Shortly after this escape, so many of the ship's company fell ill with scurvy that Nelson decided to go back to Quebec, where he arrived on the 17th of September. "For eight weeks," he wrote, "myself and all the officers lived upon salt beef; nor had the ship's company had a fresh meal since the 7th of April." The fears for his health that he had expressed before sailing from England had happily proved groundless, and a month's stay in port which now followed, at the most delightful and invigorating of the American seasons, wrought wonders for him. His letters to Locker state that the voyage agreed with him better than he had expected; while from the St. Lawrence he wrote to his father, "Health, that greatest of blessings, is what I never truly enjoyed until I saw Fair Canada. The change it has wrought, I am convinced, is truly wonderful." This happy result had been due, in part at least, to surroundings that told favorably upon his sensitive nervous system, and not to the bracing climate alone. He had been actively occupied afloat, and had fallen desperately in love with a fair Canadian, around whom his ardent imagination threw that glamour of exaggerated charm in which he saw all who were dear to him, except his wife. Her he seems from the first to have looked upon with affection indeed, but without rapture or illusion. The Canadian affair came near ending in an imprudent offer, from which he was with difficulty deterred by a cool-headed friend. The story runs that, the ship being ordered to New York and ready for sea, he had bidden her good-bye and gone on board, expecting to sail next day; but that, unable to bear the approaching separation, he returned to the city, and was on his way to the lady's home when his friend met him.

Tearing himself away from his mistress by a violent effort, Nelson, on the 20th of October, sailed for New York. Arriving on the 13th of November, he found there a large part of the West India fleet, under Lord Hood, who had been second in command to Rodney on the occasion of the latter's celebrated victory over De Grasse in the previous April. Rodney had since then been recalled to England, while Hood had gone to Boston to look after a division of the beaten French fleet, which was there refitting. He was now on his return to the islands, where the enemy was expected to make a vigorous aggressive campaign the following spring. Extensive preparations were in fact on foot for the reduction of Jamaica, frustrated six months before by De Grasse's mishap. Nelson thus found himself again in tantalizing contact with the stirring circumstance that preludes hostilities, in which he himself had little hope to share; for the "Albemarle" belonged to the North American station, where all active naval operations had ceased with the surrender of Cornwallis the year before. He went, therefore, to Hood, and begged to be transferred to his squadron. In vain did Admiral Digby, his own commander-in-chief, tell him that he was on a good station for prize-money. "Yes," he replied, "but the West Indies is the station for honour."

Digby was reluctant to part with a frigate, as all admirals were; but Hood, either from an intuitive faculty for judging men, or from his conversations with Nelson eliciting the latter's singular knowledge of the higher part of his profession, wished to push an officer of so much promise, and succeeded in obtaining the transfer of the "Albemarle" to his squadron. "I am a candidate with Lord Hood for a line-of-battle ship," wrote Nelson to Locker; "he has honoured me highly, by a letter, for wishing to go off this station to a station of service, and has promised me his friendship." A few months later he wrote again: "My situation in Lord Hood's fleet must be in the highest degree flattering to any young man. He treats me as if I were his son, and will, I am convinced, give me anything I can ask of him." This was really the beginning, the outstart, of Nelson's great career; for Hood's interest in him, then aroused, and deepened by experience to the utmost confidence and appreciation, made itself felt the instant the French Revolutionary War began. Nelson then came at once under his orders, went with him to the Mediterranean, and there speedily made his mark, being transferred from admiral to admiral with ever-growing tokens of reliance. Despite the lapse of time, and the long interval of peace, it is no exaggeration to say that there is a direct connection of cause and effect between his transfer to Hood's fleet, in the harbor of New York, and the battle of Cape St. Vincent, in 1797, when he emerged from merely professional distinction to national renown, standing head and shoulders above all competitors. In the four days that followed his arrival in New York, Nelson took the tide at the flood, and was borne on to fortune. Yet in this, as in many other instant and happy decisions, we may not see the mere casting of a die, the chance result of an irreflective impulse. The determination to change into Hood's squadron, with its powerful, far-reaching effect upon his future, was in necessary logical sequence to Nelson's whole habit of thought, and wish, and previous preparation. He was swept into the current that carried him on to fame by the irresistible tendency of his own conscious will and cherished purpose. Opportunity flitted by; he was ready, and grasped it.

At this turning-point the commendable diligence of his principal biographers has again secured for us a striking description of the young captain's personal appearance, and of the impression produced by his manner upon an interested acquaintance, who afterwards became a warm friend and admirer as well as a frequent correspondent. The narrator—then Prince William Henry, afterwards King William IV.—gave the following account, apparently at some period between 1805, when Nelson fell, and 1809, when the first edition of Clarke and M'Arthur's Life appeared. "I was then a midshipman on board the Barfleur," Lord Hood's flagship, "lying in the Narrows off Staten Island, and had the watch on deck, when Captain Nelson, of the Albemarle, came in his barge alongside, who appeared to be the merest boy of a captain I ever beheld; and his dress was worthy of attention. He had on a full-laced uniform; his lank unpowdered hair was tied in a stiff Hessian tail, of an extraordinary length; the old-fashioned flaps of his waistcoat added to the general quaintness of his figure, and produced an appearance which particularly attracted my notice; for I had never seen anything like it before, nor could I imagine who he was, nor what he came about. My doubts were, however, removed when Lord Hood introduced me to him. There was something irresistibly pleasing in his address and conversation; and an enthusiasm, when speaking on professional subjects, that showed he was no common being." The Countess of Minto, in her Life of Lord Minto, speaks of Nelson's "shock head" at the time (1794) when he was a frequent visitor at the house of Minto, then Sir Gilbert Elliott, and Viceroy of Corsica; a trivial detail, but confirmatory, so far, of the picture drawn by the prince. The latter continued: "Nelson, after this, went with us to the West Indies, and served under Lord Hood's flag during his indefatigable cruise off Cape Francois.... I found him warmly attached to my father [King George III.], and singularly humane. He had the honour of the King's service and the independence of the British navy particularly at heart; and his mind glowed with this idea as much when he was simply captain of the Albemarle, and had obtained none of the honours of his Country, as when he was afterwards decorated with so much well-earned distinction."

The war of 1778 was now fast drawing to its close; the preliminaries of peace being signed in January, 1783, though not ratified till the following September. Hood cruised off Cap Francois, a naval station of the French at the west end of Haiti, to intercept the fleet from Boston, which was understood to be on its way to the Caribbean; but the enemy, learning his whereabouts, went through the Mona Passage, east of the island, thus avoiding a meeting, and was next heard of by the British as being off Curacao far to the southward. Nelson, therefore, had no opportunity to show his prowess in battle; and as only three letters remain covering this uneventful period, little is known of his movements, except that he made an abortive attempt to recapture Turk's Island from the French with a small force of ships he was able to gather at short notice. An interesting indication of the spirit which animated him transpires in the first of the three letters mentioned. He had received unexpected orders to wait in New York after Hood's leaving. "I was to have sailed with the fleet this day, but for some private reasons, when my ship was under sail from New York to join Lord Hood, at Sandy Hook, I was sent for on shore, and told I was to be kept forty-eight hours after the sailing of the fleet. It is much to my private advantage," allowing more latitude for picking up prizes, without having to share with the other ships, "but I had much rather have sailed with the fleet." "Money," he continues, "is the great object here," on the North American Station, "nothing else is attended to,"—a motive of action which he always rejected with disdain, although by no means insensible to the value of money, nor ever thoroughly at his ease in the matter of income, owing largely to the lavish liberality with which he responded to the calls upon his generosity or benevolence. A year later he wrote in the same strain: "I have closed the war without a fortune; but I trust, and, from the attention that has been paid to me, believe, that there is not a speck in my character. True honour, I hope, predominates in my mind far above riches."

When news of the peace reached the West Indies, Hood was ordered to return with his fleet to England. Nelson went home at the same time, being directed first to accompany Prince William Henry in a visit to Havana. The "Albemarle" reached Spithead on the 25th of June, 1783, and was paid off a week later, her captain going on half-pay until the following April. The cruise of nearly two years' duration closed with this characteristic comment: "Not an officer has been changed, except the second lieutenant, since the Albemarle was commissioned; therefore, it is needless to say, I am happy in my ship's company." And again he writes: "My ship was paid off last week, and in such a manner that must flatter any officer, in particular in these turbulent times. The whole ship's company offered, if I could get a ship, to enter for her immediately." Nelson was keenly alive to the impolicy and injury to the service involved in the frequent changes of officers and men from ship to ship. "The disgust of the seamen to the Navy," he wrote immediately after leaving the Albemarle, "is all owing to the infernal plan of turning them over from ship to ship, so that men cannot be attached to their officers, or the officers care twopence about them." This element of personal attachment is never left out of calculation safely.

Nelson was now nearly twenty-five. In direct achievement he had accomplished little, and to most he was unknown; but he did not deceive himself in believing that his reputation was established, and his promise, as a capable man of action, understood by those who knew him, and especially by the brilliant admiral under whom he had last served. Within a week of his release from the ship Hood carried him to Court, and presented him to the King,—an evident proof of his approbation; and Nelson notes that the sovereign was exceedingly attentive. The next few months were spent in London, or at his old home in Norfolk, to which and to his family he was always fondly attached. Toward the end of October he obtained a leave of absence, in order to visit France and acquire the French language. His impressions of that country, as far as he went,—from Calais to St. Omer,—are given in lively enough style in a few letters; but they differ little from what might be expected from any very young man deeply tinged with insular prejudice. "I hate their country and their manners," he wrote, soon after his return; and his biographers were quite right in saying that he had been brought up in the old anti-Gallican school, with prejudices not to be eradicated by a flying visit. He duly records his disgust with two British naval captains, one of whom was afterwards among his most valued and valuable friends, for wearing epaulettes, at that time confined to the French service. "I hold them a little cheap," he said, "for putting on any part of a Frenchman's uniform."

It is more interesting to notice that his impressionable fancy was again taken by an attractive young Englishwoman, the daughter of a clergyman named Andrews, living at St. Omer. "Two very beautiful young ladies," he writes to Locker and to his brother; "I must take care of my heart, I assure you." "My heart is quite secured against the French beauties; I almost wish I could say as much for an English young lady, the daughter of a clergyman, with whom I am just going to dine, and spend the day. She has such accomplishments that, had I a million of money, I am sure I should at this moment make her an offer of them." "The most accomplished woman my eyes ever beheld," he repeats, a month later. The sentimental raptures of a young man about a handsome girl have in themselves too much of the commonplace to justify mention. What is remarkable, and suggests an explanation of the deplorable vagary of his later years, is that his attachment to his wife, even in the days of courtship, elicited no such extravagance of admiration as that into which he freely lapses in his earlier fancies, and yet more in his last absorbing passion. Respect and tenderness for her he certainly felt and expressed; but there is no indication that she ever enkindled his ardent imagination, or filled for him the place of an ideal, which his mental constitution imperatively demanded as an object of worship. The present attachment went so far with him that he wrote to his uncle William Suckling, asking for an allowance to enable him to marry. "If nothing can be done for me," said he, gloomily, "I know what I have to trust to. Life is not worth preserving without happiness; and I care not where I may linger out a miserable existence. I am prepared to hear your refusal, and have fixed my resolution if that should happen.... I pray you may never know the pangs which at this instant tear my heart." If, as is said by the gentlemen into whose hands this letter passed, Suckling consented to help him, as he certainly did at the time of his actual marriage, it seems probable that the lady refused him.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] The precise date of Nelson's entering the Navy, which would be that of his being rated upon the books of the "Raisonnable," is not stated. Accepting the times during which he was borne upon the books of different ships, as given by Sir Harris Nicolas (Letters and Despatches of Lord Nelson, vol. i. p. 4, note), and with them calculating back from October 15, 1773, the day mentioned by Nelson himself as that on which he was paid off from the "Carcass" (Nicolas, p. 5), the date of entry upon the books of the "Raisonnable" would be November 27, 1770; unless, which is unlikely, there were any lost days. The news of the Port Egmont business reached England in October, 1770. Clarke and M'Arthur (Life of Nelson, vol. i. p. 14, note) infer January 1, 1771, for his entry upon the "Raisonnable's" books; but this would not allow the times which Nicolas gives with minute exactness. For his actually joining the "Raisonnable" they give, loosely, the spring of 1771,—March or April. This is very possible, as rating back, for the sake of gaining constructive time needed to qualify for promotion, was tolerated by the practice of the day.

[2] Clarke and M'Arthur, vol. i. p. 31.

[3] Collingwood was nearly fifty when he got his flag. Howe was forty-five, St. Vincent fifty-three, Saumarez forty-four, Exmouth (Pellew) forty-eight.

[4] This appears certain from his letters of July 28 and August 12, which explicitly mention that ship's absence.

[5] The Caribbean was formerly thus styled in contradistinction to the South Sea, the Pacific, which was so called because its first discoverers saw it to the south from the Isthmus.

[6] Cornwallis was an officer of marked gallantry and conduct, who distinguished himself on several occasions, as captain, during the War of 1778, and as admiral during the wars of the French Revolution. He was brother to Lord Cornwallis, who surrendered at Yorktown, in 1781.

[7] That is, stopped.



CHAPTER II.

THE CRUISE OF THE "BOREAS."—CONTROVERSY OVER THE ENFORCEMENT OF THE NAVIGATION ACT.—RETURN TO ENGLAND.—RETIREMENT UNTIL THE OUTBREAK OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.—APPOINTED TO COMMAND THE "AGAMEMNON," 64.

1784-1793. AGE, 26-34.

Whatever the cause, Nelson's visit to France ended prematurely and abruptly. Early in January, 1784, after an absence of two months, he went back to England, announcing to his friends that his coming was only temporary, partly on business, partly for treatment; for his delicate health again occasioned him anxiety. "The frost, thank God, is broke," he wrote; "cold weather is death to me." But even while speaking confidently of his speedy return to the Continent, he dropped a hint that he was disposed to resume the active pursuit of his profession, although on leaving the "Albemarle," six months before, he had said that he could not afford to live afloat, in peace times, in the style then prevalent. "My stay in England will be but very short, without the First Lord in the Admiralty thinks proper to employ me. I shall offer my services." He did see Lord Howe, at that time First Lord, asking him for a ship; and he renewed his cordial relations with Hood, then living in London. On the 18th of March Howe appointed him to the command of the frigate "Boreas." Occupation in peace, with a reduced establishment, was not easy to get, and his brother, an inveterate wirepuller, must needs know to whose favor Nelson owed it. "You ask," replied the hero, "by what interest did I get a ship? I answer, having served with credit was my recommendation to Lord Howe. Anything in reason that I can ask, I am sure of obtaining from his justice." The statement was no more than fair to Howe; but in his knowledge of the merits of Nelson, whose claim lay rather in evident promise than in conspicuous performance, we can probably trace the friendly intervention of Lord Hood.

Nelson's wish was that the "Boreas" should go to the East Indies. To this he inclined, apparently, because the station was to be under the command of Commodore Cornwallis, in whose ship he had returned from Jamaica as an invalid in 1780, and to whom on that occasion he was indebted for the most friendly care. He was not long allowed to indulge this hope, for five days after receiving his appointment he wrote that the ship was bound to the Leeward Islands, and that he had been asked to take as passengers the wife and family of the commander-in-chief, Sir Richard Hughes, who had already gone out. In a small vessel, for such the "Boreas" was, the request, which he could not well refuse, gave Nelson cause of reasonable discontent, entailing crowding and a large outlay of money. "I shall be pretty well filled with lumber," he wrote; and later, on the voyage out, "I shall not be sorry to part with them, although they are very pleasant, good people; but they are an incredible expense." The incident, annoying though it was, was not without compensations. After arriving on the station, he soon became involved in a serious difference with Sir Richard Hughes; and the latter, though a weak man and in the wrong, might have acted more peremptorily, had he not laid himself under such obligations. On the other hand, Lady Hughes, many years later, shortly after Nelson's death, committed to writing some recollections of his personal traits and actions during the passage, so characteristic, even though trivial, that we could ill have spared them.

"I was too much affected when we met at Bath," wrote she to Mr. Matcham, Nelson's brother-in-law, "to say every particular in which was always displayed the infinite cleverness and goodness of heart of our dearly beloved Hero. As a woman, I can only be a judge of those things that I could comprehend—such as his attention to the young gentlemen who had the happiness of being on his quarter-deck. It may reasonably be supposed that among the number of thirty, there must be timid as well as bold; the timid he never rebuked, but always wished to show them he desired nothing of them that he would not instantly do himself: and I have known him say, 'Well, Sir, I am going a race to the masthead, and beg I may meet you there.' No denial could be given to such a wish, and the poor fellow instantly began his march. His Lordship never took the least notice with what alacrity it was done, but when he met in the top, instantly began speaking in the most cheerful manner, and saying how much a person was to be pitied that could fancy there was any danger, or even anything disagreeable, in the attempt. After this excellent example, I have seen the timid youth lead another, and rehearse his captain's words. In like manner, he every day went into the school-room, and saw them do their nautical business, and at twelve o'clock he was the first upon deck with his quadrant. No one there could be behindhand in their business when their captain set them so good an example. One other circumstance I must mention which will close the subject, which was the day we landed at Barbadoes. We were to dine at the Governor's. Our dear captain said, 'You must permit me, Lady Hughes, to carry one of my aid-de-camps with me;' and when he presented him to the Governor, he said, 'Your Excellency must excuse me for bringing one of my midshipmen, as I make it a rule to introduce them to all the good company I can, as they have few to look up to besides myself during the time they are at sea.' This kindness and attention made the young people adore him; and even his wishes, could they have been known, would have been instantly complied with."

The charm and wisdom of such a bearing is patent; but it was the natural character of the man that thus shone out, and no mere result of conscientious care. To the last, through all his ill-health, anxiety, and sufferings, the same genial sweetness of manner, the outcome of an unaffected, cordial good-will to all, was shown to those who came in contact with him. Captain Duff, who met him for the first time three weeks before Trafalgar, and who fell in the battle, wrote to his wife in almost the same words as Lady Hughes: "You ask me about Lord Nelson, and how I like him. I have already answered that question as every person must do that ever served under him. He is so good and pleasant a man, that we all wish to do what he likes, without any kind of orders. I have been myself very lucky with most of my admirals, but I really think the present the pleasantest I have met with." There do, it is true, occur in Nelson's letters occasional, though very rare, expressions of that passing annoyance with individuals which is inseparable from the close and long-continued contact of ship life. Thus, shortly before leaving the "Boreas," he writes: "I begin to be very strict in my Ship. Whenever I may set off in another, I shall be indifferent whether I ever speak to an Officer in her, but upon duty." One wonders what passing and soon forgotten breeze, was responsible for this most un-Nelson-like outburst. But to the end it remained true that between the officers and crews under Nelson's command and their chief, there was always that cordial regard which can only spring from the hearty sympathy of the commander with those beneath him.

While thoughtful and considerate, even to gentleness, for the weak and dependent, the singular energy that quickened Nelson's frail and puny frame showed itself on occasion in instant resentment of any official slight to himself or his ship, or injury to the interests of the country. During the "Boreas's" stay at Madeira, the British Consul neglected to return his visit, on the plea that the Government allowed him no boat. Nelson declined any further intercourse with him. While lying in the Downs, he learns that sixteen British seamen are detained by force on board a Dutch Indiaman. He requires their delivery to him; and when their effects were withheld, on the alleged ground of their being in debt to the ship, he stops all intercourse between it and the shore, sending an armed cutter to enforce his order. "The Admiralty," he wrote, "have fortunately approved my conduct in the business," and added grimly, "a thing they are not very guilty of where there is a likelihood of a scrape." When entering the harbor of Fort Royal, Martinique, the principal French island in the Lesser Antilles, the officer at the citadel neglected to hoist the colors, a ceremonial observance customary when a ship of war approached. Nelson at once demanded an explanation and received ample amends; the offending party being placed under arrest. To the governor of some of the British West India islands, he wrote making suggestions for the better discharge of certain duties, in which both of them were interested. He received, it is said, a testy message that "old generals were not in the habit of taking advice from young gentlemen." "I have the honour, Sir," replied Nelson, "of being as old as the prime minister of England, and think myself as capable of commanding one of his majesty's ships as that minister is of governing the state;" and throughout he held to the stand he had taken.

The most remarkable instance, however, of this promptness to assert the dignity and rights of his official position, allowing no man to despise his youth, occurred very soon after his arrival upon the station, and brought him to a direct issue with his commander-in-chief,—if not, indeed, with an authoritative precedent set by so great a man as Lord Rodney. Young though he still was in years,—only twenty-six,—Nelson was by date of commission the senior captain in the small squadron, of some half-dozen vessels, to which the economies of the administration had reduced the Leeward Islands station. Being thus next in rank to the admiral, the latter, who made his headquarters at Barbadoes in the southern part of the station, sent him to the northern division, centring about the island of Antigua. Having remained in harbor, as was usual, during the hurricane months, Nelson cruised during the winter and until February, 1785, when some damage received compelled the "Boreas" to put into Antigua for repairs. Here he found a vessel of the squadron, whose own captain was of course junior to him, flying a Commodore's broad pendant, which asserted the official presence of a captain superior to himself in rank and command, and duly qualified to give him orders. He at once asked the meaning of this from the ship's proper commander, and was informed by him that Captain Moutray, an old officer, twenty years his senior on the post list, and then acting as Commissioner of the Navy, a civil office connected with the dockyard at Antigua, had directed it to be hoisted, and claimed to exercise control over all men-of-war in the harbor, during the admiral's absence.

Nelson was not wholly unprepared for this, for Hughes had notified him and the other captains that Moutray was authorized by himself to take this step. Being then away from the island, he had replied guardedly that if Commissioner Moutray was put into commission, he would have great pleasure in serving under him,—thus reserving his decision to the moment for action. He now took the ground that an officer not commissioned afloat, but holding only a civil appointment, could not exercise naval command,—that an order authorizing him to do so was invalid,—that to entitle him to such command he must be put into military commission by being attached to a ship in commission. He therefore flatly declined to obey Moutray's orders, refusing to admit his claim to be considered a commodore, or entitled to military obedience, unless he produced a commission. This he held to when Moutray gave him a written order to put himself under his command.

On technical points of this kind Nelson was a clear and accurate thinker, and in the admiral he had to do with a muddle-headed, irresolute superior. Hughes had already been badly worried and prodded, on matters concerning his own neglected duties, by his unquiet young subordinate, who was never satisfied to leave bad enough alone, but kept raising knotty points to harass an easy-going old gentleman, who wanted only to be allowed to shut his eyes to what went on under his nose. He was now exasperated by Nelson's contumacy, but he was also a little afraid of him, and supported his own order by no more decisive action than laying the case before the Admiralty, who informed Nelson that he should have referred his doubts to the admiral, instead of deciding for himself in a matter that concerned "the exercise of the functions of his [the admiral's] appointment." This was rather begging the question, for Nelson expressed no doubts, either to Hughes or in his explanatory letter to the Admiralty. The latter in turn shirked thus the decision of the question,—for, if Nelson was right, Hughes's order was illegal and not entitled to obedience; if he was wrong, he had been guilty of flagrant insubordination, and should have been sharply dealt with. The Government probably thought that the admiral had blundered in undertaking to give military authority to a civil official,—a step so generally disastrous in experience that it is now explicitly forbidden by the regulations of most navies. It is worthy of note that twenty years later, when commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean, Nelson directed the captains of ships cruising in the Straits of Gibraltar to consult on all occasions with the Commissioner of the Navy resident in Gibraltar, as well as to receive his advice, if proffered,—adding that the commissioner's opinion of their conduct would have great weight with himself; but he did not put them under his orders.[8]

Reasoning from Nelson's position, as the pendant was flying without proper authority on board a ship under his immediate command, he should, as senior captain afloat, have gone further and hauled it down. Of his authority to do so he felt no doubt, as is evident from his letter to the Admiralty; but his motive for refraining was characteristic. He was unwilling to wound Moutray; just as, before Trafalgar, in direct disregard of the Admiralty's orders, he allowed an admiral going home under charges to take with him his flagship, a vessel of the first force and likely to be sorely needed in the approaching battle, because he was reluctant to add to the distress the officer was undergoing already. "I did not choose to order the Commissioner's pendant to be struck, as Mr. Moutray is an old officer of high military character; and it might hurt his feelings to be supposed wrong by so young an officer." The question solved itself shortly by the Commissioner's returning to England; but the controversy seems to have made no change in the friendly and even affectionate relations existing between him and his wife and Nelson. For Mrs. Moutray the latter had formed one of those strong idealizing attachments which sprang up from time to time along his path. "You may be certain," he writes to his brother at the very period the discussion was pending, "I never passed English Harbour without a call, but alas! I am not to have much comfort. My dear, sweet friend is going home. I am really an April day; happy on her account, but truly grieved were I only to consider myself. Her equal I never saw in any country or in any situation. If my dear Kate [his sister] goes to Bath next winter she will be known to her, for my dear friend promised to make herself known. What an acquisition to any female to be acquainted with, what an example to take pattern from." "My sweet, amiable friend sails the 20th for England. I took my leave of her three days ago with a heavy heart. What a treasure of a woman." Returning to Antigua a few weeks later, he writes again in a sentimental vein very rare in him: "This country appears now intolerable, my dear friend being absent. It is barren indeed. English Harbour I hate the sight of, and Windsor I detest. I went once up the hill to look at the spot where I spent more happy days than in any one spot in the world. E'en the trees drooped their heads, and the tamarind tree died:—all was melancholy: the road is covered with thistles; let them grow. I shall never pull one of them up." His regard for this attractive woman seems to have lasted through his life; for she survived him, and to her Collingwood addressed a letter after Trafalgar, giving some particulars of Nelson's death. Her only son also died under the latter's immediate command, ten years later, when serving in Corsica.

The chief interest of the dispute over Moutray's position lies not in the somewhat obscure point involved, but in the illustration it affords of Nelson's singular independence and tenacity in a matter of principle. Under a conviction of right he throughout life feared no responsibility and shrank from no consequences. It is difficult for the non-military mind to realize how great is the moral effort of disobeying a superior, whose order on the one hand covers all responsibility, and on the other entails the most serious personal and professional injury, if violated without due cause; the burden of proving which rests upon the junior. For the latter it is, justly and necessarily, not enough that his own intentions or convictions were honest: he has to show, not that he meant to do right, but that he actually did right, in disobeying in the particular instance. Under no less rigorous exactions can due military subordination be maintained. The whole bent of advantage and life-long training, therefore, draws in one direction, and is withstood by nothing, unless either strong personal character supplies a motive, or established professional standing permits a man to presume upon it, and to exercise a certain right to independence of action. At this time Nelson was practically unknown, and in refusing compliance with an order he took a risk that no other captain on the station would have assumed, as was shown by their failure a few months later to support their convictions in an analogous controversy, upon which Nelson had entered even before the Moutray business. In both cases he staked all upon legal points, considered by him vital to the welfare of the navy and the country. The spirit was identically the same that led him to swing his ship out of the line at Cape St. Vincent without waiting for signals. After that day and the Nile he could afford to take liberties, and sometimes took them with less justification than in his early career.

When the Moutray question arose, Nelson was already engaged in a more far-reaching dispute, not only with his commander-in-chief, but with the colonial authorities and the popular sentiment of the West India Islands. Like most men, great and small, he shared the prepossessions of his day and generation; differing, however, from others, in that he held his opinions as principles, from asserting which he was not to be deterred by the ill-will or dislike of those immediately about him. Upon arriving in the West Indies he found nourishing a system of trade extremely beneficial to the islands, but which his education condemned as hurtful to Great Britain, as it certainly was contrary to then existing laws that had for a century previous regulated the commerce of the kingdom. In 1784, a year only had elapsed since the United States had been formally recognized as independent, thereby becoming, in British estimation as well as in their own, a nation foreign to the British flag. By the Navigation Laws, first established by Cromwell, but continued under the restored monarchy without serious modification until 1794, trade with the Colonies was reserved to vessels built in Great Britain or her dependencies, and manned in three-fourths part by British subjects. The chief object and advantage of the law were conceived to be, not merely a monopoly of the trade,—concerning the economical wisdom of which serious doubts began to be felt,—but the fostering of the British merchant service as a nursery of seamen, upon whom, in time of war, the navy could draw. The military strength of the Empire was thought to be involved in the enforcement of the Navigation Act.[9]

Before the United States declared their independence, they, as British colonies, enjoyed the privilege of trading with their fellow-colonists under what was then the common flag; and the nearness of the two regions contributed to the advantage of both in this traffic, in which the continental communities were the chief suppliers of many articles essential to the islands, notably provisions and lumber. This mutual intercourse and dependence promoted a sympathy which was scarcely disguised in the West Indies during the War of Independence; indeed, Nelson wrote that many of the inhabitants were as arrant rebels as those who had renounced their allegiance. Under these conditions, when peace was restored, the old relations were readily resumed; and as there had really been considerable inconvenience and loss to the islanders from the deprivation of American products, the renewal was eagerly promoted by popular sentiment. The local authorities, as usual and natural, yielded to the pressure around them, and in entire disregard of the known policy of the home government permitted American vessels to trade openly under their own colors. In Jamaica the governor had even gone so far as to authorize formally a free trade, during pleasure, with the United States, contrary to the explicit orders of his superiors in Great Britain. Where scruples were felt or hesitation was shown, advantage was taken of the exceptions of the law, which allowed vessels in distress to sell so much of their cargoes as would pay for necessary repairs. With the tendency of commerce to evade restrictions by liberal stretching of the conscience, the merchant captain and the colonial officer found little difficulty in arranging that the damage should be great enough to cover the sale of the whole lading.

After laying up in Antigua during the hurricane season of 1784, Nelson was summoned to Barbadoes in November, with the other captains, to receive orders for the winter's cruising. These, when issued, were found to direct only the examination of anchorages, and the gathering of information about supplies of wood and water. Nelson's attention had been drawn already to the American traffic; and he, with his friend Collingwood, who was again on the station, went to the admiral, and urged that it was the duty of ships of war to enforce the Navigation Laws. The admiral professed ignorance of these; and Nelson himself remarks that British vessels up to that time had been so much cheaper built than others, that they had, without artificial protection, naturally absorbed their own colonial trade,—the question, therefore, had dropped out of sight till it was revived by American competition. A copy of the Act being then produced, Hughes gave an order requiring his vessels to enforce it; making special mention of the changed relations of the United States to Great Britain, whereby they were "to be considered as foreigners, and excluded from all commerce with the islands in these seas."

With these instructions Nelson sailed again for the north, where the Virgin Islands, with those of Montserrat, Nevis, and St. Christopher, were put under his especial charge,—the sloop "Rattler," Captain Wilfred Collingwood, a brother of the well-known admiral, being associated with the "Boreas." At first the two officers confined their action to warning off American vessels, and at times forcing them to leave ports where they had anchored; but they found that either the vessels returned during the absence of the ships of war, or that permissions to land, upon what they thought trivial grounds, were given by the Customs' officials, in virtue of the exceptions to the law above mentioned.

There matters stood until the 11th of January, 1785, Nelson acting by the authority of the commander-in-chief, but exercising his own discretion, and with forbearance, in carrying out his instructions. On the day named he received another order from the admiral, modifying the first upon the grounds of a more mature consideration, and of "the opinion of the King's Attorney-General" in the islands. Nelson was now directed, in case of a foreign merchant-ship coming within the limits of his station, to cause her to anchor near his own vessel and to report her arrival, and situation in all respects, to the governor of the colony where he then was; "and if, after such report shall have been made and received, the governor or his representative shall think proper to admit the said foreigner into the port or harbour of the island where you may be, you are on no account to hinder or prevent such foreign vessel from going in accordingly, or to interfere any further in her subsequent proceedings."

Here the admiral not only raised, but also decided, the point as to whether the enforcement of the Navigation Act rested with naval officers, or was vested only in the civil authorities of the islands. Nelson was convinced that an essential part of the duty of ships of war, and especially when peace took from them so much of their military function, was to afford to the commerce of the nation proper protection, of which a necessary feature, according to the ideas of the age, was the interdiction of foreign traders. A seaman, he plausibly argued, could decide better than an unprofessional man the questions of injuries and distress upon which the unlawful traffic largely hinged. "In judging of their distress, no person can know better than the sea officers," he wrote to Hughes. "The governors may be imposed upon by false declarations; we, who are on the spot, cannot." He was aware, also, that a petition for relaxing the Act in favor of the American trade with the West Indies had been referred to the home government, by which it had been explicitly rejected. Strengthened by this knowledge, but actuated, after all, chiefly by his invariable resoluteness to assume responsibility where he felt he was right, he replied to the admiral's letter with a clear statement of the facts, concluding with the words: "Whilst I have the honour to command an English man-of-war, I never shall allow myself to be subservient to the will of any Governor, nor cooeperate with him in doing illegal acts.... If I rightly understand your order of the 29th of December, it is founded upon an Opinion of the King's Attorney-General, viz.: 'That it is legal for Governors or their representatives to admit foreigners into the ports of their government, if they think fit.' How the King's Attorney-General conceives he has a right to give an illegal opinion, which I assert the above is, he must answer for. I know the Navigation Laws." As he summed up the matter in a letter to his friend Locker: "Sir Richard Hughes was a delicate business. I must either disobey my orders, or disobey Acts of Parliament, which the admiral was disobeying. I determined upon the former, trusting to the uprightness of my intention. In short, I wrote the Admiral that I should decline obeying his orders, till I had an opportunity of seeing and talking to him, at the same time making him an apology."

Hughes's first impulse was to supersede his recalcitrant subordinate, and bring him to trial. He learned, however, that many of the other captains, of whom the court must be formed, shared his junior's views, although they shrank, with the submissiveness of military men, from the decisive act of disobedience. The result of a trial must therefore be doubtful. He was, moreover, a fiddler, as Nelson continually styled him, shifting back and forth, from opinion to opinion, and to be relied upon for only one thing,—to dodge responsibility, if possible. Consequently, no official action was taken; the commander-in-chief contented himself with washing his hands of all accountability. He had given orders which would clear himself, in case Nelson's conduct was censured in England. If, on the contrary, it was approved, it would redound to the credit of the station.

The matter was soon brought to a test. The governors and all the officials, particularly of the Custom House, resented the action of the naval officers; but the vigilance of the latter so seriously interrupted the forbidden traffic under American colors, that recourse was had to giving British registers to the vessels concerned, allowing them to trade under British flags. This, however, was equally contrary to the Navigation Act, which forbade British registry to foreign-built ships, except when prizes taken in war; and the disguise wast too thin to baffle men like Collingwood and Nelson. The latter reported the practice to the home Government, in order that any measures deemed necessary might be taken. Meanwhile he patiently persisted in turning away all vessels, not British built, which he encountered, confining himself for the time to this merely passive prevention; but finding at last that this was not a sufficient deterrent, he gave notice that after the 1st of May, 1785, he would seize all American vessels trading to the islands, "let them be registered by whom they might." Accordingly, on the 2d of May he arrested an American-built schooner, owned in Philadelphia and manned entirely by Americans, but having a British register issued at the island of St. Christopher.

The Crown lawyer was now called upon to prosecute the suit. He expressed grave doubts as to a naval captain's power to act by virtue simply of his commission, the sole authority alleged by the captor; and, although he proceeded with the case, his manner so betrayed his uncertainty that Nelson felt it necessary to plead for himself. To the confusion of all opponents the judge decided in his favor, saying he had an undoubted right to seize vessels transgressing the Navigation Laws. The principle thus established, Nelson on the 23d of the same month, at the island of Nevis, upon the same grounds, seized four vessels,—one of which had been registered at Dominica by Governor Orde, a naval captain senior in rank to himself, and with whom he came into unpleasant contact upon several occasions in his later life.

There was no serious question as to the condemnation of the four last seizures, the facts being clear and the principle settled;[10] but the rage of the inhabitants of Nevis led them to seek revenge upon Nelson for the injury they could no longer prevent. He had summoned the masters of the ships on board the "Boreas," and, after satisfying himself that the vessels were not entitled to British registers, had sent marines to hold them, and to prevent essential witnesses from leaving them, until the cases were tried. Upon these circumstances was based an accusation of assault and imprisonment, the masters swearing that they had made their statements under bodily fear. Writs were issued against Nelson, damages being laid at four thousand pounds, a sum which to him meant ruin. Although he asserted that there was absolutely no truth in the charges, which are certainly in entire contradiction to the general, if not invariable, tenor of his life and conduct, he was advised by the Crown lawyers not to subject himself to trial, as in the state of public feeling he could not expect a fair verdict. To avoid arrest, he was forced to confine himself to the ship for seven weeks, during which the marshal made several attempts to serve the writ, but without success. On the day that the case of the seized ships came up, he was able to be present in court only by the safe conduct of the judge.

Two days after the seizure of the four vessels, Sir Richard Hughes, who was making a tour of the station under his command, arrived at Nevis; but he had no support to give his zealous lieutenant. "He did not appear to be pleased with my conduct," wrote Nelson to Locker. "At least he did not approve it, but told me I should get into a scrape. Seven weeks I was kept a close prisoner to my ship; nor did I ever learn that the admiral took any steps for my release. He did not even acquaint the Admiralty Board how cruelly I had been treated; nor of the attempts which had been made to take me out of my ship by force, and that indignity offered under the fly of his flag." "I had the governor, the Customs, all the planters upon me; subscriptions were soon filled to prosecute; and my admiral stood neuter, although his flag was then in the roads." To this lack of countenance on the part of his superior, and direct persecution by those injuriously affected by his action, there was added a general social ostracism, to which he frequently alludes, and which was particularly emphasized by its contrast with the habits of hospitality prevalent among the small and wealthy planter community. One friend, however, stood by him, and offered to become his bail in the sum of ten thousand pounds,—Mr. Herbert, the President of Nevis, and one of the wealthiest men in the island. He had, Nelson said, suffered more than any one else from the interruption of the trade, but he considered that the young captain had done only his duty. Possibly there may have been a warmer feeling underlying this esteem, for he was the uncle of the lady whom Nelson afterwards married, and to whom he seems to have been paying attention already.

Despite his indomitable pluck and resolve, the confinement, uncertainty, and contention told heavily on Nelson's health and spirits. His temper was too kindly and social not to feel the general alienation. It could not affect his purpose; but the sense of right-doing, which sustained him in that, did not make his road otherwise easier. It is, indeed, especially to be noticed that there was not in him that hard, unyielding fibre, upon which care, or neglect, or anxiety, makes little impression. He was, on the contrary, extremely sympathetic, even emotional; and although insensible to bodily fear, he was by no means so to censure, or to risk of other misfortune. To this susceptibility to worry, strong witness is borne by an expression of his, used at the very time of which we are now writing. One of his friends—Captain Pole of the Navy—had detained and sent in a neutral vessel for breach of belligerent rights. After long legal proceedings, extending over five years, she was condemned, and proved to be a very valuable prize to the captors. "Our friend Charles Pole," he writes, "has been fortunate in his trial; but the lottery is so very much against an officer, that never will I knowingly involve myself in a doubtful cause. Prize-money is doubtless very acceptable; but my mind would have suffered so much, that no pecuniary compensation, at so late a period, would have made me amends." Contrasting this utterance with the resolution shown by him at this time, in fighting what he considered the cause of his country in the West Indies, it can be seen how much stronger with him was the influence of duty than that exercised by any considerations of merely material advantage. In the one he could find support; in the other not. But in neither case was he insensible to care, nor could he escape the physical consequences of anxiety upon a delicate frame and nervous organization. Of this, his harassment in the pursuit of the French fleet in 1798, during Bonaparte's Egyptian expedition, gave a very conspicuous illustration.

With such a temperament, being now very much in the position of an individual fighting a corporation, he appealed to the home Government; addressing, on the 29th of June, 1785, a memorial to the King, setting forth the facts of the case, as already given, adding that his health was much impaired, and asking for assistance. He received a reply to this in the following September, informing him that the King had directed that he should be defended by the Crown lawyers. This implied approval of his course was succeeded, in November, by a letter from the Secretary of the Treasury, through the usual official channels of the Admiralty, acquainting him that the Government was "of opinion that the commander-in-chief of the Leeward Islands, and officers under him, have shown a very commendable zeal, in endeavouring to put a stop to the very illicit practices which were carrying on in the islands, in open violation of the law, and to the great detriment of the navigation and trade of his Majesty's dominions." Verily, Hughes had his reward. Here he was commended in express terms for doing that which he had been too prudent to do, for zeal which he had never shown, for maintaining a law which he had given orders not to maintain. "I own I was surprised," wrote Nelson, "that the commander-in-chief should be thanked for an act which he did not order, but which, if I understand the meaning of words, by his order of the 29th December, 1784, he ordered not to be." "To the end of the station,[11] his order of the 29th of December was never repealed, so that I always acted with a rod over me." How heavily the responsibility he assumed was felt by others, is clearly shown in another statement made by him. "The Captains Collingwood were the only officers, with myself, who ever attempted to hinder the illicit trade with America; and I stood singly with respect to seizing, for the other officers were fearful of being brought into scrapes."

Backed by the royal approval, and with his legal expenses guaranteed, Nelson's course was now smooth. He continued in all parts of the station to suppress the contraband trade, and his unpopularity, of course, also continued; but excitement necessarily subsided as it became clear that submission was unavoidable, and as men adapted themselves to the new conditions. The whole procedure now looks somewhat barbarous and blundering, but in no essential principle differs from the methods of protection to which the world at present seems again tending. It is not for us to throw stones at it. The results, then, were completely successful, judged by the standards of the time. "At this moment," wrote Nelson some few months later, "there are nearly fifty sail employed in the trade between the Islands of St. Kitts, Nevis, and America, which are truly British built, owned, and navigated. Had I been an idle spectator, my firm belief is that not a single vessel would have belonged to those islands in the foreign trade." His own action was further endorsed by the ministry, which now gave captains of ships-of-war much more extensive powers, thereby justifying his contention that it was within their office to enforce the Navigation Act. Nor was this increased activity of the executive branch of the government the only result of Nelson's persistence. His sagacious study of the whole question, under the local conditions of the West Indies, led to his making several suggestions for more surely carrying out the spirit of the Law; and these were embodied the next year in a formal Act of the Legislature.

With so vivid a career as that of Nelson ahead, the delay imposed by this wrangling episode is somewhat dreary; but it undeniably shows his characteristics in the strongest light. Duty, not ease; honor, not gain; the ideal, not the material,—such, not indeed without frailty and blemish, were ever his motives. And, while he craved his reward in the approval and recognition of those around and above him, he could find consolation for the lack of them in his own sense of right-doing. "That thing called Honour," he writes to a friend soon after the "Boreas" cruise, "is now, alas! thought of no more. My integrity cannot be mended, I hope; but my fortune, God knows, has grown worse for the service; so much for serving my country. But I have invariably laid down, and followed close, a plan of what ought to be uppermost in the breast of an officer: that it is much better to serve an ungrateful Country than to give up his own fame. Posterity will do him justice; a uniform conduct of honour and integrity seldom fails of bringing a man to the goal of fame at last."

This struggle with Sir Richard Hughes, in which Nelson took the undesirable, and to a naval officer invidious, step of disobeying orders, showed clearly, not only the loftiness of his motives, but the distinguishing features which constituted the strength of his character, both personal and military. There was an acute perception of the right thing to do, an entire readiness to assume all the responsibility of doing it, and above all an accurate judgment of the best way to do it,—to act with impunity to himself and with most chances of success to his cause. Its analogy to a military situation is striking. There was a wrong condition of things to be righted—a victory to be won. To achieve this a great risk must be taken, and he was willing to take it; but in so doing he made such choice of his ground as to be practically unassailable—to attain his end without lasting harm to himself. That Nelson would have managed better had he been ten years older is very probable. Likely enough he betrayed some of the carelessness of sensibilities which the inexperience of youth is too apt to show towards age; but, upon a careful review of the whole, it appears to the writer that his general course of action was distinctly right, judged by the standards of the time and the well-settled principles of military obedience, and that he pursued an extremely difficult line of conduct with singular resolution, with sound judgment, and, in the main, with an unusual amount of tact, without which he could scarcely have failed, however well purposing, to lay himself open to serious consequences. Certainly he achieved success.

It was in the midst of this legal warfare, and of the preoccupations arising from it, that Nelson first met the lady who became his wife. She was by birth a Miss Frances Woolward, her mother being a sister of the Mr. Herbert already mentioned as President of the Council in Nevis. She was born in the first half of 1758,[12] and was therefore a few months older than Nelson. In 1779 she had married Dr. Josiah Nisbet, of Nevis, and the next year was left a widow with one son, who bore his father's full name. After her husband's death, being apparently portionless, she came to live with Herbert, who looked upon and treated her as his own child, although he also had an only daughter. When Nelson first arrived at Nevis, in January, 1785,[13] she was absent, visiting friends in a neighboring island, so that they did not then meet,—a circumstance somewhat fortunate for us, because it led to a description of him being sent to her in a letter from a lady of Herbert's family, not improbably her cousin, Miss Herbert. Nelson had then become a somewhat conspicuous factor in the contracted interests of the island society, owing to the stand he had already publicly assumed with reference to the contraband trade. People were talking about him, although he had not as yet enforced the extreme measures which made him so unpopular. "We have at last," so ran the letter, "seen the little captain of the Boreas of whom so much has been said. He came up just before dinner, much heated, and was very silent; but seemed, according to the old adage, to think the more. He declined drinking any wine; but after dinner, when the president, as usual, gave the three following toasts, 'the King,' 'the Queen and Royal Family,' and 'Lord Hood,' this strange man regularly filled his glass, and observed that those were always bumper toasts with him; which, having drank, he uniformly passed the bottle, and relapsed into his former taciturnity. It was impossible, during this visit, for any of us to make out his real character; there was such a reserve and sternness in his behaviour, with occasional sallies, though very transient, of a superior mind. Being placed by him, I endeavoured to rouse his attention by showing him all the civilities in my power; but I drew out little more than 'Yes' and 'No.' If you, Fanny, had been there, we think you would have made something of him, for you have been in the habit of attending to these odd sort of people."

Mrs. Nisbet very quickly made something of him. Little direct description has been transmitted to us concerning the looks or characteristics of the woman who now, at the time when marriage was possible to him, had the misfortune to appear in the line of succession of Nelson's early fancies, and to attract the too easily aroused admiration and affection of a man whose attachment she had not the inborn power to bind. That Nelson was naturally inconstant, beyond the volatility inherent in youth, is sufficiently disproved by the strength and endurance of his devotion to the one woman, in whom he either found or imagined the qualities that appealed to the heroic side of his character. How completely she mastered all the approaches to his heart, and retained her supremacy, once established, to the end, is evidenced by the whole tenor of his correspondence with her, by his mention of her in letters to others, by the recorded expressions he used in speaking to or about her. Despite all that he certainly knew of her, and much more that it is unreasonable to doubt he must have known of her history, there is no mistaking the profound emotions she stirred in his spirit, which show themselves continually in spontaneous outbreaks of passionate fondness and extravagant admiration, whose ring is too true and strong for doubt concerning their reality to find a place.

Many men are swayed by strong and wayward impulses; but to most the fetters imposed by social conventions, by inherited or implanted standards of seemliness and decorum, suffice to steady them in the path of outward propriety. Of how great and absorbing a passion Lord Nelson was capable is shown by the immensity of the sacrifice that he made to it. Principle apart,—and principle wholly failed him,—all else that most appeals to man's self-respect and regard for the esteem of others was powerless to exert control. Loyalty to friendship, the sanctity which man is naturally fain to see in the woman he loves, and, in Nelson's own case, a peculiar reluctance to wound another,—all these were trampled under foot, and ruthlessly piled on the holocaust which he offered to her whom he worshipped. He could fling to the winds, as others cannot, considerations of interest or expediency, as he flung them over and over in his professional career. My motto, he said once and again, is "All or nothing." The same disregard of consequences that hazarded all for all, in battle or for duty, broke through the barriers within which prudence, reputation, decency, or even weakness and cowardice, confine the actions of lesser men. And it must be remembered that the admitted great stain upon Nelson's fame, which it would be wicked to deny, lies not in a general looseness of life, but in the notoriety of one relation,—a notoriety due chiefly to the reckless singleness of heart which was not ashamed to own its love, but rather gloried in the public exhibition of a faith in the worthiness of its object, and a constancy, which never wavered to the hour of his death.[14] The pitifulness of it is to see the incongruity between such faith, such devotion, and the distasteful inadequacy of their object.

To answer the demands of a nature capable of such energetic manifestation—to fulfil the imagination of one who could so cast himself at the feet of an ideal—was beyond the gentle, well-ordered, and somewhat prosaic charms with which alone Mrs. Nisbet was invested by Nelson, even when most loverlike in tone. "My greatest wish," he writes in the first of his letters to her that has been preserved, "is to be united to you; and the foundation of all conjugal happiness, real love and esteem, is, I trust, what you believe I possess in the strongest degree toward you." Fifteen months later, and but a short time before their wedding, he says again: "His Royal Highness often tells me, he believes I am married; for he never saw a lover so easy, or say so little of the object he has a regard for. When I tell him I certainly am not, he says, 'Then he is sure I must have a great esteem for you, and that it is not what is (vulgarly), I do not much like the use of that word, called love.' He is right: my love is founded on esteem, the only foundation that can make the passion last." But general maxims, even when less disputable than this, do not admit of universal application; and if an affection was to hold its own in a nature enthusiastic and imaginative as that of Nelson, it had need to strike root deeper than that surface soil indicated by mere esteem, at least when the latter rests simply upon an assemblage of upright and amiable qualities, and not upon that force of character which compels dependence as well as appreciation. At their last parting he solemnly avowed that his esteem was not lessened; while he was destined also to afford a conspicuous illustration of how enduring a passion may flourish where no just title to esteem exists.

The progress of his wooing was rapid enough. On the 12th of May he mentions their first meeting; on the 28th of June he writes to his brother: "Entre, nous.—Do not be surprised to hear I am a Benedict, for if at all, it will be before a month. Do not tell." On the 11th of September is dated his first letter to her, already quoted, in which he addresses her as "My dear Fanny," and alludes to the understanding existing between them. At the expiration of six months he wrote, formally announcing his engagement, to Mr. William Suckling, his mother's brother. He anticipates the latter's doubts as to the permanence of this fancy: "This Horatio, you will say, is for ever in love;" but he considers that six months without change settles that question. "My present attachment is of pretty long standing; but I was determined to be fixed before I broke this matter to any person." He then explains the situation,—that the lady herself has little or nothing; that Mr. Herbert, though rich, is not likely to help the young couple much, and he asks his uncle's assistance. This Suckling consented to give, and for several years continued liberally to extend. But still, impatient though Nelson always was to complete whatever he had on hand, various causes delayed the wedding for another year. Even with Suckling's help the question of means was pressing; and while, with pardonable self-justification, he gloried to his betrothed that "the world is convinced that I am superior to pecuniary considerations in my public and private life, as in both instances I might have been rich," he nevertheless owned to regretting that he "had not given greater attention to making money." Besides, as he wrote to his brother, "What should I do carrying a wife in a ship, and when I marry I do not mean to part with my wife." The cruising duty of the "Boreas" took her from port to port of the limited area embraced in the Leeward Islands Station, and Nevis was among the least important of the points demanding his attention. He was, therefore, frequently away from his betrothed during this period, and absence rather fanned than cooled the impetuous ardor which he carried into all his undertakings. Whether it were the pursuit of a love affair, or the chase of an enemy's fleet, delays served only to increase the vehemence with which Nelson chafed against difficulties. "Duty," he tells Mrs. Nisbet, "is the great business of a sea officer,—all private considerations must give way to it, however painful it is;" but he owns he wishes "the American vessels at the Devil, and the whole continent of America to boot," because they detain him from her side.

There is no singularity in the experience that obstacles tend rather to inflame than to check a lover's eagerness. What is noteworthy in Nelson's letters at this time is the utter absence of any illusions, of any tendency to exaggerate and glorify the qualities of the woman who for the nonce possessed his heart. There is not a sign of the perturbation of feeling, of the stirring of the soul, that was afterwards so painfully elicited by another influence. "The dear object," he writes to his brother, "you must like. Her sense, polite manners, and, to you I may say, beauty, you will much admire. She possesses sense far superior to half the people of our acquaintance, and her manners are Mrs. Moutray's." The same calm, measured tone pervades all his mention of her to others. His letters to herself, on the other hand, are often pleasing in the quiet, simple, and generally unaffected tenderness which inspires them. In a more ordinary man, destined to more commonplace fortunes, they might well be regarded as promising that enduring wedded love which strikes root downward and bears fruit upward, steadily growing in depth and devotion as the years roll by. But Nelson was not an ordinary man, and from that more humble happiness a childless marriage further debarred him. He could rise far higher, and, alas! descend far lower as he followed the radiant vision,—the image of his own mind rather than an external reality,—the ideal, which, whether in fame or in love, beckoned him onward. The calm, even, and wholly matter-of-fact appreciation of his wife's estimable traits can now be seen in the light of his after career, and its doubtful augury descried; for to idealize was an essential attribute of his temperament. Her failure, even in the heyday of courtship, to arouse in him any extravagance of emotion, any illusive exaltation of her merits, left vacant that throne in his mind which could be permanently occupied only by a highly wrought excellence,—even though that were the purely subjective creation of his own enthusiasm. This hold Lady Nelson never gained; and the long absence from 1793 to 1797, during the opening period of the war of the French Revolution, probably did to death an affection which owed what languid life it retained chiefly to propinquity and custom. Both Saumarez and Codrington, who served under him, speak passingly of the lightness with which his family ties sat upon Nelson in the years following his short stay at home in 1797. The house was empty, swept, and garnished, when the simple-minded, if lion-hearted, seaman came under the spell of one whose fascinations had overpowered the resistance of a cool-headed man of the world, leading him in his old age, with open eyes, to do what every prepossession and every reasonable conviction of his life condemned as folly.

In the summer of 1786 Sir Richard Hughes was recalled to England. During the later part of his association with Nelson, the strain which had characterized their earlier relations had not only disappeared, but had been succeeded by feelings approaching cordiality. The Government's approval of his subordinate's action, and of himself as credited with supporting it, had removed that element of apprehension which in timid men induces irritation; and Hughes, who, though irresolute, was naturally kindly, had been still farther placated by the prize-money falling to him from the vessels condemned through the zeal of Nelson. The latter, who never harbored malice, easily forgave the past, and responded to this change of tone. "I have been upon the best terms with the Admiral," he wrote from Barbadoes to his intended wife in April, 1786, "and I declare I think I could ever remain so. He is always remarkably kind and civil to every one;" and again, a few days earlier, "The admiral is highly pleased with my conduct here, as you will believe, by sending me such fine lines with a white hat. I well know I am not of abilities to deserve what he has said of me: but I take it as they are meant, to show his regard for me; and his politeness and attention to me are great: nor shall I forget it. I like the man, although not all his acts." He then directs that the lines shall not be shown to any one, "as the compliment is paid to me at the expense of the officers of the squadron," an injunction thoroughly characteristic of the man's kindly consideration for others. It was creditable to Hughes that, after being so braved, and his instructions set at naught, by his junior, he had candor enough to see and acknowledge his merit; but the fact still remained that in the hour of trial he had failed Nelson, nor did the latter, though he forgave, forget it. As he wrote to Locker in September, 1786, after the admiral's departure, "Instead of being supported by my admiral, I was obliged to keep him up, for he was frightened at this business;" of which business he truly said, emphasizing, but not at all exaggerating, the gravity of the responsibility he had taken in defiance of his superior: "After loss of health and risk of fortune, another is thanked for what I did against his orders. Either I deserved to be sent out of the service,[15] or at least to have had some little notice taken of me."

Nelson indeed, in the West Indies, as an unknown captain, had done that which as a junior admiral he did later at Copenhagen, at a moment far more critical to Great Britain. By his own unusual powers of impulse and resolve he had enforced, as far as was possible against the passive, inert lethargy—not to say timidity—of his superior, the course of action which at the moment was essential to the interests of his country. Truly great in his strength to endure, he knew not the perturbations nor the vacillations that fret the temper, and cripple the action, of smaller men; and, however harassed and distressed externally, the calmness of a clear insight and an unshaken purpose guided his footsteps, unwavering, in the path of duty, through all opposition, to the goal of success. It is reported that an officer of the "Boreas," speaking to him of the vexations and odium he had undergone, used the word "pity." Nelson's reply showed the profound confidence which throughout had animated him, keenly as he had undoubtedly felt the temporary anxieties. "Pity, did you say? I shall live, Sir, to be envied; and to that point I shall always direct my course."

By the departure of Sir Richard Hughes Nelson was left senior officer upon the station until his own return home, a twelvemonth later. In November he renewed his acquaintance with Prince William Henry, whom he had known as a midshipman in 1782, and who now came to the Leeward Islands a post-captain, in command of the frigate "Pegasus." The two young men were not far apart in age, and an intimacy between them soon arose, which ended only with the death of Nelson. The latter had a profound reverence for royalty, both as an institution and as represented in its members; and to this, in the present case, was added a strong personal esteem, based upon the zeal and efficiency in the discharge of official duties, which he recognized in one whose rank would assure him impunity for any mere indifference. The prince, on the other hand, quickly yielded to the charm of Nelson's intercourse, so vividly felt by most who knew him, and to the contagious enthusiasm which animated his conversation when talking of his profession. This, also, his ardent imagination endowed with possibilities and aspirations, not greater, indeed, than its deserts, but which only the intuitions of a genius like his could realize and vivify, imparting to slower temperaments something of his own fire. To this association the prince afterwards attributed the awakening of that strong interest in maritime affairs which he retained to the day of his death. The two friends dined alternately one with the other, and, in their association of some six months at this time, they together fought over all the naval battles that during the recent war had illustrated the waters through which they were then cruising.

The incessant energy displayed by Nelson, and the agitations through which he passed during the three years of this stay upon the West Indian station, again produced distressing symptoms in his general health. To use his own words, the activity of the mind was "too much for my puny constitution." "I am worn to a skeleton," he writes to Mr. Suckling in July, 1786; and three months later to Locker, "I have been since June so very ill that I have only a faint recollection of anything which I did. My complaint was in my breast, such a one as I had going out to Jamaica [in 1777]. The Doctor thought I was in a consumption, and quite gave me up." This fear, however, proved unfounded; nor does there appear at any time to have been any serious trouble with his lungs.

On the 11th[16] of March, 1787, the marriage of Captain Nelson to Mrs. Nisbet took place at Nevis. Prince William Henry, whose rule it was never to visit in any private house, made an exception on this occasion, having exacted from Nelson a promise that the wedding should wait until he could be present; and he gave away the bride. Three months later, on the 7th of June, the "Boreas" sailed for England, and on the 4th of July anchored at Spithead. Whether Mrs. Nelson accompanied him in the ship does not appear certainly; but from several expressions in his letters it seems most probable that she did. Five days after his arrival he sent a message from her to Locker, in terms which indicate that she was with him.

A newly married man, who had just concluded a full cruise of such arduous and unremitting exertions, might reasonably have wished and expected a period of relaxation; but the return of the "Boreas" coincided with a very disturbed state of European politics. In the neighboring republic of Holland two parties were striving for the mastery; one of which was closely attached to France, the other, that of the Stadtholder, to Great Britain. In 1785 the former had gained the upper hand; and, by a treaty signed on Christmas Day of that year, a decided preponderance in the councils of the United Provinces had been given to France. The enfeebled condition of the latter country, however, had allowed little prospect of permanence to this arrangement; and, in the summer of 1787, an insult offered by the French party to the wife of the Stadtholder led to a forcible intervention by the King of Prussia, whose sister she was. Louis XVI. prepared to support his partisans, and notified his purpose to Great Britain; whereupon the latter, whose traditional policy for over a century had been to resist the progress of French influence in the Low Countries, replied that she could not remain a quiet spectator, and at once began to arm. "The Dutch business," wrote Nelson, "is becoming every day more serious; and I hardly think we can keep from a war, without giving forever the weight of the Dutch to the French, and allowing the Stadtholdership to be abolished,—things which I should suppose hardly possible." Already his eager spirit was panting for the fray. "If we are to have a bustle, I do not want to come on shore; I begin to think I am fonder of the sea than ever." Only five months married!

The threatening aspect of affairs necessitated the "Boreas" being kept in commission,—the more so because the economies introduced by Mr. Pitt into the administration of the two military services had reduced the available naval force below that which France could at once send out. "The Boreas is kept in readiness to go to sea with the squadron at Spithead," wrote Nelson; "but in my poor opinion we shall go no further at present. The French have eight sail in Brest water ready for sea: therefore I think we shall not court the French out of port,"—singular illustration of the unreadiness of Great Britain in the years immediately preceding the French Revolution. He looks for war, however, the following summer. As not only ships, but men also, were urgently needed, the impress service was hastily organized. His friend Locker was summoned from his long retirement to superintend that work in Exeter, and the "Boreas" was ordered to the Thames on the same business, arriving on the 20th of August at the Nore. There her duty was to board passing vessels, and take from them as many of their crew as were above the number barely necessary for the safety of the ship. She herself, besides acting as receiving ship for the men thus pressed, was to be kept in readiness to sail at a moment's warning. Mrs. Nelson had therefore to leave her and go to London. "Here we are," wrote Nelson on the 23d of September, "laying seven miles from the land on the Impress service, and I am as much separated from my wife as if I were in the East Indies;" and he closes the letter with the words, "I am this moment getting under sail after some ships."

His early biographers say that Nelson keenly felt and resented the kind of service in which he was then engaged; so much so that, moved also by other causes of irritation, he decided at one time to quit the Navy. No indication of such feeling, however, appears in his letters. On the contrary, one of the surest signs with him of pleasurable, or at least of interested, excitement, was now manifested in his improving health. As he himself said, many years later, "To say the truth, when I am actively employed I am not so bad."[17] A month after reaching England, though then midsummer, he wrote: "It is not kind in one's native air to treat a poor wanderer as it has me since my arrival. The rain and cold at first gave me a sore throat and its accompaniments; the hot weather has given me a slow fever, not absolutely bad enough to keep my bed, yet enough to hinder me from doing anything;" and again, "I have scarcely been able to hold up my head." In blustering October, on the other hand, while in the midst of the detested Impress work, he says: "My health, thank God, was never better, and I am fit for any quarter of the globe;" although "it rains hard, and we have had very bad weather of late." Whatever momentary vexation he may have vented in a hasty expression, it was entirely inconsistent with his general tone to take amiss an employment whose vital importance he would have been the first to admit. Lack of zeal, or haggling about the duty assigned him, was entirely foreign to his character; that the country needed the men who were to be pressed was reason sufficient for one of his temper. If, indeed, there had been an apparent intention to keep him in such inglorious occupation, and out of the expected war, he might have chafed; but his orders to be constantly ready indicated the intention to send him at once to the front, if hostilities began. Doubtless he was disappointed that the application he made for a ship-of-the-line was not granted; but he knew that, being still a very young captain, what he asked was a favor, and its refusal not a grievance, nor does he seem to have looked upon it otherwise.

There were, however, some annoyances, which, joined to the lack of appreciation for his eminent services to the interests of the nation in the West Indies, must have keenly stung him. Without the slightest necessity, except that laid upon him by his own public spirit, he had fought and struggled, and endured three years of hot water to serve the Government. He might have gone easy, as did the admiral and the other captains; but instead of so doing he had destroyed the contraband trade, and re-established the working of laws upon which the prosperity and security of the kingdom were thought to depend. For this he had received a perfunctory, formal acknowledgment, though none apparently from the Admiralty, the head of his own service. But he soon found that, if slow to thank, they were prompt to blame, and that with no light hand nor disposition to make allowances. He had run his head against various regulations of the bureaucracy; and this let him know, with all the amenities of official censure, that if they could not recognize what he had done well, they were perfectly clear-sighted as to where he had gone wrong.

So far from appreciation, there seems even to have been a prejudice against Nelson in high quarters, due not only to the discomposure felt by the routine official, at the rude irregularities of the man who is more concerned to do his work than nice about the formalities surrounding it, but also to misrepresentation by the powerful interests he had offended through his independent course in the West Indies. After Hughes had gone home, Nelson, as senior officer on the station, began to examine the modes of conducting government business, and especially of making purchases. Conceiving that there were serious irregularities in these, he suggested to the Civil Department of the Navy, under whose cognizance the transactions fell, some alterations in the procedure, by which the senior naval officer would have more control over the purchases than simply to certify that so much money was wanted. The Comptroller of the Navy replied that the old forms were sufficient,—"a circumstance which hurt me," wrote Nelson; while all the civil functionaries resented his interference with their methods, and seem to have received the tacit support, if not the direct sympathy, of the Navy Board, as the Civil Department was then called. His disposition to look into matters, however, had become known, and the long struggle over the contraband trade had given him in the islands a reputation for tenacity and success. It was probably in dependence upon these that two merchants came to him, two months before he left the station, and told him of the existence of very extensive frauds, dating back several years, in which were implicated both civil officials of the Navy and private parties on shore. It is possible that the informants themselves had shared in some of these transactions, and they certainly demanded in payment a part of the sums recovered; but, as Nelson truly said, the question was not as to their character, but how to stop the continuance of embezzlements which had then amounted to over two millions sterling.

The reports made by him upon this subject reached London about a month before the return of the "Boreas;" but the war scare, and the urgent call upon all departments of the Navy to mobilize the available force, prevented any immediate steps being taken. His letters were acknowledged, and the intention expressed to investigate the matter, but nothing more was then done. October, however, the Prussian troops occupied Amsterdam, reinstating the Stadtholder in all his privileges, and restoring to power the partisans of Great Britain; while France remained passive, her power for external action paralyzed by the dying convulsions of the monarchy. The curtain had just risen upon the opening scene in the great drama of the Revolution,—the first Assembly of Notables. Warlike preparations consequently ceased, and on the 30th of November, 1787, the cruise of the "Boreas" came to an end.

It was during this last month of servitude, and immediately before quitting the ship, that Nelson is said to have used the vehement expressions of discontent with "an ungrateful service," recorded by his biographers, concluding with his resolve to go at once to London and resign his commission. In the absence of the faintest trace, in his letters, of dissatisfaction with the duty to which the ship was assigned, it is reasonable to attribute this exasperation to his soreness under the numerous reprimands he had received,—a feeling which plainly transpires in some of his replies, despite the forms of official respect that he scrupulously observed. Even in much later days, when his distinguished reputation might have enabled him to sustain with indifference this supercilious rudeness, he winced under it with over-sensitiveness. "Do not, my dear lord," he wrote to Earl Spencer a year after the battle of the Nile, "let the Admiralty write harshly to me—my generous soul cannot bear it, being conscious it is entirely unmerited." This freedom of censure, often felt by him to be undeserved, or at least excessive, and its sharp contrast with the scanty recognition of his unwearied efforts,—of whose value he himself was by no means forgetful,—though not unusual in the experience of officers, are quite sufficient to account for the sense of neglect and unjust treatment by which he was then outraged. This feeling was probably accentuated, also, by a renewal of the legal persecution which had been begun in the West Indies; for towards the end of the year he received formal notice of suits being instituted against him for the seizure of the American vessels, and it is likely enough that some intimation of what was coming reached him before leaving the "Boreas." Scanty thanks, liberal blame, and the prospect of an expensive lawsuit based upon his official action, constituted, for a poor man lately married, causes of disturbance which might well have upset his equanimity.

Lord Howe, who was then at the head of the Admiralty, though formal and unbending in outward bearing, was a just and kind man, and one fully appreciative of professional worth. A mutual friend acquainted him with Nelson's irritation, and Howe wrote a private letter asking that he would call upon him as soon as he came to town. Though quick to resent, Nelson was easily soothed by attention and pleased by compliment, even when it rose to flattery,—which Howe's was not likely to do. A short interview gave the First Lord a clearer idea than he before had of the extent, value, and wholly voluntary character of the services rendered by the young captain in the West Indies; and he indicated the completeness of his satisfaction by offering to present him to the King, which was accordingly done at the next levee. George III. received him graciously; and the resentment of Nelson, whose loyalty was of the most extreme type, melted away in the sunshine of royal favor.

Thus reconciled to the service, and convinced, as in his less morbid moods he often said, that gratitude and honor, though long deferred, were sure to follow upon steadfast performance of duty, he speedily renewed his efforts to bring to light the frauds practised in the colonies. His letters on the subject to Mr. Pitt, the Prime Minister, had been turned over to the Secretary of the Treasury, Mr. George Rose, and upon the latter Nelson now called. Rose received him at first with that courteous nonchalance which is the defensive armor of the beset official,—the name of his visitor, and the business with which it was connected, had for the moment slipped his mind. Nelson's mastery of his subject, however, and his warmth in it, soon roused the attention of his hearer, who, being then pressed for time, asked to see him again the next day, stipulating only that the interview should be early, before office hours. "It cannot be too early for me," replied Nelson, whose habit, in his career as admiral, was to get through his correspondence before eight o'clock,—"six o'clock, if you please."

The arrangement was so made, and the consequent meeting lasted from six to nine the next morning. Of its general nature and results we have an authentic outline, given in later years to Nelson's biographers by Rose, who became, and to the last remained, his warm personal friend. The conversation ranged, apparently, over all the chief occurrences in the West Indies during the cruise of the "Boreas," including both the naval frauds and the contraband trade. The breadth and acuteness of Nelson's intellect have been too much overlooked, in the admiration excited by his unusually grand moral endowments of resolution, dash, and fearlessness of responsibility. Though scarcely what could be called an educated man, he was one of close and constant observation, thereby gaining a great deal of information; and to the use of this he brought a practical sagacity, which coped with the civil or political questions placed before it, for action, much as it did with military questions—for, after all, good generalship, on its intellectual side, is simply the application, to the solution of a military problem, of a mind naturally gifted therefor, and stored with experience, either personal or of others. As a strategist and tactician, Nelson made full proof of high native endowments, of wisdom garnered through fruitful study and meditation, and of clear insight into the determining conditions of the various military situations with which he had to deal. To Mr. Rose, the young captain of barely thirty years displayed a precise knowledge of several political subjects, connected with the commerce of the country, that would not naturally come under his notice as an officer, and which therefore the mere seaman would probably not have imbibed. Not only so, but his suggestions for dealing practically with the interests at stake were so judicious, that Rose, a valued associate of Pitt and intimately acquainted with the financial measures of that brilliant administrator, complimented him warmly upon the justice and correctness of his views, the result, as they were, of reflection based upon a mastery of the data involved. With Nelson's consent, he undertook to lay them before the prime minister, as the direct testimony of a singularly competent first-hand observer.