ship was fought with the fury of courage and genius that Nelson himself could not have failed to admire.  The Penelope and Lion had been mauled off when the Foudroyant came on the scene and shot away her main and mizzen masts, when a French sailor, like Jack Crawford of Sunderland at the battle of Camperdown, nailed the ensign to the stump of the mizzen mast.  The foremast was the only mast now remaining, and it was soon sent flying over the side by the terrific firing from the British ship.  She then took her colours down, ceased firing, and became the prize of the heroes who had fought and conquered.  Nelson might and ought to have had the glory of taking the last of the Nile fleet, had he not allowed a perverse spirit to rule his will.  He nursed and inflamed his imagination against Lord Keith being put over him, until that fine zeal that was so natural to him slackened.  He writes to Hamilton that his “situation is irksome.”  “Lord Keith is commander-in-chief, and he (Nelson) has not been kindly treated.”  He tells Spencer that he has written to Lord Keith, asking for permission to come to England, when he (the First Lord) will “see a broken-hearted man,” and that his “spirit cannot submit to it.”  The Admiralty may have been inspired to place Lord Keith in supreme command owing to Nelson’s association with the Court party at Palermo and the growing scandal attached to it.  But in that case they should have frankly told him that they feared the effect his dallying at Palermo might have on the service in many different ways.

Troubridge and Captain Ball urged him with all the sincerity of devotion not to return to Sicily, but to remain at Malta, and sign the capitulation which was near at hand; but they could not alter his resolve to leave the station, which Troubridge said was due to the passion of infatuation and not to illness, which he had ascribed as the reason.  Nelson tried the patience of the First Lord (who was his friend) so sorely that he wrote him a private letter which was couched in gentle though, in parts, cutting reproaches.  He obviously believed that the plea of ill-health was groundless, or at all events not sufficiently serious to justify him giving up.  He very fairly states that he is quite convinced that he will be more likely to recover his health in England than by an inactive stay at the Court of Sicily, however pleasing the gratitude shown him for the services he has rendered may be, and that no gratitude from that Court can be too great in view of the service he had bestowed upon it.  Lord Minto, who was Ambassador at Vienna, says he has letters from Nelson and Lady Hamilton which do not make it clear whether he will go home or not.  He hopes he will not for his own sake, for he wants him to take Malta first; and continues, “He does not seem conscious of the sort of discredit he has fallen into, or the cause of it, for he still writes, not wisely, about Lady Hamilton and all that,” and then generously states, “But it is hard to condemn and use ill a hero, as he is in his own element, for being foolish about a woman who has art enough to make fools of many wiser than an Admiral.”