The Rochefort squadron's
return confirmed me. I think they will now collect their force at
Ferrol--which Calder tells me are in motion--pick up those at Rochefort,
who, I am told, are equally ready, and will make them above thirty sail;
and then, without going near Ushant or the Channel fleet, proceed to
Ireland. Detachments must go from the Channel fleet to succour Ireland,
when the Brest fleet--21 I believe of them--will sail, either to another
part of Ireland, or up the Channel--a sort of force that has not been
seen in those seas, perhaps ever."
Lord Nelson just lately had suffered so much from the disadvantage of
not "following his own head, and so being much more correct in judgment
than following the opinion of others," that his head was not at all in
a receptive state; and like all who have doubted about being right,
and found the doubt wrong, he was hardened into the merits of his own
conclusion. "Why have I gone on a goose-chase?" he asked; "because I
have twice as many ears as eyes."
This being so, he stuck fast to the conviction which he had nourished
all along, that the scheme of invasion was a sham, intended to keep the
British fleet at home, while the enemy ravaged our commerce and colonies
afar. And by this time the country, grown heartily tired of groundless
alarms and suspended menace, was beginning to view with contempt a camp
that was wearing out its own encampment. Little was it dreamed in the
sweet rose gardens of England, or the fragrant hay-fields, that the curl
of blue smoke while the dinner was cooking, the call of milkmaids, the
haymaker's laugh, or the whinny of Dobbin between his mouthfuls, might
be turned (ere a man of good appetite was full) into foreign shouts, and
shriek of English maiden, crackling homestead, and blazing stack-yard,
blare of trumpets, and roar of artillery, cold flash of steel, and the
soft warm trickle of a father's or a husband's blood.
Pages:
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605