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 coöperate 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.

It is to be noted, however, of Nelson, that this accuracy of mental

perception, this power of penetrating to the root of a matter,

disregarding unessential details and fastening solely on decisive

features, was largely dependent upon the necessity laid upon him for

action; which is probably equivalent to saying that it was usually

elicited by a sobering sense of responsibility. In his letters and

despatches may be found many wild guesses, inconsistent from week to

week, colored by changing moods and humors,--the mere passing comments

of a mind off guard,--the records of evanescent impressions as

numerous, fickle, and unfounded as those of the most ordinary mortal.

It is when urgency presses and danger threatens, when the need for

action comes, that his mental energies are aroused, and he begins to

speak, as it were, _ex cathedrâ_. Then the unsubstantial haze rolls

away; and the solid features of the scene one by one appear, until,

amid all the unavoidable uncertainties of imperfect information, it

becomes plain that the man has a firm grasp upon the great landmarks

by which he must guide his course. Like the blind, who at first saw

men as trees walking, and then saw everything clearly, so his mental

illumination gradually reduces confusion to order, and from perplexity

evolves correct decision. But what shall be said of those flashes of

insight, as at Cape St. Vincent, elicited in a moment, as by the

stroke of iron on rock, where all the previous processes of ordered

thought and labored reasoning are condensed into one vivid

inspiration, and transmuted without a pause into instant heroic

action? Is that we call "genius" purely a mystery, of which our only

account is to give it a name? Or is it true, as Napoleon said, that

"on the field of battle the happiest inspiration is often but a

recollection"?

From Rose Nelson went to the Comptroller of the Navy, Sir Charles

Middleton, who afterwards, as Lord Barham, sent him forth to

Trafalgar. Middleton had replied promptly to the first report of the

fraudulent transactions, giving assurance of his readiness to act, and

urging that all the information possible should be secured, as he

feared that the allegations were substantially true. He now showed the

instructions of the Navy Board, under which its colonial employees

acted, to Nelson, who said that, if honestly followed, they must

prevent the unlawful practices; but that he believed they were

habitually violated, and that he himself, though senior officer on the

station, had never before seen the instructions. This failure to

intrust supervision to the one person upon whom all responsibility

should ultimately have rested, practically neutralized the otherwise

laudable methods prescribed by the Board. It was simply another

instance of the jealousy between the civil and military branches of

the naval organization, which, as is well known, resulted in constant

strained relations between the Admiralty and the Naval Commissioners,

until the latter Board was at last abolished.

It is, fortunately, unnecessary to follow farther this dreary record

of old-time dishonesty. Nelson continued to interest himself

strenuously in the matter for two years after his return to England,

both by letter and interview with persons in authority. His own

position and influence were too insignificant to effect anything,

except by moving the home officials, whose administration was

compromised and embarrassed by the malpractices of their

representatives. Though uphill work, it was far from fruitless. "His

representations," said Mr. Rose, in a memorandum furnished to his

biographers, "were all attended to, and every step which he

recommended was adopted. He thus put the investigation into a proper

course; which ended in the detection and punishment of some of the

parties whose conduct was complained of." The broad result appears to

have been that the guilty for the most part escaped punishment,

unless, indeed, some of them lost their positions, of which no certain

information exists; but the corrupt combination was broken up, and

measures were adopted to prevent the recurrence of the same

iniquities. Upon Nelson himself the effect was twofold. His energy and

intelligence could not fail to impress the powerful men with whom he

was in this way brought into contact. The affair increased his

reputation, and made him more widely known than as a simple captain in

the Navy he would otherwise have been. As the various public Boards

whose money had been stolen realized the amount of the thefts, and the

extent of the conspiracy to rob the Government, they felt their

obligations to him, and expressed them in formal, but warm, letters of

thanks. On the other hand, the principal culprits had command of both

money and influence; and by means of these, as so often happens, they

not only impeded inquiry, but, according to Southey, who wrote not

very long after the events, "succeeded in raising prejudices against

Nelson at the Board of Admiralty which it was many years before he

could subdue." Clarke and M'Arthur make the same assertion.

That these prejudices did at one time exist is beyond doubt, and that

they should have been fostered by this means is perfectly in keeping

with common experience. Such intrigues, however, work in the dark and

by indirection; it is not often easy to trace their course. The

independence and single-mindedness with which Nelson followed his

convictions, and the outspoken frankness with which he expressed his

views and feelings, not improbably gave a handle to malicious

misrepresentation. His known intimacy with Prince William Henry, upon

whose favor he to some extent relied, was also more likely to do him

harm than good; and he entertained for the royal captain

prepossessions not far removed from partisanship, at a time when the

prince avowed himself not a friend to the present minister. "Amidst

that variety of business which demanded his attention on his return to

England," say his biographers, "he failed not, by every means in his

power, to fulfil the promise which he had made to his Royal Highness

Prince William of counteracting whatever had been opposed to the

merited reputation of his illustrious pupil, and to the friendship

they had invariably preserved for each other." It was a difficult

task. Opinionated and headstrong as the King, his father, the young

man was an uneasy subordinate to the Admiralty, and made those above

him realize that he was full as conscious of his personal rank as of

his official position as a captain in the Navy. It was, indeed, this

self-assertive temperament that afterwards frustrated his natural

ambition to be the active head of the service. Having such an ally,

there is something ominous for Nelson's own prospects to find him

writing in evident sympathy: "The great folks above now see he will

not be a cypher, therefore many of the rising people must submit to

act subordinate to him, which is not so palatable; and I think a Lord

of the Admiralty is hurt to see him so able, after what he has said

about him. He has certainly not taken a leaf out of his book, for he

is steady in his command and not violent." Upon this follows, "He has

wrote Lord Hood what I cannot but approve,"--a sentence unquestionably

vague, but which sounds combative. Nelson had already felt it

necessary to caution the prince to be careful in the choice of those

to whom he told his mind.

In fact, at the time when the letter just quoted was written, the

conduct of the prince had been such as necessarily, and not wholly

unjustly, to prejudice an officer who displayed marked partisanship

for him, such as certainly was indicated by Nelson's expressions. He

had brought his ship from Newfoundland to Ireland in flat

disobedience of orders, issued by the commander of the station, to go

to Quebec. When this action became known to the Admiralty by his

arrival at Cork, in December, 1787, it was at once reported to the

King, who himself directed that the prince should proceed to Plymouth

with his ship, should remain within the limits of the port for as many

months as he had been absent from his station, and should then be sent

back to Halifax. The Prince of Wales, afterwards George IV., who was

already at variance with the King, took advantage of this flagrant

breach of discipline to flaunt his opposition before the world. In

company with his second brother, the Duke of York, he went down to

Plymouth, and paid a ceremonious visit to Prince William on board his

ship. The round of festivities necessitated by their presence

emphasized the disagreement between the sovereign and the heir to the

throne, and drew to it public attention. Immediately after this, in

January, 1788, Nelson also visited the prince, having been summoned by

him from London. He could, indeed, scarcely decline, nor was he at all

the man to turn his back on a friend in difficulty; but, in his fight

against corruption, the matter could scarcely fail to be represented

by his opponents under the worst light to the King, to whom corruption

was less odious than insubordination. If, in conversation, Nelson

uttered such expressions as he wrote to his friend Locker, he had only

himself to blame for the disfavor which followed; for, to a naval

officer, the prince's conduct should have appeared absolutely

indefensible. In the course of the same year the King became insane,

and the famous struggle about the Regency took place. The prince had

meantime returned to America, in accordance with his orders, and by

the time he again reached England the King had recovered. He could,

therefore, have refrained from any indication of his own sympathies;

but instead of this he openly associated himself with the party of the

Prince of Wales, whose course throughout, when it became known to his

father, had bitterly displeased the latter, and accentuated the breach

between them. At a banquet given by the Spanish ambassador in

celebration of the King's recovery, the three princes sat at a table

separate from the rest of the royal family. A formal reconciliation

took place in September, 1789; but the Duke of Clarence, as he had

then become, continued attached to the Prince of Wales's clique. Those

who know how party considerations influenced naval appointments at

that time, will in these facts find at least a partial explanation of

the cloud which then hung over Nelson.

Lord Chatham, brother of the minister to whom Prince William was not a

friend, became head of the Admiralty in July, 1788, and so remained

until after the war with France began in 1793. With him was associated

Lord Hood, between whom and Nelson there arose what the latter called

"a difference of opinion," which led to a cessation of "familiar

correspondence." The exact date at which this occurred does not

appear, but it was probably before May, 1790; for Hood refused to use

his influence to get Nelson a ship, in the armament which was then

ordered on account of a difficulty with Spain, whereas eighteen months

before he had assured him that in case of hostilities he need not fear

not having a good ship. This refusal was the more marked, because

"almost the whole service was then called out." On the same occasion,

Nelson wrote, "he made a speech never to be effaced from my memory,

viz.: that the King was impressed with an unfavourable opinion of me."

Knowing Nelson's value as an officer as well as Hood did, there can

scarcely remain a doubt that some serious indiscretion, real or

imagined, must have caused this alienation; but of what it was there

is no trace, unless in his evident siding with the prince, who was

then out of favor with both the King and the administration.

The five years--from 1788 to 1792 inclusive--intervening between the

cruise of the "Boreas" and the outbreak of war with the French

Republic, were thus marked by a variety of unpleasant circumstances,

of which the most disagreeable, to a man of Nelson's active

temperament, was the apparently fixed resolve of the authorities to

deny him employment. He was harassed, indeed, by the recurring threats

of prosecution for the West India seizures; but both the Admiralty and

the Treasury agreed that he should be defended at the expense of the

Crown,--a fact which tends to show that his subsequent disfavor arose

from some other cause than disapproval of his official action, however

some incidents may have been misrepresented. On its private side, his

life during this period seems to have been happy, though uneventful;

but in the failure of children he was deprived, both then and

afterwards, of that sweetest of interests, continuous yet ever new in

its gradual unfolding, which brings to the most monotonous existence

its daily tribute of novelty and incident. The fond, almost rapturous,

expressions with which he greeted the daughter afterwards born to him

out of wedlock, shows the blank in his home,--none the less real

because not consciously realized.

The lack of stimulus to his mind from his surroundings at this time is

also manifested by the fewness of his letters. But thirty remain to

show his occupation during the five years, and seventeen of these are

purely official in character. From the year 1791 no record survives.

His wife being with him, one line of correspondence was thereby

closed; but even to his brother, and to his friend Locker, he finds

nothing to write. For the ordinary country amusements and pursuits of

the English gentry he had scant liking; and, barring the occasional

worry over his neglect by the Admiralty, there was little else to

engage his attention. The first few months after his release from the

"Boreas" were spent in the West of England, chiefly at Bath, for the

recovery of Mrs. Nelson's health as well as his own; but toward the

latter part of 1788 the young couple went to live with his father at

the parsonage of Burnham Thorpe, and there made their home until he

was again called into active service. "It is extremely interesting,"

say his biographers, "to contemplate this great man, when thus removed

from the busy scenes in which he had borne so distinguished a part to

the remote village of Burnham Thorpe;" but the interest seems by their

account to be limited to the energy with which he dug in the garden,

or, from sheer want of something to do, reverted to the bird-nesting

of his boyhood. His favorite amusement, we are told, was coursing, and

he once shot a partridge; but his habit of carrying his gun at full

cock, and firing as soon as a bird rose, without bringing the piece to

his shoulder, made him a dangerous companion in a shooting-party. His

own account is somewhat different: "Shoot I cannot, therefore I have

not taken out a license; but notwithstanding the neglect I have met

with I am happy;" and again, to his brother, he says: "It was not my

intention to have gone to the coursing meeting, for, to say the truth,

I have rarely escaped a wet jacket and a violent cold; besides, to me,

even the ride to the Smee is longer than any pleasure I find in the

sport will compensate for." The fact is that Nelson cared for none of

these things, and the only deduction of real interest from his letters

at this time is the absolute failure of his home life and affections

to content his aspirations,--the emptiness both of mind and heart,

which caused his passionate eagerness for external employment to fill

the void. Earnestness appears only when he is brooding over the slight

with which he was treated, and the resultant thwarting of his career.

For both mind and heart the future held in store for him the most

engrossing emotions, but it did not therefore bring him happiness.

Of his frames of mind during this period of neglect and disfavor, his

biographers give a very strongly colored picture, for which, it is to

be presumed, they drew upon contemporary witnesses that were to them

still accessible. "With a mortified and dejected spirit, he looked

forward to a continuance of inactivity and neglect.... During this

interval of disappointment and mortification, his latent ambition

would at times burst forth, and despise all restraint. At others, a

sudden melancholy seemed to overshadow his noble faculties, and to

affect his temper; at those moments the remonstrances of his wife and

venerable father alone could calm the tempest of his passions." That

Nelson keenly felt the cold indifference he now underwent, is

thoroughly in keeping with the sensitiveness to censure, expressed or

implied, which his correspondence frequently betrays, while his frail

organization and uncertain health would naturally entail periods of

depression or nervous exasperation; but the general tenor of his

letters, few as they at this time were, shows rather dignified

acceptance of a treatment he had not merited, and a steady resolve not

to waver in his readiness to serve his country, nor to cease asking an

opportunity to do so. Many years later, at a time of still more

sickening suspense, he wrote: "I am in truth half dead, but what man

can do shall be done,--I am not made to despair;" and now, according

to a not improbable story, he closed an application for employment

with the words, "If your Lordships should be pleased to appoint me to

a cockle boat, I shall feel grateful." Hood, whose pupil he in a sense

was, and who shared his genius, said of himself, when under a

condition of enforced inactivity: "This proves very strongly the

different frames of men's minds; some are full of anxiety, impatience,

and apprehension, while others, under similar circumstances, are

perfectly cool, tranquil, and indifferent."

The latter half of the year 1792 was marked by the rapid progress in

France of the political distemper, which was so soon to culminate in

the worst excesses of the Revolution. The quick succession of

symptoms, each more alarming than the other,--the suspension of the

royal power at the tumultuous bidding of a mob, the September

massacres, the abolition of royalty, the aggressive character of the

National Convention shown by the decrees of November 19 and December

15,--roused the apprehensions of most thoughtful men throughout

Europe; and their concern was increased by the growing popular

effervescence in other countries than France. The British cabinet, as

was natural, shifted more slowly than did the irresponsible members of

the community; nor could Pitt lightly surrender his strong instinctive

prepossessions in favor of peace, with the continuance of which was

identified the exercise of his own best powers.

During this stormy and anxious period, Nelson shared the feelings of

his day and class. It is noteworthy, however, that, in regarding the

perils of the time, he was no mere panic-monger, but showed the same

discriminating carefulness of observation that had distinguished him

as captain of the "Boreas," and had elicited the admiration of Mr.

Rose. Strenuous and even bigoted royalist as he always was, satisfied

of the excellence of the British Constitution, and condemning utterly

the proceedings of the more or less seditious societies then forming

throughout the kingdom, he yet recognized the substantial grievances

of the working-men, as evident in the district immediately under his

eye. The sympathetic qualities which made him, fortune's own favorite

in his profession, keenly alive to the hardships, neglect, and

injustice undergone by the common seaman, now engaged him to set forth

the sad lot of the ill-paid rural peasantry. In his letters to the

Duke of Clarence, he on the one hand strongly blames the weakness and

timidity of the justices and country gentlemen, in their attitude

towards the abettors of lawlessness; but, on the other, he dwells upon

the sufferings of the poor, prepares a careful statement of their

earnings and unavoidable expenses, and insists upon the necessity of

the living wage. The field laborers, he said, "do not want loyalty,

many of their superiors, in many instances, might have imitated their

conduct to advantage; but hunger is a sharp thorn, and they are not

only in want of food sufficient, but of clothes and firing."

Under the threatening outlook, he considers that every individual will

soon "be called forth to show himself;" and for his own part, he

writes on the 3d of November, he sees no way so proper as asking for a

ship. But, even at that late moment, neither Pitt nor his associates

had abandoned the hope of peace, and this, as well as other

applications of Nelson's, received only a formal acknowledgment

without encouragement. Roused, however, by the Convention's decree of

November 19, which extended the succor of France to all people who

should wish to recover their liberty, and charged the generals of the

republic to make good the offer with the forces under their command,

the ministry decided to abandon their guarded attitude; and their new

resolution was confirmed by the reception, on the 28th of November, of

deputations from British revolutionary societies at the bar of the

Convention, on which occasion the president of the latter affected to

draw a dividing line between the British government and the British

nation. On the 1st of December the militia was called out by

proclamation, and Parliament summoned to meet on the 15th of the

month. On the latter day the Convention put forth another decree,

announcing in the most explicit terms its purpose to overthrow all

existing governments in countries where the Republican armies could

penetrate. Pitt now changed his front with an instantaneousness and

absoluteness which gave the highest proof of his capacity as a leader

of men. It was not so much that war was then determined, as that the

purpose was formed, once for all, to accept the challenge contained in

the French decree, unless France would discontinue her avowed course

of aggression. Orders were immediately given to increase largely the

number of ships of war in commission.

When danger looms close at hand, the best men, if known, are not left

in the cold shade of official disfavor. "Post nubila Phoebus," was the

expression of Nelson, astonished for a rarity into Latin by the

suddenness with which the sun now burst upon him through the clouds.

"The Admiralty so smile upon me, that really I am as much surprised as

when they frowned." On the 6th of January, 1793, the First Lord, with

many apologies for previous neglect, promised to give him a

seventy-four-gun ship as soon as it was in his power to do so, and

that meanwhile, if he chose to take a sixty-four, he could have one as

soon as she was ready. On the 30th he was appointed to the

"Agamemnon," of the latter rate. Within the preceding fortnight Louis

XVI. had been beheaded, and the French ambassador ordered to leave

England. On February 1, 1793, two days after Nelson's orders were

issued, the Republic declared war against Great Britain and Holland.

FOOTNOTES:

[8] Nicolas, vol. v. p. 356.

[9] Thus Collingwood, rarely other than sober and restrained in his

language, wrote to Hughes: "It is from the idea that the greatness and

superiority of the British navy very much depends upon preserving inviolate

the Act of Navigation, excluding foreigners from access to the colonies,

that I am induced to make this representation to you." Nicolas, vol. i. p.

172.

[10] Nelson's letters are contradictory on this point. In a letter to

Locker of March 3, 1786, he says, "Before the first vessel was tried I had

seized four others;" whereas in the formal and detailed narrative drawn

up--without date, but later than the letter to Locker--he says the first

vessel was tried and condemned May 17, the other four seized May 23.

(Nicolas, vol. i. pp. 177, 178.) The author has followed the latter,

because from the particularity of dates it seems to have been compiled from

memoranda, that of Locker written from memory,--both nearly a year after

the events.

[11] This word is used by Nelson, apparently, as equivalent to

"season,"--the cruising period in the West Indies. "The admiral wishes to

remain another station," he writes elsewhere.

[12] Lady Nelson's tombstone in Littleham Churchyard, Exmouth, reads that

she died May 6, 1831, "aged 73." She would then have been born before May

6, 1758. Nicolas (vol. i. p. 217) says that she died May 4, 1831, aged 68,

but does not mention his authority.

[13] Prior to May, 1785, the only stops of the "Boreas" at Nevis were

January 6-8, February 1-4, and March 11-15. (Boreas's Log in Nicolas's

Letters and Despatches of Lord Nelson, vol. vii. Addenda, pp. viii, ix.)

[14] The author is satisfied, from casual expressions in Nelson's letters

to Lady Hamilton, that his famous two years' confinement to the ship,

1803-1805, and, to a less extent, the similar seclusion practised in the

Baltic and the Downs, proceeded, in large part at least, from a romantic

and chivalrous resolve to leave no room for doubt, in the mind of Lady

Hamilton or of the world, that he was entirely faithful to her.

[15] The author has italicized these words because they accurately express

the just penalty that military law would have required of Nelson, had he

not shown adequate grounds for his disobedience. They measure, therefore,

the responsibility he shouldered, and the reward he deserved.

[16] Sir Harris Nicolas (Nelson's Despatches and Letters, vol. i. p. 217)

gives March 12 as the day of the wedding, upon the ground of a letter of

Lady Nelson's. Her mention of the date is, however, rather casual; and

March 11 is given in the parish register of the church in Nevis.

[17] The same symptom will be noted in the anxious pursuit of Villeneuve to

the West Indies in 1805, where he grew better, although for some months he

had had in his hands the Admiralty's permission to return home on account

of his health.