’My dearest Nessy was seized, while on a visit at Major Yorke’s, at Bishop’s Grove near Tonbridge Wells, with a violent cold, and not taking proper care of herself, it soon turned to inflammation on her lungs, which carried her off at Hastings, to which place she was taken on the 5th September, to try if the change of air, and being near the sea, would recover her; but alas! it was too late for her to receive the wished for benefit, and she died there on the 25th of the same month 1793, and has left her only surviving parent a disconsolate mother, to lament, while ever she lives, with the most sincere and deep affliction, the irreparable loss of her most valuable, affectionate, and darling daughter.’[35]

But to return to Mr. Heywood.  When the king’s full and free pardon had been read to this young officer by Captain Montagu, with a suitable admonition and congratulation, he addressed that officer in the following terms,—­so suitably characteristic of his noble and manly conduct throughout the whole of the distressing business in which he was innocently involved:—­

SIR,—­When the sentence of the law was passed upon me, I received it, I trust, as became a man; and if it had been carried into execution, I should have met my fate, I hope, in a manner becoming a Christian.  Your admonition cannot fail to make a lasting impression on my mind.  I receive with gratitude my sovereign’s mercy, for which my future life shall be faithfully devoted to his service.’[36]

And well did his future conduct fulfil that promise.  Notwithstanding the inauspicious manner in which the first five years of his servitude in the navy had been passed, two of which were spent among mutineers and savages, and eighteen months as a close prisoner in irons, in which condition he was shipwrecked, and within an ace of perishing,—­notwithstanding this unpromising commencement, he re-entered the naval service under the auspices of his uncle, Commodore Pasley, and Lord Hood, who presided at his trial, and who earnestly recommended him to embark again as a midshipman without delay, offering to take him into the Victory, under his own immediate patronage.  In the course of his service, to qualify for the commission of lieutenant, he was under the respective commands of three or four distinguished officers, who had sat on his trial, from all of whom he received the most flattering proofs of esteem and approbation.  To the application of Sir Thomas Pasley to Lord Spencer for his promotion, that nobleman, with that due regard he was always known to pay to the honour and interests of the navy, while individual claims were never overlooked, gave the following reply, which must have been highly gratifying to the feelings of Mr. Heywood and his family.

     Admiralty, Jan. 13th, 1797.