epended.
As will be seen in the sequel, Hotham, throughout his brief command as
Hood's successor, suffered the consequences of permitting so important
a fraction of the enemy's fleet to escape his grasp, when it was in
his power to close with it.

The British divisions met off the threatened port two days after
leaving Bastia, and two hours later a lookout frigate brought word
that the French fleet had been seen by her the evening before, to the
northward and westward, some forty miles off its own coast. Hood at
once made sail in pursuit, and in the afternoon of the 10th of June
caught sight of the enemy, but so close in with the shore that they
succeeded in towing their ships under the protection of the batteries
in Golfe Jouan, where, for lack of wind, he was unable to follow them
for some days, during which they had time to strengthen their position
beyond his powers of offence. Hotham's error was irreparable. The
"Agamemnon" was then sent back to Bastia, to resume the work of
transportation, which Nelson pushed with the untiring energy that
characterized all his movements. Arriving on the 12th, fifteen hundred
troops were embarked by eight the next morning, and at four in the
afternoon he sailed, having with him two smaller ships of war and
twenty-two transports. On the 15th he anchored at San Fiorenzo.

Here he met General Stuart. The latter was anxious to proceed at once
with the siege of Calvi, but asked Nelson whether he thought it proper
to take the shipping to that exposed position; alluding to the French
fleet that had left Toulon, and which Hood was then seeking. Nelson's
reply is interesting, as reflecting the judgment of a warrior at once
prudent and enterprising, concerning the influence of a hostile "fleet
in being" upon a contemplated detached operation. "I certainly thought
it right," he said, "placing the firmest reliance that we should be
perfectly safe under Lord Hood's protection, who would take care that
the French fleet at Gourjean[24] should not molest us." To Hood he
wrote a week later: "I believed ourselves safe under your Lordship's
wing." At this moment he thought the French to be nine
sail-of-the-line to the British thirteen,--no contemptible inferior
force. Yet that he recognized the possible danger from such a
detachment is also clear; for, writing two days earlier, under the
same belief as to the enemy's strength, and speaking of the expected
approach of an important convoy, he says: "