You laugh at such a thought of mine.

I tell you, my dear friend, that with skill and good luck it is easy; and do it they should, if they were under my command." If anybody else had even talked of such a plan as within the bounds of likelihood, Admiral Darling would have been almost enraged.

But now he looked doubtfully, first at the sea (as if it might be thick with prames already), and then at the land--which was his own--as if the rent might go into a Frenchman's pocket, and then at his old and admired friend, who had ruined his sleep for the summer.
"Happily they are not under your command, and they have no man to compare with you;" he spoke rather nervously; while Nelson smiled, for he loved the praise which he had so well earned; "and if it were possible for you to talk nonsense, I should say that you had done it now.

But two things surely you have overlooked.

In the first place, the French can have no idea of the special opportunities this place affords.
And again, if they had, they could do nothing, without a pilot well acquainted with the spot.