Nelson rightly felt that he himself could not go, leaving Bickerton without any assistant.

He went further; for, when a rumor came that Orde was to relieve him, he determined that he would offer his services to him, as second, until a successor to Campbell should arrive.

As there was friction between himself and Orde, who had, besides, a not very pleasant official reputation, this intention, to take a lower place where he had been chief, was not only self-sacrificing, but extremely magnanimous; it was, however, disfigured by too much self-consciousness.

"I have wrote to Lord Melville that I should make such an offer, and that I entreated him to send out a flag-officer as soon as possible, but I dare say Sir John Orde is too great a man to want my poor services, and that he will reject them; be that as it may, you will, I am sure, agree with me, that I shall show my superiority to him by such an offer, and the world will see what a sacrifice I am ready to make for the service of my King and Country, for what greater sacrifice could I make, than serving for a moment under Sir John Orde, and giving up for that moment the society of all I hold most dear in this world ?" Orde's letter reached Nelson in Pula Roads, in the Gulf of Cagliari, at the southern extremity of Sardinia; an out-of-the-way position which probably accounts for much of its delay.

He remained there, or in the Gulf of Palmas, a little to the westward, for about a week, and on the 19th of December left for his station off Cape San Sebastian.
At the latter place, on Christmas Day, he was joined by the "Swiftsure," which brought him a great batch of official mail that had come out with Orde.