All sorts of public and private honours and testimonials were
conferred upon Nelson during his stay at Hamburg on his way home after
the mortifications caused by the elusive French fleet, Calabrian
brigands, and the alluring attractions of the Court of Naples and
Sicily. One hundred grenadiers, each six feet high, waited at table
when he was being banqueted. The owner of a Magdeburg hotel where he
stayed made money by setting up a ladder outside Nelson's sitting-room
and charging a fee for mounting it and peeping at the hero inside the
room. An aged wine merchant at Hamburg offered him through Lady
Hamilton six dozen bottles of Rhenish wine of the vintage of 1625. It
had been in his own possession for fifty years, and he hoped that some
of it would be allowed to flow with the blood of the immortal hero, as
it would then make the giver happy. Nelson shook hands with the old
man, and consented to receive six bottles, provided he would dine with
him next day. A dozen were sent, and Nelson put aside six, saying that
it was his hope to win half a dozen more victories, and that one
bottle would be drunk after each.

Another aged man, whose ideals were of a different and higher order,
came along. He was a German pastor who, at eighty years of age or
thereabouts, had travelled forty miles with the object of getting
Nelson to write his immortal, name in his Bible. The venerable
Lutheran prelate, with a grateful heart, asked to be allowed to
record his blessing and admiration for the gallant British Admiral by
stating to him, amongst other modestly selected phrases, that "he was
the Saviour of the Christian world." The pastor's fervent testimony of
his work and his mission touched Nelson on a tender spot. In his
rough-and-ready way, he believed in the efficacy of prayer, and he
knew when the old man, bowed down by age, parted from him that he
would be steadfast in his petitions to the Giver of all mercies that