On the 28th of May Nelson received letters from St. Vincent, dated the 21st, off Minorca, which put him in possession of the movements of the enemy up to that date.  The French fleet, under the command of Admiral Bruix, had appeared on the 4th of the month off Cadiz.  It was then blowing a half-gale of wind, and the French admiral did not care, under that condition, to engage the fifteen British ships-of-the-line which were cruising off the harbor, under Lord Keith, who had come out from England the previous autumn to be St. Vincent’s second in command.  The intended junction with the Spanish squadron in Cadiz being thus thwarted, Bruix passed the Straits on the 5th, and Lord St. Vincent, having recalled Keith, followed on the 12th with sixteen ships.  On the 20th he joined Duckworth, and learned that the enemy, when last seen, were heading for Toulon.  Keith’s removal had uncovered Cadiz, and St. Vincent fully expected that the Spanish fleet would leave there for the Mediterranean, which it did, and on the 20th entered Cartagena, to the number of seventeen of the line, but much crippled from a stormy passage.  This Nelson did not yet know, nor that Bruix had reached Toulon on the 14th of May, and sailed again on the 26th for the eastward.

Satisfied that the enemy would not at once come his way, and knowing that a vessel had passed up the Mediterranean from St. Vincent to put Sidney Smith on his guard, Nelson ordered Ball to resume the blockade of Malta with two ships-of-the-line.  The rest of his squadron he kept massed, and took to Palermo, where he arrived May 29th.  Lookout ships were stationed off the north end of Corsica and west of Sardinia.  “My reason for remaining in Sicily,” he wrote St. Vincent, “is the covering the blockade of Naples, and the certainty of preserving Sicily in case of an attack, for if we were to withdraw our ships, it would throw such a damp on the people that I am sure there would be no resistance.”

On the 6th of June Duckworth arrived at Palermo from the main fleet, with four ships-of-the-line, among them the “Foudroyant,” eighty.  This ship had been designated originally for Nelson’s flag, and he shifted to her from the “Vanguard” on the 8th.  Duckworth brought a report that St. Vincent was about to give up the command and go home, on account of ill-health.  This at once aroused Nelson’s anxiety, for he had long felt that few superiors would have the greatness of mind to trust him as implicitly, and humor him as tenderly, as the great admiral had done.  It is not every one that can handle an instrument of such trenchant power, yet delicate temper, as Nelson’s sensitive genius.  The combination in St. Vincent of perfect professional capacity with masterful strength of character, had made the tactful respect he showed to Nelson’s ability peculiarly grateful to the latter; and had won from him a subordination of the will, and an affection, which no subsequent commander-in-chief could elicit.  He wrote to him:—­