Convinced that he could not endure another winter such as the last, he made a formal application, about the middle of August, 1804, for permission to go home for a while.

"I consider the state of my health to be such as to make it absolutely necessary that I should return to England to re-establish it.

Another winter such as the last, I feel myself unable to stand against.

A few months of quiet may enable me to serve again next spring; and I believe that no officer is more anxious to serve than myself." In accordance with this last intimation, which speaks his whole heart, he wrote privately to the First Lord that he would like to come back in the spring, if his health were restored, as he believed it would be; and he assured him that his second, Bickerton, whose rank did not entitle him to the chief command under ordinary conditions, was perfectly fitted to hold it during his absence--in short, to keep the place warm for his return.
Nelson knew that the Admiralty was besieged with admirals, many senior to himself, seeking for employment, and that it would be very difficult for it to resist the pressure for the vacancy in "my favourite command," to resume which he was impelled by both his sense of duty and his love of glory.

He wrote therefore to Elliot, and to the King of the Two Sicilies, in the same sense as he had to Melville, recalling his well-tried devotion to the interests of that Court, which a successor might not equally show, and suggesting that his cause would be strengthened by an application for his return on the part of the King.