dron and the increase of Latouche Treville's obliged him to recall
her, and at times his anxiety was great; not the less because Gore,
like other frigate captains, entertained the fancy that his three
frigates might contend with a ship-of-the-line. "Your intentions of
attacking that ship with the small squadron under your command are
certainly very laudable; but I do not consider your force by any means
equal to it." The question of two or three small ships against one
large involves more considerations than number and weight of guns.
Unity of direction and thickness of sides--defensive strength, that
is--enter into the problem. As Hawke said, "Big ships take a good deal
of drubbing." Howe's opinion was the same as Nelson's; and Hardy,
Nelson's captain, said, "After what I have seen at Trafalgar, I am
satisfied it would be mere folly, and ought never to succeed."[74]
What Hardy saw at Trafalgar, however, was not frigates against
ships-of-the-line, but vessels of the latter class opposed, smaller
against greater.

It seems singular, with such a weak link in the chain of communication
from the Mediterranean to England, that the Admiralty, on the outbreak
of the war with Spain, in the latter part of 1804, should have divided
Nelson's command at this very point, leaving as a somewhat debatable
ground, for mutual jealousy, that through which valuable interests
must pass, and where they must be transferred. The reason and manner
of this division, impolitic and inopportune as it was, and bitterly as
Nelson resented it, seem to have been misunderstood. Convinced that he
could not endure another winter such as the last, he made a formal
application, about the middle of August, 1804, for permission to go
home for a while. "I consider the state of my health to be such as to
make it absolutely necessary that I should return to England to
re-establish it. Another winter such as the last, I feel myself unable
to stand against. A few months of quiet may enable me to serve again
next spring; and I believe that no officer is more anxious to serve
than myself." In accordance with this last intimation, which speaks
his whole heart, he wrote privately to the First Lord that he would
like to come back in the spring, if his health were restored, as he
believed it would be; and he assured him that his second, Bickerton,
whose rank did not entitle him to the chief command under ordinary
conditions, was perfectly fitted to hold it during his ab