Precise information of the French whereabouts could not be obtained until the evening of the 12th, when two of the British lookout ships reported that they had been seen a few hours before to the southwest, south of the Hyères Islands. The fleet made sail in that direction. During the night a heavy gale came on from west-northwest, out of the Gulf of Lyons, which split the main-topsails of several British ships. At daybreak the enemy were discovered in the southeast, standing north to close the land. After some elaborate manoeuvring—to reach one of those formal orders, often most useful, but which the irregular Mediterranean winds are prone to disarrange as soon as completed—the admiral at 8 A.M. signalled a general chase. The British being to windward, and the breeze fresh, the half-dozen leading ships had at noon closed the enemy's rear within three-quarters of a mile; but, from their relative positions, as then steering, the guns of neither could be used effectively. At this time a shift of wind to north headed off both fleets, which put their bows to the eastward, throwing the British advanced vessels, to use Nelson's expression, into line abreast, and bringing to bear the broadsides of the ships, of both fleets, that were within range. The action then began, the British fire being directed mainly upon the French rear ship, the "Alcide," which surrendered at about 2 P.M., and soon afterwards blew up. The wind had meanwhile changed again to the eastward, giving the weather-gage to the French, most of whom were considerably nearer the shore than their opponents, and better sailers.
Up to this time Nelson, who in the forenoon had thought there was every prospect of taking every ship in the French fleet, still felt almost certain that six would be secured; but, to use his own words, it was now "impossible to close." In the space between the ships engaged, and to leeward, the light air seems to have been killed by the cannonading; whereas the French, who were now to windward, still received enough to draw slowly away. Hotham, being in one of the very worst sailers in the fleet, if not in the Navy, had fallen eight miles astern, and not seeing clearly how things were going, made at this time a signal of recall, which was certainly premature. It seems a not improper comment that, in light and baffling weather, such as that of the Mediterranean, the commander-in-chief should have been in a fast and handy ship, able at the least to keep him within eyeshot of the decisive scene. Remaining in the "Britannia" may have been due to the natural unwillingness of an invalid to quit his well-ordered surroundings, by which even St. Vincent was led to take a first-rate ship away with himself at a critical moment; but, if so, it only emphasizes the absolute necessity of physical vigor to a commander-in-chief.
Nelson had again managed to keep the "Agamemnon" well to the front, for the other ships that succeeded in getting into action were almost wholly from among those which had recently arrived from England with Rear-Admiral Man. These, being fresh from home, should naturally outsail a ship now two and a half years in commission, and which, not long after, had to be wrapped with hawsers to hold her together. In his comments on the action he says comparatively little of the signal of recall, which, though ill-timed, he does not seem to have thought affected the result materially; but he was utterly dissatisfied with the previous management of the business, and into the causes of this dissatisfaction it is desirable to look, as bearing at once upon his natural military characteristics, and the development they received from time and thought. "The scrambling distant fire was a farce," he wrote; "but if one fell by such a fire, what might not have been expected had our whole fleet engaged? Improperly as the part of the fleet which fired got into action, we took one ship; but the subject is unpleasant, and I shall have done with it." The criticism, though far from explicit, evidently bears upon the manner in which the fleet was handled, from the moment the enemy was sighted until the firing began. During the latter, Man was the senior officer on the spot, and Nelson does not blame him; on the contrary, punning on the name, says, "He is a good man in every sense of the word."
The precise working of his thought can only be inferred. "The whole fleet" failed to get into action. Why? Because the signal for a general chase was delayed from 4 to 8 A.M., pending certain drill-ground manoeuvres, upon whose results, however well intended, no dependence could be placed in Mediterranean weather. During these four hours the wind was fresh,—the heel of a short summer's gale, invaluable to both sides,—and the enemy were using it to close the shore, where wind, the sole dependence for motive power, baffles most. Had the fastest British ships, under a competent flag-officer, utilized that time and that wind, there was, to put the case most mildly, the chance that they could repeat, upon the French rear, the same part the "Agamemnon" alone had played with the "Ça Ira,"—and such a chance, were it no more, should not have been dawdled with. "Missed the opportunity,"—the fatal words, "it might have been." Is it far-fetched to see in his reflections upon "this miserable action," as it is styled independently by James and himself, the forecast of the opening sentence of his celebrated order before Trafalgar?—"Thinking it almost impossible to bring a fleet of forty sail-of-the-line[30] into a line of battle in variable winds, thick weather, and other circumstances which must occur, without such a loss of time that the opportunity would probably be lost of bringing the enemy to battle in such a manner as to make the business decisive, I have therefore made up my mind—" Or, again, as he saw Man dragged off—with too little remonstrance, it may be—by a superior, who could by no means see what was the state of the action, is there not traceable a source of the feeling, partly inborn, partly reasoned, that found expression in the generous and yet most wise words of the same immortal order?—"The second in command will [in fact command his line and],[31] after my intentions are made known to him, have the entire direction of his line to make the attack upon the enemy, and to follow up the blow until they are captured or destroyed." Whether such words be regarded as the labored result of observation and reflection, or whether as the flashes of intuition, with which genius penetrates at once to the root of a matter, without the antecedent processes to which lesser minds are subjected,—in either case they are instructive when linked with the events of his career here under discussion, as corroborative indications of natural temperament and insight, which banish altogether the thought of mere fortuitous valor as the one explanation of Nelson's successes.
With this unsatisfactory affair, Nelson's direct connection with the main body of the fleet came to an end for the remainder of Hotham's command. It is scarcely necessary to add that the prime object of the British fleet at all times, and not least in the Mediterranean in 1795,—the control of the sea,—continued as doubtful as it had been at the beginning of the year. The dead weight of the admiral's having upon his mind the Toulon fleet, undiminished in force despite two occasions for decisive action, was to be clearly seen in the ensuing operations. On this, also, Nelson did much thinking, as passing events threw light upon the consequences of missing opportunities. "The British fleet," he wrote, five years later, and no man better knew the facts, "could have prevented the invasion of Italy; and, if our friend Hotham had kept his fleet on that coast, I assert, and you will agree with me, no army from France could have been furnished with stores or provisions; even men could not have marched." But how keep the fleet on the Italian coast, while the French fleet in full vigor remained in Toulon? What a curb it was appeared again in the next campaign, and even more clearly, because the British were then commanded by Sir John Jervis, a man not to be checked by ordinary obstacles. From the decks of his flagship Nelson, in the following April, watched a convoy passing close in shore. "To get at them was impossible before they anchored under such batteries as would have crippled our fleet; and, had such an event happened, in the present state of the enemy's fleet, Tuscany, Naples, Rome, Sicily, &c., would have fallen as fast as their ships could have sailed along the coast. Our fleet is the only saviour at present for those countries."
FOOTNOTES:
[25] In the year 1793 the French frigate "Modeste" had been forcibly taken from the harbor of Genoa by an English squadron.
[26] The "Berwick," seventy-four, had been left in San Fiorenzo for repairs. Putting to sea at this time, she fell in with the French fleet, and was taken.
[27] The port side, or, as it was called in Nelson's day, the larboard side, is the left, looking from the stem to the bow of a ship.
[28] Nelson to the Duke of Clarence, March 15, 1795. (Nicolas.)