ess to trust others made him especially ready to
accept. He was not wholly unaware of this tendency in himself, though
he continued to repeat with apparent belief reports of the most
startling and erroneous character, and never seems to have
appreciated, up to the time of his leaving the Mediterranean, the
astonishing quickness and sagacity with which Bonaparte frustrated the
overwhelming combinations against him. "We hear what we wish," he says
on one occasion. "The Toulon information is, as I always thought it,
pleasant to know but never to be depended upon; all is guess. I have
long had reason to suspect great part is fabricated in Genoa;" but he
was continually deceived by it.

Throughout the discomfitures of the Austrians on shore, the purely
naval part of the war continued to be successfully maintained. Jervis,
with unrelaxing grip, kept his position before Toulon, effectually
checking every attempt of the French fleet to escape unobserved into
the open, while Nelson shut up Leghorn so rigorously that the enemy
lost even the partial advantage, as a port of supply, which they had
before drawn from its neutrality. But, during this pregnant summer,
grave causes for anxiety were rolling up in the western basin of the
Mediterranean. The attitude of Spain had long been doubtful, so much
so that before Sir John Jervis left England, in the previous autumn,
the ministry had deliberated upon the contingency of her declaring
war, and a conditional decision had been reached to evacuate Corsica,
if that event occurred. During the spring of 1796 reports of coming
hostilities were current in the fleet. Nelson's first opinion was
that, if they ensued, there was no object in remaining in the
Mediterranean, except to preserve Corsica from the French. This, he
thought, was not a sufficient motive, nor had the conduct of the
natives entitled them to protection. With all the powers making peace
with France, he hoped Great Britain would leave the Mediterranean.
This, however, was but a passing expression of discouragement, whence
he soon rallied, and, with a spirit worthy of his race, which was soon
to face all Europe undismayed, his courage mounted continually as the
storm drew nearer.

The summer of 1796 was in truth the period of transition, when the
victories of Bonaparte, by bringing near a cessation of warfare upon
the land, were sweeping from the scene the accessories that confused
the view of the future, removing conditions a