consideration dictated to it the necessity of a naval victory, before sending out the expedition, of whose assembling the British were now hearing, and which was actually intended for Corsica; although it was known that in the island there had already begun the revulsion against the British rule, which culminated in open revolt the following year.  Owing to the dearth of seamen, the crews of the French ships were largely composed of soldiers, and it was thought that, after beating the enemy, four or five thousand of these might be at once thrown on shore at Ajaccio, and that afterwards the main body could be sent across in safety.  First of all, however, control of the sea must be established by a battle, more or less decisive.

On the 24th of February, 1795, the British fleet arrived at Leghorn, after a very severe cruise of over a fortnight.  On the 2d of March Nelson mentioned, in a letter to his wife, that the French were said then to have a hundred and twenty-four transports full of troops, from which he naturally argued that they must mean to attempt something.  On the evening of the 8th, an express from Genoa brought Hotham word that they were actually at sea, fifteen ships-of-the-line, with half a dozen or more smaller vessels.  He sailed in pursuit early the next morning, having with him thirteen[26] British ships-of-the-line and one Neapolitan seventy-four.  Of the former, four were three-decked ships, carrying ninety-eight to one hundred guns, a class of vessel of which the French had but one, the “Sans Culottes,” of one hundred and twenty, which, under the more dignified name of “L’Orient,” afterwards, met so tragic a fate at the Battle of the Nile; but they had, in compensation, three powerful ships of eighty guns, much superior to the British seventy-fours.  As, however, only partial engagements followed, the aggregate of force on either side is a matter of comparatively little importance in a Life of Nelson.

Standing to the northward and westward, with a fresh easterly wind, the British fleet through its lookouts discovered the enemy on the evening of the day of sailing, and by the same means kept touch with them throughout the 10th and 11th; but the baffling airs, frequent in the Mediterranean, prevented the main body seeing them until the morning of the 12th.  At daylight, then, they were visible from the “Agamemnon,” in company with which were five British ships and the Neapolitan; the remainder of the fleet being so far to the eastward that their hulls were just rising out of the water.  The British lying nearly becalmed, the French, who were to windward, bore down to within three miles; but although, in Nelson’s judgment, they had a fair opportunity to separate the advanced British ships, with which he was, from the main body, they failed to improve it.  Nothing happened that day, and, a fresh breeze from the west springing up at dusk, both fleets stood to the southward with it, the French being to windward.  That night one of the latter, a seventy-four, having lost a topmast, was permitted to return to port.