he loss of his arm at Teneriffe.
Conformably to this grand characteristic, having so honourably received
the Earl of St. Vincent's orders to seek and to destroy the French
armament, which he had at length gloriously encountered at the mouth of
the Nile; he still internally regretted, that the wound on that occasion
received in his forehead, by rendering him almost wholly blind, had
proved the sole cause of a single French ship's escape. Not that this
undoubted conviction in his own bosom, that he should certainly have
captured or destroyed the whole fleet, conveys the smallest reflection
on any other officer for not having effected the same purpose: for, most
assuredly, though many captains in this noble squadron might boast of
equal bravery with himself, and of much skill too, Lord Nelson greatly
surpassed them all, and perhaps every other naval commander, in that
promptitude of vigorously winged imagination which instantaneously rises
to the exigency. The moment Captain Berry had, on first beholding the
position of the French fleet at anchor, fully comprehended the entire
scope of his adored admiral's design for the attack, he exclaimed, in an
extacy--"If we succeed, what will the world say?"--"There is no if in
the case," coolly replied the admiral: "that we shall succeed, is
certain; who may live to tell the story, is a very different question!"
So positive was this great man of success, even before the battle
commenced.

Though Lord Nelson had hitherto failed in taking the fugitive ships from
Egypt, and the transports were not yet destroyed at Alexandria; he never
relinquished the idea, that some of his "band of brothers," the heroic
captains of the Nile, might finally fall in with, and either take or
destroy, the two line of battle ships, and two frigates, which had alone
escaped, and thus complete the destruction of all the ships of war. Nor
had the comprehensive mind of our hero limited it's hope to these alone:
he trusted that some of his brave band would at least assist in
effecting the destruction of the transports; as well as in preventing
every remaining Frenchman, who had been landed in Egypt, from ever
returning to France. For this purpose, he had not only left Captain Hood
on the coast; but solicited, both at home, and of our allies, the
requisite bomb-vessels, &c. by repeated most urgent epistles.

At length, the necessary preparations had been made, and dispatched from
England, under the command of Si