LORD NELSON had often talked with Captain HARDY on the subject of his being killed in battle, which appeared indeed to be a favourite topic of conversation with him.  He was always prepared to lay down his life in the service of his Country; and whenever it should please Providence to remove him from this world, it was the most ambitious wish of his soul to die in the fight, and in the very hour of a great and signal victory.  In this he was gratified:  his end was glorious; and he died as he had lived, one of the greatest among men.

The following Prayer, found in HIS LORDSHIP’S memorandum-book,—­and written with his own hand on the night of his leaving Merton, at one of the places where he changed horses (supposed to be Guildford) on his way to join the Victory at Portsmouth,—­is highly illustrative of those sentiments of combined piety and patriotic heroism with which he was inspired: 

"Friday Night, 13th September.

“Friday night, at half past ten, drove from dear, dear Merton, where I left all which I hold dear in this world, to go to serve my King and Country.  May the great GOD whom I adore, enable me to fulfil the expectations of my Country! and if it is His good pleasure that I should return, my thanks will never cease being offered up to the throne of His mercy.  But if it is His good providence to cut short my days upon earth, I bow with the greatest submission; relying that He will protect those, so dear to me, that I may leave behind.  His will be done!

“AMEN, amen, amen.”

HIS LORDSHIP had on several occasions told Captain HARDY, that if he should fall in battle in a foreign climate, he wished his body to be conveyed to England; and that if his Country should think proper to inter him at the public expence, he wished to be buried in Saint Paul’s, as well as that his monument should be erected there.  He explained his reasons for preferring Saint Paul’s to Westminster Abbey, which were rather curious:  he said that he remembered hearing it stated as an old tradition when he was a boy, that Westminster Abbey was built on a spot where once existed a deep morass; and he thought it likely that the lapse of time would reduce the ground on which it now stands to its primitive state of a swamp, without leaving a trace of the Abbey.  He added, that his actual observations confirmed the probability of this event.  He also repeated to Captain HARDY several times during the last two years of his life:  “Should I be killed, HARDY, and my Country not bury me, you know what to do with me;” meaning that his body was in that case to be laid by the side of his Father’s, in his native village of Burnham Thorpe in Norfolk:  and this, as has been before mentioned (in page 48), he adverted to in his last moments.