tion untenable by
exhaustion. "This has pleased us," Nelson wrote; "if we make these
red-hot gentlemen hungry, they may be induced to come out."

The investment by sea of these two harbors, but especially of Toulon,
as being an important dockyard, was accordingly the opening move made
by the British admiral. On the 16th of July he approached the latter
port, and from that time until August 25 a close blockade was
maintained, with the exception of a very few days, during which Hood
took the fleet off Nice, and thence to Genoa, to remonstrate with that
republic upon its supplying the south of France with grain, and
bringing back French property under neutral papers. "Our being here is
a farce if this trade is allowed," said Nelson, and rightly; for so
far as appearances then went, the only influence the British squadrons
could exert was by curtailing the supplies of southern France. That
district raised only grain enough for three months' consumption; for
the remainder of the year's food it depended almost wholly upon Sicily
and Barbary, its communications with the interior being so bad that
the more abundant fields of distant French provinces could not send
their surplus.

In the chaotic state in which France was then plunged, the utmost
uncertainty prevailed as to the course events might take, and rumors
of all descriptions were current, the wildest scarcely exceeding in
improbability the fantastic horrors that actually prevailed throughout
the land during these opening days of the Reign of Terror. The
expectation that found most favor in the fleet was that Provence would
separate from the rest of France, and proclaim itself an independent
republic under the protection of Great Britain; but few looked for the
amazing result which shortly followed, in the delivery of Toulon by
its citizens into the hands of Lord Hood. This Nelson attributed
purely to the suffering caused by the strictness of the blockade. "At
Marseilles and Toulon," wrote he on the 20th of August, "they are
almost starving, yet nothing brings them to their senses. Although the
Convention has denounced them as traitors, yet even these people will
not declare for anything but Liberty and Equality." Three days later,
Commissioners from both cities went on board Hood's flagship to treat
for peace, upon the basis of re-establishing the monarchy, and
recognizing as king the son of Louis XVI. The admiral accepted the
proposal, on condition that the port and a