his eldest sister, Mrs. Bolton, "in the affair of Calvi; but, never
mind, I'll have a Gazette of my own."
On another occasion, soon after, he remarked that he had then been more
than a hundred days actually engaged, at sea and on shore, against the
enemy, since the commencement of the war; that he had the comfort to be
ever applauded by the commander in chief, but never to be rewarded: and,
what he considered as more mortifying than all the rest, for services in
which he was slightly wounded, others had been extravagantly praised,
who were very snug in bed all the time, far distant from the scene of
action.
In October 1794, Lord Hood returned to England; when the command of the
Mediterranean fleet devolved on the present Lord Hotham, with whom
Captain Nelson continued to serve with equally distinguished ability
wherever opportunities occurred.
At the latter end of December, and beginning of January 1795, they were
cruizing off Toulon for about three weeks: during fifteen days of which,
in such a series of bad weather as he had scarcely ever experienced,
they were almost constantly under storm stay-sails. They saw, while on
this cruise, three French frigates; and had no doubt that, as one of
them was a crippled ship, the Agamemnon, which sailed better than any
ship in the fleet, and was the nearest to them by a couple of leagues,
might have taken one or two of them. A line of battle ship, however,
never chasing on such occasions, and the admiral's anxiety to keep the
fleet together preventing him from making the signal for the frigates to
chase them till too late in the day, they unfortunately effected their
escape.
On the 10th of January, they arrived, from this unsuccessful cruise, in
the Gulph of St. Fiorenzo; where, a few days after, in a very heavy sea,
the Berwick, of seventy-four guns, Captain Smith, which was preparing to
join the fleet, not having the rigging set up, lost all it's masts, and
was rendered a complete wreck. The superiority of the Toulon fleet, at
that time, rendered this a very serious misfortune, and it led to one
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