r the disordered enemy, seeking to intercept their retreat
by the coast. Had there then been established, in a well-chosen point
of that narrow road, a resolute body of men, even though small, they
might well have delayed the fliers until the main body of the pursuers
came up; but the presence of the "Agamemnon" controlled the departure
of the intended expedition from Genoa, upon which alone, as an
organized effort, the projected obstruction depended. Thus she was the
efficient cause, as Nelson claimed, that many thousands of Austrians
escaped capture. As it was, they lost in this affair, known as the
Battle of Loano, seven thousand men, killed, wounded, or prisoners.
The entire Riviera was abandoned, and they retreated across the
Apennines into Piedmont.

When things go wrong, there is always a disposition on the part of
each one concerned to shift the blame. The Austrians had complained
before the action, and still more afterwards, of the failure of the
fleet to aid them. Nelson thought their complaint well founded. "They
say, and true, they were brought on the coast at the express desire of
the English, to co-operate with the fleet, which fleet nor admiral
they never saw." On his own part he said: "Our admirals will have, I
believe, much to answer for in not giving me that force which I so
repeatedly called for, and for at last leaving me with Agamemnon
alone. Admiral Hotham kept my squadron too small for its duty; and the
moment Sir Hyde took the command of the fleet he reduced it to
nothing,--only one frigate and a brig; whereas I demanded two
seventy-four-gun ships and eight or ten frigates and sloops to insure
safety to the army."

It is unnecessary to inquire into the motives of the two admirals for
the distribution of their force. Unquestionably, the first thing for
them to do was to destroy or neutralize the French fleet; and next to
destroy, or at least impede, the communications of the French army.
That it was possible to do this almost wholly may be rested upon the
authority of Nelson, whose matured opinion, given five years later,
has already been quoted. Two opportunities to cripple the Toulon fleet
were lost; but even so, after the junction of Man, in June, the
superiority over it was so great that much might have been spared to
the Riviera squadron. The coast was not at this time so extensively
fortified that coasting could not, in Nelson's active hands, have been
made a very insufficient means of sup