The Life Of Nelson, Volume I.

before them the forces of the enemy, who also was soon to ask for peace. It was therefore probable that operations in Italy would assume greatly increased activity, from the number of French soldiers released elsewhere, as well as from the fact that the Austrians themselves, though they continued the war in Germany, had abandoned other portions of the continent which they had hitherto contested.

The political and military conditions in Italy were, briefly, as follows. The region north of the Maritime Alps and in the valley of the Po was, for the most part, in arms against France, -- the western province, Piedmont, as part of the Kingdom of Sardinia, whose capital was at Turin, and, to the eastward of it, the duchies of Milan and Mantua, as belonging to Austria. The governments of the numerous small states into which Northern and Central Italy were then divided -- Venice, Genoa, Tuscany, the States of the Church, and others -- sympathized generally with the opponents of France, but, as far as possible, sought to maintain a formal though difficult neutrality. The position of Genoa was the most embarrassing, because in direct contact with all the principal parties to the war. To the westward, her territory along the Riviera included Vintimiglia, bordering there on the county of Nice, and contained Vado Bay, the best anchorage between Nice and Genoa. To the eastward, it embraced the Gulf of Spezia, continually mentioned by Nelson as Porto Especia.

The occupation of the Riviera was of particular moment to the French, for it offered a road by which to enter Italy, -- bad, indeed, but better far than those through the passes of the upper Alps. Skirting the sea, it afforded a double line of communications, by land and by water; for the various detachments of their army, posted along it, could in great degree be supplied by the small coasting-vessels of the Mediterranean. So long, also, as it was in