head and the same honest simple manners; but he is devoted to Emma, he thinks her quite an angel, and talks of her as such to her face and behind her back, and she leads him about like a keeper with a bear.  She must sit by him at dinner to cut his meat, and he carries her pocket-handkerchief.  He is a gig from ribands, orders and stars, but he is just the same with us as ever he was;” and she mentions his outspoken gratitude to Minto for the substantial service he had done him, and the guidance he had imparted to his political thought,—­an acknowledgment he frequently renewed up to the last days of his life.

Lady Minto’s nephew, Lord Fitzharris, the son of the Earl of Malmesbury, was then in Vienna, apparently as an attache.  He speaks in the same way of Nelson himself, but with less forbearance for Lady Hamilton; and he confirms the impression that Nelson at this time had lost interest in the service.  Writing to his father, he says:  “Nelson personally is not changed; open and honest, not the least vanity about him.  He looks very well, but seems to be in no hurry to sail again.  He told me he had no thoughts of serving again.”  “Lord Nelson and the Hamiltons dined here the other day; it is really disgusting to see her with him.”  A few days later there was a ball at Prince Esterhazy’s, where Fitzharris was present.  “Lady Hamilton is without exception the most coarse, ill-mannered, disagreeable woman I ever met with.  The Princess had with great kindness got a number of musicians, and the famous Haydn, who is in their service, to play, knowing Lady Hamilton was fond of music.  Instead of attending to them she sat down to the Faro table, played Nelson’s cards for him, and won between L300 and L400.  In short, I could not disguise my feeling, and joined in the general abuse of her."[10] The impression that Nelson would decline further service had been conveyed to other friends.  Troubridge, who had meanwhile returned to England, wrote two months later to a young lieutenant who wished to get on board the admiral’s next ship:  “Lord Nelson is not yet arrived in England, and between ourselves I do not think he will serve again.”

Both Lady Minto and Fitzharris have recorded an account given them by Nelson, of his motives for action at the Battle of the Nile.  “He speaks in the highest terms of all the captains he had with him off the coast of Egypt,” writes the former, “adding that without knowing the men he had to trust to, he would not have hazarded the attack, that there was little room, but he was sure each would find a hole to creep in at.”  In place of this summary, her nephew gives words evidently quite fresh from the speaker’s lips.  “He says, ’When I saw them, I could not help popping my head every now and then out of the window, (although I had a d——­d toothache), and once as I was observing their position I heard two seamen quartered at a gun near me, talking, and one said to the other, ’D——­n them, look at them,