n these seas."

It is probable, indeed, that in his zeal, thoroughness, and fidelity
to the least of the duties then falling to him, is to be seen a surer
indication of his great future than in any wider speculations about
matters as yet too high for his position. The recent coolness between
him and Lord Hood had been rapidly disappearing under the admiral's
reviving appreciation and his own aptitude to conciliation. "Lord Hood
is very civil," he writes on more than one occasion, "I think we may
be good friends again;" and the offer of a seventy-four-gun ship in
place of his smaller vessel was further proof of his superior's
confidence. Nelson refused the proposal. "I cannot give up my
officers," he said, in the spirit that so endeared him to his
followers; but the compliment was felt, and was enhanced by the
admiral's approval of his motives. The prospective occupation of
Toulon gave occasion for a yet more nattering evidence of the esteem
in which he was held. As soon as the agreement with the city was
completed, but the day before taking possession, Hood despatched him
in haste to Oneglia, a small port on the Riviera of Genoa, and thence
to Naples, to seek from the latter court and that of Turin[18] a
reinforcement of ten thousand troops to hold the new acquisition. The
"Agamemnon" being a fast sailer undoubtedly contributed much to this
selection; but the character of the commanding officer could not but
be considered on so important, and in some ways delicate, a mission.
"I should have liked to have stayed one day longer with the fleet,
when they entered the harbour," he wrote to Mrs. Nelson, "but service
could not be neglected for any private gratification,"--a sentiment
she had to hear pretty often, as betrothed and as wife, but which was
no platitude on the lips of one who gave it constant demonstration in
his acts. "Duty is the great business of a sea officer," he told his
intended bride in early manhood, to comfort her and himself under a
prolonged separation. "Thank God! I have done my duty," was the spoken
thought that most solaced his death hour, as his heart yearned towards
those at home whom he should see no more.

About this time he must have felt some touch of sympathy for the
effeminate Spaniards, who were made ill by a sixty days' cruise. "All
we get here," he writes, "is honour and salt beef. My poor fellows
have not had a morsel of fresh meat or vegetables for near nineteen
weeks; and in that time