e to her of this sad event, adding
expressively: "I am very busy, yet own I am in all my glory; except
with you, I would not be anywhere but where I am, for the world." On
July 7th the first outwork fell. The attack upon the others was then
steadily and systematically prosecuted, until on the 19th all had been
captured, and the besiegers stood face to face with the town walls.

During this time Nelson, as always, was continually at the front and
among the most exposed. Out of six guns in the battery which he calls
"ours," five were disabled in six days. On the 12th at daylight, a
heavy fire opened from the town, which, he says, "seldom missed our
battery;" and at seven o'clock a shot, which on the ricochet cleared
his head by a hair's breadth, drove sand into his face and right eye
with such violence as to incapacitate him. He spoke lightly and
cheerfully of the incident to Lord Hood, "I got a little hurt this
morning: not much, as you may judge by my writing," and remained
absent from duty only the regular twenty-four hours; but, after some
fluctuations of hope, the sight of the eye was permanently lost to
him. Of General Stuart's conduct in the operations he frequently
speaks with cordial admiration. "He is not sparing of himself on any
occasion, he every night sleeps with us in the advanced battery. If I
may be allowed to judge, he is an extraordinary good judge of ground.
No officer ever deserved success more." At the same time he expresses
dissatisfaction with some of the subordinate army officers, to whose
inefficiency he attributes the necessity for undue personal exertion
on the general's part: "The General is not well. He fatigues himself
too much, but I can't help seeing he is obliged to do it. He has not a
person to forward his views,--the engineer sick, the artillery captain
not fit for active service; therefore every minute thing must be done
by himself, or it is not done at all."

The work was tedious and exhausting, and the malaria of the hot
Corsican summer told heavily on men's health and patience. The supply
of ammunition, and of material of war generally, for the army seems to
have been inadequate; and heavy demands were made upon the fleet, not
only for guns, which could be returned, but for powder and shot, the
expenditure of which might prove embarrassing before they could be
renewed. The troops also were not numerous enough, under the climatic
conditions, to do all their own duty. In such circums