use.
While Lord Nelson was busily exerting himself for the security of
Messina, as the key to the island of Sicily, the masters of English
merchant vessels at Palermo were impatient for convoy, that they might
convey their cargoes to Leghorn. On the hazard of visiting a place so
critically situated, he felt it his duty strongly to remonstrate; and,
aware how often danger is disregarded, where the loss is to fall on
underwriters, he even suggested the impropriety of thus incurring risks
which could not possibly be in the contemplation of the parties at the
time of effecting the insurances, before he gave his reluctant consent
for their departure.
This great man was indifferent to nothing by which either national or
individual honour might be affected. A just sense of Lord Nelson's
services, in this respect, has probably contributed, in no slight
degree, to the extreme popularity of that most laudable institution for
the relief of suffering seamen and marines, and their distressed
families, so happily commenced and continued by the Committee at
Lloyd's. Nor is, perhaps, the idea very chimerical, when we reflect on
the magnitude of the contributions, which looks forward to a possible
permanent establishment, at no distant day, on this very basis; in which
the voluntary subscriptions of benevolent and opulent individuals shall
almost vie, in the extent of it's charity to this meritorious class of
society, whose services can alone preserve the united kingdom and it's
extended commerce in full security, with the grand and munificent public
endowment which so nobly adorns our country at Greenwich: to which,
also, some national augmentation might, with much propriety, be at the
same time made; not only to keep pace with the increase of our navy, but
to afford an equally needful asylum for those deserving and greatly
exposed auxiliaries, the unfortunate and superannuated Royal Marines. A
sight of such noble institutions, with suitable pictures and statues of
naval heroes and their glorious atchievements, in which Lord Nelson and
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