Nelson measured the odds against him accurately, and saw that the situation was well-nigh hopeless.  Nevertheless, there was a chance that by vigorous and sustained action the enemy might be not only impeded, but intimidated.  He sought earnestly to obtain the co-operation of the Sardinians and Neapolitans in manning a flotilla, with which to grapple the convoys as they passed in shore.  By this means, and the close scouring of the coast by the vessels of his squadron, something might be effected.  He contemplated also using the crews of the British vessels themselves in gunboats and light-armed feluccas; but he said frankly that, important as was the duty of intercepting communications, the efficiency of the fleet was more important still, and that to divert their crews over-much to such objects would hazard the vessels themselves, and neutralize their proper work.  The resort, therefore, could only be occasional.  The general political complexion of affairs in the Mediterranean depended greatly upon the presence and readiness of the British fleet, and its efficiency therefore could not be risked, to any serious extent, except for the object of destroying the enemy’s naval forces, to which it was then the counterpoise.

Acting, however, on his determination to co-operate effectively, at whatever risk to his own squadron,—­to the detachment, that is, which the commander-in-chief thought could safely be spared from his main force for the secondary object,—­Nelson applied all his intelligence and all his resolution to the task before him.  In words of admirable force and clearness, he manifests that exclusiveness of purpose, which Napoleon justly characterized as the secret of great operations and of great successes.  “I have not a thought,” he writes to the minister at Genoa, “on any subject separated from the immediate object of my command, nor a wish to be employed on any other service.  So far the allies,” he continues, with no unbecoming self-assertion, “are fortunate, if I may be allowed the expression, in having an officer of this character.”  He felt this singleness of mind, which is so rare a gift, to be the more important, from his very consciousness that the difficulty of his task approached the border of impossibility.  “I cannot command winds and weather.  A sea-officer cannot, like a land-officer, form plans; his object is to embrace the happy moment which now and then offers,—­it may be this day, not for a month, and perhaps never.”  Nothing can be more suggestive of his greatest characteristics than this remark, which is perhaps less applicable to naval officers to-day than it was then.  In it we may fairly see one of those clearly held principles which serve a man so well in moments of doubt and perplexity.  At the Nile and at Trafalgar, and scarcely less at St. Vincent and Copenhagen, the seizure of opportunity, the unfaltering resolve “to embrace the happy moment,” is perhaps even more notable and decisive than the sagacity which so accurately chose the proper method of action.