cut off [as
by our uncovering the sea it must be], they must retire." Above all he
grieves for Naples. If a weak and vacillating ally, there was no doubt
her heart was with them. "I feel more than all for Naples. The King
of Naples is a greater sacrifice than Corsica. If he has been induced
to keep off the peace, and perhaps engaged in the war again by the
expectation of the continuance of the fleet in the Mediterranean, hard
indeed is his fate; his kingdom must inevitably be ruined." In the
impression now made upon him, may perhaps be seen one cause of
Nelson's somewhat extravagant affection in after days for the royal
family of Naples, independent of any influence exerted upon him by
Lady Hamilton.

With these broad views of the general strategic situation, which are
unquestionably far in advance of the comparatively narrow and vague
conceptions of a year, or even six months before, and doubtless
indicate the results of independent command and responsibility, acting
upon powers of a high order, he at the same time shows his keen
appreciation of the value of the organized force, whose movements,
properly handled, should dominate the other conditions. "When Man
arrives, who is ordered to come up, we shall be twenty-two sail of
such ships as England hardly ever produced, and commanded by an
admiral who will not fail to look the enemy in the face, be their
force what it may: I suppose it will not be more than thirty-four of
the line. There is not a seaman in the fleet who does not feel
confident of success." "The fleets of England," he says again, "are
equal to meet the world in arms; and of all fleets I ever saw, I never
beheld one in point of officers and men equal to Sir John Jervis's,
who is a commander-in-chief able to lead them to glory."

Reasoning so clearly and accurately upon the importance to Great
Britain's interests and honor, at that time, of maintaining her
position in the Mediterranean, and upon the power of her fleet in
battle, it is not strange that Nelson, writing in intimate confidence
to his wife, summed up in bitter words his feelings upon the occasion;
unconscious, apparently, of the great change they indicated, not
merely in his opinions, but in his power of grasping, in well-ordered
and rational sequence, the great outlines of the conditions amid which
he, as an officer, was acting. "We are all preparing to leave the
Mediterranean, a measure which I cannot approve. They at home do not
know what