Satisfied that invasion was, for that year at least, an empty menace, Nelson fell again into the tone of angry and fretful complaint which was so conspicuous in the last weeks of his stay in the Baltic. To borrow the words of a French admirer, "He filled the Admiralty with his caprices and Europe with his fame." Almost from his first contact with this duty, it had been distasteful to him. "There is nothing to be done on the great scale," he said. "I own, my dear Lord," he told St. Vincent, "that this boat warfare is not exactly congenial to my feelings, and I find I get laughed at for my puny mode of attack." As usual, he threw himself with all his might into what he had to do, but the inward friction remained. "Whilst I serve, I will do it actively, and to the very best of my abilities. I have all night had a fever, which is very little abated this morning; my mind carries me beyond my strength, and will do me up; but such is my nature. I require nursing like a child."
That he was far from well is as unquestionable as that his distemper proceeded largely from his mind, if it did not originate there. "Our separation is terrible," he writes to Lady Hamilton; "my heart is ready to flow out of my eyes. I am not unwell, but I am very low. I can only account for it by my absence from all I hold dear in this world." From the first he had told St. Vincent that he could not stay longer than September 14th, that it was beyond his strength to stand the equinoctial weather. The veteran seaman showed towards him the same delicate consideration that he always had, using the flattering urgency which Nelson himself knew so well how to employ, in eliciting the hearty co-operation of others. "The public mind is so much tranquillised by your being at your post, it is extremely desirable that you should continue there: in this opinion all His Majesty's servants, with Sir Thomas Troubridge, agree. Let me entreat your Lordship to persevere in the measures you are so advantageously employed in, and give up, at least for the present, your intention of returning to town, which would have the worst possible effect at this critical juncture. The dispositions you have made, and are making, appear to us all as the most judicious possible." "I hope you will not relinquish your situation at a moment when the services of every man are called for by the circumstances the Country is placed in, so imperiously that, upon reflection, I persuade myself you will think as I, and every friend you have, do on this subject." Nelson admitted, in a calmer moment, that "although my whole soul is devoted to get rid of this command, yet I do not blame the Earl for wishing to keep me here a little longer." "Pray take care of your health," the latter says again, "than which nothing is of so much consequence to the Country at large, more particularly so to your very affectionate St. Vincent." "Your health is so precious at all times, more particularly so at this crisis."
St. Vincent tried in vain to conjure with the once beloved name of Troubridge, whom Nelson used to style the "Nonpareil," whose merits he had been never weary of extolling, and whose cause he had pleaded so vehemently, when the accident of his ship's grounding deprived him of his share in the Battle of the Nile. From the moment that he was chosen by St. Vincent, who called him the ablest adviser and best executive officer in the British Navy, to assist in the administration of the Admiralty, Nelson began to view him jealously. "Our friend Troubridge is to be a Lord of the Admiralty, and I have a sharp eye, and almost think I see it. No, poor fellow, I hope I do him injustice; he cannot surely forget my kindness to him." But when the single eye has become double, suspicion thrives, and when tortured by his desire to return to Lady Hamilton, Nelson saw in every obstacle and every delay the secret hand of Troubridge. "I believe it is all the plan of Troubridge," he wrote in one such instance, "but I have wrote both him and the Earl my mind." To St. Vincent, habit and professional admiration enabled him to submit, if grudgingly, and with constant complaints to his confidante; but Troubridge, though now one of the Board that issued his orders, was his inferior in grade, and he resented the imagined condition of being baffled in his wishes by a junior. The latter, quick-tempered and rough of speech, but true as his sword, to use St. Vincent's simile, must have found himself put to it to uphold the respect due to his present position, without wronging the affection and reverence which he undoubtedly felt for his old comrade, and which in the past he had shown by the moral courage that even ventured to utter a remonstrance, against the infatuation that threatened to stain his professional honor.
Such straining of personal relations constantly accompanies accession to office; many are the friendships, if they can be called such, which cannot endure the experience that official action may not always be controlled by them. If such is to be noted in Nelson, it is because he was no exception to the common rule, and it is sad that a man so great should not in this have been greater than he was. St. Vincent felt it necessary to tell him, with reference to the difficulty of granting some requests for promotion, "Encompassed as I am by applications and presumptuous claims, I have nothing for it but to act upon the defensive, as your Lordship will be compelled to do, whenever you are placed in the situation I at present fill." This Nelson contents himself with quoting; but of Troubridge he says: "Troubridge has so completely prevented my mentioning any body's service, that I am become a cypher, and he has gained a victory over Nelson's spirit. Captain Somerville has been begging me to intercede with the Admiralty again; but I have been so rebuffed, that my spirits are gone, and the great Troubridge has what we call cowed the spirits of Nelson; but I shall never forget it. He told me if I asked anything more that I should get nothing. No wonder I am not well."
The refusal of the Admiralty to give him leave to come to London, though founded on alleged motives of state, he thinks absurd. "They are beasts for their pains," he says; "it was only depriving me of one day's comfort and happiness, for which they have my hearty prayers." His spleen breaks out in oddly comical ways. "I have a letter from Troubridge, recommending me to wear flannel shirts. Does he care for me? No; but never mind." "Troubridge writes me, that as the weather is set in fine again, he hopes I shall get walks on shore. He is, I suppose, laughing at me; but, never mind." Petulant words, such as quoted, and others much more harsh, used to an intimate friend, are of course to be allowed for as indicating mental exasperation and the excitement of baffled longings, rather than expressing permanent feeling; but still they illustrate mental conditions more faithfully than do the guarded utterances of formal correspondence. Friendship rarely regains the ground lost in them. The situation did undoubtedly become exasperating towards the end, for no one pretended that any active service could be expected, or that his function was other than that of a signal displayed, indicating that Great Britain, though negotiating for peace, was yet on her guard. Lying in an open roadstead, with a heavy surf pouring in on the beach many days of the week, a man with one arm and one eye could not easily or safely get back and forth; and, being in a small frigate pitching and tugging at her anchors, he was constantly seasick, so much so "that I cannot hold up my head," afflicted with cold and toothache,—"but none of them cares a d—n for me and my sufferings."
In September the Hamiltons came to Deal, off which the ship was lying, and remained for a fortnight, during which he was happy; but the reaction was all the more severe when they returned to town on the 20th. "I came on board, but no Emma. No, no, my heart will break. I am in silent distraction.... My dearest wife, how can I bear our separation? Good God, what a change! I am so low that I cannot hold up my head." His depression was increased by the condition of Parker, the young commander, who had been wounded off Boulogne, and had since then hovered between life and death. The thigh had been shattered too far up for amputation, and the only faint hope had been that the bones might reunite. The day that the Hamiltons left, the great artery burst, and, after a brief deceitful rally, he died on the 27th of September. Nelson, who was tenderly attached to him, followed him to the grave with emotion so deep as to be noticeable to the bystanders. "Thank God," he wrote that afternoon, "the dreadful scene is past. I scarcely know how I got over it. I could not suffer much more and be alive." "I own," he had written to St. Vincent immediately after the repulse, "I shall never bring myself again to allow any attack to go forward, where I am not personally concerned; my mind suffers much more than if I had a leg shot off in this late business."
The Admiralty refusing any allowances, much of the expense of Parker's illness and of his funeral fell upon Nelson, who assumed all his debts. It was but one instance among many of a liberality in money matters, which kept him constantly embarrassed. To the surgeon who had attended the wounded, and to the captain of the "Medusa," a much richer man than he was, but who had shown him kindness, he gave handsome remembrances of the favors which he was pleased to consider done to himself personally. In a like spirit he wrote some months afterwards, concerning a proposed monument to Captain Ralph Willett Miller, who had fought under his flag. "I much doubt if all the admirals and captains will subscribe to poor dear Miller's monument; but I have told Davison, that whatever is wanted to make up the sum, I shall pay. I thought of Lord St. Vincent and myself paying,£50 each; some other admirals may give something, and I thought about £12 each for the captains who had served with him in the actions off Cape St. Vincent and the Nile. The spirit of liberality seems declining; but when I forget an old and dear friend, may I cease to be your affectionate Nelson and Bronté." Yet at this period he felt it advisable to sell the diamonds from the presents given him by foreign sovereigns. He was during these weeks particularly pressed, because in treaty for a house which he bought at Merton in Surrey, and for which he had difficulty in raising funds. In this his friend Davison helped him by a generous and unlimited offer of a loan. "The Baltic expedition," wrote Nelson in his letter of thanks, "cost me full £2,000. Since I left London it has cost me, for Nelson cannot be like others, near £1,000 in six weeks. If I am continued here, ruin to my finances must be the consequence."
On the 1st of October the Preliminaries of Peace with France were signed, and on the 9th news of their ratification reached Nelson on board his ship. "Thank God! it is peace," he exclaimed. Yet, while delighted beyond measure at the prospect of release from his present duties, and in general for the repose he now expected, he was most impatient at the exuberant demonstrations of the London populace, and of some military and naval men. "Let the rejoicings be proper to our several stations—the manufacturer, because he will have more markets for his goods,—but seamen and soldiers ought to say, 'Well, as it is peace, we lay down our arms; and are ready again to take them up, if the French are insolent.' There is no person in the world rejoices more in the peace than I do, but I would burst sooner than let a d—d Frenchman know it. We have made peace with the French despotism, and we will, I hope, adhere to it whilst the French continue in due bounds; but whenever they overstep that, and usurp a power which would degrade Europe, then I trust we shall join Europe in crushing her ambition; then I would with pleasure go forth and risk my life for to pull down the overgrown detestable power of France." When the mob in London dragged the carriage of the French ambassador, his wrath quite boiled over. "Can you cure madness?" he wrote to his physician; "for I am mad to read that our d—d scoundrels dragged a Frenchman's carriage. I am ashamed for our Country." "I hope never more to be dragged by such a degenerate set of people," he tells Lady Hamilton. "Would our ancestors have done it? So, the villains would have drawn Buonaparte if he had been able to get to London to cut off the King's head, and yet all our Royal Family will employ Frenchmen. Thanks to the navy, they could not." Nelson's soul was disturbed without cause. Under the ephemeral effervescence of a crowd lay a purpose as set as his own, and of which his present emotions were a dim and unconscious prophecy.
On the 15th of October he received official notification for the cessation of hostilities with the French Republic, the precise date at which they were to be considered formally at an end having been fixed at the 22d of the month. The Admiralty declined to allow him to leave his station until that day arrived. Then he had their permission to take leave of absence, but not to haul down his flag. "I heartily hope a little rest will soon set you up," wrote St. Vincent, "but until the definitive treaty is signed, your Lordship must continue in pay, although we may not have occasion to require your personal services at the head of the squadron under your orders." In accordance with this decision, Nelson's flag continued to fly as Commander-in-Chief of a Squadron of ships "on a particular service," throughout the anxious period of doubt and suspicion which preceded the signing of the treaty of Amiens, on the 25th of March, 1802. It was not till the 10th of the following April that he received the formal orders, to strike his flag and come on shore.
On the 22d of October, 1801, he left the flagship and set off for his new home in Surrey.