Had the Hamiltons remained in Palermo, Nelson would have been forced to a choice between leaving her and the Mediterranean, or yielding a submission to orders which to the last he never gave, when fairly out of signal distance.  But the Foreign Office had decided that Sir William should not return after the leave for which he had applied; and in the beginning of March it was known at Palermo that his successor had been appointed.  This Nelson also learned, at the latest, when he came back there on the 16th.  To one correspondent he wrote, on the 28th, “Most probably my health will force me to retire in April, for I am worn out with fatigue of body and mind,” and his application was sent in on the 6th of the latter month, after news of the “Guillaume Tell’s” capture.  On the 22d Hamilton presented his letters of recall, and on the 24th he and Lady Hamilton, with a party, embarked on board the “Foudroyant” for a trip to Syracuse and Malta, from which they all returned to Palermo on the first of June.  Against this renewed departure Troubridge again remonstrated, in words which showed that he and others saw, in Nelson’s determination to abandon the field, the results of infatuation rather than of illness.  “Your friends, my Lord, absolutely, as far as they dare, insist on your staying to sign the capitulation.  Be on your guard.”  Keith also wrote him in generous and unexceptionable terms:  “I am very sorry, my dear Nelson, for the contents of your letter, and I hope you will not be obliged to go:  strictly speaking, I ought to write to the Admiralty before I let a flag-officer go off the station; particularly as I am directed to send you, if you like it, to Egypt; but when a man’s health is concerned, there is an end of all, and I will send you the first frigate I can lay hold of.”

FOOTNOTES: 

[1] The title of Bronte was assumed in Sicily only, until he received the consent of George III. to accept it.

[2] The italics to this point are Nelson’s; afterwards the author’s.

[3] The Paget Papers, London, 1896, vol. i. p. 200.

[4] Nelsonian Reminiscences, by Lieutenant G.S.  Parsons.  The author has been able to test Parsons’ stories sufficiently to assure himself that they cannot be quoted to establish historical fact; but such scenes as here given, or how many glasses of wine Nelson drank at dinner, or that the writer himself was out of clean shirts, when asked to dine at the admiral’s table, are trivialities which memory retains.

[5] Frigates.

CHAPTER XV.

NELSON LEAVES THE MEDITERRANEAN.—­THE JOURNEY OVERLAND THROUGH GERMANY.—­ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND.—­SEPARATION FROM LADY NELSON.—­HOISTS HIS FLAG IN THE CHANNEL FLEET, UNDER LORD ST. VINCENT.

JUNE, 1800—­JANUARY, 1801.  AGE, 42.