on board ship!  And I, that have given orders to carry no women to sea in the Victory, to be the first to break them!  I know, my own dear Emma, if she will let her reason have fair play, will say I am right; but she is like Horatia, very angry if she cannot have her own way.”  “Horatia is like her mother; will have her own way, or kick up a devil of a dust,”—­an observation both Greville and Hamilton had had to make.  “Your Nelson,” he concludes, “is called upon, in the most honourable manner, to defend his country.  Absence to us is equally painful:  but, if I had either stayed at home, or neglected my duty abroad, would not my Emma have blushed for me?  She could never have heard my praises, and how the country looks up.”  “The call of our country,” he says again, “makes it indispensable for both our honours—­the country looks up to the services of the poorest individual, much more to me, and are you not a sharer of my glory?”

Of his daily life on board, and intercourse with others, we have intimations, fragmentary yet sufficient.  “Our days,” he himself says, “pass so much alike that, having described one, you have them all.  We now [October] breakfast by candle light; and all retire, at eight o’clock, to bed.”  “We cruise, cruise, and one day so like another that they are hardly distinguishable, but hopes, blessed hopes, keeps us up, that some happy day the French may come out, then I shall consider my duty to my country fulfilled.”  Of one of these monotonous days we have received a description from an officer,[65] a member of the admiral’s mess, who had then too lately entered upon them to feel the full weight of their deadly sameness.

“At 6 o’clock my servant brings a light and informs me of the hour, wind, weather, and course of the ship, when I immediately dress and generally repair to the deck, the dawn of day at this season and latitude being apparent at about half or three-quarters of an hour past six.  Breakfast is announced in the Admiral’s cabin, where Lord Nelson, Rear Admiral Murray, (the Captain of the Fleet,) Captain Hardy, commander of the Victory, the chaplain, secretary, one or two officers of the ship, and your humble servant assemble and breakfast on tea, hot rolls, toast, cold tongue, &c, which when finished we repair upon deck to enjoy the majestic sight of the rising sun (scarcely ever obscured by clouds in this fine climate) surmounting the smooth and placid waves of the Mediterranean, which supports the lofty and tremendous bulwarks of Britain, following in regular train their admiral in the Victory.  Between the hours of 7 and 2 there is plenty of time for business, study, writing, and exercise, which different occupations I endeavour to vary in such a manner as to afford me sufficient employment.  At 2 o’clock a band of music plays till within a quarter of 3, when the drum beats the tune called, ’The Roast Beef of Old England’ to announce the Admiral’s dinner, which is served up exactly