caressingly. His personal daring at St. Vincent, and against the
gunboats off Cadiz, ministered more directly to his self-esteem, to
that consciousness of high desert which was dear to him, than did the
Battle of the Nile, whose honors he, though ungrudgingly, shared with
his "band of brothers."

When the "Lowestoffe" had been a year upon the station, it became very
doubtful whether Locker could continue in her, and finally he did go
home ill. It was probably due to this uncertainty that he obtained the
transfer of Nelson, in whom he had become most affectionately
interested, to the "Bristol," flagship of Sir Peter Parker, the
commander-in-chief. Here, under the admiral's own eye, warmly
recommended by his last captain, and with a singular faculty for
enlisting the love and esteem of all with whom he was brought into
contact, the young officer's prospects were of the fairest; nor did
the event belie them. Joining the "Bristol" as her third lieutenant,
not earlier than July, 1778, he had by the end of September risen "by
succession"--to use his own phrase--to be first; a promotion by
seniority whose rapidity attests the rate at which vacancies occurred.
Both Parker and his wife became very fond of him, cared for him in
illness, and in later years she wrote to him upon each of the
occasions on which he most brilliantly distinguished himself--after
St. Vincent, the Nile, and Copenhagen. "Your mother," said she after
the first, "could not have heard of your deeds with more affection;
nor could she be more rejoiced at your personal escape from all the
dangers of that glorious day;" and again, after the Nile, "Sir Peter
and I have ever regarded you as a son." The letter following the
victory at Copenhagen has not been published; but Nelson, whose heart
was never reluctant to gratitude nor to own obligation, wrote in
reply: "Believe me when I say that I am as sensible as ever that I