ost
zealous in the world. In the short time we were in Sheerness, he
regulated and gave orders for thirty of the ships under his command,
made every one pleased, filled them with emulation, and set them all
on the _qui vive_." In forty-eight hours he was off again for the
Downs, by land, having to make some inquiries on the way as to the
organization, and readiness to serve, of the Sea Fencibles, a large
body of naval reserves, who were exempt from impressment upon the
understanding that they would come forward for coast defence, in case
of threatened invasion. Concerning their dispositions he received
fairly flattering assurances, which in the event were not realized. If
the men were certified that they would not be detained after the
danger was over, it was said, they certainly would go on board. "This
service, my dear Lord," he wrote to St. Vincent, "above all others,
would be terrible for me: to get up and harangue like a recruiting
sergeant; but as I am come forth, I feel that I ought to do this
disagreeable service as well as any other, if judged necessary."

Three days more, and he was off Boulogne in a frigate with some
bomb-vessels. The French admiral, Latouche Treville, had moored in
front of the pier a line of gun-vessels, twenty-four in number,
fastened together from end to end. At these, and at the shipping in
the small port, some bombs were thrown. Not much injury was done on
either side. Prevented by an easterly wind from going on to Flushing,
as he had intended, Nelson returned to Margate on the 6th of August,
issued a proclamation to the Fencibles, assuring them that the French
undoubtedly intended an invasion, that their services were absolutely
required at once on board the defence-ships, and that they could rely
upon being returned to their homes as soon as the danger was over. Out
of twenty-six hundred, only three hundred and eighty-five volunteered
to this urgent call. "They are no more willing to give up their
occupations than their superiors," wrote Nelson, with
characteristically shrewd insight into a frame of mind wholly alien
to his own self-sacrificing love of Country and of glory.

Hurrying from station to station, on the shores, and in the channels
of the Thames, he was on the 12th of August back at Margate, evidently
disappointed in the prospects for coast-defence, and more and more
inclining to the deep-sea cruising, and to action on the enemy's
coast, recommended by the Admiralty, and