CHAP. V

Summary

Towards the end of the year, 1795, Captain Nelson received an order to put himself under the command of Sir John Jervis, K. B., dated on board the Lively, in Gibraltar Bay, Nov. 19th. The only acquaintance which the captain of the Agamemnon had with this officer, was in having been introduced to him by Captain Locker, for whom the admiral entertained the highest regard. Without presuming to discuss the merit or demerit of this great naval commander, it is necessary here to remark, that Nelson found in Sir John Jervis, a mind perfectly congenial with his own; active, enterprising, and determined to pursue, against all obstacles, whatever experience, or the passing events of the day, pointed out as his professional or political duty. With the reputation which he had gained in the various gradations of the service, was united a thorough knowledge of the politics of the British empire, and of Europe, and a keen discrimination of the real character and abilities of those officers who served under him. Naturally of an ambitious disposition, and professionally a strict disciplinarian, he despised the trammels, and sometimes perhaps forgot the feelings, which repress common minds; and being determined strictly to execute the important duties that were intrusted to him, he resolved, that every person in the fleet should rigidly do the same. Such, in brief, was the officer, who now superseded Vice-Admiral Sir Hyde Parker, commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean for the time being, after Admiral Hotham had struck his flag, and returned to England.