But, while he resented this neglect, it did not greatly interfere with his happiness, which was at this time well-nigh complete.  He complains of ill health, it is true, from time to time, and his means were insufficient duly to keep up the two establishments—­Lady Nelson’s and Merton—­for which he was pecuniarily responsible.  Under this embarrassment he chafed, and with a sense of injustice which was not unfounded; for, if reward be proportioned to merit and to the importance of services rendered, Nelson had been most inadequately repaid.  For the single victories of St. Vincent and Camperdown, each commander-in-chief had received a pension of L3,000.  The Nile and Copenhagen together had brought him no more than L2,000; indeed, as he had already been granted L1,000 a year for St. Vincent, another thousand may be said to have been all he got for two of the greatest victories of the war.  In submitting a request for an increase, he asked pertinently, “Was it, or not, the intention of his Majesty’s Government to place my rewards for services lower than Lord St. Vincent or Lord Duncan?” There was, of course, the damaging circumstance that the conditions under which he chose to live made him poorer than he needed to be; but with this the Government had no concern.  Its only care should have been that its recompense was commensurate with his deserts, and it is revolting to see a man like Nelson, naturally high-toned and always liberal, forced to the undignified position of urging—­and in vain—­for the equal remuneration that should have been granted spontaneously long before.

In his criticisms of the Admiralty’s general course, it does not appear whether Nelson, who was hereafter to be the greatest sufferer from St. Vincent’s excessive economies, realized as yet the particular injury being done by them to the material of the Navy.  In his passion for reform, the veteran seaman obstinately shut his eyes to the threatening condition of the political atmosphere, and refused to recognize the imminent danger of a renewal of the war, because it necessarily would postpone his projected innovations.  Assuming the continuance of peace with all the violence of a prejudice, he permitted the strength and resources of the Navy to deteriorate rapidly, both by direct action and by omission to act.  “Lord St. Vincent,” wrote Minto in November, 1802, “is more violent than anybody against the war, and has declared that he will resign if ministers dare go to war.  His principal reason is, I believe, that the ships are so much out of repair as to be unfit for service.”  “Lord Nelson,” he says at the same period, “has been with me a long time to-day.  He seems much of my mind on material points, but especially on the necessity of being better prepared than we now are.”  The admiral’s own letters at this time make little allusion to the measures, or the neglects, which were rapidly undermining the efficiency of the fleet; but a year after leaving England he wrote, “With all my personal regard for Lord St. Vincent, I am sorry to see that he has been led astray by the opinion of ignorant people.  There is scarcely a thing he has done since he has been at the Admiralty that I have not heard him reprobate before he came to the Board.”