h
confessedly precarious, promised to lead to a great and decisive
result, such as he had lately urged upon the King of Naples; or to
remain where he was, in an inglorious security, perfectly content, to
use words of his own, that "each day passed without loss to our side."
To the latter conclusion might very well have contributed the
knowledge, that the interests which the Cabinet thought threatened
were certainly for the present safe. Broadly as his instructions were
drawn, no word of Egypt or the East was specifically in them. Naples,
Sicily, Portugal, or Ireland, such were the dangers intimated by
Spencer and St. Vincent in their letters, and he was distinctly
cautioned against letting the enemy get to the westward of him. He
might have consoled himself for indecisive action, which
procrastinated disaster and covered failure with the veil of nullity,
as did a former commander of his in a gazetted letter, by the
reflection that, so far as the anticipations of the ministry went, the
designs of the enemy were for the time frustrated, by the presence of
his squadron between them and the points indicated to him.

But the single eye of principle gained keener insight in this case by
the practised habit of reflection, which came prepared, to the full
extent of an acute intellect, to detect every glimmer of light, and to
follow them to the point where they converged upon the true solution;
and both principle and reflection were powerfully supported in their
final action by a native temperament, impatient of hesitations, of
half measures, certain that the annihilation of the French fleet, and
nothing short of its annihilation, fulfilled that security of his
country's interests in which consisted the spirit of his instructions.
His own words in self-defence, when for a moment it seemed as if,
after all, he had blundered in the great risk he took, though rough in
form, rise to the eloquence that speaks out of the abundance of the
heart. "The only objection I can fancy to be started is,'you should
not have gone such a long voyage without more certain information of
the enemy's destination:' my answer is ready--who was I to get it
from? The governments of Naples and Sicily either knew not, or chose
to keep me in ignorance. Was I to wait patiently till I heard certain
accounts? If Egypt was their object, before I could hear of them they
would have been in India. To do nothing, I felt, was disgraceful;
therefore I made use of my