service
done. "I have received your Lordship's letter communicating to me the
Title his Majesty has been graciously pleased to confer upon me--an
Honour, your Lordship is pleased to say, the highest that has ever
been conferred on an officer of my standing who was not a
Commander-in-Chief. I receive as I ought what the goodness of our
Sovereign, and not my deserts, is pleased to bestow; but great and
unexampled as this honour may be to one of my standing, yet I own I
feel a higher one in the unbounded confidence of the King, your
Lordship, and the whole World, in my exertions. Even at the bitter
moment of my return to Syracuse, your Lordship is not insensible of
the great difficulties I had to encounter in not being a
Commander-in-Chief. The only happy moment I felt was in the view of
the French; then I knew that all my sufferings would soon be at an
end." To Berry he wrote: "As to both our Honours, it is a proof how
much a battle fought near England is prized to one fought at a great
distance."

Whatever was defective in the formal recognition of his own government
was abundantly supplied by the tributes which flowed from other
quarters, so various, that his own phrase, "the whole world," is
scarcely an exaggeration to apply to them. The Czar, the Sultan, the
Kings of Sardinia and of the Two Sicilies, sent messages of
congratulation and rich presents; the Czar accompanying his with an
autograph letter. The Houses of Parliament voted their thanks and a
pension of L2,000 a year. The East India Company acknowledged the
security gained for their Indian possessions by a gift of L10,000,
L2,000 of which he, with his wonted generosity, divided at once among
his father and family, most of whom were not in prosperous
circumstances. Other corporations took appropriate notice of the great
event; instances so far apart as the cities of London and Palermo, and
the Island of Zante, showing how wide-spread was the sense of relief.
Not least gratifying to him, with his sensitive appreciation of
friendship and susceptibility to flattery, must have been the numerous
letters of congratulation he received from friends in and out of the
service. The three great admirals,--Lords Howe, Hood, and St.
Vincent,--the leaders of the Navy in rank and distinguished service,
wrote to him in the strongest terms of admiration. The two last styled
the battle the greatest achievement that History could produce; while
Howe's language, if more measured,