had not Lady Hamilton’s influence with the Queen of Naples caused letters to be wrote to the Governor of Syracuse, that he was to encourage the fleets being supplied with everything, should they put into any port in Sicily.  We put into Syracuse, received every supply; went to Egypt, and destroyed the French fleet.  Could I have rewarded these services, I would not now call upon my country; but as that has not been in my power, I leave Emma, Lady Hamilton, therefore a legacy to my King and country, that they will give her an ample provision to maintain her rank in life.  I also leave to the beneficence of my country my adopted daughter, Horatia Nelson Thompson; and I desire she will use in future the name of Nelson only.  These are the only favours I ask of my King and country at this moment when I am going to fight their battle.  May God bless my King and country, and all those I hold dear!  My relations, it is needless to mention, they will, of course, be amply provided for.

    NELSON AND BRONTE.

    Witness,
      HENRY BLACKWOOD. 
      T.M.  HARDY.

It is of little importance whether this codicil was written at the same time as the prayer or a couple of hours before; that neither adds to nor detracts from the object of it.  No definite opinion of the time is given.  Blackwood and Hardy, as witnesses, would know.  In any case it is an extraordinary document, and indicates unusual mental control of which few human beings are possessed.  His mind must have been saturated with thoughts of the woman when the great battle was within a few minutes of commencing.  Early in the morning, when he was walking the poop and cabin fixings and odds and ends were being removed, he gave stern instructions to “take care of his guardian angel,” meaning her portrait, which he regarded in the light of a mascot to him.  He also wore a miniature of her next his heart.  Unless Captain Hardy and Captain Blackwood and others to whom he confided his love potions were different from the hearty, unconventional seamen of the writer’s early sea-life, a banquet of interesting epithets could have been left to us which might have shocked the severely decorous portion of a public who assume a monopoly of inherent grace but do not understand the delightful simple dialect of the old-time sailor-men.

There can be small doubt that Nelson’s comrades had many a joke in private about his weird and to them unnecessarily troublesome love wailings, which would be all the more irksome when they and he had serious business in hand.  Poor Sir Thomas Troubridge appears to have been the only one to have dealt frankly with him about carrying his infatuation to such lengths—­especially at a time when the public service was in need of his undivided attention—­and Nelson never had a kindly feeling towards him afterwards.  This gallant officer and loyal friend was in command of the Blenheim (seventy-four guns) when she and