"May health and every blessing, attend your royal highness, is the constant prayer of your attached and obliged servant, "Bronte Nelson." Lord Nelson had, as it may be seen, signed his letters to foreigners as Duke of Bronte, from the time of obtaining that honour; but this epistle to the Duke of Clarence was one of the first in which he ever prefixed the word Bronte to his name when addressing any British subject. It is probable, therefore, that he had, about this time, received his sovereign's recognition of that Sicilian title. Though his lordship had hitherto been unsuccessful in his repeated applications for troops at Minorca, he continued still to offer new reasons why they ought to be sent. With the most unwearied exertions, did this great man constantly labour for the promotion of whatever related to the honour or advantage of his king, his country, and his friends; and his assiduities never relaxed, till he had secured the accomplishment of his object. He tried, in particular, on this occasion, for the possession of Malta, all the arts of that powerful eloquence which flowed so naturally from his pen; and he might well say, as he did, in a letter of the 10th of November, to Mr. Nepean, "it has been no fault of the navy, that Malta has not been attacked by land; but we have neither the means ourselves, nor influence with those who have the power." In short, the history of this protracted siege, including all the military and political perplexities with which our hero's naval operations were entangled, would alone form a volume of no inconsiderable magnitude.