most obedient and faithful servant,

NELSON AND BRONTE.

On the 25th the wind was too strong to allow the ships to lift their
anchors. On the 26th the fleet weighed, and proceeded for a few hours
in the direction of the Great Belt, which Parker had decided to
follow. Captain Otway of the "London," Sir Hyde's flagship, chanced to
have local knowledge of that passage, which had not come before the
council, because he was not a member. When he ascertained the
intention, he explained the difficulties and risks to the admiral,
upon which the latter concluded that the batteries of Cronenburg and
Elsinore presented fewer dangers. He accordingly directed the fleet to
return toward the Sound, and sent Otway to tell Nelson he should take
that route. "I don't care a d--n by which passage we go," replied the
latter, "so that we fight them." "Sir Hyde Parker," he wrote the same
day to Lady Hamilton, "has by this time found out the worth of your
Nelson, and that he is a useful sort of man on a pinch; therefore, if
he ever has thought unkindly of me, I freely forgive him. Nelson must
stand among the first, or he must fall." Side by side with such
expressions of dauntless resolve and unfailing self-confidence stand
words of deepest tenderness, their union under one cover typifying
aptly the twin emotions of heroic aspiration and passionate devotion,
which at this time held within him alternate, yet not conflicting,
sway. In the same letter he tells her fondly, "You know I am more
bigoted to your picture--the faithful representation of you I have
with me--than ever a Neapolitan was to St. Januarius, and look upon
you as my guardian angel, and God, I trust, will make you so to me.
His will be done." From the time of leaving he wrote to her
practically every day. "Mr. S. is quite right," he says to her on one