h, forming a barricade against
boat attack, and threatening the offensive measures to which they
rarely resorted. "At present the brigs lie too close to each other to
hope for a dash at them, but soon I expect to find one off her guard,
and then--" For the rest, his sanguine resolve to persist in annoyance
until it becomes unbearable, and insures the desired object, finds
vent in the words: "if Mazaredo will not come out, down comes Cadiz;
and not only Cadiz, but their fleet."

This close succession of varied and exciting active service, unbroken
between the day of his leaving Lisbon, March 5th, and the date of the
last bombardment, July 5th, had its usual effect upon his spirits. His
correspondence is all animation, full of vitality and energy,
betraying throughout the happiness of an existence absorbed in
congenial work, at peace with itself, conscious of power adequate to
the highest demands upon it, and rejoicing in the strong admiration
and confidence felt and expressed towards him on all sides, especially
by those whose esteem he most valued. He complains of his health,
indeed, from time to time; he cannot last another winter; he is
suffering for the want of a few months' rest, which he must ask for in
the coming October, and trusts that, "after four years and nine
months' service, without one moment's repose for body or mind, credit
will be given me that I do not sham."

Bodily suffering was his constant attendant, to which he always
remained subject, but at this time it was powerless to depress the
moral energies which, under less stimulating conditions, at times lost
something of their elastic force. They never, indeed, failed to rise
equal to imminent emergency, however obscured in hours of gloom, or
perplexity, or mental conflict; but now, supported by the concurrence
of every favoring influence, they carried him along in the full flow
of prosperity and exhilaration. Thanking Earl Spencer, the First Lord
of the Admiralty, for a complimentary letter, he says: "The unbounded
praises Sir John Jervis has ever heaped, and continues to heap on me,
are a noble reward for any services which an officer under his command
could perform. Nor is your Lordship less profuse in them." To his
wife he writes: "I assure you I never was better, and rich in the
praises of every man, from the highest to the lowest in the fleet."
"The imperious call of honour to serve my country, is the only thing
that keeps me a moment from you,