My fortune, God knows, has grown worse for the service; so much for serving my country! But the devil, ever willing to tempt the virtuous, has made me offer, if any ships should be sent to destroy his Majesty of Morocco's ports, to be there; and I have some reason to think that, should any more come of it, my humble services will be accepted.

I have invariably laid down, and followed close, a plan of what ought to be uppermost in the breast of an officer,--that it is much better to serve an ungrateful country than to give up his own fame.

Posterity will do him justice.

A uniform course of honour and integrity seldom fails of bringing a man to the goal of fame at last." The design against the Barbary pirates, like all other designs against them, was laid aside; and Nelson took his wife to his father's parsonage, meaning only to pay him a visit before they went to France; a project which he had formed for the sake of acquiring a competent knowledge of the French language.

But his father could not bear to lose him thus unnecessarily.