About the beginning of June, he went with six sail of the line to Cadiz, where they took in water.  They also took in some wine:  for he tells his worthy old friend, Captain Locker, that he has got him a cask of, he hopes, good sherry; which he shall take an early opportunity of sending home, and begs him to accept as a proof of his remembrance.  He observes, that they have done nothing; and, that the same prospect appears before them:  for, the French would not come out, and they had no means of getting at them in Toulon.  Lord Hood was to be joined, off Barcelona, by twenty-one Spanish ships of the line:  “but,” adds he, “if they are no better manned than those at Cadiz, much service cannot be expected of them; though, as to ships, I never saw finer men of war.”

It was on the occasion above alluded to, when Captain Nelson put into Cadiz to water, that he exclaimed, at the moment of first beholding the Spanish fleet—­“These ships are, certainly, the finest in the world:  thank God, the Spaniards cannot build men!”

Early in August, Lord Hood went with the fleet to remonstrate with the Genoese respecting their supply of corn to the French, and bringing back French property under neutral papers:  a practice which Captain Nelson, who was then off Toulon, justly observed, rendered the station there a mere farce, if such trade should continue to be allowed.

On the 20th of this month, writing to Captain Locker, he observes that the Agamemnon sails well, and is healthy; but, that he wants to get into port for refreshment.  He says that, by all the accounts, the district of Provence would gladly become a separate republic under the protection of England; and, that the people of Marseilles declared they would willingly destroy Toulon to accomplish this measure.

There seems, at the time of his thus writing, to have been a positive proposal to this effect then under the consideration of the commander in chief:  for, on the 23d of August, only three days after, did Admiral Lord Hood publish his celebrated preliminary declaration to the inhabitants of Toulon, as well as his proclamation to the inhabitants of the towns and provinces in the south of France, which ended in his taking a provisional possession of Toulon, with all the ships of war in the harbour, &c. on the 28th of the same month.

Captain Nelson, however, was not present during the period of this negociation, or the subsequent taking possession of Toulon; having been previously charged with dispatches from Lord Hood, dated off Toulon, the 17th of August 1793, and addressed to Sir William Hamilton, Knight of the Bath, his Majesty’s Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary at the Court of Naples.

It should seem that he had, also, some intermediate orders to execute; for, on his passage to Naples, he met with Lord Hugh Conway, at sea, who had left Toulon in the possession of Lord Hood, and sent Sir William Hamilton a letter to that effect, dated the 31st of the same month.