Lady Hamilton, however, was a better business-man than himself, and went about his purchase with the deliberation of a woman shopping.  At the end of three weeks he was still regretting that he could not “find a house and a little ece of ground, for if I go on much longer with my present command, I must be ruined.  I think your perseverance and management will at last get me a home.”  By the 20th of August she was suited, for on that date he writes to her, “I approve of the house at Merton;” and, as the Admiralty would not consent to his leaving his station even for a few days, all the details of the bargain were left in her hands.  “I entreat, my good friend, manage the affair of the house for me.”  He stipulates only that everything in it shall be his, “to a book or a cook,” or even “to a pair of sheets, towels, &c.”  “I entreat I may never hear about the expenses again.  If you live in Piccadilly or Merton it makes no difference, and if I was to live at Merton I must keep a table, and nothing can cost me one-sixth part which it does at present.”  “You are to be, recollect, Lady Paramount of all the territories and waters of Merton, and we are all to be your guests, and to obey, all lawful commands.”

In this way were conducted the purchase and preparation of the only home of his own on English ground that Nelson ever possessed, where he passed his happiest hours, and from which he set out to fight his last battle.  The negotiation was concluded three days before the rumors of the peace got abroad, therefore about the 27th of September, 1801; and in consequence, so Sir William Hamilton thought, the property was acquired a thousand pounds cheaper than it otherwise might have been—­a piece of financial good luck rare in Nelson’s experience.  “We have now inhabited your Lordship’s premises some days,” continued the old knight, “and I can now speak with some certainty.  I have lived with our dear Emma several years.  I know her merit, have a great opinion of the head and heart that God Almighty has been pleased to give her; but a seaman alone could have given a fine woman full power to chuse and fit up a residence for him without seeing it himself.  You are in luck, for in my conscience I verily believe that a place so suitable to your views could not have been found, and at so cheap a rate.  The proximity to the capital,”—­Nelson found it an hour’s drive from Hyde Park—­“and the perfect retirement of this place, are, for your Lordship, two points beyond estimation; but the house is so comfortable, the furniture clean and good, and I never saw so many conveniences united in so small a compass.  You have nothing but to come and enjoy immediately; you have a good mile of pleasant dry walk around your own farm.  It would make you laugh to see Emma and her mother fitting up pig-sties and hencoops, and already the Canal is enlivened with ducks, and the cock is strutting with his hens about the walks.”