y directions, taking long views,
and neglecting no opportunity to secure advanced footholds for future
uses, he had not yet reached the stage in his development when he
would divide his energies between two gigantic undertakings. One at a
time, and with an accumulation of force abundantly adequate to the end
in view, was his policy all the days of Nelson. The Mediterranean with
its varied interests was to him at this time one of several means, by
which he hoped to distract British counsels and to dissever British
strength; but it was no part of his design to provoke Great Britain to
measures which would convert her alarm for the Mediterranean
peninsulas into open war with them, or in them, compelling France
either to recede from thence, or to divert thither a force that might
weaken his main effort. His aim was to keep anxiety keenly alive, and
to cut short the resources of his enemy, by diplomatic pressure upon
neutral states, up to the last extreme that could be borne without war
against them being declared, as the lesser evil; and the nearer he
could approach this delicate boundary line, without crossing it, the
greater his success. "I do not think a Spanish war [that is, a
declaration by Spain] so near," wrote Nelson in November, 1803. "We
are more likely to go to war with Spain for her complaisance to the
French; but the French can gain nothing, but be great losers, by
forcing Spain to go to war with us; therefore, I never expect that the
Spaniards will begin, unless Buonaparte is absolutely mad, as many say
he is. I never can believe that he or his counsellors are such fools
as to force Spain to begin."

The course instinctively advocated by Nelson, transpiring through
occasional utterances, was directly contrary to Bonaparte's aims and
would have marred his game. "We never wanted ten thousand troops more
than at this moment," Nelson wrote shortly after he had reached the
station and become acquainted with the state of affairs. "They might
save Naples, Sicily, the Morea and Egypt, by assisting and giving
confidence to the inhabitants." "It has been my plan to have 10,000
disposable troops in the Mediterranean," he wrote to Acton; and he
regretted to the Ministry that they should have withdrawn all the fine
army which had regained Egypt in 1801. "The sending them home," he
remarked to an occasional correspondent, "was a very inconsiderate
measure, to say nothing further of it." His idea was to garrison Gaeta
and N