My Dear Sir,—I cannot too highly appreciate the interest you take in a late event, and happy shall I be to greet you upon the reward due to your exalted and unrivalled services, a manifestation of which has on no occasion been let slip by your old and sincere friend,
St. Vincent.
On the 4th of April 1824, Sir James, then Admiral of the White, hoisted his flag on board the Britannia as Port Admiral at Plymouth. It was during his period of command that Earl Grey, who was fully sensible of the unhandsome and ungrateful manner in which he had been treated, visited Plymouth, and when his health was proposed by Sir James at the Royal Naval Club openly announced his sentiments in the following words:
I rise to offer my best thanks for the manner in which the president (Sir James Saumarez) has been pleased to propose my health, and for the assent which the gentlemen present have given to the gallant Admiral's favourable view of me as a public character. I cannot but remind those about me of the merits of my noble friend—[then correcting himself, Earl Grey went on]—I wish I could call him my noble friend (noble, I mean, in rank, as he is already noble in mind)—I wish I could see him ennobled by his Sovereign, as his services entitle him to be; for who would deny him that honour, who recollects the career which he has run from Rodney's glorious day, the battles off Cape St. Vincent and the Nile, down to his own brilliant exploits in the Crescent and as commander-in-chief at Algeziras, and not say, that if ever a name should or would have graced the peerage, it should have been that of Saumarez?
Ralfe, in his Naval Biography, after alluding to the above speech, justly remarks,—
Were it a matter of importance to adduce further proof of the high opinion entertained of Sir James's abilities, we believe we might name nearly the whole list of Admirals; for we never yet conversed with a single officer who was not loud in his praise, and who did not think the service neglected in his person.
At Plymouth, Sir James received a visit from Lord Exmouth, with whom he had had no personal communication since the time when they both commanded frigates on the Plymouth station.
Sir James struck his flag for the last time on the 10th of May 1827, after a most glorious career of nearly sixty years. His reiterated claims were still disregarded.
We have now arrived at the period when the great revolution in the affairs of the state brought Earl Grey into power, previously to which, his late Majesty William IV. had ascended the throne; and one of the first and most popular acts of the "Sailor King," who well knew the merits of Sir James, was to wipe off that slur on the national gratitude, by raising him to the peerage.
Sir James having arrived in London, had communication with Sir James Graham, then first Lord of the Admiralty, after which he wrote as follows: