My Dear John,

It is impossible to begin on this day any letter to any person without
most joyfully and most thankfully celebrating the glorious victory of
Lord Nelson. I cannot say that my triumph is so much alloyed as that
of many others seems to be and yet I trust I have as grateful a mind
and as high an admiration for Military renown as another man. No, it
is that I think that Nelson's glorious death is more to be envied than
lamented, and that to die wept by the land we perished for is what he
himself would have wished.

Would to God my little William had been on board Collingwood's ship on
that glorious day, whatever might have been the risque!


_The Same to the Vicar of Newcastle._

Although the death of Nelson is in my judgment more to be envied than
lamented, yet England secured by the loss of his life ought to feel,
bewail & reward it as far as posthumous honours and benefits to his
family and general Regret can do it. The late Victory affords peculiar
satisfaction to me from the brilliant Part that Admiral Collingwood
has had in it & the exquisitely good account he has given of it in his
Dispatches.


_Mrs Spencer-Stanhope to John Spencer-Stanhope._
CANNON HALL, _November 9th, 1805._

Your father said he should write you a long letter this morning.... No