health, I
don't know that I was ever so truly well. I fancy myself grown quite
stout." To his old captain, Locker, he admitted that he could not get
the better of the fever.

Corsica being now wholly in the power of its inhabitants, allied with
and supported by Great Britain, his attention and interest were
engrossed by the French fleet centring upon Toulon, the dominant
factor of concern to the British in the Mediterranean, where
Vice-Admiral Hotham had succeeded Hood as commander-in-chief. Nelson
realizes more and more the mistake that was made, when a fraction of
it was allowed to escape battle in the previous June. The various
reasons by which he had at first excused the neglect to bring it to
action no longer weigh with him. He does not directly blame, but he
speaks of the omission as an "opportunity lost,"--a phrase than which
there are few more ominous, in characterizing the closely balanced,
yet weighty, decisions, upon which the issues of war depend. Nothing,
he thinks, can prevent the junction of the two fragments,--then in
Golfe Jouan and Toulon,--one of which, with more resolution and
promptitude on Hotham's part, might have been struck singly at sea a
few months before; and if they join, there must follow a fleet action,
between forces too nearly equal to insure to Great Britain the
decisive results that were needed. The thought he afterwards
expressed, "Numbers only can annihilate," was clearly floating in his
brain,--inarticulate, perhaps, as yet, but sure to come to the birth.
"If we are not completely victorious,--I mean, able to remain at sea
whilst the enemy must retire into port,--if we only make a Lord Howe's
victory, take a part, and retire into port, Italy is lost." Criticism
clearly is going on in his mind; and not mere criticism, (there is
enough and to spare of that in the world, and not least in navies),
but criticism judicious, well considered, and above all fruitful. The
error of opportunity lost he had seen; the error of a partial
victory--"a Lord Howe's victory," another opportunity lost--he
intuitively anticipated for the Mediterranean, and was soon to see. He
was already prepared to pass an accurate judgment instantly, when he
saw it. May we not almost hear, thundering back from the clouds that
yet veiled the distant future of the Nile, the words, of which his
thought was already pregnant, "You may be assured I will bring the
French fleet to action the moment I can lay my hands upon the