Sheltered by Caprera, La Madelena, and Santo Stefano, we find the fine anchorage of Mezzo Schifo; the town of La Madelena, for which we are steering, lying about half a mile south-west of the anchorage. This harbour, named by Lord Nelson “Agincourt Sound,” was his head-quarters while maintaining the blockade of Toulon, from 1803 to 1805. He formed the highest opinion of its position for a naval station, as affording safe and sheltered anchorage, and ingress and egress with any winds. His public and private correspondence at that period shows the importance he attached to its possession, and his anxiety that it should be secured permanently to the crown of England.
“If we could possess the island of Sardinia,” he says, in a letter to Lord Hobart, “we should want neither Malta nor any other island in the Mediterranean. This, which is the finest of them, possesses harbours fit for arsenals, and of a capacity to hold our navy,—within twenty-four hours' sail of Toulon,—bays to ride our fleets in, and to watch both Italy and Toulon.” In another letter, he says:—“What a noble harbour is formed by these islands! The world cannot produce a finer. From its position, it is worth fifty Maltas.” This opinion we find repeated in a variety of forms, and with Nelson's characteristic energy of expression.
When at anchor in Agincourt Sound, he kept two or three frigates constantly cruising between Toulon and the Straits of Bonifacio, to signal any attempt of the enemy to leave their port; occasionally cruising with his whole fleet, and then retreating to head-quarters. His sudden appearance and disappearance off Toulon, in one of these exercises, with the hope of alluring the French to put to sea, led their admiral, M. Latouche-Tréville, to make the ludicrous boast, that he had chased the whole British fleet, which fled before him. This bravado so irritated Nelson, that it drew from him the well-known threat, contained in a letter to his brother: “You will have seen by Latouche's letter how he chased me, and how I ran. I keep it; and, if I take him, by God, he shall eat it!”
Our boatman pointed out to us the channel through which Lord Nelson led his fleet when at length, after more than two years' watching, the object of all his hopes and vows was accomplished by the French fleet putting to sea. This, the eastern channel, of which the low isle of Biscie forms the outer point, is the most dangerous of all, from the sunken rocks which lie in the fairway, and its little breadth of sea room. Yet Nelson beat through it in a gale of wind, in the dusk of the evening, escaping these dangers almost miraculously. Our sailor pointed out all this with lively interest, for Nelson's name and heroic deeds are still household words among the seafaring people of La Madelena.