using the flattering urgency which Nelson himself knew so well how to employ, in eliciting the hearty co-operation of others.  “The public mind is so much tranquillised by your being at your post, it is extremely desirable that you should continue there:  in this opinion all His Majesty’s servants, with Sir Thomas Troubridge, agree.  Let me entreat your Lordship to persevere in the measures you are so advantageously employed in, and give up, at least for the present, your intention of returning to town, which would have the worst possible effect at this critical juncture.  The dispositions you have made, and are making, appear to us all as the most judicious possible.”  “I hope you will not relinquish your situation at a moment when the services of every man are called for by the circumstances the Country is placed in, so imperiously that, upon reflection, I persuade myself you will think as I, and every friend you have, do on this subject.”  Nelson admitted, in a calmer moment, that “although my whole soul is devoted to get rid of this command, yet I do not blame the Earl for wishing to keep me here a little longer.”  “Pray take care of your health,” the latter says again, “than which nothing is of so much consequence to the Country at large, more particularly so to your very affectionate St. Vincent.”  “Your health is so precious at all times, more particularly so at this crisis.”

St. Vincent tried in vain to conjure with the once beloved name of Troubridge, whom Nelson used to style the “Nonpareil,” whose merits he had been never weary of extolling, and whose cause he had pleaded so vehemently, when the accident of his ship’s grounding deprived him of his share in the Battle of the Nile.  From the moment that he was chosen by St. Vincent, who called him the ablest adviser and best executive officer in the British Navy, to assist in the administration of the Admiralty, Nelson began to view him jealously.  “Our friend Troubridge is to be a Lord of the Admiralty, and I have a sharp eye, and almost think I see it.  No, poor fellow, I hope I do him injustice; he cannot surely forget my kindness to him.”  But when the single eye has become double, suspicion thrives, and when tortured by his desire to return to Lady Hamilton, Nelson saw in every obstacle and every delay the secret hand of Troubridge.  “I believe it is all the plan of Troubridge,” he wrote in one such instance, “but I have wrote both him and the Earl my mind.”  To St. Vincent, habit and professional admiration enabled him to submit, if grudgingly, and with constant complaints to his confidante; but Troubridge, though now one of the Board that issued his orders, was his inferior in grade, and he resented the imagined condition of being baffled in his wishes by a junior.  The latter, quick-tempered and rough of speech, but true as his sword, to use St. Vincent’s simile, must have found himself put to it to uphold the respect due to his present position, without wronging the affection and reverence which he undoubtedly felt for his old comrade, and which in the past he had shown by the moral courage that even ventured to utter a remonstrance, against the infatuation that threatened to stain his professional honor.