The Neapolitan troops thus obtained, greatly signalized themselves, on several occasions, while at Toulon:  but Captain Nelson, almost immediately on his arrival, received orders to join a squadron under Commodore Linzee; who had been detached by Lord Hood, at the request of General Paoli, to protect Corsica.  He could, therefore, scarcely be said to have at all participated in the occurrences which took place at Toulon, farther than in thus procuring military aids.

Captain Nelson, indeed, appears to have had little concern with this unfortunate business:  not the less so, perhaps, on that very account.  Notwithstanding all the blood and treasure which this expedition cost Great Britain, on Toulon’s being evacuated the 19th of December following, Lord Hood was only able to carry away three ships of the line and five frigates; after burning there nine ships of the line, and one at Leghorn.

About the period of these transactions, Captain Nelson was with Commodore Linzee, at Tunis, negotiating for a French convoy under an eighty-gun ship and a corvette.  The English, however, he observed, never yet succeeded in a negotiation against the French.  “We have not,” says he, in a letter to Captain Locker, dated off Sardinia, December 1, 1793, “contradicted our practice at Tunis, for the Monsieurs have completely upset us with the bey; and, had we latterly attempted to take them, I am certain he would have declared against us, and done our trade some damage.”

In this letter he also mentions, that Lord Hood has, in a very handsome letter, ordered him from Commodore Linzee’s command, to take the command of a squadron of frigates off Corsica and the adjoining shore of Italy, to look out for some French frigates which were in St. Fiorenzo in Corsica.  With these frigates, it seems, Captain Nelson had, joined with one or two others, what he calls “a little brush,” in the preceding October.  He observes that, if they are active, they may do our trade some mischief:  “but,” adds he, “to say the truth, I believe that they are more inclined to be passive; at least, they had much of that inclination when I saw them.”

At this time, he does not appear to have thought Toulon in much danger; and, at all events, was persuaded that the French fleet and arsenal might be destroyed.  Some of the ships, he remarked, were the finest he ever beheld.  The Commerce de Marseilles, in particular, he says, had seventeen ports on each deck, and our Victory looked nothing to it.

Their friend, Sir Charles Pole, he observes, is gone to the West Indies, which was a thing that officer dreaded:  had himself been at Toulon, he would have been a candidate for this service; for, he thought our sea war was over in the Mediterranean.  He admits, however, that the Agamemnon has had it’s share of service; having had the anchor down but thirty-four times since sailing from the Nore, and then only to get water or provisions.  He says that, having then upwards of one hundred of his ship’s company absent, they are not much better than a fifty gun ship.  To another friend, however, he jocosely observed, on this occasion, that those he had were chiefly Norfolk men, and he always reckoned them as good as two others.