In the wars which broke out toward the close of the eighteenth century due to Napoleon’s ambition to rule the world, Great Britain found herself engaged in a struggle not only with France, but really with the whole world, for the command of the seas that washed the western coast of Europe. The only sign of friendship to England from the Baltic to Gibraltar was in the doubtful neutrality of Portugal. England had to abandon the Mediterranean, and devote herself to facing the allied powers against her outside the Gates of Hercules as best she could. In 1797 she made a beginning by crushing a fleet of Dutch ships off Camperdown (Holland), and a Spanish fleet off Cape St. Vincent; but, though both were great battles, neither had any lasting effect; and in spite of them Napoleon planned his celebrated invasion of England for the following year, supposing that by his expedition to Egypt, threatening England’s East Indian possessions, he would draw away so much of the British navy that he and his allies could put an army across the English Channel unhindered. I need not say that his invasion of England never was even attempted; but for a time his fleet did hold command of the Mediterranean—a state of things to which an end was put by England’s most famous naval hero, Horatio Nelson. A long series of brilliant exploits had given Nelson fame, and the vigorous accounts of them he used to send home helped his great popularity. A large part of his service had been in American waters. In 1798 Nelson was a rear-admiral, and was sent to the Mediterranean after the French fleet, which, having convoyed Napoleon’s army to its landing at Alexandria, was ready for new operations. It is characteristic of the slow and almost useless methods of gaining intelligence in those days, that from early June to the end of July Nelson searched for this flotilla, and was unable to get more news of it than an occasional rumor that it had been at some place or other days or weeks before. The French knew no more as to the movements of their pursuers, yet the fleets were twice within a few miles of each other. This was Nelson’s first independent command, and his patience and nerves were nearly worn out by anxiety. [Illustration: WHEN DECATUR WAS A MIDSHIPMAN.] At last, on the first day of August, the English almost stumbled on the French at anchor in the Bay of Aboukir, among the mouths of the Nile, between Alexandria and Rosetta—a shallow roadstead full of shoals and rocks, for which Nelson had neither chart nor pilot.