Viscount Samuel Hood (1724-1816)

The Hood family provided a number of sailors during the Nelson era.

For clarification I will list the principal relationships below.

            Nelson first met Samuel Hood in the West Indies, where Nelson was a captain and Hood second-in-command of the Fleet under Admiral Rodney.

            It was on board Hood's ship that Nelson met the Duke of Clarence, later to be Nelson's best man and later still, Willam IV of England

            Their relationship developed in the Mediterranean after the commencement of the war with France in 1793. 

            When naval preparations in anticipation of the declaration of war by France, in 1793, commenced, Nelson, on the 30th of January of that year, was offered the command of the Agamemnon (64), "in the handsomest way, and put under the command of that great man and excellent officer, Lord Hood, appointed to the command in the Mediterranean"

Hood was commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean fleet and Nelson was captain of the Agamemnon. In 1794 Hood wished to take possession of the island of Corsica as a base of operations. The town of Bastia capitulated on 19 May, causing Nelson to write to his brother as follows:

            "All has been done by seamen and troops embarked under the orders of Lord Hood, who has given in this instance a most astonishing proof of the vigour of his mind and of his zeal and judgement . . . 4500 men have laid down their arms to under 1200 troops and seamen; it is such an event as is  hardly on record." 

            In early August, Calvi, the last stronghold of the French, surrendered and on 10 Aug the whole island submitted to the English. Shortly afterwards Hood was recalled to England under the pretence of ill-health, but most likely on account of a difference of opinion with the admiralty or the ministry. Nelson ascribed it to some "contemptible intrigue."  

            "The absence of Lord Hood," wrote Nelson, "was a national calamity."

            Although the recall was supposed to be a temporary arrangement, the news of Hood's resignation called forth a fresh burst of Nelson's indignation.

            "The fleet," Nelson wrote, "must regret the loss of Lord Hood, the best officer, take him altogether, that England has to boast of; great in all situations which an admiral can be placed in."