remained in Palermo, Nelson would have been forced
to a choice between leaving her and the Mediterranean, or yielding a
submission to orders which to the last he never gave, when fairly out
of signal distance. But the Foreign Office had decided that Sir
William should not return after the leave for which he had applied;
and in the beginning of March it was known at Palermo that his
successor had been appointed. This Nelson also learned, at the latest,
when he came back there on the 16th. To one correspondent he wrote,
on the 28th, "Most probably my health will force me to retire in
April, for I am worn out with fatigue of body and mind," and his
application was sent in on the 6th of the latter month, after news of
the "Guillaume Tell's" capture. On the 22d Hamilton presented his
letters of recall, and on the 24th he and Lady Hamilton, with a party,
embarked on board the "Foudroyant" for a trip to Syracuse and Malta,
from which they all returned to Palermo on the first of June. Against
this renewed departure Troubridge again remonstrated, in words which
showed that he and others saw, in Nelson's determination to abandon
the field, the results of infatuation rather than of illness. "Your
friends, my Lord, absolutely, as far as they dare, insist on your
staying to sign the capitulation. Be on your guard." Keith also wrote
him in generous and unexceptionable terms: "I am very sorry, my dear
Nelson, for the contents of your letter, and I hope you will not be
obliged to go: strictly speaking, I ought to write to the Admiralty
before I let a flag-officer go off the station; particularly as I am
directed to send you, if you like it, to Egypt; but when a man's
health is concerned, there is an end of all, and I will send you the
first frigate I can lay hold of."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The title of Bronte was assumed in Sicily only, until he received the
consent of George III. to accept it.

[2] The italics to this point are Nelson's; afterwards the author's.

[3] The Paget Papers, London, 1896, vol. i. p. 200.

[4] Nelsonian Reminiscences, by Lieutenant G.S. Parsons. The author has
been able to test Parsons' stories sufficiently to assure himself that they
cannot be quoted to establish historical fact; but such scenes as here
given, or how many glasses of wine Nelson drank at dinner, or that the
writer himself was out of clean shirts, when asked to dine at the admiral's
table, are trivialities which memory retains.

[5] Frigates