ships of the line,
with another frigate, were perceived coming up fast to their assistance.
This was too great odds, so near their own batteries, and our small
squadron were obliged to sheer off, under a press of sail. The French
pursued them, for some time, still keeping the advantage of sailing;
but, fearful of following too far, by the time they were five leagues
from Toulon, they were recalled, about three quarters of an hour past
three, by their signal-post from the hill, and all stood in again. At
six, the rear-admiral saw our fleet to leeward, and joined them at
half-past nine. They had heard, indistinctly, the firing: and the
Leviathan was, in consequence, detached toward Toulon; but had not
proceeded far, before our ships were perceived on their return. This
trivial affair was magnified, by the French admiral, Latouche Treville,
who had so manfully ventured to pursue, a little way, with two
eighty-fours, three seventy-fours, three forty-four frigates, and a
corvette, our two eighty-fours and a single frigate, into a compleat
discomfiture of the whole British fleet!

In the mean time, though Lord Nelson could in no way contrive
effectually to decoy out the wary Gallic boasters, their commerce was
not only distressed, but nearly annihilated; their privateers were
taken; and the British flag waved, with proud defiance, throughout the
Mediterranean, and was unopposed even on the coast of France. The city
of London, sensible of what the experienced security of the British
commerce owed to his lordship's services, though uninformed as to the
precise mode in which the hero's operations were conducted, now
transmitted to him, through the lord-mayor, their public thanks, voted
on the 9th of April 1804, for his skill and perseverance in blockading
the port of Toulon, so as to prevent the enemy's fleet in that quarter
from putting to sea. This panegyric, however intended, was not at all
relished by his lordship, who had never approved of the blockading
system. "Praise undeserved," the hero probably thought, as well as the
poet, "is censure most severe." Under some such impression, therefore,
instantly on receiving the lord-mayor's letter, which unfortunately
arrived the famous 1st of August, he wrote the following animated
answer; spiritedly declining any acceptance of thanks from his
fellow-citizens, in which his own services seemed so imperfectly
recognized, and from which his brave coadjutors were unjustly excluded.