Its being two hundred miles from Toulon was not a serious drawback, for it was no part of Nelson's plan to keep the fleet close to Toulon.

When he took command, he found it so stationed, but he soon removed to a position thirty to forty miles west of the harbor's mouth, which seems to have been his general summer rendezvous.

"Lord Nelson," wrote a young officer of the fleet,[61] "pursues a very different plan from Sir Richard Bickerton.

The latter kept close to the harbour, but Lord Nelson is scarce ever in sight of the land, and there is but one frigate inshore." "I chose this position," Nelson said, "to answer two important purposes: one to prevent the junction of a Spanish fleet from the westward; and the other, to be to windward, so as to enable me, if the northerly gale came on to the N.N.W., to take shelter in a few hours under the Hieres Islands, or if N.N.E., under Cape San Sebastian." "It is not my intention to close-watch Toulon, even with frigates," he wrote, and his dispositions were taken rather with a view to encourage the enemy to come out; although, of course, he took every precaution that they should not get far without being observed, and assured himself by frequent reconnoitring that they had not left port.

"My system is the very contrary of blockading," he told Admiral Pole.