Firmly imbued with the French tradition, and with Bonaparte's instructions, which subordinated his local action entirely to the great scheme in which the Toulon fleet had its appointed part, Latouche Treville was neither to be provoked nor betrayed into an action, by which, however tempting the promise, his fleet might be made unfit for their intended service.
Nelson did him no more than justice, when he said, "I am confident, when he is ordered for any service, that he will risk falling in with us, and the event of a battle, to try and accomplish his orders;" but, short of the appointed time, nothing else could entice him.

In vain did the British admiral bait his trap by exposing frigates, without visible support, to draw him to leeward, while the hostile fleet hovered out of sight to windward.

The shrewd Frenchman doubtless felt the temptation, but he distrusted the gifts too plausibly tendered.
Besides the interest of the public service, Nelson had the strongest personal motives for bringing matters to an issue.

The prolonged suspense and the anxiety were exhausting him, the steady tension even of the normal conditions fretted him beyond endurance; but when a crisis became accentuated by an appearance that the enemy had eluded him, his feelings of distress, acting upon an enfeebled organization, and a nervous temperament so sensitive that he started at the mere dropping of a rope beside him, drove him almost to distraction.

On such an occasion he wrote: "I am absolutely beginning this letter in a fever of the mind.