Robinson Crusoe
. A lieutenant in 1778, he distinguished himself with Rodney in 1782 (post-captain, 1783; rear-admiral, 1805), and at the battle of the Nile, when he commanded the
Alexander
. Nelson had no liking for Ball until the latter saved the dismasted
Vanguard
from going on shore by taking her in tow. Henceforward they were friends, and Nelson spoke of him as one of his "three right arms." By his skill in blockading Valetta (1798-1800), Ball was the hero of the siege of Malta, and (June 6, 1801) was created a baronet for his services, and received the Order of Merit from Ferdinand IV of Naples. When Byron met him, Ball was "His Majesty's Civil Commissioner for the Island of Malta and its Dependencies, and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Order of St. John." S.T. Coleridge, who was with him as secretary from May, 1804, to October, 1805, wrote enthusiastically of him in his letters, and in
The Friend
(3rd edit., vol. i. essay i., and vol. iii. pp. 226-301). But his picture of the admiral would have been more definite had he remembered the spirit of the remark (quoted in
The Friend
) which Ball once made to him: