practised what he preached. Honour, glory and
distinction were the whole object of his life, and that dear domestic
happiness never abstracted his attention." He did, indeed, rail at
marriage[57] during his last cruise, now fast approaching; but his
passionate devotion to Lady Hamilton, and his yearning for home, knew
no abatement. Yet, through all and over all, the love of glory and the
sense of honor continued to the last to reign supreme. "Government
cannot be more anxious for my departure," he tells St. Vincent, "than
I am, if a war, to go."

Meantime the necessary preparations were quietly progressing, while
the diplomatic discussions with France became more and more bitter and
hopeless, turning mainly on the question of Malta, though the root of
the trouble lay far deeper. The "Victory," of a hundred guns, was
named for Nelson's flag, her officers appointed, and the ship
commissioned. On the 6th of May he received orders to prepare for
departure. On the 12th the British ambassador left Paris, having
handed in the Government's ultimatum and demanded his passports. On
the 16th Great Britain declared war against France, and the same day
Nelson at the Admiralty received his commission as commander-in-chief
in the Mediterranean. Within forty-eight hours he joined the "Victory"
at Portsmouth, and on the 20th sailed for his station.

Thus ended the longest period of retirement enjoyed by Nelson, from
the opening of the war with France, in 1793, until his death in 1805.
During it, besides the separation from Lady Nelson, two great breaks
occurred in his personal ties and surroundings. His father died at
Bath on the 26th of April, 1802, at the age of seventy-nine. There had
been no breach in the love between the two, but it seems to the author
impossible to overlook, in the guarded letters of the old man to his
famous son, a tinge of regret and disapproval for the singular
circumstances under which he saw fit to live. That he gladly accepted
the opinion professed by many friends, naval and others, and carefully
fostered by the admiral, that his relations with Lady Hamilton were
perfectly innocent, is wholly probable; but, despite the usual silence
concerning his own views, observed by himself and Nelson, two clues to
his thought and action appear in his letters. One is the remark,
already quoted, that gratitude required him to spend some of his time
with Lady Nelson. The other, singular and suggestive, is the casual
ment