From Madalena he extended his observations over the whole island of Sardinia, upon the holding of which he thenceforth laid the greatest stress, and entertained most anxious fears lest the French should snatch it out of his hands.  “If we could possess Sardinia, we should want neither Malta nor any other.  It is the most important island, as a naval and military station, in the Mediterranean.  It possesses at the northern end the finest harbour in the world [Madalena].  It is twenty-four hours’ sail from Toulon; it covers Italy; it is a position that the wind which carries the French to the westward is fair for you to follow.  In passing to the southward they go close to you.  In short, it covers Egypt, Italy, and Turkey.”  He was anxious that the British Government should buy it.  “If we, from delicacy, or commiseration of the unfortunate king of Sardinia, do not get possession of that island, the French will.  If I lose Sardinia, I lose the French fleet.”

His apprehensions were not verified; as also they were not during his command, either in the Morea, in Naples, or in Sicily.  Napoleon took no active steps against Sardinia, although the proceedings there did not escape the sharp eyes of the French agents, but elicited from them vivacious remonstrances.  “The government of the Republic,” wrote one, “has a right to complain of this excessive complaisance.  To give regular support to a squadron blockading a port, to revictual it, in one word, periodically, is to tread under foot the neutrality which is professed.  I shall notify my government of a fact which demands all its attention, and in which it is painful to me to see a cause of misunderstanding between France and his Sardinian Majesty.”  It is singularly confirmatory of the reality of Bonaparte’s intention to attempt the invasion of England, that he confined his efforts in the South—­in the Mediterranean—­to feints and demonstrations.  What he did there looked to the future, not to the present; although, doubtless, he stood always so ready that no opportunity offering advantage would have passed neglected.  The active mind of Nelson, condemned to the uncertainties of the defensive and to military idleness, however it may have been burdened with administrative routine and official correspondence, found ample time to speculate on the designs of Bonaparte, and the latter took care that he should have matter enough to occupy him—­and if possible mislead him—­in rumor and in movements.  “At Marseilles they are fitting, as reports say, eighty or ninety gunboats, and intend sending them, by the canal of Languedoc to Bordeaux; but I am sure this is not true.  They are to go alongshore to the Heel of Italy, and to embark and protect their army either to Sicily or the Morea, or to both; and the Navy of Europe can hardly prevent these alongshore voyages.”  In this will be noticed the recurrence of ideas familiar to him in the Riviera eight years before; the expectation of ex-centric operations into which Bonaparte was rarely betrayed.