Nelson was appointed commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean Fleet and given the first-rate HMS Victory as his flagship. He joined her at Portsmouth, where he received orders to sail to Malta and take command of a squadron there, before joining the blockade of Toulon.[224] Nelson arrived off Toulon in July 1803, and spent the next year and a half enforcing the blockade. He was promoted to Vice-Admiral of the White while still at sea, on 23 April 1804.[225] In January 1805, the French fleet, under the command of Admiral Pierre-Charles Villeneuve, escaped Toulon and eluded the blockading British. Nelson set off in pursuit, but after searching the eastern Mediterranean, learnt the French had been blown back into Toulon.[226] Villeneuve managed to break out a second time in April, and this time, succeeded in passing through the Strait of Gibraltar, and into the Atlantic—bound for the West Indies.[226]
Nelson gave chase, but after arriving in the Caribbean, spent June in a fruitless search for the fleet. Villeneuve had briefly cruised around the islands, before heading back to Europe, in contravention of Napoleon's orders.[227] The returning French fleet was intercepted by a British fleet, under Sir Robert Calder, and engaged in the Battle of Cape Finisterre, but managed to reach Ferrol with only minor losses.[228] Nelson returned to Gibraltar at the end of July, and travelled from there to England, dismayed at his failure to bring the French to battle and expecting to be censured.[229]