o room for doubt, in the mind of Lady
Hamilton or of the world, that he was entirely faithful to her.

[15] The author has italicized these words because they accurately express
the just penalty that military law would have required of Nelson, had he
not shown adequate grounds for his disobedience. They measure, therefore,
the responsibility he shouldered, and the reward he deserved.

[16] Sir Harris Nicolas (Nelson's Despatches and Letters, vol. i. p. 217)
gives March 12 as the day of the wedding, upon the ground of a letter of
Lady Nelson's. Her mention of the date is, however, rather casual; and
March 11 is given in the parish register of the church in Nevis.

[17] The same symptom will be noted in the anxious pursuit of Villeneuve to
the West Indies in 1805, where he grew better, although for some months he
had had in his hands the Admiralty's permission to return home on account
of his health.

CHAPTER III.

NELSON'S DEPARTURE FROM ENGLAND IN THE "AGAMEMNON."--SERVICES IN THE
MEDITERRANEAN UNTIL THE RECOVERY OF TOULON BY THE FRENCH.--LORD HOOD
IN COMMAND.

FEBRUARY-DECEMBER, 1793. AGE, 34.

Nelson's page in history covers a little more than twelve years, from
February, 1793, to October, 1805. Its opening coincides with the
moment when the wild passions of the French Revolution, still at
fiercest heat, and which had hitherto raged like flame uncontrolled,
operative only for destruction, were being rapidly mastered, guided,
and regulated for efficient work, by the terrors of the Revolutionary
Tribunal and the Committee of Public Safety. In the object to which
these tremendous forces were now about to be applied lay the threat to
the peace of Europe, which aroused Great Britain to action, and sent
into the field her yet unknown champion from the Norfolk parsonage.
The representatives of the French people had imparted to the original
movement of their nation,--which aimed only at internal reforms,
however radical,--a new direction, of avowed purposeful aggression
upon all political institutions exterior to, and differing from, their
own. This became the one characteristic common to the successive forms
of government, which culminated in the pure military despotism of
Napoleon.

To beat back that spirit of aggression was the mission of Nelson.
Therein is found the true significance of his career, which mounts
higher and higher in strenuous effort and gigantic achievement, as the
blast of the Revolution