Nelson was delighted with his own share in these affairs, and with the praise he received from others for his conduct,—­especially that on the 13th.  He was satisfied, and justly, that his sustained and daring grapple with the “Ca Ira,” in the teeth of her fleet, had been the effective cause of the next day’s action and consequent success.  It was so, in truth, and it presented an epitome of what the 14th and 15th ought to have witnessed,—­a persistent clinging to the crippled ships, in order to force their consorts again into battle.  “You will participate,” he wrote to his uncle, “in the pleasure I must have felt in being the great cause of our success.  Could I have been supported, I would have had Ca Ira on the 13th.”  Elliot, the Viceroy of Corsica, wrote to him:  “I certainly consider the business of the 13th of March as a very capital feature in the late successful contest with the French fleet; and the part which the Agamemnon had in it must be felt by every one to be one of the circumstances that gave lustre to this event, and rendered it not only useful, but peculiarly honourable to the British arms.”  “So far,” added Nelson, in quoting this to his wife, “all hands agree in giving me the praises which cannot but be comfortable to me to the last moment of my life.”  He adds then a reflection, evincing that he was assimilating some of the philosophy of life as well as of fighting.  “The time of my being left out here by Lord Hood,” which he had so much regretted, “I may call well spent; had I been absent, how mortified should I now be.  What has happened may never happen to any one again, that only one ship-of-the-line out of fourteen should get into action with the French fleet for so long a time as two hours and a half, and with such a ship as the Ca Ira.”  It may be of interest to mention that the French fleet, upon this occasion, was largely composed of the vessels which three years later were destroyed by him at the Battle of the Nile.

In all his interests, ambitions, and gratification with success and praise, he at this period writes fully and intimately to his wife, between whom and himself there evidently still existed, after these two years of absence, a tender and affectionate confidence.  “It is with an inexpressible pleasure I have received your letters, with our father’s.  I rejoice that my conduct gives you pleasure, and I trust I shall never do anything which will bring a blush on your face.  Rest assured you are never absent from my thoughts.”  When looking forward to the action of March 14, he tells her:  “Whatever may be my fate, I have no doubt in my own mind but that my conduct will be such as will not bring a blush on the face of my friends:  the lives of all are in the hands of Him who knows best whether to preserve mine or not; to His will do I resign myself.  My character and good name are in my own keeping.  Life with disgrace is dreadful.  A glorious death is to be envied;” and he signs himself with