s; 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