7th Nelson received orders to place himself under
the command of Sir Hyde Parker. A few days afterwards, the "St.
George" went to Spithead, where she received on board six hundred
troops, under the command of Colonel William Stewart, to whom we owe
the fullest and most interesting account of the expedition in general,
and of the Battle of Copenhagen in particular, that has been
transmitted by an eye-witness. The ship sailed again on the 2d of
March for Yarmouth, where she arrived on the 6th. The next day Nelson
went to call on the commander-in-chief, who was living on shore, his
flag flying on board a vessel in the roads. "I remember," says Colonel
Stewart, "that Lord Nelson regretted Sir Hyde being on shore. We
breakfasted that morning as usual, soon after six o'clock, for we were
always up before daylight. We went on shore, so as to be at Sir Hyde's
door at eight o'clock, Lord Nelson choosing to be amusingly exact to
that hour, which he considered as a very late one for business."

At this, his first official visit, the commander-in-chief, it is
said, scarcely noticed him, and Nelson, as will be seen, complained
freely of the treatment he at the beginning received. Parker was now
verging on old age, but he had recently married a young wife, who was
in Yarmouth with him, and the two had arranged to give a great ball on
the 13th of March; altogether a bad combination for a military
undertaking. Nelson, who was in haste to get away,--chiefly because of
his sound martial instinct that this was peculiarly a case for
celerity, but partly, also, because of anxiety to get the thing over
and done, and to return to his home comforts,--appears to have
represented matters unofficially to the Admiralty, a step for which
his personal intimacy with St. Vincent and Troubridge afforded easy
opportunity; and an express quickly arrived, ordering the fleet to sea
at once.[22] "The signal is made to prepare to unmoor at twelve
o'clock," wrote Nelson to Troubridge on the 11th. "Now we can have no
desire for staying, for her ladyship is gone, and the _Ball_ for
Friday knocked up by yours and the Earl's unpoliteness, to send
gentlemen to sea instead of dancing with white gloves. I will only
say," he continues, "as yet I know not that we are even going to the
Baltic, except from the newspapers, and at sea I cannot go out of my
ship but with serious inconvenience,"--owing to the loss of his arm.
What was not told him before starting, therefore