our breath," he avowed afterwards.

In the beginning of October, a visit which he had intended making to
Minorca was hastened by a report that thirteen hostile
ships-of-the-line had been seen off Cape Finisterre, and it was
thought they might be destined for the Mediterranean. Nelson hoped to
assemble ten to meet them; but the news proved to be false. He left
Palermo for this trip on the 5th of October, and returned again on the
22d, having remained five days in Port Mahon. The arrangements for the
naval force, depending entirely upon himself, were soon settled; but
he was disappointed in obtaining, as he had hoped to do from a
personal interview with Erskine, a detachment of two thousand troops
for Malta. About that island he was, to use his own words, almost in
despair. For over a year La Valetta had been blockaded by land and
sea. For the latter he could with difficulty find ships; for the
former he could obtain no men to aid the islanders, who, half
starving, dependent for food chiefly upon Sicily, were sustained in
their resistance mainly by hatred of the invaders, and by the tactful
appeals and encouragement of Captain Ball, who lived ashore among
them. The Barbary pirates, by virtue of their war with Naples,
captured many of the vessels laden with supplies, despite Nelson's
passports; while the Sicilian Court, though well disposed, lacked the
energy and the propelling force necessary to compel the collection and
despatch of the needed grain. On one occasion Troubridge or Ball,
desperate at the sight of the famine around them, sent a ship of war
into Girgenti, a Sicilian port, seized, and brought away two
corn-laden vessels. "The measure was strong," said Nelson, but he
refrained from censuring; and, while apologizing to the Government,
added he hoped it "would not again force officers to so unpleasant an
alternative." He feared that in their misery the Maltese would abandon