safe, since they have made no opposition to the Bill in its former progress, and since they have offered no appearance against it by counsel at your lordships' bar; and truly, my lords, if the bill be thus superior to all objections, I can affirm that the necessities, the wrongs of those who are employed in the naval service of their country most loudly call for the redress which it purposes. From the highest admiral in the service, to the lowest cabin boy that walks the street, there is not a man that may be in distress, with large sums of wages due to him, of which he shall by no diligence of request be able to obtain payment, there is not a man whose entreaties will be readily answered with aught but insults at the proper places for his application, if he come not with particular recommendations to a preference. From the highest admiral to the meanest seaman, whatever the sums of prize money due to him, no man can tell when he may securely call any part of it his own. A man may have 40,000l. due to him in prize-money, and yet be dismissed without a shilling if he ask for it at the proper office, without particular recommendation. Are these things to be tolerated? Is it not for the interest, is it not for the honour, of the country that they should be as speedily as possible redressed? I should be as unwilling as any man to give an over-weening preference to the interests of my own profession; but I cannot help thinking that under all the circumstances of the affair your lordships will be strongly disposed to advance this bill into a law as speedily as may be consistent with the order of your proceedings, and with due prudence of deliberation."

The condition of the navy had ever occupied Nelson's attention; and, with the opening of the year 1803, he proposed a scheme for securing good seamen for our service, and of, in some degree, reducing the evils of the pressgang, and the horrors of desertion. His scheme proceeded on the system of rewards. Every seaman that could produce a certificate of five years' service and good conduct was to be entitled to a premium of two guineas a year, exclusive of every other remuneration for services or wounds. If he could produce a certificate of eight years service, the bounty was to be raised to double. How far such a scheme might have answered it is needless now to consider. The

sudden outbreak of the war laid every such scheme aside, and it is no longer useful except to demonstrate Nelson's anxiety for the men to whom he was so greatly indebted for his honours.

The same veneration and confidence towards Nelson still existed as after his return from the Nile: and many a public demonstration of feeling would have been paid him had not his strong feelings on the subject of Copenhagen compelled him to refuse every proffered honour that did not pay up the outstanding debt to that victory. When Nelson was summoned by Colonel Despard to bear his testimony to that traitor's conduct whilst serving with him in his early career on the Spanish main, Lord Ellenborough said, "This testimony to the bravery, honour, and loyalty of the prisoner has been given by one on whom to pronounce an eulogy were to waste words."

But now the prospect of peace was rapidly clouding over, and a renewal of the war seemed imminent. Hardly had the treaty been signed before the first consul began to extend his power in defiance of the terms of that peace. In Italy the chieftainship of the Cisalpine Republic was soon added to his other honours. Holland was soon demoralized, and rendered subservient to French interests; and when Switzerland refused to obey Bonaparte's orders, and alter her form of government to suit his views, an army immediately marched into her territory, and enforced the submission of her people. England, alarmed at these acts, had been slow in yielding up possession of the Cape of Good Hope, and the other Batavian colonies, and still retained Malta, and refused to resign it until the Italian and Swiss matters were satisfactorily settled. Every day made a rupture more certain; and at last, after a scene of personal abuse of our ambassador at Paris, on the 13th of March, 1803, Bonaparte seized every Englishman in his dominions, and 10,000 prisoners were the first-fruits of the rupture of the peace of Amiens. In England his treacherous act had a startling effect. Revenge was fierce in every one's heart, and the renewal of the war at once popular and necessary. Within a few days of the outbreak Nelson's flag was hoisted at Spithead as commander-inchief in the Mediterranean.

CHAPTER X.

THE BLOCKADE AND THE CHASE.

1803-1805.

The Invasion.- Nelson off Toulon in the Victory.- Conduct of the Spanish Court. The long Blockade.-Nelson's Health.-Health of the Fleet. The anxious Watch.-The run-away Nelson and Mr. Latouche Treville.-Captain Layman.-Nelson and his Comrades.-The Escape of the French.-The Chase to the West Indies and back.-Portsmouth.

So unsettled had been the relations between England and France during the short peace of Amiens, that like the five year truces of the Athenian dramatist, the entire truce had smelled of "pitch and naval preparation." On neither side of the channel had there been a real cessation from warlike preparations, and when all at once the war burst out, England was as ready to cover the sea with her fleets as France to crowd her shores with her army. At war with us alone, Bonaparte had no place on the continent where he could measure forces with us, and the project of invasion was renewed in such a way as to give him a hope of carrying out the scheme if the opportunity should offer, or of suddenly pouring the numerous troops thus collected on the coast into the heart of Germany, in the event of a continental war.

Six camps of rendezvous were marked out on the French coast; and thus, under the project of the invasion, six powerful armies lay ready to move wherever occasion might call for them. One hundred and fifty thousand men were collected in these camps, more than 3,000 boats of every description crowded the harbours of Boulogne, Cherbourg, Calais, and Dunkirk; and in order to cover this flotilla, in every naval arsenal new ships of war were being brought forward, and new attempts made to raise the fleets

From these

of France to a match with those of England. harbours hardly a ship could stir without our cognizance, so closely were they blockaded by our fleets. But a deep-laid scheme was being planned, which all but succeeded, and would have materially endangered our safety, but for the crowning day of Trafalgar. The scheme was to prepare small squadrons in every port, push them out to sea under cover of bad weather, order them to rendezvous in the West Indies, and whilst the English fleet was in pursuit, suddenly to return to the channel, raise such blockades as might still remain in force, release the imprisoned flotilla, and force the invasion at a time when the floating defences of this country were far away.

The two most important commands in the opening war were the Brest and Toulon squadrons; to the one Admiral Cornwallis was appointed, to the other Nelson. The Victory was given to Nelson as his flag-ship; and in this noble vessel of 100 guns, the venerable memorial of his last day, he hoisted his flag within two days of his appointment, and in a similar time, with his accustomed rapidity, was standing out from Spithead towards his appointed command. The Amphion frigate alone accompanied him. His first destination was to endeavour to join Cornwallis off Ushant, with whom he was to leave the Victory, if that admiral required her assistance, and to proceed in the Amphion to his squadron, which was watching Toulon, under the command of Sir R. Bickerton. After several days' cruise on the spot where Cornwallis was to have been met, Nelson shifted his flag to the Amphion, left the Victory to come after him as soon as she could be spared, and bore away with all speed for the Mediterranean. On the 8th of July the Amphion joined the fleet off Toulon, and Nelson commenced that wonderful and untiring watch over his opponents which lasted for more than eighteen months, during which he set his foot on shore only three days.

Though with a fleet of from nine to ten sail of the line, besides frigates and sloops, Nelson's command embraced so many places of importance requiring ships to guard their trade, or to prevent the enemy from getting to sea, that he could hardly ever keep more than five sail of the line in

the immediate vicinity of Toulon to watch the French squadron, which numbered seven line-of-battle ships, several heavy frigates, and numerous corvettes. Nor was it to the French alone that Nelson's attention was to be directed, though with them alone our war was at present. The conduct of the Spaniards called for constant attention. Swayed by French interests, the Spanish court had, through fear of war, refused, indeed, to lend their ships or their troops to our opponents; but they were not so prudent with their money, A yearly contribution of nearly three millions towards the sinews of the war was guaranteed by Spain, and her influence in persuading Portugal to add a monthly contribution of 40,000l. Besides this, an old act of the year 1771, excluding British ships from Spanish ports, was put into effect, whilst French privateers from these very ports annoyed our trade, and carried their prizes to and even sold them in these neutral harbours. Such conduct greatly irritated Nelson, and his complaint to the captain-general of Catalonia spoke out freely on the subject. From him he claimed the right of lying just as long as he pleased in Spanish ports, whilst that right was allowed to other powers. To our ambassador at Madrid he wrote. "That he was ready to make large allowances for the miserable situation in which Spain has placed herself, but that there was a certain line, beyond which he could not submit to be treated with disrespect." "We have given up French vessels," he added, “taken within gunshot of the Spanish shore, and yet French vessels are allowed to attack our ships from the Spanish shore. Your Excellency may assure the Spanish government, that in whatever place the Spaniards allow the French to attack us, in that place I shall order the French to be attacked." For more than a year this conduct on the part of Spain was borne by England; but when the armaments continued to increase in her ports, and even her packet ships to assume the character of men-of-war, England was convinced that Spain waited only for the arrival of her treasure ships from South America to declare open hostilities with us. Under this impression secret orders were given to intercept the treasure frigates, and to seize any Spanish vessel bearing naval and military stores. On the 5th of October the fri