on successfully, but in doing so met with
a curious adventure. Leaving Gibraltar with a north wind, favorable
for his purpose, he passed Spartel as directed, and, the night being
moonlight, saw in the distance Orde's squadron cruising under easy
sail. Unluckily, one of the outlying lookout frigates discovered him,
gave chase, and overtook him. Her captain himself came on board, and
was about to give Parker orders not to proceed to the westward, Orde
jealously objecting to any apparent intrusion upon his domain. Parker
stopped him hastily from speaking on the quarter-deck, within earshot
of others, and took him into the cabin. The stranger had been one of
Nelson's old midshipmen and a favorite; had started with him in the
"Agamemnon," and by him had been made a commander after the Nile.
"Captain Hoste," said Parker, "I believe you owe all your advancement
in the service to my uncle, Lord St. Vincent, and to Lord Nelson. I am
avoiding Sir John Orde's squadron by desire of Lord Nelson; you know
his handwriting; _I must go on_."[81] (Parker being senior to Hoste,
the latter could not detain him by his own authority; and he
understood from this avowal that Orde's orders, if produced, would
become a matter of record, would be disobeyed, and a court-martial
must follow.) "The question of a court-martial would be very
mischievous. Do you not think it would be better if you were not to
meet the 'Amazon' this night?" Captain Hoste, after a little
reflection, left the ship without giving his admiral's orders to
Parker.[82]

Having determined not to leave Bickerton alone, Nelson decided to keep
secret his own leave to return to England. "I am much obliged by their
Lordships' kind compliance with my request, which is absolutely
necessary from the present state of my health," he writes on the 30th
of December; "and I shall avail myself of their Lordships' permission,
the moment another admiral, in the room of Admiral Campbell, joins the
fleet, unless the enemy's fleet should be at sea, when I should not
think of quitting my command until after the battle." "I shall never
quit my post," he tells a friend, "when the French fleet is at sea, as
a commander-in-chief of great celebrity once did,"--a not very
generous fling at St. Vincent. "I would sooner die at my post, than
have such a stigma upon my memory." "Nothing has kept me here," he
writes Elliot, "but the fear for the escape of the French fleet, and
that they should get to either