With the exception of the “Victory,” under whose flag he fell after two years of arduous, heart-breaking uncertainties, no ship has such intimate association with the career and name of Nelson as has the “Agamemnon.”  And this is but natural, for to her he was the captain, solely, simply, and entirely; identified with her alone, glorying in her excellences and in her achievements, one in purpose and in spirit with her officers and seamen; sharing their hopes, their dangers, and their triumphs; quickening them with his own ardor, moulding them into his own image, until vessel and crew, as one living organism, reflected in act the heroic and unyielding energy that inspired his feeble frame.  Although, for a brief and teeming period, he while in command of her controlled also a number of smaller vessels on detached service, it was not until after he had removed to another ship that he became the squadron-commander, whose relations to the vessel on which he himself dwelt were no longer immediate, nor differed, save in his bodily presence, from those he bore to others of the same division.  A personality such as Nelson’s makes itself indeed felt throughout its entire sphere of action, be that large or small; but, withal, diffusion contends in vain with the inevitable law that forever couples it with slackening power, nor was it possible even for him to lavish on the various units of a fleet, and on the diverse conflicting claims of a great theatre of war, the same degree of interest and influence that he concentrated upon the “Agamemnon,” and upon the brilliant though contracted services through which he carried her.  Bonds such as these are not lightly broken, and to the “Agamemnon” Nelson clave for three long years and more, persistently refusing larger ships, until the exhausted hulk could no longer respond to the demands of her masters, and separation became inevitable.  When he quitted her, at the moment of her departure for England, it was simply a question whether he would abandon the Mediterranean, and the prospect of a great future there opening before him, or sever a few weeks earlier a companionship which must in any event end upon her arrival home.

There is yet another point of view from which his command of the “Agamemnon” is seen to hold a peculiar relation to Nelson’s story.  This was the period in which expectation passed into fulfilment, when development, long arrested by unpropitious circumstances, resumed its outward progress under the benign influence of a favoring environment, and the bud, whose rare promise had long been noted by a few discerning eyes, unfolded into the brilliant flower, destined in the magnificence of its maturity to draw the attention of a world.  To the fulness of his glorious course these three years were what the days of early manhood are to ripened age; and they are marked by the same elasticity, hopefulness, and sanguine looking to the future that characterize youth, before illusions vanish and even success is