Page "Battle of the Nile" Paragraph 9

While Bonaparte was sailing to Malta, the Royal Navy re-entered the Mediterranean for the first time in over a year.

Alarmed by reports of French preparations on the Mediterranean coast, Lord Spencer at the Admiralty sent a message to Vice-Admiral Earl St. Vincent, commander of the Mediterranean Fleet based in the Tagus River, to despatch a squadron to investigate.

This squadron, consisting of three ships of the line and three frigates, was entrusted to Rear-Admiral Sir Horatio Nelson.

Nelson was a highly experienced officer who had been blinded in one eye during fighting in Corsica in 1794 and subsequently commended for his capture of two Spanish ships of the line at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent in February 1797.

However in July 1797 he had lost an arm at the Battle of Santa Cruz de Tenerife and had been forced to return to Britain to recuperate.

Returning to the fleet at the Tagus in late April 1798, he was ordered to collect the squadron stationed at Gibraltar and sail for the Ligurian Sea.

On 21 May, as Nelson's squadron approached Toulon, it was struck by a fierce gale and Nelson's flagship HMS Vanguard lost its topmasts and was almost wrecked on the Corsican coast.

The remainder of the squadron was scattered ; the ships of the line sheltered at San Pietro Island off Sardinia, while the frigates were blown to the west and failed to return.