Robert
Calder; then proceeded to Ferrol, brought out the squadron from thence,
and with it entered Cadiz in safety.

[Illustration: I SHALL YET HAVE TO BEAT THEM!]

"Depend on it, Blackwood," he said, "I shall give M. Villeneuve a
drubbing."

But, when Blackwood had left him, he wanted resolution to declare his
wishes to Lady Hamilton and his sisters, and endeavored to drive away
the thought. "I have done enough," he said; "let the man trudge it who
has lost his budget."

His countenance belied his lips; and as he was pacing one of the walks
in the garden, which he used to call the quarter-deck, Lady Hamilton
came up to him, and told him she saw he was uneasy.

He smiled and said:

"No, I am as happy as possible; I am surrounded by my family; my health
is better since I have been on shore, and I would not give sixpence to
call the king my uncle?"

She replied, that she did not believe him,--that she knew he was longing
to get at the combined fleets,--that he considered them as his own
property--that he would be miserable if any man but himself did the
business, and that he ought to have them, as the price and reward of his
two years' long watching, and his hard chase.

"Nelson," said she, "however we may lament your absence, offer your
services; they will be accepted, and you will gain a quiet heart by it:
you will have a glorious victory, and then you may return here and be
happy." He looked at her with tears in his eyes--"Brave Emma! Good
Emma!--If there were more Emmas there would be more Nelsons."

His services were as willingly accepted as they were offered; and Lord
Barham, giving him the list of the navy, desired him to choose his own
officers.

"Choose yourself, my lord," was his reply: "the same spirit actuates the
whole profession: you cannot choose wrong."

Lord Barham then desired him to say what ships, and how many, he would
wish, in addition to the fleet which he was going to command, and said
they should follow him as soon as each was ready.

No appointment was ever more in unison with the feelings and judgment of
the whole nation. They, like Lady Hamilton, thought that the destruction
of the combined fleets ought properly be Nelson's work: that he, who had
been

"Half around the sea-girt ball,
The hunter of the recreant Gaul,"

ought to reap the spoils of the chase, which he had watched so long, and
so perseveringly pursued.

Unremitting exertions were made to equip the ship