“Medusa, Downs, 18th Aug. 1801.

“Vice-Admiral Lord Nelson has the greatest satisfaction in sending to the captains, officers, and men, under his command, that were employed in the late attempt on the enemy’s flotilla off Boulogne, an extract of a letter which he has received from the First Lord of the Admiralty; not only approving of their zeal and persevering courage, but bestowing the highest praise on them.  The vice-admiral begs to assure them, that the enemy will not have long reason to boast of their security; for he trusts, ere long, to assist them in person, in a way which will compleatly annihilate the whole of them.  Lord Nelson is convinced that, if it had been possible for men to have brought the enemy’s flotilla out, the men that were employed to do so would have accomplished it.  The moment the enemy have the audacity to cast off the chains which fix their vessels to the ground, that moment, Lord Nelson is well persuaded, they will be conducted, by his brave followers, to a British port, or sent to the bottom.

     “Nelson and Bronte.”

Such were the consolations of these great and congenial minds.  They had nothing with which to upbraid themselves; no cause of censure in any of the brave men employed on the occasion; nor the smallest doubt of success, with the same measures, and the same men, wherever success might be possible.  The chief source of sorrow which afflicted the breast of our hero, was commiseration for the sufferings of the many gallant men who were now languishing, on the bed of anguish, with dreadful and dangerous wounds received in the action.  At the hospital, his lordship was a constant attendant; this, indeed, had ever been his humane practice.  He tenderly enquired into the state of their wounds, and poured the balm of sympathetic solace into their agonized minds.  On beholding a brave fellow, whom he particularly recollected, and kindly asking what injury he had received, his lordship was informed that he had lost an arm.  “Never mind that,” said the hero; “I have lost an arm, too; and, perhaps, shall shortly lose a leg:  but, my good fellow, they can never be lost in a better cause, than in the defence of our country.”  This had a wonderful effect, not only on the man particularly addressed, but all his fellow-sufferers around; several of whom exclaimed, that they should disregard their being wounded, if they were not thus prevented from accompanying his lordship in another attack on the enemy.

While Lord Nelson was engaged in these services off Boulogne, the new concessions of his majesty, with regard to the extensions of his lordship’s titles and honours, had been published in the London Gazette, on the 4th and 12th of August 1801.  The first, announcing his creation to the dignity of Baron of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, by the name, stile, and title, of Baron Nelson of the Nile, and of Hilborough in the county of Norfolk, with remainders:  and the second, that Lord Viscount Nelson had been permitted, by his Majesty’s warrant, dated 7th January 1801, to adopt, for himself and heirs, the title of Duke of Bronte, with the fief of the Dutchy annexed thereto; and, also, to receive the Great Cross of the Order of St. Ferdinand and of Merit, all conferred on him by Ferdinand IV.  King of the Two Sicilies.