have examined attentively the project attributed to the enemy in the enclosed note.  We have found it conformable to his real interests, and to the present distribution of his troops.  The heights of Briga are in truth the key to the Department of the Maritime Alps, since from there the high-road may be intercepted and we be obliged to evacuate Tende.  We charge you to pay serious attention to this matter."[32] Disappointed in Sardinian support, Nelson and De Vins had then discussed a plan, of which the former’s present proposal was the very clear and practical outcome.  Some risk must be run, he said; but De Vins, when it came to the point, saw the dangers too plainly.  He did not distinctly refuse, but talked only, and instead of San Remo proposed to land west of Nice, between it and the Var.  Nothing, however, was done, or even attempted, and Hotham refused co-operation.

Having regard to the decisive effect exercised upon any strategic position, or movement, by a valid threat against the communications,—­considering, for example, the vital influence which the French occupation of Genoa in 1800 had upon the campaign which terminated at Marengo,—­it is impossible to speak otherwise than with respect of this proposal of Nelson’s.  Nevertheless, serious reflection can scarcely fail to affirm that it was not really practicable.  There is an immeasurable difference between the holding of a strongly fortified city with an army corps, and the mere seizure of a comparatively open position by a detachment, which, if it means to remain, must have time to fortify itself, in order to withstand the overwhelming numbers that the enemy must at once throw upon it.  The time element, too, is of the utmost importance.  It is one thing to grasp a strong position with a few men, expecting to hold it for some hours, to delay an advance or a retreat until other forces can come into play, and quite another to attempt to remain permanently and unsupported in such a situation.  In the case before us, De Vins would have landed five thousand men in a comparatively exposed position; for, although the town of San Remo was in possession of the French, who might be driven out for the moment, the only strong point, the citadel, was occupied—­as in the case of Savona, to the eastward of the Austrians—­by the Genoese, who would doubtless have refused admission.  Before his main body would still lie the works which the French had been diligently strengthening for more than two months, and which, with his whole force in hand, he did not care to assail.  The enemy, knowing him thus weakened, could well afford to spare a number greatly superior to the detachment he had adventured, certain that, while they were dislodging it, he could make no serious impression upon their lines.  As for retreat and embarkation under cover of the guns of a squadron, when pressed by an enemy, the operation is too critical to be hazarded for less than the greatest ends, and with at least a fair possibility of success for the undertaking whose failure would entail it.