friends, my Lord, absolutely, as far as they dare, insist on your
staying to sign the capitulation. Be on your guard." Keith also wrote
him in generous and unexceptionable terms: "I am very sorry, my dear
Nelson, for the contents of your letter, and I hope you will not be
obliged to go: strictly speaking, I ought to write to the Admiralty
before I let a flag-officer go off the station; particularly as I am
directed to send you, if you like it, to Egypt; but when a man's
health is concerned, there is an end of all, and I will send you the
first frigate I can lay hold of."

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The title of Bronté was assumed in Sicily only, until he received the
consent of George III. to accept it.

[2] The italics to this point are Nelson's; afterwards the author's.

[3] The Paget Papers, London, 1896, vol. i. p. 200.

[4] Nelsonian Reminiscences, by Lieutenant G.S. Parsons. The author has
been able to test Parsons' stories sufficiently to assure himself that they
cannot be quoted to establish historical fact; but such scenes as here
given, or how many glasses of wine Nelson drank at dinner, or that the
writer himself was out of clean shirts, when asked to dine at the admiral's
table, are trivialities which memory retains.

[5] Frigates.