placed other ships where he thought best, and signalled Nelson to
chase to windward with three ships-of-the-line, which were afterwards
joined by a fourth, then cruising on the southeast of the island. The
next day the wind shifted to northwest, but it was not until the
morning of the 18th that the enemy were discovered. Guns were then
heard to the northward, by those on board the "Foudroyant," which made
all sail in pursuit, and soon sighted the "Alexander" chasing four
French sail. "Pray God we may get alongside of them," wrote Nelson in
his journal; "the event I leave to Providence. I think if I can take
one 74 by myself, I would retire, and give the staff to more able
hands." "I feel anxious to get up with these ships," he wrote to Lady
Hamilton, "and shall be unhappy not to take them myself, for first my
greatest happiness is to serve my gracious King and Country, and I am
envious only of glory; for if it be a sin to covet glory, I am the
most offending soul alive. _But here I am_ in a heavy sea and thick
fog--Oh, God! the wind subsided--but I trust to Providence I shall
have them. 18th in the evening, I have got her--Le Généreux--thank
God! 12 out of 13, onely the Guillaume Telle remaining; I am after the
others." The enemy's division had consisted of this seventy-four, a
large transport, also captured, and three corvettes which escaped.

An account of Nelson on the quarter-deck on this occasion has been
transmitted by an eye-witness, whose recollections, committed to paper
nearly forty years later, are in many points evidently faulty, but in
the present instance reflect a frame of mind in the great admiral in
perfect keeping with the words last quoted from his own letter. The
writer was then a midshipman of the "Foudroyant;" and the scene as
described opens with a hail from a lieutenant at the masthead, with
his telescope on the chase.