friends wished me to be present. I have no such wish; for a something might have been given me, which now cannot. Not for all the world would I rob any man of a sprig of laurel--much less my children of the _Foudroyant_! I love her as a fond father, a darling child, and glory in her deeds. I am vain enough to feel the effects of my school. Lord Keith sending me nothing, I have not, of course, a free communication. I have wrote to him for permission to return to England, when you will see a broken-hearted man.... My complaint, which is principally a swelling of the heart, is at times alarming to my friends....” “My mind is fixed for retreat at this moment,” he informs “fighting Berry.” “Assure all the Foudroyants of my sincere regard and affection for them. _They may depend upon me._” “I glory in them, my darling children, served in my school, and all of us caught our professional zeal and fire from the great and good Earl of St Vincent”--thus he writes to Keith. None of his hundreds of letters more fully reveals the charming nature of the man, than those quoted above. While Nelson was fond enough of glory for himself, he was too large-hearted to deprive others of it. We have now to return to his unhappy and miscalculated transactions with the people whom he served not wisely but too well, to show him again “a vehement partisan of the Court of Naples,” as Judge O’Connor Morris expresses it. “I purpose going in the _Foudroyant_,” he tells Keith, on the 12th May, “in a few days, to Palermo, as I am under an old promise to her Sicilian Majesty, that whenever she returned to the Continent, I would escort her over. Her Majesty has now made application to me for that purpose; and, as it may be necessary to take another Ship for the escort, I purpose taking the _Alexander_ with me.” It is clear that Nelson had no right to enter into any such arrangement, especially as there were too few rather than too many ships for the blockade of Malta. Before Keith’s despatch was received forbidding Nelson to use the vessels, the Admiral had left Malta for Palermo, which he reached on the 31st May. But he _did_ get a despatch ordering him to take the ships then at Leghorn to Spezia, which Nelson only partly obeyed, and stationed himself at the former port to await the convenience of the Queen and family. There he was met on the 24th June by his Commander-in-chief, whose feelings may be gauged by his letter to the Hon. A. Paget, Sir William Hamilton’s successor as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the King of the Two Sicilies. It was written at Leghorn on the 16th July, two days after the disastrous defeat of the Austrians by Napoleon at Marengo.