ships of the line were taken.  The French Admiral put into Vigo on the 28th, and managed to slip out, and arrived at Ferrol without being intercepted.  Nelson provisioned his ships for four months, and sailed from Tetuan on the 23rd.  On the 25th he passed through the Straits with the intention of going to Ferrol, Ireland, or Ushant, whichever his information and judgment told him was the best course to pursue.  He experienced strong northerly winds along the Portuguese coast, which prevented him from joining the Channel Fleet off Ushant until August 16th, and as no news had been received of the French being in the Bay of Biscay or off the Irish coast, he was ordered by Cornwallis to Portsmouth, and anchored at Spithead on the 18th August.  His reception from every quarter was most cordial, as well it might be!  But the thought of how much greater it would have been if he had not been misguided and thereby deprived of coming to grips with the foe that was still at large and outwitting every device of bringing them to close quarters, had eaten like a canker into his troubled mind.  In his letters to friends (Davison and others) his postscripts were for ever being embellished with reference to it and the darting of an incidental “damn” to General Brereton, who, it is contended, was himself deceived.  But Nelson, generous as, he always was to people who were encompassed by misfortune, never would allow that Brereton had any right to allow himself to be misled.  One wonders how the immortal General Brereton worked it out.  In any case, the great Admiral has given him a place in history by his side.

Nelson first heard of Sir Robert Calder’s scrap from the Ushant squadron, and was strong in sympathy and defence against the unworthy public attacks made on the Admiral for not succeeding as he would.  In writing to Fremantle about Calder, he says, amongst other things:  “I should have fought the enemy, so did my friend Calder; I only wish to stand upon my own merits, and not by comparison, one way or the other upon the conduct of a brother officer,” etc.  This rebuke to a public who were treating his brother officer ungenerously may be summarized thus:  “I want none of your praises at the expense of this gallant officer, who is serving his country surrounded with complex dangers that you are ignorant of, and therefore it is indecent of you to judge by comparing him with me or any one else.  I want none of your praises at his expense.”

This is only one of the noble traits in Nelson’s character, and is the secret why he unconsciously endeared himself to everybody.  His comical vanity and apparent egotism is overshadowed by human touches such as this worthy intervention on behalf of Sir Robert Calder, who he had reason to know was not professionally well disposed to him.  But his defence of Calder did not close with Fremantle, for in a letter to his brother soon after he got home he says, “We must now talk of Sir Robert Calder.  I might not have