realized fully that to destroy the
French fleet was the one thing for which the British fleet was there,
and the one thing by doing which it could decisively affect the war.
As he wrote four years later to St. Vincent, "Not one moment shall be
lost in bringing the enemy to battle; for I consider the best defence
for his Sicilian Majesty's dominions is to place myself alongside the
French."

Yet Nelson was far from unconscious of the difficulties of Hotham's
position, or from failing duly to allow for them. "Admiral Hotham has
had much to contend with, a fleet half-manned, and in every respect
inferior to the enemy; Italy calling him to her defence, our newly
acquired kingdom[29] calling might and main, our reinforcements and
convoy hourly expected; and all to be done without a force by any
means adequate to it." Add to this the protection of British trade, of
whose needs Nelson was always duly sensible. Yet, as one scans this
list of troubles, with the query how to meet them running in his mind,
it is scarcely possible not to see that each and every difficulty
would have been solved by a crushing pursuit of the beaten French,
preventing their again taking the sea. The British admiral had in his
control no means to force them out of port. Therefore, when out, he
should by no means have allowed them to get back. It is only just to
Hotham, who had been a capable as well as gallant captain, to say that
he had objected to take the chief command, on account of his health.

Nelson was delighted with his own share in these affairs, and with the
praise he received from others for his conduct,--especially that on
the 13th. He was satisfied, and justly, that his sustained and daring
grapple with the "Ca Ira," in the teeth of her fleet, had been the
effective cause of the next day's action and consequent success. It
was so, in truth, and it presented an epitome of what the 14th and
15th ought to have witnessed,--a persistent clinging to the crippled
ships, in order to force their consorts again into battle. "You will
participate," he wrote to his uncle, "in the pleasure I must have felt
in being the great cause of our success. Could I have been supported,
I would have had Ca Ira on the 13th." Elliot, the Viceroy of Corsica,
wrote to him: "I certainly consider the business of the 13th of March
as a very capital feature in the late successful contest with the
French fleet; and the part which the Agamemnon had in it must be felt
by