aid, that Paul was the trunk of the
many-limbed tree, it was yet more true that Bonaparte's deft cajoling
of the Czar, and the inducements astutely suggested by him to Prussia,
were the vitalizing forces which animated the two principal parties in
the coalition, in whose wake the weaker states were dragged. Through
the former he hoped to effect a combination of the Baltic navies
against the British; through the latter he looked to exclude Great
Britain from her important commerce with the Continent, which was
carried on mainly by the ports of Prussia, or by those of North
Germany, which she could control. Thus, by the concerted and
simultaneous action of direct weight of arms on the one hand, and of
commercial embarrassment on the other, Bonaparte hoped to overbear the
power of his chief enemy; and here, as on other occasions, both before
and after, Nelson was at once the quickening spirit of the enterprise,
and the direct agent of the blow, which brought down his plans, in
ruins, about his ears.

Relaxing none of her efforts in other quarters of the world, Great
Britain drew together, to confront the new danger, everything in the
home waters that could float, till she had gathered a fleet of twenty
sail-of-the-line, with smaller cruisers in due proportion. "Under the
present impending storm from the north of Europe," wrote St. Vincent,
from his perch above the waters of Torbay, "to enable us to meet such
a host of foes, no ship under my command must have anything done to
her at Plymouth or Portsmouth that can be done at this anchorage." "We
are now arrived at that period," wrote Nelson, "what we have often
heard of, but must now execute--that of fighting for our dear Country;
and I trust that, although we may not be able to subdue our host of
enemies, yet we may make them ashamed of themselves, and prove that
they cannot injure us." "I have only to say," he wrote to Earl
Spencer, who must have rejoiced to see the old spirit flaming again in
undiminished vigor, "what you, my dear Lord, are fully satisfied of,
that the service of my King and Country is the object nearest my
heart; and that a first-rate, or sloop of war, is a matter of perfect
indifference to your most faithful and obliged Nelson."

The "San Josef" being considered too heavy a ship for the Baltic
service, Nelson's flag was shifted on the 12th of February to the "St.
George," a three-decker of lighter draft. Hardy accompanied him as
captain, and on the 1