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The Life of Nelson, Volume 1 (of 2) - The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain by A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan
page 118 of 497 (23%)
During this stormy and anxious period, Nelson shared the feelings of
his day and class. It is noteworthy, however, that, in regarding the
perils of the time, he was no mere panic-monger, but showed the same
discriminating carefulness of observation that had distinguished him
as captain of the "Boreas," and had elicited the admiration of Mr.
Rose. Strenuous and even bigoted royalist as he always was, satisfied
of the excellence of the British Constitution, and condemning utterly
the proceedings of the more or less seditious societies then forming
throughout the kingdom, he yet recognized the substantial grievances
of the working-men, as evident in the district immediately under his
eye. The sympathetic qualities which made him, fortune's own favorite
in his profession, keenly alive to the hardships, neglect, and
injustice undergone by the common seaman, now engaged him to set forth
the sad lot of the ill-paid rural peasantry. In his letters to the
Duke of Clarence, he on the one hand strongly blames the weakness and
timidity of the justices and country gentlemen, in their attitude
towards the abettors of lawlessness; but, on the other, he dwells upon
the sufferings of the poor, prepares a careful statement of their
earnings and unavoidable expenses, and insists upon the necessity of
the living wage. The field laborers, he said, "do not want loyalty,
many of their superiors, in many instances, might have imitated their
conduct to advantage; but hunger is a sharp thorn, and they are not
only in want of food sufficient, but of clothes and firing."

Under the threatening outlook, he considers that every individual will
soon "be called forth to show himself;" and for his own part, he
writes on the 3d of November, he sees no way so proper as asking for a
ship. But, even at that late moment, neither Pitt nor his associates
had abandoned the hope of peace, and this, as well as other
applications of Nelson's, received only a formal acknowledgment
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