ations, would, very probably, lay their defeat
to the want of assistance from the AGAMEMNON. Had the force for which
Nelson applied been given him, he could have attended to both objects;
and had he been permitted to attack the convoy in Alassio, he would have
disconcerted the plans of the French, in spite of the Austrian general.
He had foreseen the danger, and pointed out how it might be prevented;
but the means of preventing it were withheld. The attack was made as
he foresaw; and the gun-boats brought their fire to bear upon the
Austrians. It so happened, however, that the left flank, which was
exposed to them, was the only part of the army that behaved well: this
division stood its ground till the centre and the right wing fled, and
then retreated in a soldier-like manner. General de Vins gave up the
command in the middle of the battle, pleading ill health. "From that
moment," says Nelson, "not a soldier stayed at his post: it was the
devil take the hindmost. Many thousands ran away who had never seen the
enemy; some of them thirty miles from the advanced posts. Had I not,
though I own, against my inclination, been kept at Genoa, from 8000 to
10,000 men would have been taken prisoners, and, amongst the number,
General de Vins himself; but by this means the pass of the Bocchetta
was kept open. The purser of the ship, who was at Vado, ran with
the Austrians eighteen miles without stopping; the men without arms,
officers without soldiers, women without assistance. The oldest officers
say they never heard of so complete a defeat, and certainly without
any reason. Thus has ended my campaign. We have established the French
republic: which but for us, I verily believe, would never have been
settled by such a volatile, changeable people. I hate a Frenchman: they
are equally objects of my detestation whether royalists or republicans:
in some points, I believe, the latter are the best." Nelson had a
lieutenant and two midshipmen taken at Vado: they told him, in their
letter, that few of the French soldiers were more than three or four
and twenty years old, a great many not more than fourteen, and all were
nearly naked; they were sure, they said, his barge's crew could have
beat a hundred of them; and that, had he himself seen them, he would not
have thought, if the world had been covered with such people, that they
could have beaten the Austrian army.

The defeat of General de Vins gave the enemy possession of the Genoese
co