impossible could be done, though involving a degree of anxiety and peril far exceeding that of battle, while accompanied by none of the distinction, nor even recognition, which battle bestows.  “None but professional men who have been on that service,” says his biographer with simple truth, “can have any idea of its difficulties,—­surrounded by dangers of every kind, exposed to the violence of storms, sailing amidst a multitude of rocks and variable currents in the longest and darkest nights, and often on a lee shore on the enemy’s coast, while the whole of their fleet is near, ready to take advantage of any disaster.”  Collingwood, who in the next war succeeded to the same unenviable duty, wrote home that, even in the summer month of August, “I bid adieu to comfortable naps at night, never lying down but in my clothes.  An anxious time I have of it, what with tides and rocks, which have more of danger in them than a battle once a week.”  In this laborious task Saumarez was the patient, unobserved pioneer.

There was one man, however, who could and did recognize to the full the quality of the work done by Saumarez, and its value to those sagacious plans which he himself had framed, and which in the future were to sap the foundations of the French power.  That man was St. Vincent.  “The merit of Sir James Saumarez,” he said, “cannot be surpassed;” and again, to Saumarez himself, “The manner in which you have conducted the advanced squadron calls upon me to repeat my admiration of it.”  Succeeding soon after to the post of First Lord of the Admiralty, he gave him an opportunity for distinction, which resulted in an action of singular lustre and striking success.

Bonaparte, long before returned from Egypt, and now, as First Consul, practically the absolute ruler of France, had overthrown all enemies on the Continent.  Peace with Austria, after her disasters of Marengo and Hohenlinden, had been signed in February, 1801.  The great objects of the French ruler now were to compass a maritime peace and withal to retain Egypt, associated from far back with the traditional policies of France, and moreover a conquest in which his own reputation was peculiarly interested.  To compel Great Britain to peace, he sought, by diplomacy or force, to exclude her commerce from the Continent, as well as to raise up maritime enemies against her.  Thus he had fostered, if not actually engendered, the Baltic league of 1801, shattered by Nelson at Copenhagen; and for this purpose he intended to occupy both Portugal and the kingdom of Naples.  A powerful British expedition against Egypt had entered the Mediterranean.  It was essential either to attack this directly, or to cripple its communications.  Unable to do the former, and persistently thwarted in his attempts to reinforce his own troops in that distant dependency by the close watch of the British navy, of which Saumarez gave so conspicuous an illustration before Brest, Napoleon resorted to the common and sound military expedient of collecting a threatening force upon the flank of his enemy’s line of communications.  He directed a concentration of the Spanish and French navies at Cadiz, which, by its nearness to the straits, met the desired requirement.  Among others, three French ships were ordered thither from Toulon.