instructions, and sailed in command of four ships of the line, three frigates, and the Fox cutter. By the 20th he was off the port, and on the 21st attempted to land all the available men, to the number of a thousand, who were to occupy the heights, while the line-of-battle ships engaged the batteries. The plan proved abortive, for the landing party found the heights occupied by a very superior force of the enemy, and, owing to a calm and contrary currents, the line-of-battle ships could not get near their assigned position. Nelson had little hope of succeeding in any other way, but, determining at least to attempt it, ordered an attack direct on the town on the night of the 24th. The men were to land at the mole and push on to the great square; Nelson himself was to lead. But in the dark the boats separated. Some reached the mole, where they were received with a deadly fire. The men sprang on shore and spiked the guns, but very many of them were shot down. As he was getting out of the boat, Nelson had his right elbow shattered by a bullet. He fell back into the arms of his stepson, Josiah Nisbet, and was taken on board the Theseus. But most of the boats missed the mole altogether, and in attempting to get in through the surf were stove; the scaling-ladders were lost, the powder was wet, and the men that scrambled on shore could make no head against the force opposed to them. When day dawned about three hundred men were all that could be collected, while against them all the streets were commanded by field-pieces, supported by upwards of eight thousand men under arms. Under these circumstances, the senior officer, Captain Troubridge, sent a flag of truce to the governor, who allowed them to withdraw, and even provided boats to take them to their ships. They sailed at once to rejoin the admiral, when Nelson was sent home in the Seahorse [see Fremantle, Sir Thomas Francis] for the recovery of his wounds. His arm had been amputated on board the Theseus, but a nerve had been taken up in one of the ligatures, and for several months continued to give intolerable pain. During his illness he was tenderly nursed by his wife, and by the beginning of December he was able to return thanks in church ‘for his perfect recovery.’ The admiralty wished to send him back to the fleet under Lord St. Vincent, and assigned for his flagship the Foudroyant of 80 guns, which was expected to be launched in Jan. 1798. It turned out, however, that she would not be ready in time, and as he was anxious to be afloat again as soon as possible, he was ordered to go out in the Vanguard of 74 guns, his shipmate and first lieutenant in the Agamemnon, Edward Berry [q. v.], going with him as flag-captain. He sailed from St. Helens on 10 April 1798, and, after touching at Lisbon, joined the fleet off Cadiz on the 30th. Two days later he was sent into the Mediterranean with a small squadron—two ships of the line, and four frigates, besides the Vanguard—to try and learn the intentions of the enemy, who were known to be fitting out a large armament at Toulon. Its destination was differently reported as Sicily, Corfu, Portugal, or Ireland.
Nelson had no difficulty in establishing the truth of the reports as to the equipment; but its exact aim, and the probable date of sailing, remained unknown. ‘They order their matters so well in France,’ he wrote to St. Vincent, ‘that all is secret.’ He dated this ‘off Cape Sicie,’ on 18 May. On the night of the 20th a violent northerly gale blew him off the coast, partially dismasted the Vanguard, and continued so strong that the frigates parted company, and three line-of-battle ships with difficulty entered the roadstead of S. Pietro in Sardinia [see Ball, Sir Alexander John]. There the Vanguard was refitted and jury-rigged. On the 27th they sailed again, and on the 31st were off Toulon, only to find that the French expedition had put to sea on the 20th with the northerly wind, of which a stronger gust had dismasted the Vanguard. Whither they had gone Nelson could not learn.
The admiralty had meantime become aware of the formidable preparations which the French were making, and had sent out orders to St. Vincent to detach a squadron of ‘12 ships of the line and a competent number of frigates, under the command of some discreet flag-officer, to proceed in quest of the armament, and, on falling in with it, to take or destroy it.’ Nelson, being actually in the Mediterranean at the time, was clearly indicated as well by the accident of service as by the high opinion which St. Vincent had of him, as the fittest man to have the command. Moreover Lord Spencer—prompted to some extent by Sir Gilbert Elliot (afterwards first Earl of Minto) [q. v.], and by the king himself (Nicolas, iii. 24–5)—had pointedly called St. Vincent's attention to Nelson's merits. But Nelson's seniors in the fleet, Sir William Parker (1743–1802) [q. v.] and Sir John Orde [q. v.], were not likely to see the matter in the same light, and wrote strong remonstrances against the appointment of a junior officer over their heads. This was some weeks later; but St. Vincent had from the first considered that it was not a question of
