[66] Author’s italics.

[67] Author’s italics.

[68] “Rank” doubtless is meant by this singularly ill-chosen word.

[69] As General Sherman justly asked, “What reward adequate to the service, could the United States have given Grant for the Vicksburg campaign?”

CHAPTER XI.

NELSON’S RETURN FROM EGYPT TO NAPLES.—­MEETING WITH LADY
HAMILTON.—­ASSOCIATION WITH THE COURT OF NAPLES.—­WAR BETWEEN NAPLES
AND FRANCE.—­DEFEAT OF THE NEAPOLITANS.—­FLIGHT OF THE COURT TO
PALERMO.

SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER, 1798.  AGE, 40.

The voyage of Nelson’s small division from Aboukir Bay to Naples occupied between four and five weeks, owing partly to light and contrary winds, and partly to the dull sailing of the “Culloden,” which had a sail secured under her bottom to lessen the dangerous leak caused by her grounding on the night of the battle.  This otherwise unwelcome delay procured for Nelson a period of salutary, though enforced, repose, which the nature of his injuries made especially desirable.  His mind, indeed, did not cease to work, but it was free from harassment; and the obvious impossibility of doing anything, save accept the present easy-going situation, contributed strongly to the quietness upon which restoration depended.  Nor were there wanting matters of daily interest to prevent an excess of monotony.  Now that frigates were no longer so vitally necessary, they and other light cruisers turned up with amusing frequency, bringing information, and being again despatched hither and yonder with letters from the admiral, which reflected instinctively his personal moods, and his active concern in the future military operations.

The distress from his head continued for some time with little abatement, and naturally much affected his tone of mind.  At the first he spoke of his speedy return to England as inevitable, nor did the prospect occasion the discouragement which he had experienced after the loss of his arm; a symptom which had shown the moral effect of failure upon a sensitive and ambitious temperament.  “My head is ready to split,” he had written to St. Vincent before starting, “and I am always so sick; in short, if there be no fracture, my head is severely shaken.”  A fortnight after leaving the bay, he writes him again:  “I know I ought to give up for a little while; my head is splitting at this moment;” and Nicolas remarks that the letter bears evident marks of suffering, three attempts being made to spell the word “splitting.”  Yet by this time the pain had become at least intermittent, for Saumarez, whose squadron fell in with the admiral’s division several times, notes that on the 26th of August he spent half an hour on board the flagship, and found him in perfect health; and on the 7th of September Nelson himself writes to the British minister at Florence that he felt so much recovered, it was probable he would not go home for the present.  A few days later he wrote to Hood, off Alexandria, that he relied upon the thoroughness of the blockade to complete the destruction of the French army.  “I shall not go home,” he added, “until this is effected, and the islands of Malta, Corfu, &c., retaken.”