The conduct of the British admirals in the Mediterranean, caught at so serious a disadvantage through no fault of their own, deserves to be considered. Dispersed in a fashion that was perfectly proper and efficient under the previous conditions, the arrival of Bruix imposed concentration, with a consequent enforced abandonment of some positions. St. Vincent's first step was to order Nelson to concentrate in the neighborhood of Sicily, while he himself drew Keith and Duckworth together at Minorca. This effected, the British would present two squadrons; one of twenty ships-of-the-line in the west, centring about Minorca; the other, four hundred miles distant, of fifteen or sixteen ships,[280] gathered off the west end of Sicily to dispute the passage to Malta and Alexandria. This smaller division thus seems to have been much exposed; but, independently of its greatly superior efficiency to the French, it must be remembered that St. Vincent, as soon as he reached Minorca, knew that Nelson was in no immediate danger, for the French had given him the go-by and gone to Toulon. Cruising therefore off Cape San Sebastian, to intercept the junction of the Spaniards to the French, he was in constant touch of Minorca, barely one hundred miles distant, and, at the same time, was as near to Nelson as were the French in Toulon, whether they went east or west of Corsica. Being only one hundred and twenty miles from Toulon, and in such a position that a wind fair for the French to sail was also fair to bring his lookouts down to him, he could hope to overtake them,—if not in time to save Nelson, yet with the certainty of finding the French so badly handled that they could scarcely escape him. He no doubt reasoned as did Nelson to the ministry just before Trafalgar: "I ventured without any fear [to predict] that if Calder [with eighteen ships] got fairly alongside their twenty-seven or twenty-eight sail, by the time the enemy had beat our fleet soundly, they would do us no harm this year."[281] Save Malta, which could not have maintained the twenty thousand men in their fleet for a month and was otherwise barren of resources, the French would have had no port to fall back on and would have been lost to the republic.[282] Had St. Vincent cruised off Cartagena, where the Spaniards were, he would have been in better position to check them, but he would have uncovered both Minorca and Nelson to the French; both being nearer to Toulon than to Cartagena. Not only so, but Cartagena being three hundred miles farther from Toulon than Cape San Sebastian is, the British lookout ships would have had all that greater distance to go to their admiral, who, when found, would then be further from his chief points of interest than when off the Cape. As soon, however, as St. Vincent learned that the French had gone east from Toulon, being relieved from any immediate apprehension concerning the Spaniards, he re-enforced Nelson with four ships, raising his squadron to sixteen British against a possible French twenty-four.