Buonaparte has often made his boast that our fleet would be worn out by keeping the sea and that his was kept in order and increasing by staying in port; but know he finds, I fancy, if Emperors hear the truth, that his fleet suffers more in a night than ours in one year.

Desperate affairs require desperate measures.

Laurels grow in the Bay of Biscay, I hope a bed of them may be found in the Mediterranean.

There can be no place for self entirely

Our Country will, I believe, sooner forgive an Officer for attacking his Enemy than for letting it alone.

Firstly, you must always implicitly obey orders, without attempting to form any opinion of your own respecting their propriety. Secondly, you must consider every man your enemy who speaks ill of your king; and thirdly, you must hate a Frenchman, as you do the devil.

If I had been censured every time I have run my ship, or fleets under my command, into great danger, I should have long ago been out of the Service and never in the House of Peers.