never went to bed or got up without kneeling down to say his prayers.”  He often expressed his attachment to the church in which he had been brought up, and showed the sincerity of his words by the regularity and respect with which he always had divine service performed on board the “Victory,” whenever the weather permitted.  After the service he had generally a few words with the chaplain on the subject of the sermon, either thanking him for its being a good one, or remarking that it was not so well adapted as usual to the crew.  More than once, on such occasions, he took down a volume of sermons in his own cabin, with the page already marked at some discourse which he thought well suited to such a congregation, and requested Dr. Scott to preach it on the following Sunday.[51]

On the 29th of October, 1801, just one week after he left the Downs, Nelson took his seat in the House of Lords as a Viscount, his former commander-in-chief, Hood, who was of the same rank in the peerage, being one of those to present him.  While in England he spoke from time to time on professional subjects, or those connected with the external policy of the country, on which he held clear and decided opinions, based, naturally, upon naval exigencies.  His first speech was a warm and generous eulogy of Sir James Saumarez, once second to himself at the Battle of the Nile, an officer with whom it is not too much to say he was not in close personal sympathy, as he had been with Troubridge, but who had just fought two desperate squadron actions under conditions of singular difficulty, out of which he had wrenched a success that was both signal and, in the then state of the war and negotiations, most opportune.  “Sir James Saumarez’s action,” said Lord St. Vincent, “has put us upon velvet.”

Nelson’s own thirst for glory made him keenly appreciative of the necessity to be just and liberal, in distributing to those who had achieved great deeds the outward tokens of distinguished service, which often are the sole recompense for dangers run and hardships borne.  Scarcely had he retired from his active command in the Channel when he felt impelled to enter upon a painful and humiliating controversy, on behalf of those who had shared with him all the perils of the desperate Battle of Copenhagen; for which, unlike himself, they had received no reward, but from whom he refused to be dissociated in the national esteem and gratitude.

On the 19th of November, 1801, the City of London voted its thanks to the divisions of the Army and the Navy, whose joint operations during the previous summer had brought to an end the French occupation of Egypt, begun by Bonaparte in 1798.  Nelson had for some time been uneasy that no such notice had been taken of the Battle of Copenhagen, for the custom of the Corporation of the chief city of the Empire, thus to honor the great achievements of their armed forces, was, he asserted, invariable in his experience; consequently, the omission in the case