Immediately upon landing at Yarmouth, Nelson had written to the Admiralty that his health was perfectly restored, and that he wished to resume service immediately.  He was soon designated to a command in the Channel fleet, under Earl St. Vincent, who had been commander-in-chief since the spring of 1800.  The “San Josef,” the three-decker boarded by him at Cape St. Vincent, was named to receive his flag, and on the 17th of January it was hoisted on board her, at Plymouth,—­blue at the fore, he having been promoted Vice-Admiral of the Blue on New Year’s Day.  An arrangement, however, had already been made, that, if the impending difficulties with Denmark threatened to lead to hostilities, he should accompany the fleet sent to the Baltic, as second to Sir Hyde Parker, selected for the chief command.  While he was officially reporting to St. Vincent, on the 16th, at Torbay, preparatory to hoisting his flag, a letter from Parker informed him that the armament was decided upon.  This he showed at once to St. Vincent, who acquiesced of course in the disappointment, but expressed a hope that after a brief absence he would rejoin him.

By the first of February the “San Josef” had gone round to Torbay, the rendezvous of the Channel fleet under St. Vincent’s command, and there it was that Nelson received the news of the birth, on the 29th or 30th of January, of the child Horatia, whose parentage for a long time gave rise to much discussion, and is even yet considered by some a matter of doubt.  Fortunately, that question requires no investigation here; as regards the Life of Nelson, and his character as involved in this matter, the fact is beyond dispute that he believed himself the father, and Lady Hamilton the mother, of the girl, whose origin he sought to conceal by an elaborate though clumsy system of mystification.  This might possibly have left the subject covered with clouds, though not greatly in doubt, had not Lady Hamilton, after wildly unnecessary lying on her own part, recklessly preserved her holdings of a correspondence which Nelson scrupulously destroyed, and enjoined her to destroy.

The sedulous care on his side to conceal the nature of their relations, and the reckless disregard of his wishes shown by her, is singularly illustrated by the method he took to bring the child into her charge, from that of the nurse to whom it had been intrusted.  When it was somewhat over three years old, on the 13th of August, 1804, he wrote Lady Hamilton a letter, evidently to be used, where necessary, to account for its presence under his roof.  “I am now going to state a thing to you and to request your kind assistance, which, from my dear Emma’s goodness of heart, I am sure of her acquiescence in.  Before we left Italy I told you of the extraordinary circumstance of a child being left to my care and protection.  On your first coming to England I presented you the child, dear Horatia.  You became, to my comfort, attached to it, so did Sir William,