The bulk of Nelson's fleet was fifty miles from Cadiz two days before Trafalgar, with a small detachment watching close to the harbor.

The allied fleet began to get under way at 7 A.M., and Nelson, even under the conditions of those days, knew it by 9.30.The English fleet at that distance was a very real danger to its enemy.

It seems possible, in these days of submarine telegraphs, that the blockading forces in-shore and off-shore, and from one port to another, might be in telegraphic communication with one another along the whole coast of the United States, readily giving mutual support; and if, by some fortunate military combination, one detachment were attacked in force, it could warn the others and retreat upon them.

Granting that such a blockade off one port were broken on one day, by fairly driving away the ships maintaining it, the notification of its being re-established could be cabled all over the world the next.

To avoid such blockades there must be a military force afloat that will at all times so endanger a blockading fleet that it can by no means keep its place.