e the staff to more able
hands." "I feel anxious to get up with these ships," he wrote to Lady
Hamilton, "and shall be unhappy not to take them myself, for first my
greatest happiness is to serve my gracious King and Country, and I am
envious only of glory; for if it be a sin to covet glory, I am the
most offending soul alive. _But here I am_ in a heavy sea and thick
fog--Oh, God! the wind subsided--but I trust to Providence I shall
have them. 18th in the evening, I have got her--Le Genereux--thank
God! 12 out of 13, onely the Guillaume Telle remaining; I am after the
others." The enemy's division had consisted of this seventy-four, a
large transport, also captured, and three corvettes which escaped.

An account of Nelson on the quarter-deck on this occasion has been
transmitted by an eye-witness, whose recollections, committed to paper
nearly forty years later, are in many points evidently faulty, but in
the present instance reflect a frame of mind in the great admiral in
perfect keeping with the words last quoted from his own letter. The
writer was then a midshipman of the "Foudroyant;" and the scene as
described opens with a hail from a lieutenant at the masthead, with
his telescope on the chase.

"'Deck there! the stranger is evidently a man of war--she is a
line-of-battle-ship, my lord, and going large on the starboard tack.'

"'Ah! an enemy, Mr. Stains. I pray God it may be Le Genereux. The
signal for a general chase, Sir Ed'ard, (the Nelsonian pronunciation
of Edward,) make the Foudroyant fly!'

"Thus spoke the heroic Nelson; and every exertion that emulation could
inspire was used to crowd the squadron with canvas, the Northumberland
taking the lead, with the flag-ship close on her quarter.

"'This will not do, Sir Ed'ard; it is certainly Le Genereux, and to my
flag-ship she can alone surrender. Sir Ed'ard, we must and shall beat
the Northumberland.'

"'I will do the utmost, my lord; get the engine to work on the
sails--hang butts of water to the stays--pipe the hammocks down, and
each man place shot in them--slack the stays, knock up the wedges, and
give the masts play--start off the water, Mr. James, and pump the
ship.' The Foudroyant is drawing a-head, and at last takes the lead in
the chase. 'The admiral is working his fin, (the stump of his right
arm,) do not cross his hawse, I advise you.'

"The advice was good, for at that moment Nelson opened furiously on
the quarter-master at the conn. 'I'll kno