Every moment I have to regret the frigates having left me; had one-half of them been with me, I could not have wanted information.

Should the French be so strongly secured in port that I cannot get at them, I shall immediately shift my flag into some other ship, and send the VANGUARD to Naples to be refitted; for hardly any person but myself would have continued on service so long in such a wretched state." Vexed, however, and disappointed as he was, Nelson, with the true spirit of a hero, was still full of hope.

"Thanks to your exertions," said he, writing to Sir.
William and Lady Hamilton, "we have victualled and watered; and surely watering at the fountain of Arethusa, we must have victory.

We shall sail with the first breeze; and be assured I will return either crowned with laurel or covered with cypress." Earl St.Vincent he assured, that if the French were above water he would find them out: he still held his opinion that they were bound for Egypt: "but," said he to the First Lord of the Admiralty, "be they bound to the Antipodes, your lordship may rely that I will not lose a moment in bringing them to action." On the 25th of July he sailed from Syracuse for the Morea.

Anxious beyond measure, and irritated that the enemy should so long have eluded him, the tediousness of the nights made him impatient; and the officer of the watch was repeatedly called on to let him know the hour, and convince him, who measured time by his own eagerness, that it was not yet daybreak.