the Java (twenty-three guns) foundered with all hands near the island of Rodriguez, in the East Indies, on the 1st February, 1807.  Nelson harboured a childish bitterness against Admiral Troubridge because of his plain speaking, and especially after the latter was appointed a Lord of the Admiralty.  He always believed the “hidden hand” to be that of his former friend, to whom he delighted at one time to give the term “Nonpareil.”  In a letter to a friend he says:  “I have a sharp eye, and almost think I can see it.  No, poor fellow,” he continues, “I hope I do him injustice; he surely cannot forget my kindness to him,” He boasts of how he spoke to St. Vincent, the former “Nonpareil.”  In another eloquent passage he complains that Troubridge refuses to endorse his recommendations of officers for promotion, that he has been so rebuffed that his spirits are broken and the great Troubridge has cowed him (this, of course, in derision), and if he asked for anything more he would not get it.  He would never forget it.  No wonder he was not well.  The Admiralty are “beasts” for not allowing him to come to London, which would only deprive him of a few days’ comfort and happiness, and they have his hearty prayers.  He continues in the same ludicrous strain, “I have a letter from Troubridge urging me to wear flannel shirts, as though he cared for me.  He hopes that I shall go and have walks ashore, as the weather is now fine.”  “I suppose he is laughing at me, but never mind.”  He suffers from sea-sickness and toothache, and “none of them care a damn about my sufferings,” and so on.  These misdirected outbursts of feverish antipathy to poor Troubridge were frequent, and always inconceivably comical as well as distressingly peevish.  But behind it all there was a consciousness of unequalled power which every one who knew him recognized, and they therefore patiently bore with his weaknesses, trying as they sometimes were.

Lord St. Vincent believed, and stated to Nelson, that the only other man who possessed the same power of infusing into others the same spirit as his own was Troubridge, and no doubt this innocent praise of a noble and gallant sailor rankled in Nelson’s mind, and was the beginning of the jealousy that grew into hate.  He could not brook any one being put on an equality with himself, and he clung tenaciously, though generously, to this idea of authority and superiority when he requested in his last dying gasp that he should not be superseded.

After signing what is called the codicil to his will, Captains Hardy and Blackwood joined him on the poop to receive his instructions.  He was calmly absorbed with the enemy’s plan of defence and his own of attack.  He asked Blackwood what he would consider a victory, and the latter replied, “Considering the disposition of both fleets, he thought fourteen captures would be a fine result.”  Nelson said he would not be satisfied with less than twenty, and that nothing short of annihilation was his object.  Soon afterwards he gave orders to Mr. Pasco to make the memorable signal that