avour him, he will be considered our
guardian angel; but, on the other hand, should he unfortunately take a
wrong scent, and the Toulon fleet attain their object, the hero of the
14th of February and of Aboukir will be--I will not say what, but the
ingratitude of the world is but too well known on these occasions."

A week before, on the 13th of May, the same officer had written:
"Where are you all this time?[94] for that is a point justly agitating
the whole country more than I can describe. I fear that your gallant
and worthy chief will have much injustice done him on this occasion,
for the cry is stirring up fast against him, and the loss of Jamaica
would at once sink all his past services into oblivion. All I know for
certain is that we ought never to judge rashly on these occasions, and
never merely by the result. Lord Barham[95] told me this morning that
the Board had no tidings of your squadron. This is truly melancholy,
for certainly no man's zeal and activity ever surpassed those of your
chief.... The world is at once anxious for news and dreading its
arrival." The Admiralty itself, perplexed and harassed by the hazards
of the situation, were dissatisfied because they received no word from
him, being ignorant of the weather conditions which had retarded even
his frigates so far beyond the time of Villeneuve's arrival at Cadiz.
Radstock, whose rank enabled him to see much of the members of the
Board, drew shrewd inferences as to their feelings, though mistaken as
to Nelson's action. "I fear that he has been so much soured by the
appointment of Sir John Orde, that he has had the imprudence to vent
his spleen on the Admiralty by a long, and, to the Board, painful
silence. I am sure that they are out of humour with him, and I have my
doubts whether they would risk much for him, were he to meet with any
serious misfortune."

Through such difficulties in front, and such clamor in the rear,
Nelson pursued his steadfast way, in anguish of spirit, but constant
still in mind. "I am not made to despair," he said to Melville, "what
man can do shall be done. I have marked out for myself a decided line
of conduct, and I shall follow it well up; although I have now before
me a letter from the physician of the fleet, enforcing my return to
England before the hot months." "Brokenhearted as I am, at the escape
of the Toulon fleet," he tells the governor of Gibraltar, "yet it
cannot prevent my thinking of all the points intruste