as well as increasing faith in the powers of the fleet, vigorously used in aggressive warfare.  “Whilst we can keep the combined fleet in the Mediterranean [by our own presence], so much the more advantageous to us; and the moment we retire, the whole of Italy is given to the French.  If the Dons detach their fleet out of the Mediterranean, we can do the same—­however, that is distant.  Be the successes of the Austrians on the other hand what they may, their whole supply of stores and provisions comes from Trieste, across the Adriatic to the Po, and when this is cut off [as by our uncovering the sea it must be], they must retire.”  Above all he grieves for Naples.  If a weak and vacillating ally, there was no doubt her heart was with them.  “I feel more than all for Naples.  The King of Naples is a greater sacrifice than Corsica.  If he has been induced to keep off the peace, and perhaps engaged in the war again by the expectation of the continuance of the fleet in the Mediterranean, hard indeed is his fate; his kingdom must inevitably be ruined.”  In the impression now made upon him, may perhaps be seen one cause of Nelson’s somewhat extravagant affection in after days for the royal family of Naples, independent of any influence exerted upon him by Lady Hamilton.

With these broad views of the general strategic situation, which are unquestionably far in advance of the comparatively narrow and vague conceptions of a year, or even six months before, and doubtless indicate the results of independent command and responsibility, acting upon powers of a high order, he at the same time shows his keen appreciation of the value of the organized force, whose movements, properly handled, should dominate the other conditions.  “When Man arrives, who is ordered to come up, we shall be twenty-two sail of such ships as England hardly ever produced, and commanded by an admiral who will not fail to look the enemy in the face, be their force what it may:  I suppose it will not be more than thirty-four of the line.  There is not a seaman in the fleet who does not feel confident of success.”  “The fleets of England,” he says again, “are equal to meet the world in arms; and of all fleets I ever saw, I never beheld one in point of officers and men equal to Sir John Jervis’s, who is a commander-in-chief able to lead them to glory.”

Reasoning so clearly and accurately upon the importance to Great Britain’s interests and honor, at that time, of maintaining her position in the Mediterranean, and upon the power of her fleet in battle, it is not strange that Nelson, writing in intimate confidence to his wife, summed up in bitter words his feelings upon the occasion; unconscious, apparently, of the great change they indicated, not merely in his opinions, but in his power of grasping, in well-ordered and rational sequence, the great outlines of the conditions amid which he, as an officer, was acting.  “We are all preparing to leave the Mediterranean, a measure