nsented to sell for the very moderate sum of
eight thousand pounds.

In November, the Reverend Mr. Nelson came to Merton, on the pressing
invitation of his ever duteous son. The meeting was truly affecting; and
terminated, as it ought, in a thorough conviction, that his lordship had
been most shamefully slandered. Indeed, on an entire eclaircissement, it
became manifest that the grossest part of the slander which had been
cruelly levelled against our hero was so self-evidently false, and
really impracticable, that a very small degree of consideration made the
worthy and venerable father blush for the credulity which had
contributed to criminate our hero; whose private life, all circumstances
duly considered, was to the full as unsullied as his public character.
He saw the happy family with whom his heroic son was so agreeably
domesticated; and witnessed the pure felicity of those amiable friends,
with a rapture which conveyed the highest satisfaction to his heart. He
perceived the kindest attentions to his son's happiness in every act of
all around him: and their success, in the joy now constantly diffused
over his countenance; beaming in every glance of his eye, and speaking
in every accent of his tongue. He beheld his great and good son happy,
and blessed and loved the friends who made him so. "Merton," he said,
"is the _Mansion of Peace_, and I must become one of the inhabitants.
Sir William and myself are both old men, and we will witness the hero's
felicity in retirement." Such was the intention of this virtuous and
pious parent; who had, however, been long so habituated to passing his
winters at Bath, that he could not, at once, wean himself of the
custom: but he never resided with Lady Nelson, as has been falsely
reported, from the moment he was convinced of his illustrious son's
having been so egregiously misrepresented. Apartments, in the mean time,
were actually prepared for him at Merton Place; and it was agreed that,
after wintering at Bath, he should, in May, come to reside wholly with
his son and Sir William and Lady Hamilton: but, unfortunately, the
salubrity of Bath proved insufficient to prolong his valuable life even
till that period, for he died at his own apartments in that city, on the
26th of April 1802, in the seventy-ninth year of his age: lamented by
every person who had ever known him, with the deepest veneration and
regret, for the blameless sanctity of his amiable manners, the agreeable
cheer