e back of the Isle of Wight,
coming to the westward, he was constrained to return to St. Helen's.

After waiting till the 9th, he proceeded to Lisbon with the convoy; and,
on the 29th of April, joined the Earl of St. Vincent, off Cadiz.

Not a moment was lost by these great men, in proceeding to co-operate
for the glory of their country. The crisis was peculiarly portentous.
Bonaparte, baffled in his views of invading England, or even
Ireland---after the last and most serious disaffection, recently
extinguished, in the mutiny of the home fleet, produced an almost
general unanimity of the country--had been engaged in preparing an
expedition, on a scale of imposing grandeur, for some object which was
endeavoured to be carefully concealed, till it should be manifested by
it's tremendous effects. The armament destined for this grand secret
expedition, which was collecting at Toulon, under Bonaparte, consisted
of thirteen ships of the line, and seven forty-gun frigates, with
twenty-four smaller vessels of war, and nearly two hundred transports;
the latter filled with troops, horses, artillery, provisions, and
military stores. In this fleet, it was said, were also to embark artists
and scientific men of every description, with ancient and modern
linguists, and all sorts of useful and curious instruments and
machinery, calculated to promote knowledge, and extend improvement, in
the intended country which they were about thus to seize and newly
colonize.

It was immediately agreed, by the Earl of St. St. Vincent, and Sir
Horatio Nelson, that the latter should the next morning sail, with the
Vanguard, Orion, and Alexander, of seventy-four guns each, the Emerald
and Terpsichore frigates, and La Bonne Citoyenne sloop of war, to watch
the motions of this formidable French armament. The Earl of St. Vincent
was at no loss to know who was the senior officer under his command, and
what was the customary etiquette; but he knew, at the same time, that he
had, as commander in chief, a discretionary power; and carrying, in his
own bosom, a dread responsibility to his country, he had not an instant
to hesitate on whom it was his duty to depend. To the noble earl's
magnanimity, therefore, is the country to be eternally considered as
indebted for affording our favourite hero the opportunity of
demonstrating his unequalled powers. By other commanders, as he formerly
most feelingly remarked, he had been always praised, but never promoted;
he