NELSON & BRONTE.




LETTER XXXIV.


Victory, off Toulon,
August 10th, 1803.

MY DEAREST EMMA,

I take the opportunity of Mr. Acourt's going through Spain, with Mr.
Elliot's dispatches for England, to send this letter: for I would not,
for the world, miss any opportunity of sending you a line.

By Gibraltar, I wrote you, as lately as the 4th; but all our ways of
communicating with England, are very uncertain: and, I believe, the
Admiralty must have forgot us; for, not a vessel of any kind or sort
has joined us, since I left Spithead.

News, I absolutely am ignorant of: except, that a schooner, belonging
to me, put her nose into Toulon; and four frigates popped out, and
have taken her, and a transport loaded with water for the fleet.
However, I hope to have an opportunity, very soon, of paying them the
debt, with interest.

Mr. Acourt says, at Naples, they hope that the mediation of Russia
will save them: but, I doubt, if Russia will go to war with the French