SIR,—­You, having thought fit to take to yourself a
     wife, are to look for no further attentions from

     Your humble servant,
     J. JERVIS.

The supposed culprit, guiltless even in thought of this novel misdemeanor, hastened on board, and explained that he abhorred such an offence as much as could the admiral.  It then appeared that the letter had been sent to the wrong person.  Jervis was himself married at this time; but his well-regulated affections had run steadily in harness until the mature age of forty-eight, and he saw no reason why other men should depart from so sound a precedent.  “When an officer marries,” he tersely said, “he is d——­d for the service.”

Returning to England in February, 1795, Jervis was in August nominated to command the Mediterranean station, and in November sailed to take up his new duties.  At the end of the month, in San Fiorenzo Bay, an anchorage in the north of Corsica, he joined the fleet, which continued under his flag until June, 1799.  He had now reached the highest rank in his profession, though not the highest grade of that rank as it was then subdivided; being a full Admiral of the Blue.  The crowning period of his career here began.  Admirable and striking as had been his previous services, dignified and weighty as were the responsibilities borne by him in the later part of a life prolonged far beyond the span of man, the four years of Jervis’s Mediterranean command stand conspicuous as the time when preparation flowered into achievement, solid, durable, and brilliant.  It may be interesting to Americans to recall that his age was nearly the same as that of Farragut when the latter assumed the charge in which, after long years of obscure preparation, he also reaped his harvest of glory.  It is likewise worthy of note that this happy selection was made wholly independent of the political bias, which till then had so often and unworthily controlled naval appointments.  Jervis belonged to the small remnant of Whigs who still followed Fox and inveighed against the current war, as unnecessary and impolitic.  It was a pure service choice, as such creditable alike to the Government and the officer.

Though distinguished success now awaited him, a period of patient effort, endurance, and disappointment had first to be passed, reproducing in miniature the longer years of faithful service preceding his professional triumphs.  Jervis came to the Mediterranean too late for the best interests of England.  The year 1795, just ending, was one in which the energies of France, after the fierce rush of the Terror, had flagged almost to collapse.  Not only so, but in its course the republic, discouraged by frequent failure, had decided to abandon the control of the sea to its enemy, to keep its great fleets in port, and to confine its efforts to the harassment of British commerce.  To this change of policy in France is chiefly to be ascribed the failure of naval achievement with which