"Last week, at different times, two sail of the line put their heads out of Toulon, and on Thursday, the 5th [April], in the afternoon, they all came out." "Yesterday [the 9th] a rear-admiral and seven sail, including frigates, put their nose outside the harbour.

If they go on playing this game, some day we shall lay salt upon their tails, and so end the campaign." These outings--"capers," Nelson called them--naturally became more venturesome by little and little, as the British suffered them to proceed without serious attempt at molestation, or near approach on their part.

Nelson veiled the keenness of his watch, as he crouched for a spring, with a drowsy appearance of caution and indifference.
The French admiral, Latouche Treville, was he who had commanded at Boulogne when Nelson's boats were repelled with slaughter; and it was also he who in 1792 had sent a grenadier to the King of Naples, with a peremptory summons to diplomatic apology in one hand, and a threat of bombardment in the other.

For both these affairs Nelson considered he had a personal score to settle.

"I rather believe my antagonist at Toulon begins to be angry with me: at least, I am trying to make him so; and then, he may come out, and beat me, as he says he did off Boulogne.