than do the guarded utterances of formal correspondence. Friendship
rarely regains the ground lost in them. The situation did undoubtedly
become exasperating towards the end, for no one pretended that any
active service could be expected, or that his function was other than
that of a signal displayed, indicating that Great Britain, though
negotiating for peace, was yet on her guard. Lying in an open
roadstead, with a heavy surf pouring in on the beach many days of the
week, a man with one arm and one eye could not easily or safely get
back and forth; and, being in a small frigate pitching and tugging at
her anchors, he was constantly seasick, so much so "that I cannot hold
up my head," afflicted with cold and toothache,--"but none of them
cares a d--n for me and my sufferings."

In September the Hamiltons came to Deal, off which the ship was lying,
and remained for a fortnight, during which he was happy; but the
reaction was all the more severe when they returned to town on the
20th. "I came on board, but no Emma. No, no, my heart will break. I am
in silent distraction.... My dearest wife, how can I bear our
separation? Good God, what a change! I am so low that I cannot hold up
my head." His depression was increased by the condition of Parker,
the young commander, who had been wounded off Boulogne, and had since
then hovered between life and death. The thigh had been shattered too
far up for amputation, and the only faint hope had been that the bones
might reunite. The day that the Hamiltons left, the great artery
burst, and, after a brief deceitful rally, he died on the 27th of
September. Nelson, who was tenderly attached to him, followed him to
the grave with emotion so deep as to be noticeable to the bystanders.
"Thank God," he wrote that afternoon, "the dreadful scene is past. I
scarcely know how I got over it. I could not suffer much more and be
alive." "I own," he had written to St. Vincent immediately after the
repulse, "I shall never bring myself again to allow any attack to go
forward, where I am not personally concerned; my mind suffers much
more than if I had a leg shot off in this late business."

The Admiralty refusing any allowances, much of the expense of Parker's
illness and of his funeral fell upon Nelson, who assumed all his
debts. It was but one instance among many of a liberality in money
matters, which kept him constantly embarrassed. To the surgeon who had
attended the wounded, and to the captain