dressing-room, "Good God! if I did not find that great little man, of
whom everybody is so afraid, playing in the next room, under the dining-

table, with Mrs. Nisbet's child!" A few days afterwards Mrs.
Nisbet herself was first introduced to him, and thanked him for the

partiality which he had shown to her little boy. Her manners were
mild and winning; and the captain, whose heart was easily susceptible

of attachment, found no such imperious necessity for subduing his
inclinations as had twice before withheld him from marrying. They were

married on March 11, 1787: Prince William Henry, who had come
out to the West Indies the preceding winter, being present, by his

own desire, to give away the bride. Mr. Herbert, her uncle, was at
this time so much displeased with his only daughter, that he had

resolved to disinherit her, and leave his whole fortune, which was
very great, to his niece. But Nelson, whose nature was too noble to

let him profit by an act of injustice, interfered, and succeeded in
reconciling the president to his child.

"Yesterday," said one of his naval friends the day after the wedding,
"the navy lost one of its greatest ornaments by Nelson's marriage.

It is a national loss that such an officer should marry: had
it not been for this, Nelson would have become the greatest man

in the service." The man was rightly estimated; but he who
delivered this opinion did not understand the effect of domestic love

and duty upon a mind of the true heroic stamp.
"We are often separate," said Nelson, in a letter to Mrs. Nisbet a

few months before their marriage; "but our affection" target="_blank" title="n.友爱；慈爱">affections are not by any
means on that accountdiminished. Our country has the first

demand for our services; and private convenience or happiness must
ever give way to the public good. Duty is the great business of a

sea officer: all private considerations must give way to it, however
painful." "Have you not often heard," says he in another letter,

"that salt water and absence always wash away love ? Now I am
such a heretic as not to believe that article, for, behold, every

morning I have had six pails of salt water poured upon my head, and
instead of finding what seamen say to be true, it goes on so contrary

to the prescription, that you may, perhaps, see me before the fixed
time." More frequently his correspondence breathed a deeper strain.

"To write letters to you," says he,"is the next greatest pleasure I
feel to receiving them from you. What I experience when I read

such as I am sure are the pure sentiments of your heart, my poor
pen cannot express; nor, indeed, would I give much for any pen

or head which could express feelings of that kind. Absent from
you, I feel no pleasure: it is you who are everything to me. Without

you, I care not for this world; for I have found, lately, nothing
in it but vexation and trouble. These are my present sentiments.

God Almighty grant they may never change! Nor do I think they
will. Indeed there is, as far as human knowledge can judge, a

moral certainty that they cannot; for it must be real affection" target="_blank" title="n.友爱；慈爱">affection that
brings us together, not interest or compulsion." Such were the

feelings, and such the sense of duty, with which Nelson became a
husband.

During his stay upon this station he had ample opportunity of
observing the scandalous practices of the contractors, prize-agents,

and other persons in the West Indies connected with the naval service.
When he was first left with the command, and bills were brought him

to sign for money which was owing for goods purchased for the navy,
he required the original voucher, that he might examine whether

those goods had been really purchased at the market price; but to
produce vouchers would not have been convenient, and therefore was

not the custom. Upon this Nelson wrote to Sir Charles Middleton,
then Comptroller of the Navy, representing the abuses which were

likely to be practised in this manner. The answer which he received
seemed to imply that the old forms were thought sufficient; and

thus, having no alternative, he was compelled, with his eyes open, to
submit to a practice originating in fraudulent intentions. Soon

afterwards two Antigua merchants informed him that they were privy
to great frauds which had been committed upon government in

various departments; at Antigua, to the amount of nearly L500,000;
at Lucie, L300,000; at Barbadoes, L250,000; at Jamaica, upwards of

a million. The informers were both shrewdsensible men of business;
they did not affect to be actuated by a sense of justice, but required

a per-centage upon so much as government should actually recover
through their means. Nelson examined the books and papers which

they produced, and was convinced that government had been most
infamously plundered. Vouchers, he found, in that country, were no

check whatever: the principle was, that "a thing was always worth
what it would bring;" and the merchants were in the habit of signing

vouchers for each other, without even the appearance of looking at
the articles. These accounts he sent home to the different

departments which had been defrauded; but the peculators were too
powerful, and they succeeded not merely in impeding inquiry, but

even in raising prejudices against Nelson at the Board of Admiralty,
which it was many years before he could subdue.

Owing probably, to these prejudices, and the influence of the
peculators, he was treated, on his return to England, in a manner which

had nearly driven him from the service. During the three years that
the BOREAS had remained upon a station which is usually so fatal, not

a single officer or man of her whole complement had died. This
almost unexampled instance of good health, though mostly, no doubt,

imputable to a healthy season, must in some measure, also, be ascribed
to the wise conduct of the captain. He never suffered the ships to

remain more than three or four weeks at a time at any of the islands;
and when the hurricane months confined him to English Harbour, he

encouraged all kinds of useful amusements--music, dancing, and
cudgelling among the men; theatricals among the officers; anything

which could employ their attention, and keep their spirits cheerful.
The BOREAS arrived in England in June. Nelson, who had many

times been supposed to be consumptive when in the West Indies,
and perhaps was saved from consumption by that climate, was still

in a precarious state of health; and the raw wet weather of one of
our ungenial summers brought on cold, and sore throat, and fever;

yet his vessel was kept at the Nore from the end of June till the end
of November, serving as a slop and receiving ship. This unworthy

treatment, which more probably proceeded from inattention than
from neglect, excited in Nelson the strongest indignation. During

the whole five months he seldom or never quitted the ship, but carried
on the duty with strict and sullen attention. On the morning when

orders were received to prepare the BOREAS for being paid off, he
expressed his joy to the senior officer in the Medway, saying, "It will

release me for ever from an ungrateful service; for it is my firm and
unalterable determination never again to set my foot on board a

king's ship. Immediately after my arrival in town I shall wait on
the First Lord of the Admiralty, and resign my commission." The

officer to whom he thus communicated his intentions behaved in the
wisest and most friendly manner; for finding it in vain to dissuade him

in his present state of feeling, he secretly interfered with the First Lord
to save him from a step so injurious to himself, little foreseeing how

deeply the welfare and honour of England were at that moment at
stake. This interference produced a letter from Lord Howe the day

before the ship was paid off, intimating a wish to see Captain Nelson
as soon as he arrived in town; when, being pleased with his convers-

ation, and perfectly convinced, by what was then explained to him,
of the propriety of his conduct, he desired that he might present him

to the king on the first levee-day; and the gracious manner in which
Nelson was then received effectually removed his resentment.

Prejudices had been, in like manner, excited against his friend,
Prince William Henry. "Nothing is wanting, sir," said Nelson, in

one of his letters, "to make you the darling of the English nation but
truth. Sorry am I to say, much to the contrary has been dispersed."

This was not flattery, for Nelson was no flatterer. The letter in
which this passage occurs shows in how wise and noble a manner he

dealt with the prince. One of his royal highness's officers had
applied for a court-martial upon a point in which he was unquestionably

wrong. His royal highness, however, while he supported his own
character and authority, prevented the trial, which must have been

injurious to a brave and deserving man. "Now that you are parted,"