it is evident he has reason to avoid.  In this case many of the retreating French were crippled,—­some went off towed by frigates, and some without bowsprits.  Unquestionably, the pursuers who thus engage may be overpowered before those following them come up; but the balance of chances is generally in their favor, and in the particular instance would have been markedly so, as was shown by the results of the two days’ fighting, which had proved the superior quality of the British ships’ companies.

The fact is, neither Hotham nor his opponent, Martin, was willing to hazard a decisive naval action, but wished merely to obtain a temporary advantage,—­the moment’s safety, no risks.  “I have good reason,” wrote Hotham in his despatch, “to hope, from the enemy’s steering to the westward after having passed our fleet, that whatever might have been their design, their intentions are for the present frustrated.”  It is scarcely necessary to say that a man who looks no further ahead than this, who fails to realize that the destruction of the enemy’s fleet is the one condition of permanent safety to his cause, will not rise to the conception presented to him on his quarter-deck by Nelson.  The latter, whether by the sheer intuition of genius, which is most probable, or by the result of well-ordered reasoning, which is less likely, realized fully that to destroy the French fleet was the one thing for which the British fleet was there, and the one thing by doing which it could decisively affect the war.  As he wrote four years later to St. Vincent, “Not one moment shall be lost in bringing the enemy to battle; for I consider the best defence for his Sicilian Majesty’s dominions is to place myself alongside the French.”

Yet Nelson was far from unconscious of the difficulties of Hotham’s position, or from failing duly to allow for them.  “Admiral Hotham has had much to contend with, a fleet half-manned, and in every respect inferior to the enemy; Italy calling him to her defence, our newly acquired kingdom[29] calling might and main, our reinforcements and convoy hourly expected; and all to be done without a force by any means adequate to it.”  Add to this the protection of British trade, of whose needs Nelson was always duly sensible.  Yet, as one scans this list of troubles, with the query how to meet them running in his mind, it is scarcely possible not to see that each and every difficulty would have been solved by a crushing pursuit of the beaten French, preventing their again taking the sea.  The British admiral had in his control no means to force them out of port.  Therefore, when out, he should by no means have allowed them to get back.  It is only just to Hotham, who had been a capable as well as gallant captain, to say that he had objected to take the chief command, on account of his health.