Much as he enjoyed his home and desired peace, Nelson had never felt assured of its continuance.  Like Great Britain herself during this repose, he rested with his arms at his side, ready for a call.  The Prime Minister, Addington, has transmitted a curious story of the manner in which he exemplified his ideas of the proper mode of negotiating with Bonaparte.  “It matters not at all,” he said, taking up a poker, “in what way I lay this poker on the floor.  But if Bonaparte should say it must be placed in this direction,” suiting the action to the word, “we must instantly insist upon its being laid in some other one.”  At the same time Bonaparte, across the Channel, was illustrating in almost identical phrase the indomitable energy that was common to these two men, the exponents of the two opposing and irreconcilable tendencies of their age.  “If the British ministry should intimate that there was anything the First Consul had not done, because he was prevented from doing it, that instant he would do it.”  “You have proved yourself too true a prophet,” wrote an occasional correspondent to Nelson, “for you have said ever since the peace that it could not be of long duration.”  Jar after jar, as Bonaparte drove his triumphal chariot over the prostrate continent, announced the instability of existing conditions; and the speech from the throne on the 16th of November, 1802, was distinctly ominous, if vague.  Nelson then seconded the address in the House of Peers, in words so characteristic of his own temper, and of that then prevailing in the nation, that they serve to explain the strong accord between him and it, and to show why he was so readily and affectionately distinguished as its representative hero.  They are thus reported:—­

“I, my Lords, have in different countries, seen much of the miseries of war.  I am, therefore, in my inmost soul, a man of peace.  Yet I would not, for the sake of any peace, however fortunate, consent to sacrifice one jot of England’s honour.  Our honour is inseparably combined with our genuine interest.  Hitherto there has been nothing greater known on the Continent than the faith, the untainted honour, the generous public sympathies, the high diplomatic influence, the commerce, the grandeur, the resistless power, the unconquerable valour of the British nation.  Wherever I have served in foreign countries, I have witnessed these to be sentiments with which Britons were regarded.  The advantages of such a reputation are not to be lightly brought into hazard.  I, for one, rejoice that his Majesty has signified his intention to pay due regard to the connection between the interests of this country and the preservation of the liberties of Europe.  It is satisfactory to know, that the preparations to maintain our dignity in peace, are not to be neglected.  Those supplies which his Majesty shall for such purposes demand, his people will most earnestly grant.  The nation is satisfied that the Government seeks