1797, it was announced that the king had raised him to the dignity of
the peerage.

The prospect now darkened round every quarter of the horizon. The
power of Austria had given way; Spain and Holland were combined
against our naval supremacy; Italy was lost; a French expedition
threatened Ireland; there was a strong probability of the invasion of
Portugal; and the junction of the French and Spanish fleets might
endanger not merely the Tagus fleet, but expose the Channel fleet to
an encounter with numbers so superior, as to leave the British shores
open to invasion. The domestic difficulties, too, had their share.
The necessity of suspending cash payments at the Bank had, if not
thrown a damp upon the nation, at least given so formidable a ground
for the fallacies and bitterness of the Opposition, as deeply to
embarrass even the fortitude of the great minister. We can now see how
slightly all these hazards eventually affected the real power of
England; and we now feel how fully adequate the strength of this
extraordinary and inexhaustible country was to resist all obstacles
and turn the trial into triumph. But faction was busy, party predicted
ruin, public men used every art to dispirit the nation and inflame the
populace; and the result was, a state of public anxiety of which no
former war had given the example.

It is incontestable that the list of the British navy at this period
of the war exhibited some of the noblest specimens of English
character--brave, intelligent, and indefatigable men, ready for any
service, and equal for all; with all the intrepidity of heroes,
possessing the highest science of their profession, and exhibiting at
once that lion-heartedness, and that knowledge, which gave the British
navy the command of the ocean. And yet, if we were to assign the