additional to the
numerous unrecorded cares and interviews, relating to the routine work
and maintenance of a great squadron, often left bare of resources from
home, and to the support of the destitute population of Malta,--sixty
thousand souls; and all was carried on amid the constant going and
coming of the ambassador's house, kept open to naval officers and
others. This public sort of life and excitement involved considerable
expense, and was little to the taste of either Nelson or Hamilton,
the latter of whom was now approaching his seventieth year; but in it
Lady Hamilton was in all her glory, overwhelmed with compliments, the
victor of the Nile at her feet, and "making a great figure in our
political line," to use her husband's words. "Except to the Court,"
wrote Nelson, replying to a censure from the Admiralty for failing to
send a letter by a certain channel, when he had sent duplicates by two
other conveyances,--"except to the Court, till after eight o'clock at
night I never relax from business. I have had hitherto, the Board
knows, no one emolument--no one advantage of a Commander-in-chief." It
was in reference to this captious rebuff, received when immersed in
cares, that he wrote to Spencer: "Do not, my dear Lord, let the
Admiralty write harshly to me--my generous soul cannot bear it, being
conscious it is entirely unmerited."

While he was striving to gain assistance for the Maltese, he does not
forget to sustain them with hopes, not always too well founded. He
tells Ball he trusts the Messina troops will soon be with him. "You
may depend, in October, I will get 2,000 men on shore at Malta. Niza
is ordered to Lisbon, but I have directed his stay off Malta." He
appeals personally to the British commander at Messina, and to the
Russian minister at Palermo, reminding the latter how dear Malta and
its Order were to his sovereign. "Malta, my dear Sir, is in my
thoughts sleeping or waking." The Portuguese, he tells him, are
ordered home; but, wishing Russian assistance, he does not say that he
has stopped them,--as to which, indeed, he could not feel sure.

The same object pressed upon him while in Port Mahon, and he
succeeded, by his personal enthusiasm, in arousing Erskine's interest
in the matter; but the latter was loaded to the muzzle with
objections. "Sir James," said Nelson to Troubridge, with the amusing
professional prejudice they both entertained, "enters upon the
difficulty of the undertaking in a t