current against them inshore, they were not able to get within a mile of the landing place before daybreak, and then the Spaniards discovered their intention. Troubridge and Bowen, with captain Oldfield of the marines, consulted with the admiral what was to be done, and it was resolved that they should attempt to get possession of the heights above the fort. The frigates accordingly landed their men, and Nelson stood in with the line of battle ships, meaning to batter the fort for the purpose of distracting the attention of the garrison. Contrary currents hindered him from getting within three miles of the shore, and the heights were by this time so secured as to be judged impracticable. Though foiled in his original plan, he still considered it necessary for the honour of his king and country not to give over the attempt. He reembarked his men, got the ships on the 24th to anchor about two miles north of the town, and made show as if he designed to attack the heights.At six in the evening signal was made for the boats to prepare to proceed on service as previously ordered.

When this was done, Nelson addressed a letter to his commander in chief, of which, as being the last that was written with his right hand, a fac simile is given. After saying that every thing had hitherto been done which was possible, but without effect, "This night," he proceeded, "I command the whole destined to land under the batteries of the town, and to morrow my head will probably be crowned either with laurel or cypress. The duke of Clarence, should I fall in the service of my king and country, will, I am confident, take a lively interest for my son-in-law on his name being mentioned." Perfectly aware how desperate a service this was likely to prove, he called lieut. Nisbet into the cabin, that he might assist in

arranging and burning his mother's letters. Perceiving that the young man was armed, he earnestly beg ged him to remain behind. "Should we both fall, Josiah," said he," what would become of your poor mother? The care of the Theseus falls to you; stay therefore, and take charge of her." Nisbet replied: "Sir, the ship must take care of herself-I will go with you to night if I never go again."

At eleven o'clock, the boats proceeded in six divisions toward the town, conducted by all the captains except Freemantle and Bowen, who attended with Nelson to regulate and lead the way to the attack. They were not discovered till past one o'clock, when, being within half gunshot of the landing place, Nelson directed the boats to cast off from each other, give a huzza, and push for the shore. But the Spaniards were admirably prepared; the alarm bells answered their huzza, and a fire of thirty or forty pieces of cannon, with musketry from one end of the town to the other, opened upon the invaders.

Nothing, however, could check their intrepidity. The night was exceedingly dark; most of the boats missed the Mole, and went on shore through a raging surf which stove all to the left of it. The admiral, Freemantle, Thompson, Bowen, and four or five others, found the Mole. It was instantly stormed and carried, though defended by four or five hun dred men; but such a heavy fire of musketry and grape shot was kept up from the citadel and the houses at the head of the Mole, that they could not advance, and nearly all of them were killed or wounded.

Nelson, when in the act of stepping out of the boat, received a shot through the right elbow, and fell. Nisbet, who was close to him, placed him at the bottom of the boat.He then examined the wound, and taking some silk handkerchiefs from his neck, bound them above the la

cerated vessels. Had it not been for this presence of mind in his son-inlaw, Nelson afterwards declared he must have perished. One of his bargemen tore his shirt into shreds, and made a sling for the wounded arm. They then collected five other seamen, and at length succeeded in getting the boat afloat; for it had grounded with the falling tide. Nisbet took one of the oars, and order ed the steersman to go close under the guns of the battery, that they might not be exposed to their tremendous fire. Hearing his voice, sir Horatio roused himself, and desired to be lifted up that he " might look a little about him." Nisbet raised him up. In a few minutes a general shriek was heard from the crew of the Fox, which had received a shot under water, and gone down. Ninety-seven men sunk with her, eightythree were saved, many by Nelson himself, whose exertions on this occasion materially increased the pain and danger of his wound. The first ship which the boat could reach happened to be the Seahorse; but nothing could induce him to go on board, though he was assured that the attempt to row to another ship might be at the risk of his life. I had rather suffer death, he replied, than alarm Mrs. Freemantle by letting her see me in this state, when I can give her no tidings whatever of her husband. They pushed on for the Theseus. Here he peremptorily refused all assistance in getting on board, so impatient was he that the boat should return, in hopes that it might save a few more men from the Fox. He desired to have only a

single rope thrown over the side, which he twisted round his left arm. "Let me alone," said he, "I have yet my legs left, and one arm. Tell the surgeon to make haste and get his instruments; I know I must lose my right arm; so the sooner it's off the better."* The spirit which he displayed in jumping up the ship's side astonished every one.

Freemantle had been severely wounded in the right arm soon after the admiral; he was fortunate enough to find a boat on the beach, and got instantly to the Seahorse. Thompson was wounded, Bowen killed, to the great regret of Nelson, as was also lieut. Weatherhead, one of his own officers, who had followed him from the Agamemnon, and whom he seems to have greatly and deservedly esteemed. Troubridge, meantime, pushed on shore under the batteries, close to the southward of the citadel. Capt. Waller, of the Emerald, landed at the same instant, and two or three other boats. Having collected a few men, they pushed on to the great square, hoping to find the admiral and the rest of the force. As the ladders were all lost, they could make no attempt on the citadel; but they sent a serjeant with two of the town's people to summon it. The messenger never returned; and Troubridge, having waited about an hour in painful expectation of his friends, marched to join captains Hood and Miller, who had effected their landing to the northwest. Here they endeavoured to procure some intelligence of the admiral and the rest of the officers, but without success. By daybreak they had collect

'ed about 80 marines, 80 pikemen, and 180 smallarmed seamen-all that had made good their landing. They obtained some ammunition from the prisoners whom they had taken, and marched to try what could be done at the citadel without lad ders. They found all the streets commanded by field pieces; and above 8000 Spaniards, with 800 French under arms, approaching by every avenue. Troubridge with great presence of mind sent captain Hood with a flag of truce to the governour, to say he would instantly set fire to the town, if the Spaniards approached one inch nearer. That he had no wish to injure the inhabitants; and that he was ready to treat upon these terms: that the troops should reembark with their arms, and take their own boats, if they were saved, or be provided with such others as might be necessary; they agreeing on their part, that the squadron should not molest the town, nor any of the Canary islands. The governour told capt. Hood that the English ought to surrender as prisoners of war. To this he replied, that if the terms were not accepted in five minutes captain Troubridge would set the town on fire, and attack the Spaniards at the point of the bayonet. Satisfied with his success, which was indeed sufficiently complete, and respecting, like a brave man, the gallantry of his enemy, he acceded to the proposal. "And here," says Nelson in his journal, "it is right we should notice the noble and generous conduct of D. Juan Antonio Gutierra, the Spanish governour. The moment the terms were agreed to, he directed our wounded men to be received into the hospitals, and all our people to be supplied with the best provisions that could be procured; and made it known that the ships were at liberty to send on shore and purchase whatever refreshments they were in

want of during the time they might lie off the island." A youth, by name D. Bernardo Collagon, even stript himself of his shirt to make bandages for one of those Englishmen against whom, not an hour before, he had been engaged in battle. Nelson wrote to thank the governour for the humanity which he had displayed; presents were interchanged between them, and the admiral offered to take charge of his despatches for the Spanish court, and thus actually became the first messenger of his own defeat.

The loss of the English amounted to 250. Nelson, in his official despatches, made no mention of his own wound; but in a private letter to lord St. Vincent, the first* which he penned with his left hand, he shows himself to have been deeply affected by the failure of this enterprise. "I have become," says he, “a burthen to my friends, and useless to my country; but by my last letter you will perceive my anxiety for the promotion of my son-in-law, Josiah Nisbet. When I leave your command, I become dead to the world I go hence, and am no more seen. If, from poor Bowen's loss, you think it proper to oblige me, I rest confident you will do it. The boy is under obligations to me, but he repaid me by bringing me from the mole of Santa Cruz. I hope you will be able to give me a frigate to convey the remains of my carcase to England."

But honours enough awaited him in England to recover his wounded spirit. Letters were instantly addressed to him by the first lord of the admiralty, and by his steady friend, the duke of Clarence, to congratulate him on his return. The freedom of the cities of Bristol and London was transmitted to him; he was invested with the order of the bath, and received a pension of 1000l. a year. Not having been in

England, since he lost his eye, he went to receive a year's pay as smart money, but could not obtain it, because he had not brought a certificate from a surgeon that the sight was actually destroyed. A little irritated that this formality should be insisted upon, the fact be ing sufficiently notorious, he procured a certificate at the same time for the loss of his arm, saying they might just as well doubt one as the other. This put him in good humour with himself, and with the clerk who had offended him. On his return to the office, the clerk, finding it was the annual pay of a captain only, observed, he thought it had been more. "Oh," replied Nelson, "this is only for an eye; in a few days I shall come for an arm; and in a little time longer, God knows, most probably for a leg." Accordingly he soon after went, and with perfect good humour exhibited the certificate of the loss of his arm.

Early in the ensuing year his flag was hoisted in the Vanguard, and he was ordered to rejoin earl St. Vincent. Upon his departure his father addressed him with that affectionate solemnity which marks all his letters. "I trust in the Lord," said he, "that he will prosper your going out and your coming in. I earnestly desired once more to see you, and that wish has been heard. If I should presume to say, I hope again to see you, the question would be readily asked, how old are you? Vale, vale!" A gloomy foreboding, it is said, hung on the spirits of lady Nelson at their parting. This of course can only have been a fear of losing him by the chance of war. No apprehension of losing his affection could possibly have existed; for all his letters to this time evince that he considered himself happy in his marriage; and his private character had hitherto been as spotless as his publick one. One of the last things

he said to her was that his own ambition was satisfied; but he went to raise her to that rank in which he had long wished to see her.

was

Immediately on his rejoining earl St. Vincent he was despatched to the Mediterranean, that he might ascertain if possible the object of the great expedition fitting out at Toulon. He sailed with a small squadron from Gibraltar on the 9th of May to watch this formidable armament. On the 22d a sudden storm in the gulph of Lyons carried away all the topmasts of the Vanguard: the foremast went in three pieces, and the bow-sprit sprung. Captain (afterwards sir Alexander) Ball took the ship in tow, to carry her into St. Pietros, Sardinia. Nelson, apprehensive that this attempt might endanger both vessels, ordered him to cast off; but that excellent, officer, with a spirit like his commander's, replied he was confident he could save the Vanguard, and by God's help would do it. There had been a previous coolness between these great men, but from this time Nelson became fully sensible of the extraordinary merit of captain Ball, and a sincere friendship subsisted between them during the remainder of their lives. "I ought not," says the admiral writing to his wife, "I ought not to call what has happened to the Vanguard by the cold name of accident. I believe, firmly, it was the Almighty's goodness to check my consummate vanity. Figure to your self, on Sunday evening at sun-set, a vain man walking in his cabin, with a squadron around him, who looked up to their chief to lead them to glory, and in whom their chief placed the firmest reliance, that the proudest ships of equal numbers belonging to France would have bowed their flags. Figure to yourself on Monday morning when the sun rose, this proud man, his ship dismasted, his fleet dispersed,

and himself in such distress that the meanest frigate out of France would have been an unwelcome guest." Nelson had, indeed, more reason to refuse the "cold name of accident" to this tempest than he was then aware of; for on that very day the French fleet sailed from Toulon, and must have passed within a few leagues of his squadron. Being compelled to refit, the delay enabled him to secure his junction with the reenforcement which lord St. Vincent had now sent to join him under commodore Troubridge.

That officer brought with him no instructions to Nelson as to the course he was to steer, nor any positive account of the enemy's destination. Every thing was left to his own judgment. The first news was that they had surprised Malta. He formed a plan for attacking them while at anchor at Gozo, but on the 22d, intelligence reached him that they had left that island on the 16th, the day after their arrival. It was clear that their destination was eastward, and he thought for Egypt: for Egypt, therefore, he made all sail. Only three vessels were spoken with on the way, two came from Alexandria, and one from the Archipelago, and neither of these had seen the French. He reached Alexandria, and the enemy were not there. He then shaped his course for the coast of Caramania, and steered from thence along the southern side of Candia, carrying a press of sail both night and day with a contrary wind. Irritated beyond measure that they should have eluded his vigilance, the tediousness of the night made him impatient, and the officer of the watch was repeatedly called upon to declare the hour, and convince Nelson, who measured time by his own eagerness, that it was not yet daybreak. "It would have been my delight," said he, "to have tried Buonaparte on a wind." It would have been the delight of

Europe too and the blessing of the world if that fleet had been overtaken with its general on board. But of the millions of human beings who would have been preserved by that day's victory, there is not one to whom such essential benefit would have resulted as to Buonaparte himself. It would have spared him his only disgrace, for so to have been defeated would not have been ignominious; it would have spared him most of his enormities. History would have represented him as a soldier of fortune whose career had been distinguished by a series of successes unexampled in modern times. A romantick obscurity would have hung over the disgraceful expedition to Egypt, and he would have escaped the perpetration of those crimes which have incarnadined his soul with a deeper die than that of the purple for which he committed those acts of perfidy, midnight murder, usurpation, and remorseless tyranny, which have consigned his name to universal execration, now and for ever

Baffled in his pursuit, Nelson returned to Sicily, took in stores at Syracuse, then made for the Morea. There, on the 28th July, he learnt. that the French had been seen about four weeks before steering to the S. E. from Candia. He immediately determined to return, and with every sail set stood again for the coast of Egypt. On the first of August they came in sight of Alexandria, and at four in the afternoon captain Hood in the Zealous made the signal for the French fleet. For many preceding days Nelson had hardly taken either sleep or food. He now ordered his dinner to be served while preparations were making for battle; and when his officers rose from table and went to their separate stations, he said to them, "before this time tomorrow I shall have gained a peerage or Westminster Abbey."

Why Buonaparte, having effected