In the chaotic state in which France was then plunged, the utmost uncertainty prevailed as to the course events might take, and rumors of all descriptions were current, the wildest scarcely exceeding in improbability the fantastic horrors that actually prevailed throughout the land during these opening days of the Reign of Terror.  The expectation that found most favor in the fleet was that Provence would separate from the rest of France, and proclaim itself an independent republic under the protection of Great Britain; but few looked for the amazing result which shortly followed, in the delivery of Toulon by its citizens into the hands of Lord Hood.  This Nelson attributed purely to the suffering caused by the strictness of the blockade.  “At Marseilles and Toulon,” wrote he on the 20th of August, “they are almost starving, yet nothing brings them to their senses.  Although the Convention has denounced them as traitors, yet even these people will not declare for anything but Liberty and Equality.”  Three days later, Commissioners from both cities went on board Hood’s flagship to treat for peace, upon the basis of re-establishing the monarchy, and recognizing as king the son of Louis XVI.  The admiral accepted the proposal, on condition that the port and arsenal of Toulon should be delivered to him for safe keeping, until the restoration of the young prince was effected.  On the 27th of August the city ran up the white flag of the Bourbons, and the British fleet, together with the Spanish, which at this moment arrived on the scene, anchored in the outer port.  The allied troops took possession of the forts commanding the harbor, while the dockyards and thirty ships-of-the-line were delivered to the navies.

“The perseverance of our fleet has been great,” wrote Nelson, “and to that only can be attributed our unexampled success.  Not even a boat could get into Marseilles or Toulon, or on the coast, with provisions; and the old saying, ‘that hunger will tame a lion,’ was never more strongly exemplified.”  In this he deceived himself, however natural the illusion.  The opposition of Toulon to the Paris Government was part of a general movement of revolt, which spread throughout the provinces in May and June, 1793, upon the violent overthrow of the Girondists in the National Convention.  The latter then proclaimed several cities outlawed, Toulon among them; and the bloody severities it exercised were the chief determining cause of the sudden treason, the offspring of fear more than of hunger,—­though the latter doubtless contributed,—­which precipitated the great southern arsenal into the arms of the Republic’s most dangerous foe.  Marseilles fell before the Conventional troops, and the resultant panic in the sister city occasioned the hasty step, which in less troubled moments would have been regarded with just horror.  But in truth Nelson, despite his acute military perceptions, had not yet developed that keen political sagacity, the fruit of riper judgment grounded