the ensuing
operations. On this, also, Nelson did much thinking, as passing events
threw light upon the consequences of missing opportunities. "The
British fleet," he wrote, five years later, and no man better knew the
facts, "could have prevented the invasion of Italy; and, if our friend
Hotham had kept his fleet on that coast, I assert, and you will agree
with me, no army from France could have been furnished with stores or
provisions; even men could not have marched." But how keep the fleet
on the Italian coast, while the French fleet in full vigor remained in
Toulon? What a curb it was appeared again in the next campaign, and
even more clearly, because the British were then commanded by Sir John
Jervis, a man not to be checked by ordinary obstacles. From the decks
of his flagship Nelson, in the following April, watched a convoy
passing close in shore. "To get at them was impossible before they
anchored under such batteries as would have crippled our fleet; and,
had such an event happened, _in the present state of the enemy's
fleet_, Tuscany, Naples, Rome, Sicily, &c., would have fallen as fast
as their ships could have sailed along the coast. Our fleet is the
only saviour at present for those countries."

FOOTNOTES:

[25] In the year 1793 the French frigate "Modeste" had been forcibly taken
from the harbor of Genoa by an English squadron.

[26] The "Berwick," seventy-four, had been left in San Fiorenzo for
repairs. Putting to sea at this time, she fell in with the French fleet,
and was taken.

[27] The port side, or, as it was called in Nelson's day, the larboard
side, is the left, looking from the stem to the bow of a ship.

[28] Nelson to the Duke of Clarence, March 15, 1795. (Nicolas.)

[29] Corsica.

[30] There were twenty-three present on July 13, 1795.

[31] The words in brackets were erased in the rough draft, but are here
inserted, because they emphasize the underlying thought, that the second
was to have real command, not wait nor look for signals, nor yet fear them.

CHAPTER VI.

NELSON'S COMMAND OF A DETACHED SQUADRON ON THE RIVIERA OF GENOA, UNTIL
THE DEFEAT OF THE AUSTRIANS AT THE BATTLE OF LOANO.--SIR JOHN JERVIS
APPOINTED COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF IN THE MEDITERRANEAN.

JULY-DECEMBER, 1795. AGE, 37.

After the action of July 13, Nelson was again despatched upon his
mission to co-operate with the Austrians on the Riviera. His orders,
dated July 15, were to confer first with the British