life Sir John Jervis defeats them.  This country is the most favourable possible for skill with an inferior fleet; for the winds are so variable, that some one time in twenty-four hours you must be able to attack a part of a large fleet, and the other will be becalmed, or have a contrary wind.”  That the Duke trembled and demurred to such odds is not wonderful; but the words have singular interest, both as showing the clear tactical apprehensions that held sway in Nelson’s mind, and still more, at the moment then present, as marking unmistakably his gradual conversion to the policy of remaining in the Mediterranean, and pursuing the most vigorous aggressive measures.

A fortnight after this letter was written, Genoa, under pressure from Bonaparte, closed her ports against British ships, interdicting even the embarkation of a drove of cattle, already purchased, and ready for shipment to the fleet off Toulon.  Nelson immediately went there to make inquiries, and induce a revocation of the orders.  While the “Captain” lay at anchor in the roads, three of the crew deserted, and when her boats were sent to search for them they were fired upon by a French battery, established near the town.  Nelson, in retaliation, seized a French supply ship from under the guns of the battery, whereupon the Genoese forts opened against the “Captain,” which had meantime got under way and was lying-to off the city.  Nelson did not return the fire of the latter, which was kept up for two hours, but threw three shot into the French battery, “to mark,” as he said, the power of the English to bombard the town, and their humanity in not destroying the houses and innocent Genoese inhabitants.  In the communications which followed under a flag of truce, Nelson was informed, verbally, that all the ports of the Republic were closed against Great Britain.  This stand, and the firing on the ship, being considered acts of hostility, the little island of Capraia, between Corsica and Genoa, and belonging to the latter, was seized by Nelson, acting under the counsel of the Viceroy of Corsica.  This was done both as a retaliatory measure, and to put a stop to the use which French privateers and parties of Corsicans had hitherto made of it, under cover of Genoese neutrality.

As Jervis was already under apprehension of an outbreak of scurvy in the fleet, consequent upon the failure of supplies of live cattle following the French occupation of Leghorn, the closure of the Genoese ports was a severe blow.  It was, however, but one among several incidents, occurring nearly simultaneously, which increased his embarrassments, and indicated the close approach of the long-muttering storm.  To use his own words, “The lowering aspect of Spain, with the advanced state of the equipment of the French fleet in Toulon,” impelled him to concentrate his force.  Rear-Admiral Man, who had been blockading Cadiz since his detachment there by Hotham, in October, 1795, was ordered up to the main fleet.  Swayed by fears very unlike