"You know," he writes to his old friend Locker, "that Pole is gone to the West Indies.

I have not seen him since his order, but I know it was a thing he dreaded.

Had I been at Toulon I should have been a candidate for that service, for I think our sea war is over in these seas." Perhaps his intrinsic merit would have retrieved even such a mistake as we can now see this would have been, and he would there have come sooner into contact with Sir John Jervis--to whom, if to any one, the name of patron to Nelson may be applied--for Jervis then had the West India command; but it is difficult to imagine Nelson's career apart from the incidents of his Mediterranean service.

The Mediterranean seems inseparable from his name, and he in the end felt himself identified with it beyond all other waters.
His longing for action, which prompted the desire for the West Indies, was quickly gratified, for orders were received from Hood, by Linzee, to detach him from the latter's command.

The admiral sent him a very handsome letter upon his single-handed combat with the French frigates, and directed him to go to the north end of Corsica, to take charge of a division of vessels he would there find cruising, and to search for his late enemies along that coast and through the neighboring waters, between the island and the shores of Italy.