to understand that it was imminent, troops being expected from San Fiorenzo.  At the urgent request of the prisoner, one of the seamen taken with him was permitted to land with a letter, stating the impending danger.  By a singular coincidence, or by skilful contrivance, the San Fiorenzo troops appeared on the heights upon the evening, May 19, following this conversation.  Flags of truce had already been hoisted, negotiations were opened, and on the 22d the French colors were struck and the British took possession.  “When I reflect what we have achieved,” confessed the hitherto outwardly unmoved Nelson, “I am all astonishment.  The most glorious sight that an Englishman can experience, and which, I believe, none but an Englishman could bring about, was exhibited,—­4,500 men laying down their arms to less than 1,000 British soldiers, who were serving as marines.”  As towards the French this account is perhaps somewhat less than fair; but it does no more than justice to the admirable firmness and enterprise shown by Hood and Nelson.  As a question of Bastia only, their attempt might be charged with rashness; but having regard to the political and military conditions, to the instability of the Corsican character, and to the value of the island as a naval station, it was amply justified, for the risks run were out of all proportion less than the advantage to be gained.

Thus the siege of Bastia ended in triumph, despite the prior pronouncement of the general commanding the troops, that the attempt was “most visionary and rash.”  These epithets, being used to Hood after his own expressions in favor of the undertaking, had not unnaturally provoked from him a resentful retort; and, as men are rarely conciliated by the success of measures which they have ridiculed, there arose a degree of strained relations between army and navy, that continued even after the arrival of a new commander of the land forces, and indeed throughout Hood’s association with the operations in Corsica.

During this busy and laborious period, despite his burden of secret anxiety, Nelson’s naturally delicate health showed the favorable reaction, which, as has before been noted, was with him the usual result of the call to exertion.  His letters steadily reflect, and occasionally mention, the glow of exultation produced by constant action of a worthy and congenial nature.  “We are in high health and spirits besieging Bastia,” he writes to his wife soon after landing; and shortly before the fall of the place he says again:  “As to my health, it was never better, seldom so well.”  Yet, although from beginning to end the essential stay of the enterprise, the animating soul, without whose positive convictions and ardent support Lord Hood could scarcely have dared so great a hazard, he was throughout the siege left, apparently purposely, in an anomalous position, and was at the end granted a recognition which, though probably not grudging, was certainly scanty.  No definition of his duties