nk God, very near perfectly restored; having
the complete use of all his limbs, except his left arm, of which he can
hardly tell the ailment: from the shoulder to his fingers ends felt as
if half dead, but the faculty gave him hopes that it would all go off.
He expresses his anxiety to be employed; and, as if willing to
demonstrate that his spirits were more lively than his limb, he says,
with considerable pleasantry and wit, speaking of three portraits--one
of the present Admiral George Montague, another of Sir Charles Pole, and
the third of himself, which was then painting by Mr. Rigaud as a present
for Captain Locker--"I hope, when I come to town, to see a fine _trio_
in your room. When you get the pictures, I must be in the middle; for,
God knows, without good _supporters_, I shall fall to the ground."

After the restoration of his health, he paid a visit to his worthy and
venerable father, at Burnham-Thorpe; as well as to his amiable eldest
sister, then recently married to Mr. Bolton, who resided at Wells, about
five miles distant, and other relatives and friends in the county of
Norfolk: few of whom, except his father, had ever once beheld him for
the last eleven years. The felicity of such a meeting is not to be
described, and it can only be conceived by those who have experienced
similar sensations.

At length, in August 1781, Captain Nelson was appointed to the command
of the Albemarle of twenty-eight guns. In this ship, which had been a
French merchantman, captured two years before, and purchased for the
king's service, his delicate constitution underwent a new and severe
trial; being employed, the whole winter, convoying and cruizing in the
North Seas. The inconvenience, too, as well as the dangers, of this
service, were in no slight degree augmented, by the mast's having been
made much too long for the ship; a circumstance which had, at several
times, nearly occasioned it to be overset. These perils, too, were
wholly unattended with what may be denominated any success; as the
Dutch, the greater part of the time, had not a single trading vessel at
sea: and, though a privateer, said to be the noted pirate, Fall, stole
into the fleet which the Albemarle was convoying, it got clear off,
after an hour's chace, owing to the necessity of Captain Nelson's
returning to the unprotected ships.

On their arrival in England, the mast was taken out, and properly
shortened; and, such other improvements being made, as sug