On the 17th, at day-light, his lordship was abreast of Portland; at noon, saw the Isle of Wight; and, at eleven at night, anchored off the Princesses Shoal.  Having weighed next morning at day-light, they worked up to Spithead; and, at nine o’clock, anchored:  just two years and three months from his lordship’s arrival at Portsmouth.  A contagious fever having recently made dreadful havoc at Gibraltar, where the ships touched, his lordship became subject to the quarantine regulations.  However, after communicating, by signal, with the port-admiral, he addressed the following satisfactory declaration to the collector of the customs—­

     “Victory, Spithead, August 18, 1805.

“The Victory, with the fleet under my command, left Gibraltar twenty-seven days ago:  at which time, there was not a fever in the garrison; nor, as Dr. Fellows told me, any apprehension of one.  The fleet lately under my command, I left with Admiral Cornwallis on the 15th of August; at which time, they were in the most perfect health.  Neither the Victory, nor the Superb, have on board even an object for the hospital; to the truth of which, I pledge my word of honour.

     “Nelson and Bronte.”

     “To the Collector of the Customs, or those whom it may concern.”

In consequence of these positive assurances, Lord Nelson was, at length, permitted to land; and, during the approach of his barge, a vast concourse of people, who had been assembling on the rampart from the moment his flag was first discovered, hailed the hero’s approach with their loudest acclamations.

Intelligence of Lord Nelson’s arrival in England had no sooner been received by Lady Hamilton and his nearest relatives, who were then passing a few weeks together at South End, than they hastened to Merton Place, where his lordship appointed to meet them.  The delay in landing, made it late that afternoon before he could proceed thither:  but, by travelling all night, he got to Merton at six o’clock in the morning of the 19th; where his friends had already assembled, in anxious expectation of beholding the beloved hero whose presence gladdened every virtuous heart.

His lordship, on undertaking this command, had quitted England so very expeditiously, that he could not be present at the Grand Installation of the Knights of the Bath, which took place in Westminster Abbey, on the 19th of May 1803, the day after his arrival at Portsmouth; and, consequently, was obliged to be installed by proxy.  On this occasion, Lord Nelson had been represented by Captain Sir William Bolton, son of the Reverend William Bolton, brother of Thomas Bolton, Esq. the husband of his lordship’s eldest sister; to whose amiable daughter, now Lady Bolton, Sir William had the preceding evening been married, by special licence, at Lady Hamilton’s house in Piccadilly.

The happy party now assembled at Merton Place, where the hero ever delighted to see his family around him, consisted of the present Earl and Countess Nelson, with Lord Merton and Lady Charlotte Nelson, their son and daughter; Mr. and Mrs. Bolton, with Thomas Bolton, Junior, Esq. and Miss Ann and Miss Eliza Bolton, their son and daughters; and Mr. and Mrs. Matcham, with their son George Matcham, Junior, Esq.