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Lord Viscount Nelson's transcendent and heroic services will, I am persuaded, exist for ever in the recollection of my people; and, while they tend to stimulate those who come after him, they will prove a lasting source of strength, security, and glory, to my dominions.
The King's Answer to the City of London's Address on the Battle of
Trafalgar.
LONDON:
Printed at the Ranelagh Press,
BY STANHOPE AND TILLING;
FOR C. CHAPPLE, PALL MALL, AND SOUTHAMPTON ROW,
RUSSELL SQUARE.
1806.
THE LIFE
OF
LORD NELSON,
DUKE OF BRONTE, &c.
In tracing the history of a hero so active as Lord Nelson, the mind canscarcely be allowed a moment's pause. His multifarious transactions,indeed, frequently arise in such rapid successions, that they become fartoo much involved with each other to admit of any precise chronologicalarrangement. Operations are commenced, which cannot always be soonbrought to a conclusion: and, while these are transacting, an attentionto other occurrences, of more or less magnitude, becomes perpetuallyrequisite; which are, in their turn, subjected to similarprocrastinating delays and necessarily diverted attentions.
The cares of Lord Nelson can hardly be said to have one minute ceased,even when he landed, in safety, at Palermo, the royal and illustriouscharacters, and their immense treasure, which he had successfullyconveyed thither, amidst such alarming difficulties and dangers. Hisanxious bosom, it is true, was now relieved from the apprehensions whichit had suffered during the storm; and felt, no doubt, as it ought, asympathetic sense of the grateful felicitations of beloved friends, onthe event of their happy arrival at a place of secure refuge. He couldnot, indeed, fail to rejoice in their joy: but it was, with all of them,a joy mingled with melancholy; and, with him, it was particularly so.
An intellectual tempest, at this apparently enviable period of ourhero's glory, was violently agitating the secret recesses of his toosusceptible heart. Justly jealous of honour, his soul ever kindled withalarm at the most remote idea of aught that could, by any possibility ofimplication, be considered as having the smallest tendency to sully orimpair a single particle of that celestial inheritance which he feltconscious of having a legitimate right to possess in undiminishedlustre, If it should be thought, by the more calmly philosophical mind,that he might someti