which was watching one of her principal ports.  “Latterly our cattle and onions have been procured from France,” wrote Nelson; “but from the apparent incivilities of the Spaniards, I suppose we are on the eve of being shut out.”  To escape the notice of the French agents, it was obviously desirable to distribute as widely as possible the sources of supply, so as not to concentrate observation upon any one, or upon the general fact.

It was, however, upon Sardinia that Nelson in the end chiefly depended.  The importance of this island, both in fact and in his estimation, was so great, that it may be said to have constituted the chief object of his thought and anxiety, after his own squadron and the French, which also he at times prophetically spoke of as his own.  “I do not mean to use the shells you have sent me at sea,” he writes to General Villettes, “for that I hope to consider burning our own ships; but in case they run ashore, then a few put into their sides will do their business.”  In addition to its extremely favorable central position, Sardinia, as compared to Sicily, did not entail the perplexity that its use by the British might cause a friendly sovereign the loss of his continental dominions.  Those of the King of Sardinia had passed already nearly, if not wholly, out of his hands.  The island itself was so wild, poor, and neglected, that, even if seized by the enemy, the King would lose little.  The net revenue derived from it was only L5,000.

During the previous war Nelson’s attention had not been called much to Sardinia.  Up to the withdrawal from the Mediterranean in 1796, Corsica had been a sufficient, and more suitable, base for the operations of the fleet, which until then had been upon the Riviera and the northern coast of Italy.  When he returned in 1798, even after the Battle of the Nile and the disasters of the French in 1799, the unsettled condition of Naples, the blockade of Malta, and the affairs of Egypt, had combined to keep him in the South; while the tenure of the Allies in Northern Italy, up to the Battle of Marengo, was apparently so secure as to require no great support from the fleet.  Irrespective of any personal influences that may have swayed him, Sicily was better suited then to be the centre from which to superintend the varied duties of his wide command.

When he returned in 1803, the old prepossessions naturally remained.  In a survey of the political conditions written for the Prime Minister when on the passage to Toulon, much is said of Malta, Sicily, and Naples, but Sardinia is dismissed with a passing hope that the French would not seize it.  After joining the fleet off Toulon, however, he had to realize that, if it was to remain at sea, as he purposed and effected, and yet be kept fully provisioned and watered, it must at times make an anchorage, which should be so far convenient as to keep it, practically, as much on its station as when under way.  In this dilemma