The Life Of Nelson, Volume I.

When things go wrong, there is always a disposition on the part of each one concerned to shift the blame. The Austrians had complained before the action, and still more afterwards, of the failure of the fleet to aid them. Nelson thought their complaint well founded. "They say, and true, they were brought on the coast at the express desire of the English, to cooperate with the fleet, which fleet nor admiral they never saw." On his own part he said: "Our admirals will have, I believe, much to answer for in not giving me that force which I so repeatedly called for, and for at last leaving me with Agamemnon alone. Admiral Hotham kept my squadron too small for its duty; and the moment Sir Hyde took the command of the fleet he reduced it to nothing, -- only one frigate and a brig; whereas I demanded two seventy-four-gun ships and eight or ten frigates and sloops to insure safety to the army."

It is unnecessary to inquire into the motives of the two admirals for the distribution of their force. Unquestionably, the first thing for them to do was to destroy or neutralize the French fleet; and next to destroy, or at least impede, the communications of the French army. That it was possible to do this almost wholly may be rested upon the authority of Nelson, whose matured opinion, given five years later, has already been quoted. Two opportunities to cripple the Toulon fleet were lost; but even so, after the junction of Man, in June, the superiority over it was so great that much might have been spared to the Riviera squadron. The coast was not at this time so extensively fortified that coasting could not, in Nelson's active hands, have been made a very insufficient means of supply. As an illustration of the operations then possible, on the 26th of August, six weeks after the naval battle of July 13, the "Agamemnon," with her little squadron, anchored in the Bay of Alassio, three cables' length from the fort in the center