Note 48 — VI. THE GREAT FRENCH WAR.

It was in connection with this engagement that Nelson wrote, “Had I commanded our fleet on the 14th, either the whole of the French fleet would have graced my triumph, or I should have been in a confounded scrape.” Also, commenting on Hotham’s, “We must be contented, we have done very well”—“Now, had we taken ten sail and allowed the eleventh to escape, when it had been possible to have got at her, I could never have called it well done.”