.

CHAPTER XV.

NELSON LEAVES THE MEDITERRANEAN.--THE JOURNEY OVERLAND THROUGH
GERMANY.--ARRIVAL IN ENGLAND.--SEPARATION FROM LADY NELSON.--HOISTS
HIS FLAG IN THE CHANNEL FLEET, UNDER LORD ST. VINCENT.

JUNE, 1800--JANUARY, 1801. AGE, 42.

At the time Nelson and the Hamiltons returned to Palermo, the Queen of
Naples was wishing, for political reasons, to visit Vienna. To meet
this wish Nelson took the "Foudroyant" and "Alexander" off the
blockade of Malta, that they might carry herself and suite to Leghorn,
together with the Hamiltons. He clung also to the hope that Keith
would give him his powerful flagship to return to England, in which
case the Hamiltons would go with him. "I go with our dear friends Sir
William and Lady Hamilton," he wrote to Lord Minto; "but whether by
water or land depends on the will of Lord Keith. May all orders be as
punctually obeyed," alluding to the completion of the destruction of
the Nile fleet by the capture of the "Guillaume Tell," "but never
again an officer at the close of what I must, without being thought
vain (for such I am represented by enemies), call a glorious career,
be so treated!"

Keith's opinion of Nelson's obedience was probably somewhat different.
The latter had written him on the 12th of May, that, being under an
old promise to carry the Queen to the Continent, he proposed to take
the two ships-of-the-line for that purpose, and Keith sent him a
letter forbidding him to do so, and directing them to be sent back at
once to Malta. Nelson, it is true, did not receive this; but it is
impossible to reconcile with attention to orders the diversion of two
ships of their force from the singularly important station appointed
them by the commander-in-chief, without reference to him, and using
them to carry about foreign sovereigns. On arriving in Leghorn, on the
14th of June, Nelson announced the fact to Keith, with apparent
perfect unconsciousness that the latter could be other than charmed.
"I was obliged to bring the Alexander, or the party never could have
been accommodated: I therefore trust you will approve of it." "I was
so displeased by the withdrawing of the ships from before Malta,"
wrote Keith to Paget, "and with other proceedings, that her Majesty
did not take any notice of me latterly." It would seem also that some
harm had come of it. "What a clamour, too, letting in the ships to
Malta will occasion. I assure you nothing has given me more real
concern,