to avoid their generous
importunity; and these kind attentions, which so honourably testified
national gratitude, were accepted, by his lordship, as the most
gratifying recompences of his public service.

The 1st of August being made the great day at Milford, the Honourable
Mr. Greville had invited all the nobility and gentry of the county of
Pembroke to welcome the hero and his friends at this intended annual
festival. A rowing match, fair day, and shew of cattle, were established
for ever at Milford, in honour of the victory off the Nile. All the most
respectable families twenty miles round, with a prodigious concourse of
the humbler classes, came to see their beloved hero. Mr. Bolton, his
lordship's brother-in-law, too, determined to be present on the
occasion, arrived at Milford, that very morning, from Norfolk. It
proved, all together a most interesting scene. After dinner, Lord
Nelson, with admirable address, gave "Captain Foley!" as his toast: a
friend and brother officer, he said, than whom there was not a braver or
a better man in his majesty's service. He had been with him in all his
chief battles; deserved to participate in every honour; and was, his
lordship had the pleasure to add, in that respectable company, not only
a Welshman, but a native of the county of Pembroke. It need scarcely be
added, that this toast, so honourable both to his lordship and Captain
Foley, and so gratifying to the principality and county, was received,
and drank, with the most rapturous delight. At this public meeting, they
had also the high satisfaction to hear, from his lordship's lips, the
result of his judicious observations on the matchless harbour which that
county embosoms. Lord Nelson had fully examined it's entrance, and its
qualities; and now declared, that he considered Milford Haven, and
Trincomale in the East Indies, as the two finest harbours he had ever
beheld. The obstacles which had hitherto impeded the employment of so
important an appendage as this to the empire, appeared merely
artificial, and would speedily be removed when once fully known. The
rapid results of individual exertion had already, in fact, proved this,
by bringing the mails to the water-side, rendering the custom-house
shore accessible to ships of burden, and establishing daily packets to
and from Ireland; so that nothing more was now wanting, to render
Milford Haven, projecting into and separating the St. George's and the
Bristol channels, the on