ing to some extent the end in
view, gave rise also to a good deal of friction and recrimination
between the neutral and the belligerents. The vessels of the latter
were admitted, under certain limitations as to number, into the
neutral port, where they lay nearly side by side, jealously watching
each other, and taking note of every swerving, real or presumed, from
an exact and even balance. Each sailed from the neutral port to carry
on war, but it is obvious that the shelter of such a port was far more
useful to the belligerent who did not control the water, who moved
upon it only by evasion and stealth, and who was therefore tempted, in
order to improve such advantages, to stretch to the verge of abuse
the privileges permitted to him by the neutral. "The Genoese allow the
French," wrote Nelson, "to have some small vessels in the port of
Genoa, that I have seen towed out of the port, and board vessels
coming in, and afterwards return into the mole; the conduct of the
English is very different." He elsewhere allows, however, that, "in
the opinion of the Genoese, my squadron is constantly offending; so
that it almost appears a trial between us, who shall first be tired,
they of complaining, or me of answering them."

After the first successes of the Austrians and Sardinians, in the
previous June, the French commander-in-chief, Kellerman, feeling his
inferiority to be such as compelled him to a defensive attitude, had
carefully selected the most advanced line that he thought could be
held. His right rested upon the sea, near the village of Borghetto,
some fifty or sixty miles east of Nice, extending thence to and across
the mountains, to Ormea. The Austrian front was parallel, in a general
sense, to that of the enemy, and a couple of leagues to the eastward;
thus securing for the British Vado Bay, considered the best anchorage
between Genoa and Nice. In rear of Vado, to the eastward, and on the
coast road, lay the fortress of Savona, esteemed by Bonaparte of the
first importance to an army operating in the Riviera and dependent
upon the control of the road. The town was occupied by the Austrians,
but they were excluded from the citadel by Genoese troops,--a
condition of weakness in case of sudden retreat. It ought, said
Bonaparte, to be the object of all the enemy's efforts. In these
positions, both armies depended for supplies partly upon the sea,
partly upon the land road along the Riviera. Across the mountains, in
Pied