Calvi, in the north-west of Corsica, was next attacked. “Dragging cannon up steep mountains, and carrying shot and shells, has been our constant employment”; “I am very busy, yet own I am in all my glory: except with you, [Mrs Nelson] I would not be any where but where I am, for the world”; “Hallowell[14] and myself take, each one, twenty-four hours of duty at the advanced battery,” are extracts from some of Nelson’s letters and despatches at this period. On the 12th July 1794 he modestly confesses to Hood that “I got a little hurt this morning: not much, as you may judge by my writing,” but in his Journal he notes, “at seven o’clock, I was much bruised in the face and eyes by sand from the works struck by shot.” The “little hurt” proved far otherwise, and Nelson subsequently became permanently blind in the right eye. At the moment he attached little or no importance to the injury: “Hallowell and myself are both well, except my being half blinded by these fellows, who have given me a smart slap in the face, for which I am their _debtor_, but hope not to be so long”; “My right eye is cut entirely down; but the Surgeons flatter me I shall not entirely lose my sight of that eye. At present I can distinguish light from dark, but no object: it confined me one day, when, thank God, I was enabled to attend to my duty. I feel the want of it; but, such is the chance of War, it was within a hair’s breadth of taking off my head.” To Mrs Nelson he tones down the news considerably: “Except a very slight scratch towards my right eye, I have received no hurt whatever: so you see I am not the worse for Campaigning: but I cannot say I have any wish to go on with it. This day [4th August 1794] I have been four months landed, except a few days when we were after the French Fleet, and I feel almost qualified to pass my examination as a besieging General.”
Nelson not unnaturally felt himself slighted when his name did not appear in the list of wounded. However, he consoled himself by saying, “Never mind, I’ll have a _Gazette_ of my own.”
As the result of negotiations between the enemy and General Stuart, the commander of the 1500 soldiers who had taken part in the siege, the French garrison marched out with the honours of war on the 10th August, a proceeding not at all in keeping with Nelson’s ideas. However, it was not for him to decide, and he had the satisfaction of knowing that he had materially assisted in the conquest of Corsica. He was specially delighted with the thought that in future the enemy’s navy would be deprived of the pine, tar, pitch, and hemp which the island had formerly sent to Toulon.