But when the more courteous O'Hara arrived to take command of the British, Neapolitan, and Sardinian troop, the new commander agreed to lay aside the question of supreme command.

It was not till November 30th that the British Government sent off any despatch on the question, which meanwhile had been settled at Toulon by the exercise of that tact in which Hood seems signally to have been lacking.

The whole question was personal, not national.
Still less was the conduct of the British Government towards the Comte de Provence a proof of its design to keep Toulon.

The records of our Foreign Office show that, before the occupation of that stronghold for Louis XVII., we had declined to acknowledge the claims of his uncle to the Regency.

He and his brother, the Comte d'Artois, were notoriously unpopular in France, except with royalists of the old school; and their presence at Toulon would certainly have raised awkward questions about the future government.