On the 22d of May he was off Ushant, between which and Cornwallis's rendezvous he passed twenty-four hours, fuming and fretting over a delay that was losing him a fresh, fair, northerly wind; the more so, that he was satisfied Cornwallis neither needed nor wanted the ship. "From his conduct,"—not being on his rendezvous,—"I am clear there can be nothing in Brest to demand his attention." On the 23d, however, he could stand it no longer. "What a wind we are losing!" "If the wisdom of my superiors had not prevented me," he growled, "at this moment I should have been off the coast of Portugal. I am aware of the importance of my getting to the Mediterranean, and think I might safely have been allowed to proceed in the Victory." At 6 P.M. of that day, Cornwallis not turning up, he tumbled himself and his suite on board the frigate "Amphion," which was in company, and continued his voyage, going out in all the discomfort of "a convict," to use St. Vincent's expression; "seven or eight sleeping in one cabin," as Nelson himself described it. "It is against my own judgment but in obedience to orders," he told the Earl; while to the Prime Minister, with whom he was in personal correspondence, he lamented the loss, "for I well know the weight of the Victory in the Mediterranean." As he anticipated, Cornwallis did not want the ship, and she joined Nelson two months afterwards off Toulon.
Late in the evening of June 3d, the "Amphion" anchored at Gibraltar, whither she brought the first certain news of the war, though it had been declared nearly three weeks before. The next day was actively employed in giving necessary instructions to the yard officials, and detailing cruisers to guard the entrance to the Straits, and to maintain the communications with the Barbary coast, upon which the Rock depended for supplies of fresh provisions. At 4 P.M. the ship again sailed for Malta, accompanied by the frigate "Maidstone," to which, on the 11th of June, was transferred, for direct passage to Naples by the north of Sicily, the new British minister to the Two Sicilies, Mr. Elliot, who had embarked with Nelson on board the "Victory," and afterwards gone with him to the "Amphion." Throughout the following two years an active correspondence, personal and diplomatic, was maintained with this gentleman, who, like his brother, Lord Minto, placed the utmost dependence upon the political sagacity and tact of the admiral. When the latter, a year later, spoke of leaving the station on account of his health, Elliot wrote to him: "Where such great interests are concerned, I shall not presume to dwell upon my own feelings, although I cannot but recall to your Lordship that I only consented to depart as abruptly as I did from England, to undertake this arduous and ruinous mission, from the expectation that my efforts to direct the councils of this Kingdom would have been seconded by your pre-eminent talents and judgment." After the two frigates parted, the "Amphion" kept on to Malta, where she arrived on the 15th of June.
With the separation of the "Maidstone" Nelson began the extensive diplomatic correspondence, which employed so much of his time during this command, and through which we are made familiar with the workings of his mind on the general political conditions of the Mediterranean. She carried from him letters to the King and Queen of the Sicilies, to their Prime Minister, Acton, and to the British minister to the Court of Sardinia. To these succeeded, upon his arrival in Malta,—as a better point of departure for the farther East, now that the French held the west coast of the Adriatic,—despatches to the British minister to the Porte, to the Grand Vizier and the Capitan Pacha, to the Republic of the Seven Islands, as the group of Corfu and its sisters was now styled, and to the British representative to their government.
All these communications were, of course, tentative, based upon a yet imperfect knowledge of conditions. For the most part they conveyed, besides the notification of his having taken the command, chiefly general assurances of the good-will of the writer's government, and an undefined intimation that all had best be on their guard against French scheming and aggressions. To Naples he spoke more definitely, and indicated at once the considerations that would dictate his course, and, he intimated, should control theirs also. He had been instructed, he said, to consider the welfare of the Two Sicilies as one of the first of British objects, and his Government was convinced of the advantages that would accrue both to Sicily and Naples, if their neutrality could be maintained. They had to do, however, with an enemy that was not only powerful, but wily and unscrupulous; one whose action would be governed wholly by considerations of interest and expediency, not by those of right. Great Britain could not, probably, keep the French out of Naples, but she could out of Sicily, provided, and only provided, Messina was adequately garrisoned and held. If, however, there was any hasty overt action taken, looking to the security of Sicily, it might merely precipitate the seizure of Naples and the entire conquest of the King's continental dominions; or, "ten times more humiliating," leave him "an odious commissary to raise contributions from his unhappy subjects for the French." On the other hand, if, to avert suspicion, there was too much slackness in the measures to guard Sicily, Messina might be suddenly seized, the gates of the island thus thrown open, and, Sicily once lost, "Naples falls of course." "It is a most important point," he wrote to Elliot soon after, "to decide when Sicily ought to be placed in a state of security. For the present, I am content to say that Messina need not be taken possession of; but the strictest watch must be kept by Sir John Acton that we are not lulled into a fatal security, and thus lose both Kingdoms. To save for the moment Naples, we risk the two Kingdoms, and General Acton must join me in this heavy responsibility." "My whole opinion rests in these few words—that we must not risk Sicily too far in trying to save Naples; therefore, General Acton, yourself and myself must keep a good lookout."
This summed up the conditions for Naples during the long two years of watching and waiting, while Bonaparte, concentrating his purposes upon his invasion scheme, was content to leave things quiet in the South. To check, as far as might be, the designs of the French towards Morea or towards Sicily, on either side of the central position they held at the heel of Italy, Nelson employed a proportionately large number of cruisers—five—between Messina and the mouth of the Adriatic; while, to provide for the safety of the royal family, he kept always a ship-of-the-line in the Bay of Naples, the British minister holding orders for her captain to embark them at a moment's notice, and take them to Sicily. "I have kept everything here to save Italy, if in my power," he wrote Elliot two months later, "and you know I was ordered to send a squadron outside the Straits. Fourteen days ago, a French seventy-four got into Cadiz from Santo Domingo, and two French frigates, with some merchant ships. What will they say at home? However, I feel I have done right, and care not." "I must place a squadron between Elba and Genoa," he says again, "to prevent that expedition from moving, and also send some ships to the Straits' mouth, and keep enough to watch the ships in Toulon. These are all important objects, but nothing when compared to the security of the Sicilies."
Nelson's anxiety for Sicily threw him again into contact with an instance of that rigid and blind conformity to orders which always exasperated him. He had brought out directions to the general commanding in Malta, to hold a detachment of two thousand British troops in readiness to go at once to Messina, on the appearance of danger, and to garrison the works there, if he thought they could be spared from the defence of Malta. Nelson told the Prime Minister that discretion, as to such a step, was a responsibility greater than the average officer could bear, and would certainly defeat the object in view; for he would never feel his charge secure enough to permit such a diminution. There was at this time in Malta a body of Neapolitan soldiers, which had been sent there during the peace of Amiens, in accordance with a stipulation of the treaty. The general received an order to send them to Messina. Nelson had pointed out to him that if he did so, in the divided state of feeling in the Neapolitan dominions, and with the general character of Neapolitan officers, for both efficiency and fidelity, the citadel would not be safe from betrayal at their hands. "I have requested him to keep the orders secret, and not to send them; for if they got into Messina, they would certainly not keep the French out one moment, and it would give a good excuse for not asking us to secure Messina." "If General Acton sends for them we must submit; but at present we need not find means of sending them away." The British general, however, sent them over, and then the Neapolitan governor, as Nelson foretold, said it was quite unnecessary for any British to come. "I must apprise you," wrote Nelson to Addington, "that General Villettes, although a most excellent officer, will do nothing but what he receives, 'You are hereby required and directed;' for to obey, is with him the very acme of discipline. With respect to Sicily, I have no doubt but that the French will have it. My former reasons for inducing General Villettes to keep the Neapolitan troops in Malta, was to prevent what has happened; but, in a month after my back was turned, Villettes obeyed his orders, and now the Governor of Messina says, 'We can defend it, and want no assistance.' His whole conduct, I am bold to say, is either that of a traitor or a fool."[59]
Upon his own subordinates Nelson laid a distinct charge, that he should expect them to use their judgment and act upon it with independence, sure of his generous construction and support of their action. "We must all in our several stations," he tells one of them, "exert ourselves to the utmost, and not be nonsensical in saying, 'I have an order for this, that, and the other,' if the King's service clearly marks what ought to be done. I am well convinced of your zeal." In accordance with this, he was emphatic in his expressions of commendation for action rightly taken; a bare, cold approval was not adequate reward for deeds which he expected to reproduce his own spirit and temper, vivifying the whole of his command, and making his presence virtually co-extensive with its utmost limits. No severer condemnation, perhaps, was ever implied by him, than when he wrote to Sidney Smith, unqualifiedly, "I strictly charge and command you never to give any French ship or man leave to quit Egypt." To deny an officer discretion was as scathing an expression of dissatisfaction as Nelson could utter; and as he sowed, so he reaped, in a devotion and vigor of service few have elicited equally.
In Malta Nelson remained but thirty-six hours. Arriving at 4 P.M. on the evening of June 15th, he sailed again at 4 A.M. of the 17th. He had expected partly to find the fleet there; but by an odd coincidence, on the same day that he hoisted his flag in Portsmouth, it had sailed, although in ignorance of the war, to cruise between Sicily and Naples; whence, on the day he left Gibraltar, the commanding officer, Sir Richard Bickerton, had started for Toulon,—"very judiciously," said Nelson,—the instant he heard of the renewal of hostilities.
The "Amphion" passed through the Straits of Messina, and within sight of Naples, carrying Nelson once more over well-known seas, and in sight of fondly remembered places. "I am looking at dear Naples, if it is what it was," he wrote to Elliot from off Capri. "Close to Capri," he tells Lady Hamilton, "the view of Vesuvius calls so many circumstances to my mind, that it almost overpowers my feelings." "I am using force upon myself to keep away," he had already said to Acton; "for I think it likely, was I to fly to Naples, which I am much inclined to do, that the French might turn it to some plea against those good sovereigns." In his anxiety to join the fleet, and get in touch of the French, the length of the passage, three weeks, caused him great vexation, and deepened his convictions of the uselessness of the island to his squadron off Toulon. "My opinion of Malta, as a naval station for watching the French in Toulon, is well known; and my present experience of what will be a three weeks' passage, most fully confirms me in it. The fleet can never go there, if I can find any other corner to put them in; but having said this, I now declare, that I consider Malta as a most important outwork to India, that it will ever give us great influence in the Levant, and indeed all the southern parts of Italy. In this view, I hope we shall never give it up." "Malta and Toulon are entirely different services. It takes upon an average seven weeks to get an answer to a letter. When I am forced to send a ship there, I never see her under two months."
With Gibraltar, however, Malta gave the British two impregnable and secure bases of operations, within reasonable distance of one another, and each in close proximity to points most essential to control. During Nelson's entire command, the three chief centres of interest and of danger were the Straits of Gibraltar, the heel of Italy, and Toulon. The narrowing of the trade routes near the two former rendered them points of particular exposure for merchant shipping. Around them, therefore, and in dependence upon them, gathered the largest bodies of the cruisers which kept down privateering, and convoyed the merchant ships, whose protection was not the least exacting of the many cares that fell upon Nelson. Upon the Malta division depended also the watch over the mouth of the Adriatic and the Straits of Messina, by which Nelson hoped to prevent the passage of the French, in small bodies, to either Sicily, the Morea, or the Ionian Islands. Malta in truth, even in Nelson's time, was the base for operations only less important than the destruction of the Toulon fleet. The latter he rightly considered his principal mission, success in which would solve most other maritime difficulties. "My first object must ever be to keep the French fleet in check; and, if they put to sea, to have force enough with me to annihilate them. That would keep the Two Sicilies free from any attack from sea."