"I was to have sailed with the fleet this day, but for some private reasons, when my ship was under sail from New York to join Lord Hood, at Sandy Hook, I was sent for on shore, and told I was to be kept forty-eight hours after the sailing of the fleet.

It is much to my private advantage," allowing more latitude for picking up prizes, without having to share with the other ships, "but I had much rather have sailed with the fleet." "Money," he continues, "is the great object here," on the North American Station, "nothing else is attended to,"-- a motive of action which he always rejected with disdain, although by no means insensible to the value of money, nor ever thoroughly at his ease in the matter of income, owing largely to the lavish liberality with which he responded to the calls upon his generosity or benevolence.

A year later he wrote in the same strain: "I have closed the war without a fortune; but I trust, and, from the attention that has been paid to me, believe, that there is not a speck in my character.

True honour, I hope, predominates in my mind far above riches." When news of the peace reached the West Indies, Hood was ordered to return with his fleet to England.

Nelson went home at the same time, being directed first to accompany Prince William Henry in a visit to Havana.