[47] Morrison, No. 684.

[48] Ante, p. 43.

[49] From Mr. G. Lathora Browne’s “Nelson:  His Public and Private Life,” London, 1891, p. 412.

[50] Naval Chronicle, vol. xxxvii. p. 445.

[51] Life of Rev. A.J.  Scott, D.D., p. 191.

[52] Nicolas, vol. iv. p. 533.

[53] Ibid., vol. vii. p. ccx.  Author’s italics.

[54] Ibid., vol. v. p. 60.

[55] It is possible that Nelson here used the word “reflect” in the primary sense of reflecting honor; but in the secondary sense of being a reflection upon those who had denied a just claim, the phrase, ambiguous as it stands, represented accurately his feelings.  “I own, my dear Sir,” he said again to the Premier, with reference to this decoration, “great as this honour will be, it will have its alloy, if I cannot at the same time wear the medal for the Battle of Copenhagen, the greatest and most honourable reward in the power of our Sovereign to bestow, as it marks my personal services.”

[56] See Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 225; Morrison, vol. ii. p. 176.

[57] This habit is mentioned by Captain James Hillyar, for extracts from whose journals the author is indebted to Admiral Sir W.R.  Mends, G.C.B.

[58] Morrison Collection, No. 632, October 8, 1801.

CHAPTER XIX.

COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF IN THE MEDITERRANEAN.—­THE LONG WATCH OFF TOULON.—­OCCUPATIONS OF A COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.

MAY, 1803—­JANUARY, 1805.  AGE, 45-46.

When Nelson, after a three years’ absence, returned to the Mediterranean in 1803, he found the conditions, upon which the military balance of power there depended, greatly altered from those he had known during the period of his previous service.  He had been present, indeed, almost an eye-witness, at the tremendous reverse associated with the name of Marengo, for that battle, it will be remembered, was fought while he was at Leghorn on his return to England; but Marengo, and the conventions following it, were at the moment only the beginning of an end which then could not be foreseen.

The most significant token of the entire change of conditions—­of the predominant, far-reaching, and firmly fastened grip of France on the land—­was the presence of an army corps of fifteen thousand men in the extreme southeast of Italy, occupying the Kingdom of Naples from the river Ofanto, on the Adriatic coast, round to the Bradano on the Gulf of Taranto, and including the useful ports of Brindisi and Taranto.  This distant and ex-centric extension of the arms of the Republic bespoke Bonaparte’s confidence in the solidity of his situation in the South of Europe; for under previous circumstances, even after his victorious campaign of 1796, he had always deprecated an occupation of Naples, and relied upon threats and a display of force to insure the quiescence of that state.  That one of his first steps, upon the renewal of war