itimately conducted: yet our conduct was unwise;--the island is large
enough to form an independent state, and such we should have made
it, under our protection, as long as protection might be needed; the
Corsicans would then have felt as a nation; but when one party had given
up the country to England, the natural consequence was that the other
looked to France. The question proposed to the people was, to which
would they belong? Our language and our religion were against us; our
unaccommodating manners, it is to be feared, still more so. The French
were better politicians. In intrigue they have ever been unrivalled; and
it now became apparent that, in spite of old wrongs, which ought
never to have been forgotten nor forgiven, their partisans were daily
acquiring strength. It is part of the policy of France, and a wise
policy it is, to impress upon other powers the opinion of its strength,
by lofty language: and by threatening before it strikes; a system which,
while it keeps up the spirit of its allies, and perpetually stimulates
their hopes, tends also to dismay its enemies. Corsica was now loudly
threatened. "The French, who had not yet been taught to feel their own
inferiority upon the seas, braved us in contempt upon that element."
They had a superior fleet in the Mediterranean, and they sent it out
with express orders to seek the English and engage them. Accordingly,
the Toulon fleet, consisting of seventeen ships of the line and five
smaller vessels, put to sea. Admiral Hotham received this information
at Leghorn, and sailed immediately in search of them. He had with him
fourteen sail of the line, and one Neapolitan seventy-four; but his
ships were only half-manned, containing but 7650 men, whereas the
enemy had 16,900. He soon came in sight of them: a general action was
expected; and Nelson, as was his custom on such occasions, wrote a
hasty letter to his wife, as that which might possibly contain his last
farewell. "The lives of all," said he, "are in the hand of Him who knows
best whether to preserve mine or not; my character and good name are in
my own keeping."

But however confident the French government might be of their naval
superiority, the officers had no such feeling; and after manoeuvring
for a day in sight of the English fleet, they suffered themselves to
be chased. One of their ships, the CA IRA, of eighty-four guns, carried
away her main and fore top-masts. The INCONSTANT frigate fired at the
dis