lieutenant who wished to get on board the admiral's next ship: "Lord
Nelson is not yet arrived in England, and between ourselves I do not
think he will serve again."

Both Lady Minto and Fitzharris have recorded an account given them by
Nelson, of his motives for action at the Battle of the Nile. "He
speaks in the highest terms of all the captains he had with him off
the coast of Egypt," writes the former, "adding that without knowing
the men he had to trust to, he would not have hazarded the attack,
that there was little room, but he was sure each would find a hole to
creep in at." In place of this summary, her nephew gives words
evidently quite fresh from the speaker's lips. "He says, 'When I saw
them, I could not help popping my head every now and then out of the
window, (although I had a d----d toothache), and once as I was
observing their position I heard two seamen quartered at a gun near
me, talking, and one said to the other, 'D----n them, look at them,
there they are, Jack, if we don't beat them, they will beat us.' He
says, 'I knew what stuff I had under me, so I went into the attack
with only a few ships, perfectly sure the others would follow me,
although it was nearly dark and they might have had every excuse for
not doing it, yet they all in the course of two hours found a hole to
poke in at. If,' he added, 'I had taken a fleet of the same force from
Spithead, I would sooner have thought of flying than attacking the
French in their position, but I knew my captains, nor could I say
which distinguished himself most.'" Yet to Lady Minto he revealed the
spirit he was of. "I told him I wished he had the command of the
Emperor's army. He said, 'I'll tell you what. If I had, I would only
use one word--_advance_, and never say _retreat_.'"

After a month's stop at Vienna, during which Sir William Hamilton's