Horatio Nelson, 1st Viscount Nelson
Jervis and the evacuation of the Mediterranean

In January 1796, the position of commander-in-chief of the fleet in the Mediterranean passed to Sir John Jervis, who appointed Nelson to exercise independent command over the ships blockading the French coast as a commodore. Nelson spent the first half of the year conducting operations to frustrate French advances and bolster Britain's Italian allies. Despite some minor successes in intercepting small French warships—such as in the action of 31 May 1796, when Nelson's squadron captured a convoy of seven small vessels—he began to feel the British presence on the Italian peninsula was rapidly becoming useless. In June, the Agamemnon was sent back to Britain for repairs, and Nelson was appointed to the 74-gun HMS Captain.

In the same month, the French thrust towards Leghorn and were certain to capture the city. Nelson hurried there to oversee the evacuation of British nationals and transport them to Corsica. After which, Jervis ordered him to blockade the newly captured French port. In July, he oversaw the occupation of Elba, but by September, the Genoese had broken their neutrality to declare in favour of the French. By October, the Genoese position and continued French advances, led the British to decide that the Mediterranean fleet could no longer be supplied. They ordered it to be evacuated to Gibraltar. Nelson helped oversee the withdrawal from Corsica and, by December 1796, was aboard the frigate HMS Minerve, covering the evacuation of the garrison at Elba. He then sailed for Gibraltar.

During the passage, Nelson captured the Spanish frigate Santa Sabina and placed Lieutenants Jonathan Culverhouse and Thomas Hardy in charge of the captured vessel; taking the frigate's Spanish captain on board Minerve. Santa Sabina was part of a larger Spanish force and, the following morning, two Spanish ships-of-the-line, and a frigate, were sighted closing fast. Unable to outrun them, Nelson was initially determined to fight, but Culverhouse and Hardy raised the British colours and sailed northeast, drawing the Spanish ships after them until being captured, giving Nelson the opportunity to escape. Nelson went on to rendezvous with the British fleet at Elba, where he spent Christmas. He sailed for Gibraltar in late January, and—after learning that the Spanish fleet had sailed from Cartagena —stopped just long enough to collect Hardy, Culverhouse, and the rest of the prize crew captured with Santa Sabina, before pressing on through the straits to join Sir John Jervis off Cadiz.
combination:two_responses, detectable_format:json_format