hundred ounces to each of the two barges crews who brought off the royal
family from the palace; one hundred ounces to the admiral's servants;
and one hundred ounces to the barge's crew of the Alcmene. The thousand
ounces for the several persons on board the Vanguard were thus
apportioned, by his lordship's directions--The wardroom, one hundred
ounces; twenty-seven gentlemen of the quarter-deck, and
warrant-officers, four ounces each; five hundred and seventy-nine seamen
and marines, one and one-third of an ounce each; twenty-six boys, half
an ounce each; and a surplus of seven ounces, to be expended for general
use.

While Lord Nelson was busily exerting himself for the security of
Messina, as the key to the island of Sicily, the masters of English
merchant vessels at Palermo were impatient for convoy, that they might
convey their cargoes to Leghorn. On the hazard of visiting a place so
critically situated, he felt it his duty strongly to remonstrate; and,
aware how often danger is disregarded, where the loss is to fall on
underwriters, he even suggested the impropriety of thus incurring risks
which could not possibly be in the contemplation of the parties at the
time of effecting the insurances, before he gave his reluctant consent
for their departure.

This great man was indifferent to nothing by which either national or
individual honour might be affected. A just sense of Lord Nelson's
services, in this respect, has probably contributed, in no slight
degree, to the extreme popularity of that most laudable institution for
the relief of suffering seamen and marines, and their distressed
families, so happily commenced and continued by the Committee at
Lloyd's. Nor is, perhaps, the idea very chimerical, when we reflect on
the magnitude of the contributions, which looks forward to a possible