weight of the admiral’s having upon his mind the Toulon fleet, undiminished in force despite two occasions for decisive action, was to be clearly seen in the ensuing operations.  On this, also, Nelson did much thinking, as passing events threw light upon the consequences of missing opportunities.  “The British fleet,” he wrote, five years later, and no man better knew the facts, “could have prevented the invasion of Italy; and, if our friend Hotham had kept his fleet on that coast, I assert, and you will agree with me, no army from France could have been furnished with stores or provisions; even men could not have marched.”  But how keep the fleet on the Italian coast, while the French fleet in full vigor remained in Toulon?  What a curb it was appeared again in the next campaign, and even more clearly, because the British were then commanded by Sir John Jervis, a man not to be checked by ordinary obstacles.  From the decks of his flagship Nelson, in the following April, watched a convoy passing close in shore.  “To get at them was impossible before they anchored under such batteries as would have crippled our fleet; and, had such an event happened, in the present state of the enemy’s fleet, Tuscany, Naples, Rome, Sicily, &c., would have fallen as fast as their ships could have sailed along the coast.  Our fleet is the only saviour at present for those countries.”

FOOTNOTES: 

[25] In the year 1793 the French frigate “Modeste” had been forcibly taken from the harbor of Genoa by an English squadron.

[26] The “Berwick,” seventy-four, had been left in San Fiorenzo for repairs.  Putting to sea at this time, she fell in with the French fleet, and was taken.

[27] The port side, or, as it was called in Nelson’s day, the larboard side, is the left, looking from the stem to the bow of a ship.

[28] Nelson to the Duke of Clarence, March 15, 1795. (Nicolas.)

[29] Corsica.

[30] There were twenty-three present on July 13, 1795.

[31] The words in brackets were erased in the rough draft, but are here inserted, because they emphasize the underlying thought, that the second was to have real command, not wait nor look for signals, nor yet fear them.

CHAPTER VI.

NELSON’S COMMAND OF A DETACHED SQUADRON ON THE RIVIERA OF GENOA, UNTIL THE DEFEAT OF THE AUSTRIANS AT THE BATTLE OF LOANO.—­SIR JOHN JERVIS APPOINTED COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF IN THE MEDITERRANEAN.

JULY-DECEMBER, 1795.  AGE, 37.