Of all our admirals, however, we have not one to compare with your Nelson, your Hood, your St. Vincent, and your Cornwallis.  By the appointment of Murat as grand admiral, Bonaparte seems to indicate that he is inclined to imitate the example of Louis.  XVI., in the beginning of his reign, and entrust the chief command of his fleets and squadrons to military men of approved capacity and courage, officers of his land troops.  Last June, when he expected a probable junction of the fleet under Villeneuve with the squadron under Admiral Winter, and the union of both with Ganteaume at Brest, Murat was to have had the chief command of the united French, Spanish, and Batavian fleets, and to support the landing of our troops in your country; but the arrival of Lord Nelson in the West Indies, and the victory of Admiral Calder, deranged all our plans and postponed all our designs, which the Continental war has interrupted; to be commenced, God knows when.

The best amongst our bad admirals is certainly Truguet; but he was disgraced last year, and exiled twenty leagues from the coast, for having declared too publicly “that our flotillas would never be serviceable before our fleets were superior to yours, when they would become useless.”  An intriguer by long habit and by character, having neither property nor principles, he joined the Revolution, and was the second in command under Latouche, in the first republican fleet that left our harbours.  He directed the expedition against Sardinia, in January, 1793, during which he acquired neither honour nor glory, being repulsed with great loss by the inhabitants.  After being imprisoned under Robespierre, the Directory made him a Minister of the marine, an Ambassador to Spain, and a Vice-Admiral of France.  In this capacity he commanded at Brest, during the first eighteen months of the present war.  He has an irreconcilable foe in Talleyrand, with whom he quarrelled, when on his embassy in Spain, about some extortions at Madrid, which he declined to share with his principal at Paris.  Such was our Minister’s inveteracy against him in 1798, that a directorial decree placed him on the list of emigrants, because he remained in Spain after having been recalled to France.  In 1799, during Talleyrand’s disgrace, Truguet returned here, and, after in vain challenging his enemy to fight, caned him in the Luxembourg gardens, a chastisement which our premier bore with true Christian patience.  Truguet is not even a member of the Legion of Honour.

Villeneuve is supposed not much inferior in talents, experience, and modesty to Truguet.  He was, before the Revolution, a lieutenant of the royal navy; but his principles did not prevent him from deserting to the colours of the enemies of royalty, who promoted him first to a captain and afterwards to an admiral.