Between Palermo and Malta Keith had received letters from General Melas, commanding the Austrian army in Piedmont, giving the plan of the approaching campaign, in which, as the Austrians were to besiege Genoa, and advance to the Riviera, much depended upon naval co-operation.  Rightly judging that to be the quarter calling for the naval commander-in-chief, he was anxious to get away.  On the 24th of February he issued an order to Nelson to take charge of the blockade, and “to adopt and prosecute the necessary measures for contributing to the complete reduction of Malta.”  Short of the chief command, which he coveted and grudged, Nelson himself could not have contrived a position better fitted to crown his work in the Mediterranean.  Within the harbor of La Valetta, concentrating there the two objects that yet remained to be attained,—–­ Valetta itself being one,—­was the “Guillaume Tell,” the thirteenth ship, which alone was lacking now to complete the tale of the trophies of the Nile.  Yet the fair prospect of success, inevitable since the capture of the “Genereux” had destroyed the French hopes of relief, brought to Nelson nothing but dismay.  “My Lord,” he replied the same day, “my state of health is such, that it is impossible I can much longer remain here.  Without some rest, I am gone.  I must, therefore, whenever I find the service will admit of it, request your permission to go to my friends, at Palermo, for a few weeks, and leave the command here to Commodore Troubridge.  Nothing but absolute necessity obliges me to write this letter.”  “I could no more stay fourteen days longer here, than fourteen years,” he said in a private letter to Keith of the same date.

By the next day he had recognized that even he could not leave at once the task appointed him, without discredit.  “My situation,” he then wrote to Hamilton, “is to me very irksome, but how at this moment to get rid of it is a great difficulty.  The French ships here ["Guillaume Tell” and others] are preparing for sea; the Brest fleet, Lord Keith says, may be daily expected, and with all this I am very unwell....  The first moment which offers with credit to myself I shall assuredly give you my company....  Lord Keith is commander-in-chief, and I have not been kindly treated.”  His tried friends, Troubridge and Ball, realized the false step he was about to take, but they could not change his purpose.  “Remember, my Lord,” wrote the former, “the prospects are rather good at present of reducing this place, and that William Tell, Diane,[1] and Justice,[5] are the only three ships left from the Nile fleet.  I beseech you hear the entreaties of a sincere friend, and do not go to Sicily for the present.  Cruizing may be unpleasant.  Leave the Foudroyant outside, and hoist your flag in the Culloden, to carry on operations with the General.  Everything shall be done to make it comfortable and pleasing to you:  a month will do all.  If you comply with my request, I shall be happy, as I shall then be convinced I have