Nelson embarked at daybreak, being the last person who left the shore; having thus, as he said, seen the first and the last of Corsica.

Provoked at the conduct of the municipality, and the disposition which the populace had shown to profit by the confusion, he turned towards the shore, as he stepped into his boat, and exclaimed: "Now, John Corse, follow the natural bent of your detestable character -- plunder and revenge." This, however, was not Nelson's deliberate opinion of the people of Corsica; he knew that their vices were the natural consequences of internal anarchy and foreign oppression, such as the same causes would produce in any people; and when he saw, that of all those who took leave of the viceroy there was not one who parted from him without tears, he acknowledged that they manifestly acted not from dislike of the English, but from fear of the French.

England then might, with more reason, reproach her own rulers for pusillanimity than the Corsicans for ingratitude.
Having thus ably effected this humiliating service, Nelson was ordered to hoist his broad pendant on board the MINERVE frigate, Captain George Cockburn, and with the BLANCHE under his command, proceed to Porto Ferrajo, and superintend the evacuation of that place also.

On his way, he fell in with two Spanish frigates, the SABINA and the CERES.

The MINERVE engaged the former, which was commanded by D.Jacobo Stuart, a descendent of the Duke of Berwick.