In the mean time, Lord Hood sent duplicates of his former dispatches to the Admiralty, dated on board the Victory, off Calvi, August 9, 1794.  He herewith transmits a continuation of Captain Nelson’s Journal, from the 28th of July, to the 8th of August:  also, the copy of a letter which he had received from Captain Nelson, highly creditable to Lieutenant Harrison, a transport agent; as well as to Mr. William Harrington, master of the Willington, and the transports men; who were all anxiously eager to serve on shore, or on board his majesty’s ships, mentions having taken possession of the Melpomene and Mignonne frigates:  the former, one of the finest ever built in France, carrying forty guns; the other, only thirty-two.  Captain Cunningham, charged with these dispatches, who had been three months cruizing off Calvi, with infinite diligence, and perseverance, under many difficulties, is recommended as an officer of great merit, and highly deserving any favour that can be shewn him.

Without wishing to detract from the merits of Captain Cunningham, it may certainly be contended that he had not, during the time mentioned, surpassed Captain Nelson, who receives no such decided praise, nor any positive recommendation whatever.

These observations are drawn from the face of the public dispatches, compared with a knowledge of the services and character of Captain Nelson, as they were at that time manifesting themselves to all who knew him.

His conspicuous merits, it should seem, were growing too conspicuous; the power of his rising splendour, it might begin to be feared, would too powerfully eclipse that which was getting into the wane; and, therefore, though praise could not be entirely denied, it was by no means to be lavishly bestowed.  This is ever the cold and cautious sentiment of mean and mercenary minds:  it sometimes creeps into the bosoms of even the liberal and the brave.  In the former, it begets a fixed principle of action; from the latter, it is generally soon expelled by a little dispassionate reflection.  It is like the last struggle of age, contending against a conviction of the superior vigour of youth:  which, by a good parent, is often unwillingly relinquished, in even corporeal considerations; scarcely ever, willingly, in those of intellect.

Without meaning to hazard any particular application of these ideas, there is good reason to think that he began now to be an object of considerable attraction.  His power, though still abundantly too confined for his ability, had been in some degree extended; and his services were, in consequence, so numerous and great, that he well merited recommendation to an enlarged sphere of action.

That he thought himself slighted, is beyond a possibility of doubt:  smarting with the total loss of sight in one eye, and almost exhausted by fatigue, he felt conscious of deserving applause more ardent than any which he had yet obtained.  He was, probably, not pleased to find that his journal of the siege of Calvi did not appear, as perhaps it ought to have done, in the Gazette; nor even the letter in commendation of his voluntary coadjutors, which he had sent to Lord Hood.  His lordship, however, it is but just to remark, could by no means be considered as accountable for these omissions, as he certainly transmitted both these documents to government.