Such straining of personal relations constantly accompanies accession to office; many are the friendships, if they can be called such, which cannot endure the experience that official action may not always be controlled by them.  If such is to be noted in Nelson, it is because he was no exception to the common rule, and it is sad that a man so great should not in this have been greater than he was.  St. Vincent felt it necessary to tell him, with reference to the difficulty of granting some requests for promotion, “Encompassed as I am by applications and presumptuous claims, I have nothing for it but to act upon the defensive, as your Lordship will be compelled to do, whenever you are placed in the situation I at present fill.”  This Nelson contents himself with quoting; but of Troubridge he says:  “Troubridge has so completely prevented my mentioning any body’s service, that I am become a cypher, and he has gained a victory over Nelson’s spirit.  Captain Somerville has been begging me to intercede with the Admiralty again; but I have been so rebuffed, that my spirits are gone, and the great Troubridge has what we call cowed the spirits of Nelson; but I shall never forget it.  He told me if I asked anything more that I should get nothing.  No wonder I am not well.”

The refusal of the Admiralty to give him leave to come to London, though founded on alleged motives of state, he thinks absurd.  “They are beasts for their pains,” he says; “it was only depriving me of one day’s comfort and happiness, for which they have my hearty prayers.”  His spleen breaks out in oddly comical ways.  “I have a letter from Troubridge, recommending me to wear flannel shirts.  Does he care for me? No; but never mind.”  “Troubridge writes me, that as the weather is set in fine again, he hopes I shall get walks on shore.  He is, I suppose, laughing at me; but, never mind.”  Petulant words, such as quoted, and others much more harsh, used to an intimate friend, are of course to be allowed for as indicating mental exasperation and the excitement of baffled longings, rather than expressing permanent feeling; but still they illustrate mental conditions more faithfully than do the guarded utterances of formal correspondence.  Friendship rarely regains the ground lost in them.  The situation did undoubtedly become exasperating towards the end, for no one pretended that any active service could be expected, or that his function was other than that of a signal displayed, indicating that Great Britain, though negotiating for peace, was yet on her guard.  Lying in an open roadstead, with a heavy surf pouring in on the beach many days of the week, a man with one arm and one eye could not easily or safely get back and forth; and, being in a small frigate pitching and tugging at her anchors, he was constantly seasick, so much so “that I cannot hold up my head,” afflicted with cold and toothache,—­“but none of them cares a d—­n for me and my sufferings.”