slight. "I feel all, and notwithstanding my desire to be as humble as
the lowest midshipman, perhaps, I cannot submit to be much lower, I am
used to have attention paid me from his superiors." "To say how I miss
your house and company would be saying little; but in truth you and
Sir William have so spoiled me, that I am not happy anywhere else but
with you, nor have I an idea that I ever can be." Keith's comment--the
other point of view--is worth quoting. "Anything absurd coming from
the quarter you mention does not surprise me," he wrote to Paget, who
succeeded Hamilton as minister. "The whole was a scene of fulsome
vanity and absurdity all the _long_ eight days I was at Palermo."[3]

When Keith returned, the capture of Malta, and of the two
ships-of-the-line which had escaped from the Battle of the Nile, were,
by common consent, all that remained to do, in order to round off and
bring to a triumphant conclusion Nelson's Mediterranean career.
Fortune strove hard against his own weakness to add all these jewels
to his crown, but she strove in vain. "We may truly call him a
_heaven_-born Admiral, upon whom fortune smiles wherever he goes." So
wrote Ball to Lady Hamilton, alluding to the first of the favors flung
at his head. "We have been carrying on the blockade of Malta sixteen
months, during which time the enemy never attempted to throw in great
succours. His Lordship arrived off here the day they were within a few
leagues of the island, captured the principal ships, and dispersed the
rest, so that not one has reached the port." It was indeed a
marvellous piece of what men call luck. Nelson had never gone near
Malta since October, 1798, till Keith took him there on the 15th of
February, 1800. The division had no sooner arrived at the island, than
a frigate brought word of a French squadron having been seen off the
west end of Sicily. It was then blowing strong from southeast, and
raining. Keith took his own station off the mouth of the harbor,