This caution did not then proceed from a distrust of the Corsicans’ fidelity, without which neither France nor England could hold the island, as was shown by the quickness of its transfer two years later, when the inhabitants again revolted to France.  “With this defence,” he wrote, “I am confident Ajaccio, and I believe I may say the island of Corsica, would be perfectly safe until our fleet could get to the enemy, when I have no doubt the event would be what every Briton might expect.”

The repairs of the “Agamemnon” were completed before Nelson’s anxious apprehensions of a battle taking place in his absence could be fulfilled.  On the 21st of December, 1794, he sailed from Leghorn with the fleet, in company with which he remained from that time until the following July, when he was sent to the Riviera of Genoa on special detached service.  He thus shared the severe cruising of that winter, as well as the abortive actions of the spring and early summer, where the admiral again contrived to lose opportunities of settling the sea campaign, and with it, not improbably, that of the land also.  There were plain indications in the port of Toulon that a maritime enterprise of some importance was in contemplation.  In the outer road lay fifteen sail-of-the-line, the British having then fourteen; but more significant of the enemy’s purpose was the presence at Marseilles of fifty large transports, said to be ready.  “I have no doubt,” wrote Nelson, “but Porto Especia is their object.”  This was a mistake, interesting as indicating the slight weight that Nelson at that time attributed to the deterrent effect of the British fleet “in being” upon such an enterprise, involving an open-sea passage of over a hundred miles, though he neither expressed nor entertained any uncertainty as to the result of a meeting, if the enemy were encountered.  The French Government, not yet appreciating the inefficiency to which its navy had been reduced by many concurrent circumstances, was ready to dispute the control of the Mediterranean, and it contemplated, among other things, a demonstration at Leghorn, similar to that successfully practised at Naples in 1792, which might compel the Court of Tuscany to renounce the formally hostile attitude it had assumed at the bidding of Great Britain; but it does not appear that there was any serious purpose of exposing a large detachment, in the attempt to hold upon the Continent a position, such as Spezia, with which secure communication by land could not be had.

Though none too careful to proportion its projects to the force at its disposal, the Directory sufficiently understood that a detachment at Spezia could not be self-dependent, nor could, with any certainty, combine its operations with those of the army in the Riviera; and also that, to be properly supported at all, there must be reasonably secure and unbroken communication, either by land or water, neither of which was possible until the British fleet was neutralized.  The same