The thought he afterwards expressed, “Numbers only can annihilate,” was clearly floating in his brain,—­inarticulate, perhaps, as yet, but sure to come to the birth.  “If we are not completely victorious,—­I mean, able to remain at sea whilst the enemy must retire into port,—­if we only make a Lord Howe’s victory, take a part, and retire into port, Italy is lost.”  Criticism clearly is going on in his mind; and not mere criticism, (there is enough and to spare of that in the world, and not least in navies), but criticism judicious, well considered, and above all fruitful.  The error of opportunity lost he had seen; the error of a partial victory—­“a Lord Howe’s victory,” another opportunity lost—­he intuitively anticipated for the Mediterranean, and was soon to see.  He was already prepared to pass an accurate judgment instantly, when he saw it.  May we not almost hear, thundering back from the clouds that yet veiled the distant future of the Nile, the words, of which his thought was already pregnant, “You may be assured I will bring the French fleet to action the moment I can lay my hands upon them.”

The year closed with the British fleet watching, as best it could, the French ships, which, according to Nelson’s expectation, had given the blockaders the slip, and had made their junction at Toulon.  There was now no great disparity in the nominal force of the two opponents, the British having fourteen ships-of-the-line, the French fifteen; and it was quite in the enemy’s power to fulfil his other prediction, by keeping Hotham in hot water during the winter.  In the middle of November the “Agamemnon” had to go to Leghorn for extensive repairs, and remained there, shifting her main and mizzen masts, until the 21st of December.  Nelson, who had endured with unyielding cheerfulness the dangers, exposure, and sickliness of Calvi, found himself unable to bear patiently the comfort of quiet nights in a friendly port, while hot work might chance outside.  “Lying in port is misery to me.  My heart is almost broke to find the Agamemnon lying here, little better than a wreck.  I own my sincere wish that the enemy would rest quiet until we are ready for sea, and a gleam of hope sometimes crosses me that they will.”  “I am uneasy enough for fear they will fight, and Agamemnon not present,—­it will almost break my heart; but I hope the best,—­that they are only boasting at present, and will be quiet until I am ready.”  “It is misery,” he repeats, “for me to be laid up dismantled.”

It was during this period of comparative inactivity in port, followed by monotonous though arduous winter cruising off Toulon, which was broken only by equally dreary stays at San Fiorenzo, that Nelson found time to brood over the neglect of which he thought himself the victim, in the omission of Lord Hood to notice more markedly his services in Corsica.  It is usually disagreeable to the uninterested bystander to see an excessive desire for praise, even under