sent him a very
handsome letter upon his single-handed combat with the French
frigates, and directed him to go to the north end of Corsica, to take
charge of a division of vessels he would there find cruising, and to
search for his late enemies along that coast and through the
neighboring waters, between the island and the shores of Italy. He was
also to warn off neutral vessels bound to Genoa, that port being
declared blockaded, and to seize them if they persisted in their
voyage thither. "I consider this command as a very high compliment,"
wrote Nelson to his uncle Suckling, "there being five older captains
in the fleet." This it certainly was,--a compliment and a prophecy as
well.

In pursuance of these orders Nelson left Tunis on the 30th of
November, and on the 8th of December discovered the French squadron,
protected by shore batteries, in San Fiorenzo Bay, in Corsica. This
island, which during the middle ages, and until some twenty years
before the beginning of the French Revolution, was a dependency of
Genoa, had then by the latter been ceded to France, against the
express wishes of the inhabitants, whose resistance was crushed only
after a prolonged struggle. Although it was now in open revolt against
the Revolutionary government, the troops of the latter still held
three or four of the principal seaports, among them the northern one
in which the frigates then lay, as well as Bastia upon the east coast
of the island, and Calvi on the west. His force being insufficient to
engage the works of any of these places, there was nothing for Nelson
to do but to blockade them, in hopes of exhausting their resources and
at least preventing the escape of the ships of war. In this he was
successful, for the latter either were destroyed or fell into the
hands of Great Britain, when the ports were reduced.

Meanwhile affairs at Toulon were approaching the crisis which ended
its tenure by the British and their allies. The garrison had never
been sufficient to man properly the very extensive lines, which the
peculiar configuration of the surrounding country made it necessary to
occupy for the security of the town; and the troops themselves were
not only of different nations, but of very varying degrees of
efficiency. Under these conditions the key of the position,
accurately indicated by Napoleon Bonaparte, then a major and in
command of the artillery, was held in insufficient force, and was
successfully stormed on the nigh