n-chief on the 13th of October, at San
Fiorenzo, and the same afternoon left again for Bastia, where he
arrived the following day.

During the fortnight intervening since he left the place, the fact
that the Spanish fleet was on its way to Corsica had become known, and
the French partisans in the island were proportionately active. It was
impossible for the British to go into the interior; their friends, if
not in a minority, were effectually awed by the preponderance of their
enemies, on land and sea. Nelson, wishing to cross overland to San
Fiorenzo to visit Jervis, was assured he could not do so with safety.
In Bastia itself the municipality had wrested the authority from the
Viceroy, and consigned the administration to a Committee of Thirty.
The ships of war and transports being blown to sea, the inhabitants
became still more aggressive; for, foreseeing the return of the
French, they were naturally eager to propitiate their future masters
by a display of zeal. British property was sequestered, and shipping
not permitted to leave the mole.

Nelson was persuaded that only the arrival of the ships accompanying
him saved the place. Except a guard at the Viceroy's house, the
British troops had been withdrawn to the citadel. Even there, at the
gates of the citadel, and within it, Corsican guards were present in
numbers equal to the British, while the posts in the towns were all
held by them. Arriving at early dawn of the 14th, Nelson at once
visited the general and the Viceroy. The former saw no hope, under the
conditions, of saving either stores, cannon, or provisions. "The
Army," said Nelson in a private letter to Jervis, with something of
the prejudiced chaff of a seaman of that day, "is, as usual, well
dressed and powdered. I hope the general will join me cordially, but,
as you well know, great exertions belong exclusively to the Navy."
After the evacuation, however, he admitted handsomely that it was
impossible to "do justice to the good dispositions of the general."

Between the heads of the two services such arrangements were perfected
as enabled almost everything in the way of British property--public
and private--to be brought away. By midday the ships, of which three
were of the line, were anchored close to the mole-head, abreast the
town, and the municipality was notified that any opposition to the
removal of the vessels and stores would be followed by instant
bombardment. Everything yielded to the threat, m