Теперь смотрим на первоисточник.
For two-and-twenty months Nelson's fleet
never lay in a port, but always in an open road-
stead off some neutral coast, or to the north of
Sardinia, where
he had discovered a magnificent
anchorage; in fact,
so excellent a harbourage
that he begged the Government to purchase
the whole island of Sardinia, "which can be
bought for half-a-million pounds," and make it
a second Malta; but the half-million was con-
sidered better invested in subsidising Germans
and Prussians than in "real estate/'