Such services fritter away our troops and ships, when they are so much wanted for more important occasions, and are of no use beyond enriching a few individuals.  I know not, if these sentiments coincide with yours; but as glory, and not money, has through life been your pursuit, I should rather think that you will agree with me, that in Europe, and not abroad, is the place for us to strike a blow.”  “I like the idea of English troops getting into the Kingdom of Naples,” he tells Elliot at this same time; whence it may be inferred that that was the quarter he would now, as upon his first arrival, choose for British effort.  “If they are well commanded, I am sure they will do well.  They will have more wants than us sailors.”  The expedition, which sailed the following spring, was destined for the Mediterranean, and reinforced the garrisons of Gibraltar and Malta to an extent that made the latter a factor to be considered in the strategy of the inland sea; but when it arrived, Nelson had left the Mediterranean, not to return.

As regards general politics, Nelson, writing to the Queen of Naples, took a gloomy view of the future.  The Prime Minister of the Two Sicilies, Sir John Acton, had some time before been forced out of office and had retired to Palermo, an event produced by the pressure of French influence, which Nelson regarded now as absolutely dominant in that kingdom, and menacing to Europe at large.  “Never, perhaps, was Europe more critically situated than at this moment, and never was the probability of universal Monarchy more nearly being realized, than in the person of the Corsican.  I can see but little difference between the name of Emperor, King, or Prefect, if they perfectly obey his despotic orders.  Prussia is trying to be destroyed last—­Spain is little better than a province of France—­Russia does nothing on the grand scale.  Would to God these great Powers reflected, that the boldest measures are the safest!  They allow small states to fall, and to serve the enormous power of France, without appearing to reflect that every kingdom which is annexed to France, makes their own existence, as independent states, more precarious.”  How shrewd a prophecy this was as regards Prussia and Spain, those two countries were to learn by bitter experience; and remote Russia herself, though she escaped the last humiliation, saw in the gigantic hosts whose onset a few years later shook her to her centre, the armed subjects of the many smaller states, in whose subjugation she had acquiesced during the period of the Czar’s moral subservience to Napoleon.

Nelson’s essentially military genius had in political matters a keenly sensitive intuition of the probable action of his fellow-warrior, Bonaparte.  “Russia’s going to war in the way I am sure she will, will cause the loss of Naples and Sardinia; for that Court will not send 100,000 men into Italy, and less are useless for any grand purpose.”  “Your Excellency’s summary account of the