“When I sat down, I intended to commence by letting you know that I have heard from ——­ of the last week’s illness and decease of our early, and I believe almost our oldest friend, ——.  He states, that he died, by God’s mercy, free from pain; that his suffering was not much, and he bore it patiently, with a calm mind, keeping his senses to the last few hours.  That you had paid your old friend a last visit, from which, he says, he appeared to be quite revivified; that his eyes sparkled with inward joy, and that he had asked kindly after me; that he went off at last in a kind of sleep, without a struggle, and had felt all the comfort which could be given him by a sincere old friend.  I was very glad to hear that you had given him the comfort of taking leave of him, for I readily believe he ever felt for you unabated friendship, and for myself also.  I think we must have known him above three-score years.  I am sure you will derive pleasure from having shown him that your friendship could only end by his death.”

In the last week of December, 1831, after an extraordinary exemption from such trials in his own family, he lost his youngest daughter.  Little more than two months elapsed, when on the 2nd of March the warning was repeated in the almost sudden death of a grandchild, daughter of his eldest son.  He communicated this event with the reflection—­“We have long been mercifully spared.  Death has at length entered our family, and it behoves us all to be watchful."[16]

In the spring of this year he was made Vice-Admiral of England, and was honoured at the same time with a very flattering letter from his Sovereign.  This he immediately enclosed to his elder brother, to whom he knew it would give pleasure.  Of the appointment itself, he remarked, “I shall have it only for one year.”  He held it but for a few months.

In May, Sir Israel Pellew was on his death-bed; and Lord Exmouth, though he now travelled with much difficulty and pain, could not refuse himself the melancholy satisfaction of a parting visit to one with whom he had been so closely and affectionately united.  Their brother came up from Falmouth on the same errand, and on this painful occasion they all met for the last time.  He then returned to his home, which he never left again.

He cherished a very strong attachment to the Church; and for more than thirty years had been a member of the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, which he joined when the claims of the society were so little appreciated, that only principle could have prompted the step.  It might therefore be expected that he would feel deep anxiety when the safety of that Church was threatened.  But upon this subject his mind was firm; and in one of the last letters he ever wrote, dated August 28th, he declares his confidence in the most emphatic language.  After some personal observations to the friend he was addressing, one of his old officers, he alludes to the cholera, then