service overcame all personal predilections, and this great officer
was sent to take the command of the most extensive and important
station to which a British admiral could be appointed. Lord Hood had
previously declined it, on the singular plea of inadequacy of force;
and Sir Charles Hotham having solicited his recall in consequence of
declining health, the gallant Jervis was sent forth to establish the
renown of his country and his own.

The fleet was a noble command. It consisted on the whole of about
twenty-five sail of the line, two of them of a hundred guns, and five
of ninety-eight; thirty-six frigates, and fifteen or sixteen sloops
and other armed vessels.

Among the officers of the fleet were almost all the names which
subsequently obtained distinction in the great naval victories--
Troubridge, Hallowell, Hood, Collingwood, &c., and first of the first,
that star of the British seaman, Nelson. It is remarkable, and only a
just tribute to the new admiral, that he, almost from his earliest
intercourse with those gallant men, marked their merits, although
hitherto they had found no opportunities of acquiring distinction--all
were to come. Nelson, in writing to his wife, speaking of the
admiral's notice of him, says, "Sir John Jervis was a perfect stranger
to me, therefore I feel the more flattered." The admiral, in writing
to the secretary of the Admiralty, says--"I am afraid of being thought
a puffer, like many of my brethren, or I should before have dealt out
to the Board the merits of Captain Troubridge, which are very
uncommon."

The French fleet, of fifteen sail of the line, lay in Toulon, ready to
convoy an army to plunge upon the Roman states. Sir John Jervis
instantly proceeded to block up Toulon, keeping what is called the
in-shore squadron looking into the harbour's mouth, while the main
body cruised outside. The admiral at once employed Nelson on the
brilliant service for which he was fitted, and sent him with a flying
squadron of a ship of the line, three frigates, and two sloops, to
scour the coast of Italy. The duties of the Mediterranean fleet,
powerful as the armament was, were immense. Independently of the
blockade of Toulon, and the necessity of continually watching the
enemy's fleet, which might be brought out by the same wind which blew
off the British, the admiral had the responsibility of protecting the
Mediterranean convoys, of sustaining the British interests in the
neutral courts, of