It is evident from this letter, and it’s consequences, that the merits of Commodore Nelson were now duly appreciated.  The handsome acknowledgment, by the commander in chief, that he had contributed much to the fortune of the day, was a very sufficient hint that he ought to participate in the honours and advantages which it might be expected to produce.  Sir John Jervis, accordingly, became the Earl of St. Vincent; and Commodore Nelson, Sir Horatio Nelson, K.B.

In the mean time, so enraptured was Sir John Jervis, with the skill and bravery which he had witnessed in the gallant commodore, that he literally clasped him in his arms, when he came on board the Victory, after the action—­dirtied and disfigured as he was, with great part of his hat shot away—­and pressed to his own valiant bosom one of the most heroic hearts that ever inhabited a human breast.

This undoubted fact is given on no less authority than that of Thomas Bolton, Esq. who received it from the honourable lips of his immortal brother-in-law.

A week after the action, on his way to Lisbon, the commodore wrote a letter to Captain Locker, dated on board the Irresistible, Lagos Bay, February 21, 1797; in which, observing that he had been too unwell to write by the Lively frigate, which carried the news of victory to England, he mentions that, as he knows how anxious his friend would be for his welfare, both in health and reputation, he sends him a short detail of the transactions of the Captain:  adding that, if he approved of it, he was at perfect liberty to insert it in the newspapers; inserting the name of “Commodore,” instead of “I.”  He mentions, that Captain Miller and Berry, &c. authenticated the truth, till he quitted the San Josef, to go on board La Minerve; and that, farther than this, the detail should not be printed.  As he does not write for the press, he modestly intimates, there may be parts which require the pruning-knife, which he desires him to use at discretion, without fear.  “I pretend not to say,” concludes he, “that these ships might not have fallen, had I not boarded them:  but, truly, it was far from impossible that they might have forged into the Spanish fleet, as the other two ships did.”

Though the account inclosed in the above letter is in a considerable degree anticipated by the more copious and general narrative of Colonel Drinkwater, and in some measure by the letters of the commander in chief, the circumstance of it’s having been written by the heroic commodore himself will be a better apology for inserting it, than any that could be offered by his biographer for it’s omission.

     A few Remarks relative to the Proceedings of his Majesty’s Ship
     Captain, on board of which Ship Commodore Nelson’s Pendant was
     flying on the 14th of February 1797.

     WRITTEN BY THE COMMODORE.