mature age to write my memories. With your permission, then, we
will push my own personality as far as possible out of the picture.
If you can conceive me as a thin and colourless cord upon which my
would-be pearls are strung, you will be accepting me upon the terms
which I should wish.

Our family, the Stones, have for many generations belonged to the
navy, and it has been a custom among us for the eldest son to take
the name of his father's favourite commander. Thus we can trace our
lineage back to old Vernon Stone, who commanded a high-sterned,
peak-nosed, fifty-gun ship against the Dutch. Through Hawke Stone
and Benbow Stone we came down to my father, Anson Stone, who in his
turn christened me Rodney, at the parish church of St. Thomas at
Portsmouth in the year of grace 1786.

Out of my window as I write I can see my own great lad in the
garden, and if I were to call out "Nelson!" you would see that I
have been true to the traditions of our family.

My dear mother, the best that ever a man had, was the second
daughter of the Reverend John Tregellis, Vicar of Milton, which is a
small parish upon the borders of the marshes of Langstone. She came
of a poor family, but one of some position, for her elder brother
was the famous Sir Charles Tregellis, who, having inherited the
money of a wealthy East Indian merchant, became in time the talk of
the town and the very particular friend of the Prince of Wales. Of
him I shall have more to say hereafter; but you will note now that
he was my own uncle, and brother to my mother.

I can remember her all through her beautiful life for she was but a