ans the cause of our
success on the 14th, Lieutenant Andrews has a principal share in the
merit, for a more proper opinion was never given by an officer than
the one he gave me on the 13th, in a situation of great difficulty."

The same hot spirit, the same unwearying energy, made itself still
more manifest the next day, when were to be garnered the results of
his own partial, yet, in its degree, decisive action of the 13th.
"Sure I am," said he afterwards, "had I commanded our fleet on the
14th, that either the whole French fleet would have graced my triumph,
or I should have been in a confounded scrape." A confounded scrape he
would have been in on the 13th, and on other days also, great and
small, had there been a different issue to the risks he dared, and
rightly dared, to take. Of what man eminent in war, indeed, is not the
like true? It is the price of fame, which he who dare not pay must
forfeit; and not fame only, but repute.

During the following night the "Sans Culottes" quitted the French
fleet. The wind continued southerly, both fleets standing to the
westward, the crippled "Ca Ira" being taken in tow by the "Censeur,"
of seventy-four guns. At daylight of March 14, being about twenty
miles southwest from Genoa, these two were found to be much astern and
to leeward, of their main body,--that is, northeast from it. The
British lay in the same direction, and were estimated by Nelson to be
three and a half miles from the disabled ship and her consort, five
miles from the rest of the French. At 5.30 A.M. a smart breeze sprang
up from the northwest, which took the British aback, but enabled them
afterwards to head for the two separated French ships. Apparently,
from Nelson's log, this wind did not reach the main body of the enemy,
a circumstance not uncommon in the Mediterranean. Two British
seventy-fours, the "Captain" and the "Bedford," in obedience to
signals, stood down to attack the "Censeur" and the "Ca Ira;" and,
having in this to undergo for twenty minutes a fire to which they
could not reply, were then and afterwards pretty roughly handled. They
were eventually left behind, crippled, as their own fleet advanced.
The rest of the British were meantime forming in line and moving down
to sustain them. The French main body, keeping the southerly wind,
wore in succession to support their separated ships, and headed to
pass between them and their enemies. The latter, having formed, stood
also towards these two