unwonted tenderness, “Ever your most faithful and affectionate husband.”  Save of the solemn hours before Trafalgar, when another image occupied his thoughts, this is the only personal record we have of the feelings with which this man, dauntless above his fellows, went into battle.  He refrains thoughtfully from any mention of his health that may cause her anxiety, which she had shown herself over weak and worrying to bear; but he speaks freely of all that passes, confiding that with her he need have no reserves, even in a natural self-praise.  “This I can say, that all I have obtained I owe to myself, and to no one else, and to you I may add, that my character stands high with almost all Europe.  Even the Austrians knew my name perfectly.”  While silent on the subject of illness, he admits now that his eye had grown worse, and was in almost total darkness, besides being very painful at times; “but never mind,” he adds cheeringly, “I can see very well with the other.”

It is instructive to note, in view of some modern debated questions, that, despite the recent success, Nelson was by no means sure that the British fleet could defend Corsica.  “I am not even now certain Corsica is safe,” he wrote on the 25th of March, “if they undertake the expedition with proper spirit.”  The threat, never absent while the French fleet remained, was emphasized by the arrival of six ships-of-the-line from Brest, which reached Toulon on the 4th of April, materially altering the complexion of affairs in the Mediterranean, and furnishing an instructive instance of the probable punishment for opportunity imperfectly utilized, as on the 14th of March.  Great discontent was felt at the apparent failure of the Admiralty to provide against this chance.  “Hotham is very much displeased with them,” wrote Nelson, “and certainly with reason;” and doubtless it is satisfactory to believe, rightly or wrongly, that our disadvantages are due to the neglect of others, and not to our own shortcomings.

Although the nominal force of the French was thus raised to twenty of the line, the want of seamen, and the absence of discipline, prevented their seizing the opportunity offered by the temporary inferiority of the British, reduced to thirteen besides two Neapolitans, in whose efficiency, whether justly or not, Nelson placed little confidence.  At this critical moment, with a large British military convoy expected, and the fleet, to use his impatient expression, “skulking in port,” a Jacobin outbreak occurred in Toulon, and the seamen assumed the opera-bouffe role of going ashore to assist in deliberations upon the measures necessary to save the country.  Before they were again ready to go to sea, the convoy had arrived.  On the 7th of June, however, the French again sailed from Toulon, seventeen ships-of-the-line; and the following day Nelson, writing to his brother, thus gave vent to the bitterness of his feelings:  “We have been cruising off Minorca for a long