This fresh intelligence removed all doubts.

The ships were cleared for action before daylight, and Nelson entered the Bay of Paria on the 7th, hoping and expecting to make the mouths of the Orinoco as famous in the annals of the British navy as those of the Nile.

Not an enemy was there; and it was discovered that accident and artifice had combined to lead him so far to leeward, that there could have been little hope of fetching to windward of Granada for any other fleet.

Nelson, however, with skill and exertions never exceeded, and almost unexampled, bore for that island.
Advices met him on the way, that the combined fleets, having captured the Diamond Rock, were then at Martinique on the fourth, and were expected to sail that night for the attack of Granada.

On the 9th Nelson arrived off that island; and there learned that they had passed to leeward of Antigua the preceding day, and had taken a homeward-bound convoy.