it would be necessary, they well knew, first to effect a junction of their united force; which was not easily accomplishable, while they were watched with such diligent circumspection by our indefatigable hero.  The first operation, by which they sought to elude his vigilance, was that of risking a small squadron from Rochfort, under Rear-Admiral Missiessi; which, having got out unobserved by our cruisers, arrived safely in the West Indies, with the double view of pillaging our colonies, and assisting to relieve St. Domingo.  In the mean time, another, but far more powerful squadron, was ready to seize the first convenient opportunity of slipping out from Toulon.

On the 15th of January, while Lord Nelson, who had no desire to restrain the enemy from putting to sea, was busily engaged in observing the whole line of the Italian, French, and Spanish coasts, from Palermo, Leghorn, Toulon, and Barcelona, to the Straits of Gibraltar, and picking up all the French and Spanish vessels which his cruisers could meet with in that wide extent of ocean, Admiral Villeneuve, with a formidable squadron, consisting of eleven sail of the line and two frigates, suddenly pushed out of Toulon harbour.  The Seahorse, Lord Nelson’s look-out frigate, accordingly, narrowly escaped being taken:  and the Venus sloop of ten guns, with his lordship’s dispatches, was actually captured; having, however, previously thrown the dispatches overboard.  The Seahorse, instead of watching, at a safe distance, the course of the enemy’s fleet, till their destination should have been in some degree ascertained, hastened to acquaint his lordship that they had sailed, without being able to afford the smallest additional information.  This, indeed, was sufficient to call forth our hero’s energies; but he was, at the same time, checked by the dread of proceeding in a wrong direction.  Strong circumstances induced his lordship to suppose, that another attack on Egypt might possibly be intended by this armament; which, indeed, was the current report.  He deemed it likely, however, that they might first, as they formerly did at Malta, make an insiduous attempt on Sicily, in their way to the grand scene of their perfidious operations.  Actuated by the force of these reflections, Lord Nelson sent to apprize the Ottoman Porte, as well as the Commandant of Coron, that the Toulon fleet had sailed, having a considerable number of troops on board, with the probable intention of making a descent either on the Morea or on Egypt.  He also dispatched, on the 25th, the Seahorse to Naples, and Le Tigre to Palermo, with similar intimations.  Next day, the Phoebe joined the fleet; who had, on the l9th, seen a French eighty-gun ship get into Ajaccio, in Corsica, having lost all her topmasts, and being otherwise much crippled.  This, it should seem, was the effect of that storm which, as it was afterwards found, had almost immediately occasioned the French armament’s return to Toulon.  His lordship, however, unaware