vine service performed on board the "Victory," whenever
the weather permitted. After the service he had generally a few words
with the chaplain on the subject of the sermon, either thanking him
for its being a good one, or remarking that it was not so well adapted
as usual to the crew. More than once, on such occasions, he took down
a volume of sermons in his own cabin, with the page already marked at
some discourse which he thought well suited to such a congregation,
and requested Dr. Scott to preach it on the following Sunday.[51]

On the 29th of October, 1801, just one week after he left the Downs,
Nelson took his seat in the House of Lords as a Viscount, his former
commander-in-chief, Hood, who was of the same rank in the peerage,
being one of those to present him. While in England he spoke from time
to time on professional subjects, or those connected with the external
policy of the country, on which he held clear and decided opinions,
based, naturally, upon naval exigencies. His first speech was a warm
and generous eulogy of Sir James Saumarez, once second to himself at
the Battle of the Nile, an officer with whom it is not too much to say
he was not in close personal sympathy, as he had been with Troubridge,
but who had just fought two desperate squadron actions under
conditions of singular difficulty, out of which he had wrenched a
success that was both signal and, in the then state of the war and
negotiations, most opportune. "Sir James Saumarez's action," said
Lord St. Vincent, "has put us upon velvet."

Nelson's own thirst for glory made him keenly appreciative of the
necessity to be just and liberal, in distributing to those who had
achieved great deeds the outward tokens of distinguished service,
which often are the sole recompense for dangers run and hardships
borne. Scarcely had he retired from his active command in the Channel
when he felt impelled to enter upon a painful and humiliating
controversy, on behalf of those who had shared with him all the perils
of the desperate Battle of Copenhagen; for which, unlike himself, they
had received no reward, but from whom he refused to be dissociated in
the national esteem and gratitude.

On the 19th of November, 1801, the City of London voted its thanks to
the divisions of the Army and the Navy, whose joint operations during
the previous summer had brought to an end the French occupation of
Egypt, begun by Bonaparte in 1798. Nelson had for some time been
une