ration of Sir Harris
Nicolas's doubts about the authenticity of Clarke and M'Arthur's
anecdote.

"You have given up all the toils and anxieties of business,
whilst I must still buffet the waves--in search of what? That
thing called honour, is now, alas, thought of no more. My
integrity cannot be mended, I hope; but my fortune, God knows,
has grown worse for the service. So much for serving my country.
But the devil, ever willing to tempt the virtuous, (pardon this
flattery of myself,) has made me offer, if any ships should be
sent to destroy his majesty of Morocco's ports, to be there; and
I have some reason to think that, should any more come of it, my
humble services will be accepted. I have invariably laid down,
and followed close, a plan of what ought to be uppermost in the
breast of an officer; that it is much better to serve an
ungrateful country, than to give up his own fame. Posterity will
do him justice; a uniform conduct of honour and integrity seldom
fails of bringing a man to the goal of fame at last."

But in spite of the coolness of the jacks-in-office, and the cold
shoulder they turned to the little troublesome captain in the time of
peace, no sooner were we likely to come to loggerheads with the
French, than they turned their eyes to the quiet Norfolk parsonage,
and made the _amende_ to the _iracundus Achilles_.

War with France was declared on the 11th of February 1793, and on the
7th of January, Nelson writes as follows:--

To Mrs Nelson.

"_Post nubila Phoebus._ After clouds comes sunshine. The
Admiralty so smile on me, that really I am as much surprised as
when they frowned. Lord Chatham yesterday made many apologies for
not having given me a ship before this time, and said, that if I
chose to take a sixty-four to begin with, I should be appointed
to one as soon as she was ready, and whenever it was in his
power, I should be removed into a seventy-four. Every thing
indicated war. One of our ships looking into Brest, has been
fired into; the shot is now at the Admiralty. You will send my
father this news, which I am sure will please him.--Love to
Josiah, and believe me, your most affectionate

"Horatio Nelson."

The appointment of Nelson to the Agamemnon, a name which he did nearly
as much to immortalize as Homer, is the great epoch of his
profession