[12] See ante, p, 251.
[13] Corr. de Nap., vol. vi. p. 410.
[14] Ibid., vol. vi. p. 497.
[15] "Voyant bien," says M. Thiers, Bonaparte's panegyrist, "que Malta ne pouvait pas tenir longtemps." (Cons. et Emp., vol. ii. p. 92.)
[16] Corr. de Nap., vol. vi. p. 498.
[17] Corr. de Nap., vol. vi. p. 520.
[18] See vol. i. pp. 249, 256.
[19] Corr. de Nap., vol. vi. p. 738, Jan. 21, 1801.
[20] Contrast Bonaparte's reliance upon the aggregate numbers of Baltic navies with Nelson's professional opinion when about to fight them. "During the Council of War (March 31, 1801) certain difficulties were started by some of the members relative to each of the three Powers we should have to engage, either in succession or united, in those seas. The number of the Russians was in particular represented as formidable. Lord Nelson kept pacing the cabin, mortified at everything which savored either of alarm or irresolution. When the above remark was applied to the Swedes, he sharply observed, 'The more numerous the better;' and when to the Russians, he repeatedly said, 'So much the better; I wish they were twice as many,—the easier the victory, depend on it.' He alluded, as he afterwards explained in private, to the total want of tactique among the Northern fleets." (Col. Stewart's Narrative; Nelson's Dispatches, vol. iv. p. 301.)
James, who was a careful investigator, estimates the allied Russian, Swedish, and Danish navies in the Baltic at fifty-two sail, of which not over forty-one were in condition for service, instead of eighty-eight as represented by some writers. "It must have been a very happy combination of circumstances," he adds, "that could have assembled in one spot twenty-five of those forty-one; and against that twenty-five of three different nations, all mere novices in naval tactics, eighteen, or, with Nelson to command, fifteen British sail were more than a match." (Nav. Hist., vol. iii. p. 43; ed. 1878.)