upon the admiral,' says he. 'Ay, ay, sir,' says I. Now you
see, Mr Simple, twenty-six sail against fifteen were great odds upon
paper; but we didn't think so, because we know'd the difference between
the two fleets. There was our fifteen sail of the line, all in apple-pie
order, packed up as close as dominoes, and every man on board of them
longing to come to the scratch; while there was their twenty-six, all
_somehow nohow_, two lines here and _no lines_ there, with a great gap
of water in the middle of them. For this gap between their ships we all
steered, with all the sail we could carry because, d'ye see, Mr Simple,
by getting them on both sides of us, we had the advantage of fighting
both broadsides, which is just as easy as fighting one, and makes
shorter work of it.
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