On the 8th of May Hotham sailed again for Minorca, and continued to cruise off that island until the 14th of June, when Rear-admiral Robert Mann joined him with a re-enforcement from England of nine[113] ships-of-the-line, making the British superior in number as in quality to the enemy. As a convoy was also expected, the fleet kept the same station until it arrived on the 22d, when the whole body sailed for San Fiorenzo, anchoring there June 29. On the 4th of July Hotham sent Nelson with his own ship and some smaller vessels to co-operate on the Riviera of Genoa with the Austrian advance against the French; but the detachment fell in with Martin's fleet, and had to return to San Fiorenzo, being, says Nelson, "hard pressed" by the enemy, who pursued until they saw the British fleet at anchor. The latter weighed as soon as possible, but did not come up with the French until the 14th, near the Hyères Islands, where a trifling brush took place, resulting in the capture of the "Alcide," seventy-four, which immediately after surrendering caught fire and blew up. This small affair was the last in which Admiral Hotham was directly concerned. Hood had been definitively relieved of the Mediterranean command before he could sail from England on his return; and Hotham, weary of a burden to which he felt himself unfitted and had proved himself unequal, applied for relief, and struck his flag on the 1st of November, 1795.
Prior to the naval brush off Hyères, little had been done in Italy by the armies on either side. The French, whose forces were far inferior to those of the allies and in a state of great destitution, were compelled to stand on the defensive over a very long line, of which the advanced post on the sea was at Vado. The Austrians had imposed upon the Sardinians their own plan of campaign, which was to strike the extreme right of the French at Vado, and then drive them back along the Corniche, while the Sardinians attacked on the other flank through the passes of the Apennines up to the Col di Tende, where the Maritime Alps begin. The British fleet was to co-operate with the movement on the side of the sea,—a consideration which had much to do with determining the Austrian plan. By occupying Vado and the Riviera east of it, the coasting trade heretofore carried on from the ports of Genoa and Tuscany to southern France would be stopped; a matter of great consequence to the republic, as those departments only raised grain for three months' consumption and depended for the rest upon that which came from Barbary and Italy by way of Tuscany. With a British squadron at Vado, the populace of Provence, the navy at Toulon, and the army of Italy, would have to be supplied from the north of France by bad inland roads.[114] Vado Bay was, moreover, the best anchorage between Nice and Genoa. Devins, the Austrian general, began his movement on the 13th of June, passing through Genoese territory against the protest of that neutral government. The French resisted sturdily; but the odds were too great, and by the end of June they had fallen back to a line extending from Borghetto on the sea to Ormea in the mountains, abandoning Vado and the intermediate coast towns. Devins now called on Hotham for naval support, and the British admiral detached Nelson, as has already been seen, to give it; but the encounter with the French fleet delaying his arrival for some days served Devins with a pretext for inaction. He employed the mean time in fortifying his position and improving the roads in his rear.