in the Mediterranean.  It gives me great pleasure also to see you employed in your present important service, which requires zeal, activity, and a spirit of accommodation and co-operation, qualities which will not be wanting in the Commodore of your squadron.  I consider the business you are about, I mean the expulsion of the enemy from the Genoese and Piedmontese territories, as the most important feature in the southern campaign.”  These anticipations of worthy service and exceptional merit were confirmed, after all the misfortunes and disappointments of the campaign, by the singularly competent judgment of the new commander-in-chief, Sir John Jervis.  The latter at his first interview with Nelson, nearly two months after his arrival on the station, so that time enough had elapsed to mature his opinion, asked him to remain under his command, as a junior admiral, when he received his promotion.  Having regard to Jervis’s own high endowments, it was not then in the power of the British Navy to pay an officer of Nelson’s rank a higher compliment.

During these months of service upon the Riviera, there occurred an incident, which, from the reflection made upon Nelson’s integrity, drew from him a letter, struck off at such white heat, and so transparently characteristic of his temperament, aspirations, and habit of thought, as to merit quotation.  A report had been spread that the commanders of the British ships of war connived at the entry of supply-vessels into the ports held by the French, and a statement to that effect was forwarded to the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs.  The latter sent the paper, for investigation, to the Minister to Genoa, who mentioned its tenor to Nelson.  The latter, justly stigmatizing the conduct imputed to him and his officers as “scandalous and infamous,” requested a copy of the accusation, in order that by his refutation he might convince the King, that he was “an officer who had ever pursued the road of honour, very different from that to wealth.”  Having received the copy, he wrote to the Secretary as follows:—­

    AGAMEMNON, GENOA ROAD, 23d November, 1795.

MY LORD,—­Having received, from Mr. Drake, a copy of your Lordship’s letter to him of October, enclosing a paper highly reflecting on the honour of myself and other of His Majesty’s Officers employed on this Coast under my Orders, it well becomes me, as far as in my power lies, to wipe away this ignominious stain on our characters.  I do, therefore, in behalf of myself, and much injured Brethren, demand, that the person, whoever he may be, that wrote, or gave that paper to your Lordship, do fully, and expressly bring home his charge; which, as he states that this agreement is made by numbers of people on both sides, there can be no difficulty in doing.  We dare him, my Lord, to the proof.  If he cannot, I do most humbly implore, that His Majesty will be most graciously pleased to direct his Attorney-General to prosecute this infamous libeller in His Courts