The Life Of Nelson, Volume II.

"Here comes Berry! Now we shall have a battle;" for Berry, having been in more fleet actions than any captain in the British Navy,^[131] had a proverbial reputation for such luck. The event did not belie the prediction. Five days later, on the 18th of the month, Nelson noted in his diary: "Fine weather, wind easterly; the combined fleets cannot have finer weather to put to sea;" and the following morning, at half-past nine, the signal, repeated from masthead to masthead, from the inshore frigates to their commander-in-chief fifty miles at sea, announced that the long-expected battle was at hand -- for "The Enemy are coming out of port."

[131] Besides three of the battles associated with Nelson's name -- St. Vincent, the Nile, and Trafalgar -- Berry as a midshipman had been in the five fleet actions between Suffren and Hughes, in the East Indies, in 1782 and 1783. ("The Nelson Memorial," by John Knox Laughton, pp. 83, 284.)