This severe check, occurring at so critical a moment,—more critical even than Nelson knew, for he remained ignorant of the French sailing for some days longer,—was in itself disheartening, and fell upon one whose native eagerness chafed painfully against enforced inaction and delay. His manner of bearing it illustrated both the religious characteristics, which the experience of grave emergencies tends to develop and strengthen in men of action, and the firmness of a really great man, never more signally displayed than under the pressure of calamity and suspense, such as he continually had to undergo. The exceptional brilliancy and decisiveness of his greater battles—the Nile, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar—obscure the fact that each of them was preceded by a weary period of strenuous uphill work, a steady hewing of his way through a tanglewood of obstacles, a patient endurance of disappointments, a display of sustained, undaunted resolution under discouragements, nobler far than even the moments of triumphant action, into which at last he joyfully emerges and freely exerts his extraordinary powers. "I trust," he wrote to St. Vincent, "my friends will think I bore my chastisement like a man. I hope it has made me a better officer, as I believe it has made me a better man. On the Sunday evening I thought myself in every respect one of the most fortunate men, to command such a squadron in such a place, and my pride was too great for man." To his wife he wrote in the same strain: "I ought not to call what has happened to the Vanguard by the cold name of accident; I believe firmly that it was the Almighty's goodness, to check my consummate vanity."
Vanity was rather a hard name to call the natural elation of a young admiral, intrusted with an unusually important service, and proud of his command; but the providential interposition worked directly to his advantage. The delays caused by the repairs to the "Vanguard," and by the subsequent necessity of seeking the separated frigates at the rendezvous appointed for such a case, made possible the junction of Troubridge, of whose approach Nelson was totally ignorant. On the 2d of June Sir James Saumarez mentions speaking a ship, which a few days before had seen eleven sail-of-the-line, supposed to be English. "We are at a loss what conjectures to put on this intelligence." Five days before this, May 28, a vessel out of Marseilles had informed them of Bonaparte's sailing with all his transports. Nelson would doubtless have pursued them at once, in conformity with his instructions to ascertain the enemy's objects; but for such operations, essentially those of a scouting expedition, the frigates were too necessary to be left behind. On the 4th of June he reached the rendezvous, and, not finding the frigates, waited. The next morning, by the arrival of the "Mutine," he learned that he was to expect the reinforcement, which converted his division into a fleet, and enlarged his mission from one of mere reconnoissance to the duty of overtaking and destroying a great maritime expedition.
Besides this good news, the "Mutine" brought word of another misfortune, more irretrievable than the loss of spars. She had fallen in with the frigates three days before, and the senior captain had told Hardy that he was going with them to Gibraltar, persuaded that the condition of the flagship, which he had seen, would necessitate her return to an arsenal for repairs. "I thought Hope would have known me better," commented Nelson, when he became aware of a step which materially affected, in fact probably entirely changed, the course of events, and most seriously embarrassed all his subsequent movements. This untimely and precipitate action, and his remark, illustrate conspicuously the differences between men, and exemplify the peculiar energy and unrelaxing forward impulse which eminently fitted Nelson for his present high charge.
The inconvenience and danger arising from the frigates' departure was instantly felt. "Nothing," wrote Saumarez, "can equal our anxiety to fall in with the reinforcement. Our squadron has been, these two days, detached in all directions, without falling in with them; and there is strong reason to fear they think us returned to Gibraltar"—from Hope's reports. Such were the risks springing from misplaced caution, more ruinous than the most daring venture, and which from beginning to end well-nigh wrecked the great attempt upon which the Admiralty, St. Vincent, and Nelson had staked so much. In further consequence, the line-of-battle ships became separated by stretching too far apart in their anxious care to find Troubridge, and when he joined the "Vanguard," on the 7th, the "Orion" and "Alexander" were not in sight. The French having so long a start, and there being now with him eleven seventy-fours, Nelson with characteristic promptness would not delay an instant. The fifty-gun ship "Leander," which had come with Troubridge, was directed to wait forty-eight hours for the two absentees, with a memorandum of the course about to be followed. Confident that single ships would be able to overtake a squadron whose route they knew, the admiral at once pushed on for Cape Corso, the north point of Corsica, intending to pass between the island and Italy, seeking information as he went. The "Mutine" was all he had to replace the missing frigates.
June 7th thus marks the beginning of a chase, which ended only upon the 1st of August in the Battle of the Nile. During this miserable period of suspense and embarrassment, occasioned and prolonged beyond all reason or necessity by the want of lookout ships, the connecting and illuminating thread is the purpose of Nelson, at once clear and firm, to find the French fleet and to fight it the instant found. No other consideration draws his mind aside, except so far as it may facilitate the attainment and fulfilment of this one object. In this one light he sees all things. At the start he writes to St. Vincent: "You may be assured I will fight them the moment I can reach, be they at anchor or under sail." Three days later, he tells Sir William Hamilton: "If their fleet is not moored in as strong a port as Toulon, nothing shall hinder me from attacking them." "Be they bound to the Antipodes," he says to Earl Spencer, "your Lordship may rely that I will not lose a moment in bringing them to action, and endeavour to destroy their transports." Such expressions are repeated with a frequency which proves the absolute hold the resolution had upon his mind. When obstacles occur to him, or are mentioned, they do not make room for the thought of not fighting to be entertained; only Toulon suggests the idea of impossibility. He raises difficulties diligently enough, but it is only that they may be the better overcome, not that they may deter. All possible conditions are considered and discussed, but simply in order that the best fighting solution may be reached. The constant mental attitude is such that the man is unprepared to recede before any opposition; he fortifies his mind beforehand with the best means of meeting and vanquishing it, but the attempt at least shall be made. "Thank God," he wrote at this moment, "I do not feel difficulties;" yet the avowal itself accompanies so plain a statement of his embarrassments as to show that his meaning is that they do not discourage. This characteristic appeared most strongly at Copenhagen, partly because the difficulties there were greatest, partly from the close contrast with a man of very different temper.
Being entirely without intelligence as to the real object of the French, there was nothing to do but to follow upon their track, with eyes open for indications. They were known to have gone southerly, towards Naples and Sicily; and these two points, parts of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, had been mentioned by Jervis as probable destinations. The "Orion" and "Alexander" rejoined in two or three days, and on the 14th of June information, second-hand but probable, was obtained that on the 4th the French armament had been seen off the west end of Sicily, steering to the eastward. "If they pass Sicily," said Nelson in his letter to Spencer written the next day, "I shall believe they are going on their scheme of possessing Alexandria, and getting troops to India—a plan concerted with Tippoo Saib, by no means so difficult as might at first view be imagined." Troubridge was now sent ahead in the "Mutine" to communicate with Sir William Hamilton, the British minister at Naples, and with Acton, the prime minister of that Kingdom. He took with him letters from the admiral, who wished to know what co-operation he might hope from the Court of Naples, in the matters of supplies, of frigates to act as lookouts, and of pilots for Sicilian waters.
On the 17th the squadron hove-to ten miles off Naples, and Troubridge rejoined. The Neapolitan Government sent assurances of good wishes, and of hatred to the French; supplies would be given under the rose, and Acton sent a written order to that effect, addressed to the governors of ports in the name of the King. Naples being at peace with France, assistance with ships could not be given, nor, to use the words of Nelson, "the smallest information of what was, or was likely to be, the future destination of the French armament. With this comfortable account I pushed for the Faro of Messina." Troubridge brought word, however, that the French fleet was off Malta, about to attack it, which served to give direction for the squadron's next move.
After leaving Naples Nelson wrote strong and clear letters to Sir William Hamilton upon the existing conditions. Why should Naples stand in shivering hesitation about taking a decided step in support of Great Britain? She had looked and prayed for the arrival of the fleet, as the one force competent to check the designs of the French. Sicily could be approached only by water, and the distance of Naples from Northern Italy rendered the control of the sea most advantageous, if not absolutely essential, to a French army attempting to hold the boot of the peninsula. Now the British fleet had come, in force adequate to neutralize the French Navy, and, in Nelson's belief, to defeat and destroy it, if properly supported. Did Naples expect to escape by a timid adherence to half measures, when by her notorious preference for the British she had already gained the ill-will of the French? "The French know as well as you and I do, that their Sicilian Majesties called for our help to save them—even this is crime enough with the French." Safety—true safety—could be had only by strenuous and decisive action in support of Nelson's squadron. Did not the attack on Malta indicate a design upon Sicily? "Were I commanding a fleet attending an army which is to invade Sicily, I should say to the general, 'If you can take Malta, it secures the safety of your fleet, transports, stores, &c., and insures your safe retreat [from Sicily] should that be necessary; for if even a superior fleet of the enemy should arrive, before one week passes, they will be blown to leeward, and you may pass with safety.' This would be my opinion.... I repeat it, Malta is the direct road to Sicily." If the French are overtaken, he continues, and found in some anchorage, it can scarcely be so strong but that I can get at them, but there will be needed things which I have not, fire-ships, bomb-vessels, and gunboats, when one hour would either destroy or drive them out. Without such aid, the British may be crippled in their attempt, and forced to leave the Mediterranean. In case of blockade—or necessity to remain for any reason—the fleet must have supplies; which only Naples can furnish. Failing these it must retire, and then Sicily and Naples are lost. Since, then, so much assistance must be given in time, why postpone now, when one strong blow would give instant safety? Why should not his own motto, "I will not lose a moment in attacking them," apply as well to the policy of an endangered kingdom as of a British admiral?
If this reasoning and advice took more account of the exigencies of the British arms than of the difficulties of a weak state of the second order, dependent for action upon the support of other nations, they were at least perfectly consonant to the principles and practice of the writer, wherever he himself had to act. But Nelson could not expect his own spirit in the King of the Two Sicilies. Even if the course suggested were the best for Naples under the conditions, it is the property of ordinary men, in times of danger, to see difficulties more clearly than advantages, and to shrink from steps which involve risk, however promising of success. The Neapolitan Government, though cheered by the appearance of the British fleet, had to consider danger also on the land side, where it relied upon the protection of Austria, instead of trusting manfully to its own arms and the advantages of its position, remote from the centre of French power. Austria had pledged herself to support Naples, if invaded without just cause; but it was not certain that she would interfere if the cause of attack was the premature admission of British ships into the ports of the kingdom, beyond the number specified in the still recent treaties with France. The Emperor was meditating war, in which he expected to assist Naples and to be assisted by her; but he did not choose to be hurried, and might refuse aid if an outbreak were precipitated.
Actually, what Naples did mattered little. Under some contingencies, such as Nelson was contemplating when he wrote his letter, it might have mattered much whether he received the abundant support of small armed vessels which he indicated; but in the end supplies only were required, and those he had orders from Jervis to exact at the mouth of his cannon from all powers,—friends or neutrals,—Sardinia only excepted. The fleet passed the Straits of Messina on the 20th of June, and continued south, keeping close to the Sicilian shore in hope of information, until the 22d, when it was off Cape Passaro, the southeastern extremity of the island. There a Genoese brig was spoken, which had left Malta the previous day. From her Nelson learned that Malta had surrendered to the French on the 15th, a week before, which was correct; but the information further stated, that, after landing a garrison, the expedition had sailed again on the 16th—it was thought for Sicily. This last news was untrue, whether by intention or not, for Bonaparte remained in Malta till the 19th; but upon it Nelson had to act. Had he seen the captain of the stranger himself, he might have found out more, for he was a shrewd questioner, and his intellect was sharpened by anxiety, and by constant dwelling upon the elements of the intricate problem before him; but the vessel had been boarded by the "Mutine," three hours before, and was now beyond recall.