With the highest pleasure, I received your esteemed favour, proceeding from your generous and well-disposed mind; since, on my part, I conceive, no laurel is due to him who only fulfils what humanity dictates:  and I have done no more, in behalf of the wounded men, as well as others who disembarked; and whom, after all warfare has ceased, I ought to consider as brothers.

“If, in the state to which the uncertain fate of war has led you, it were in my power, or could any thing that this island produces afford the least comfort or aid to you, it would yield me the truest satisfaction:  and, I hope, you will admit of a couple of large flasks of Canary wine; which, I believe, is none of the worst that this island produces.

“A personal intercourse will give me great pleasure, when circumstances permit it, with a person so deserving, and of such distinguished qualifications as you so feelingly indicate.  Meantime, I pray God to preserve you in his holy keeping; and am, Sir, your most obedient servant,

     “Don Antonio Gutierrez.

     “P.S.  I have received, and highly esteem, the cask of beer, and
     cheese, which you have done me the favour to send me.”

     “Rear-Admiral Nelson.”

On the 27th of July, there was a solemn Te Deum sung by the Spaniards, in the parochial church of Santa Cruz:  that day being the festival of St. Christopher, the tutelary patron of the island; on which an annual thanksgiving is celebrated, as being the identical day when that island was first conquered, three hundred and one years prior to this period.

Such are the chief particulars of the Spanish account, as supplied by Sir John Talbot Dillon’s most respectable translation; and which places in a very amiable point of view the characters of the respective commanders.

On comparing the various accounts of this unfortunate expedition, there are certainly some incongruities.  In the numerous biographical memoirs of Lord Nelson, either abridged or amplified from that in the Naval Chronicle, it is stated that the rear-admiral “received his wound soon after the detachment had landed.”  In these, too, it is added that, “while they were pressing on with the usual ardour of British seamen, the shock caused him to fall to the ground; where, for some minutes, he was left to himself, till Lieutenant Nesbit, missing him, had the presence of mind to return:  when, after some search in the dark, he at length found his brave father-in-law weltering in his blood on the ground, with his arm shattered, and himself apparently lifeless.  Lieutenant Nesbit, having immediately applied his neck-handkerchief as a tourniquet to the rear-admiral’s arm, carried him on his back to the beach; where, with the assistance of some sailors, he conveyed him into one of the boats, and put off to the Theseus, under a tremendous, though happily ill-directed, fire from the enemy’s batteries.  The day after the rear-admiral lost his arm,” concludes the Naval Chronicle account, “he wrote to Lady Nelson; and, in narrating the foregoing transaction, says—­“I know it will add much to your pleasure, on finding that your son Josiah, under God’s providence, was instrumental in saving my life.”