It was not, however, to be so.  Whether moved only by routine considerations of rank, as afterwards at Copenhagen, or whether his relations with the Sicilian Court, his conduct of affairs at Naples, and his collisions with Keith, had excited doubt of the normal balance of his mind, the Admiralty decided to send Keith back, and Nelson, greatly to his mortification, was kept in charge only till the end of the year.  As St. Vincent had always left him practically independent, he had known no superior since he entered the Straits, except during Keith’s brief period of succession, when leagues of sheltering distance left him free, as has been seen, to defy orders when not in accordance with his views; and he found it impossible now to bow his will to the second place on the very field of his glory.  To this feeling, natural in any man, and doubly so to one of Nelson’s quick susceptibilities, at once stimulated and soothed by the lavish adulation of the past year, was added personal dislike to his new superior, aggravated, if not originated, by the clash of judgment over the relative importance of Naples and Minorca.  “I have serious thoughts of giving up active service,” he wrote to Minto; “Greenwich Hospital seems a fit retreat for me after being evidently thought unfit to command in the Mediterranean.”  Complaints of Keith’s lack of consideration then abound, nor does he seem to be conscious that there was anything in his mode of life, in current rumor, or in his past relations with his new commander-in-chief, which might make the latter unwilling to give him the loose rein St. Vincent had done.

From the time that Keith left the Mediterranean in July, 1799, to Nelson’s own departure a year later, there was little to be done in the naval way except to maintain and press existing advantages, and wait until the fruit was ready to drop.  The absolute supremacy of the British squadrons, challenged for a moment by the incursion of Admiral Bruix, had reverted, in even greater degree than before, by the absence of the Spanish ships which had accompanied him to Brest.  Impeded by their own numbers, and paralyzed by the insufficiency of the resources of the port, they remained there a huge, inert mass, whose impotence was only partially understood by the British; a fact which conduced to prolong Keith’s presence in the Channel.  The year under consideration was therefore devoid of stirring events at sea.

In the Mediterranean, it is true, Nelson’s unwearying mental energy, and keen sense of the necessity of seizing opportunity, did not allow things to lapse into indolence.  Whether or not he was well advised to settle himself at Palermo, aware as he must have been of the actual temptation, and of the serious injury that scandal was doing to his reputation, both professional and personal, may admit of doubt.  With numerous detached and minor services carrying on at the same moment, there was much to be said for the commander-in-chief remaining in a fixed position,