and forwardness of their predilection for Great Britain.

It has been by some persons imagined, that Lord Nelson was
considerably influenced, in his public declaration concerning the
value of Malta, by ministerial flattery, and his own sense of the
great serviceableness of that opinion to the persons in office. This
supposition is, however, wholly false and groundless. His lordship's
opinion was indeed greatly shaken afterwards, if not changed; but at
that time he spoke in strictest correspondence with his existing
convictions. He said no more than he had often previously declared
to his private friends: it was the point on which, after some
amicable controversy, his lordship and Sir Alexander Ball had "agreed
to differ." Though the opinion itself may have lost the greatest
part of its interest, and except for the historian is, as it were,
superannuated; yet the grounds and causes of it, as far as they arose
out of Lord Nelson's particular character, and may perhaps tend to
re-enliven our recollection of a hero so deeply and justly beloved,
will for ever possess an interest of their own. In an essay, too,
which purports to be no more than a series of sketches and fragments,
the reader, it is hoped, will readily excuse an occasional
digression, and a more desultory style of narration than could be
tolerated in a work of regular biography.

Lord Nelson was an admiral every inch of him. He looked at
everything, not merely in its possible relations to the naval service
in general, but in its immediate bearings on his own squadron; to his
officers, his men, to the particular ships themselves, his affections
were as strong and ardent as those of a lover. Hence, though his
temper was constitutionally irritable and uneven, yet never was a
commander so enthusiastically loved by men of all ranks, from the