The four years of peace passed happily away, principally at Burnham with his father; and there is little to quote till we find him on his own element again. He writes to Hercules Ross, a West India merchant, with whom he had formed a steady friendship while on that station; and we adduce the passage as a further corroboration of Sir Harris Nicolas's doubts about the authenticity of Clarke and M'Arthur's anecdote.
"You have given up all the toils and anxieties of business, whilst I must still buffet the waves—in search of what? That thing called honour, is now, alas, thought of no more. My integrity cannot be mended, I hope; but my fortune, God knows, has grown worse for the service. So much for serving my country. But the devil, ever willing to tempt the virtuous, (pardon this flattery of myself,) has made me offer, if any ships should be sent to destroy his majesty of Morocco's ports, to be there; and I have some reason to think that, should any more come of it, my humble services will be accepted. I have invariably laid down, and followed close, a plan of what ought to be uppermost in the breast of an officer; that it is much better to serve an ungrateful country, than to give up his own fame. Posterity will do him justice; a uniform conduct of honour and integrity seldom fails of bringing a man to the goal of fame at last."
But in spite of the coolness of the jacks-in-office, and the cold shoulder they turned to the little troublesome captain in the time of peace, no sooner were we likely to come to loggerheads with the French, than they turned their eyes to the quiet Norfolk parsonage, and made the amende to the iracundus Achilles.
War with France was declared on the 11th of February 1793, and on the 7th of January, Nelson writes as follows:—
To Mrs Nelson.
"Post nubila Phœbus. After clouds comes sunshine. The Admiralty so smile on me, that really I am as much surprised as when they frowned. Lord Chatham yesterday made many apologies for not having given me a ship before this time, and said, that if I chose to take a sixty-four to begin with, I should be appointed to one as soon as she was ready, and whenever it was in his power, I should be removed into a seventy-four. Every thing indicated war. One of our ships looking into Brest, has been fired into; the shot is now at the Admiralty. You will send my father this news, which I am sure will please him.—Love to Josiah, and believe me, your most affectionate
"Horatio Nelson."
The appointment of Nelson to the Agamemnon, a name which he did nearly as much to immortalize as Homer, is the great epoch of his professional life. But though his letters, which now rise to the rank of despatches, become more interesting to those who watch his progress as an officer, there are comparatively fewer which let us into the character of the man. Besides this, the incidents of his career after this time are so well known, that little new can be expected. What novelty, however, there was to be obtained has not escaped the research of the editor, from whom (till we meet him in another volume, when Nelson will again become interesting in his individual capacity, as his secret and confidential letters in the Carraccioli and Lady Hamilton's period, come to be laid before us) we part with feelings of gratitude and respect.