of adhering to his resolve not to move without information to guide him, became almost unbearable—­a condition not hard to be realized by those who have known, in suspense, the overpowering impulse to do something, little matter what.  It is an interesting illustration of the administrative difficulties of the fleet, that three supply-ships joined him on the 5th of April, and their stores were transferred at sea while momentarily expecting the enemy’s appearance; one at least being completely discharged by the night of the 6th.

On this date, Nelson, having waited forty-eight hours to windward of Sicily, decided to fall back on Palermo; reckoning that if any attempt had been made upon Naples or Sicily, he should there hear of it.  The lookouts which were scattered in all directions were ordered to join him there, and a frigate was sent to Naples.  On the 9th and 10th he was off Palermo, and, though he got no word of the French, received two pieces of news from which his quick perceptions jumped to the conclusion that he had been deceived, and that the enemy had gone west.  “April 10, 7 A.M.  Hallowell is just arrived from Palermo.  He brings accounts that the great Expedition is sailed,[91] and that seven Russian sail-of-the-line are expected in the Mediterranean; therefore I may suppose the French fleet are bound to the westward.  I must do my best.  God bless you.  I am very, very miserable, but ever, my dear Ball,” etc.

A week more was to elapse before this dreadfully harassing surmise was converted into a certainty.  On the 9th he started back from Palermo, intending to go towards Toulon, to make sure that the French had not returned again.  Meeting a constant strong head wind, he was nine days getting again to the south of Sardinia, a distance of less than two hundred miles.  There, on the 18th, the vessel was spoken which informed him that she had seen the French off Cape de Gata, three hundred miles to the westward, ten days before.  “If this account is true,” he wrote to Elliot, “much mischief may be apprehended.  It kills me, the very thought.”  Yet, now that the call for decision sounds, he knows no faltering, nor does he, as in hours of reaction, fret himself about the opinions of others.  “I am going out of the Mediterranean,” he says in farewell.  “It may be thought that I have protected too well Sardinia, Naples, Sicily, the Morea, and Egypt; but I feel I have done right, and am, therefore, easy about any fate which may await me for having missed the French fleet.”

The following day a vessel joined from Gibraltar, with certain information that the enemy had passed the Straits.  Nelson had no need to ponder the next step.  His resolve had been taken long before to follow to the Antipodes.  He comforted himself, mistakenly, that his watchfulness was the cause that the French had abandoned the attempt against Egypt in force.  “Under the severe affliction which I feel at the escape of the French fleet out of the