Lord Nelson, who had never, till this journey, experienced the pleasures of travelling by any inland navigation, was anxious to behold, and inquisitive to know, every thing.  When night came on, his lordship and Sir William Hamilton often amused themselves, by playing together their favourite game of cribbage:  and, not unfrequently, while passing down this river, was the hero’s busy mind actively employed in forming new plans for future naval attacks; the operations of which, he fully demonstrated to his admiring friends, by instantaneously sketching rough and hasty illustrations of his ideas, must necessarily prove so decisively successful, that the affair off the Nile, the hero maintained, would hereafter be considered as nothing.  Mr. Oliver, his lordship’s confidential secretary and interpreter, who had, during the whole of this voyage, been occasionally dispatched on shore with a servant, in the small boat rowed by two men, was landed within two stages of Hamburgh, to take a post-carriage; announce their approach; and prepare the apartments for their reception, which had been hired by the British consul:  and, on the twelfth day after quitting Dresden, the party arrived safely at Hamburgh, where they were greeted with the most rapturous rejoicings.

The people of all descriptions, in this motley city, hailed our hero with the most perfect unity of sentiment; and, at the theatres, and other public places, even the hat with the Gallic tri-coloured cockade of republicanism was waved with exultation and applause, on beholding the chief champion of royalty and prime protector of kings.  Such was the acknowledged glory of all his public actions, and such the universal sense of respect for the various known virtues of his private character, that every good and great mind aspired to claim for itself the privilege of regarding him as a brother.  The honours which his lordship here received were greater, perhaps, than had ever been before paid to any individual by the joyful inhabitants of this then free commercial city.  The grand governing bodies, every illustrious personage, and all the most opulent merchants, vied with each other in testifying the happiness they felt on thus having the first hero of the world among them.

At a grand fete given by the English merchants to Lord Nelson and his friends, his lordship, after dinner, addressed the company, consisting of all the principal people of Hamburgh, in a very admirable speech, expressive of the high sense which he entertained of their indulgent regards:  and having, a few days before, been to visit the British consul at Altona, who was a brother of his friend Captain.  Cockburne, from whence his lordship, with Sir William and Lady Hamilton, had not returned to Hamburgh till after the gates had been long closed, and were consequently under the necessity, of waiting a considerable time before permission could be obtained for admitting them into the city; his lordship, ingeniously adverting to the circumstance,