al Navy, was also cut
off in the prime of his age. As the earlier Nelsons were unusually
long-lived, it seems probable that a certain delicacy of constitution
was transmitted through the Sucklings to the generation to which the
admiral belonged. He was himself, at various periods through life, a
great sufferer, and frequently an invalid; allusions to illness, often
of a most prostrating type, and to his susceptibility to the
influences of climate or weather, occur repeatedly and at brief
intervals throughout his correspondence. This is a factor in his
career which should not be lost to mind; for on the one hand it
explains in part the fretfulness which at times appears, and on the
other brings out with increased force the general kindly sweetness of
his temper, which breathed with slight abatement through such
depressing conditions. It enhances, too, the strength of purpose that
trod bodily weakness under foot, almost unconsciously, at the call of
duty or of honor. It is notable, in his letters, that the necessity
for exertion, even when involving severe exposure, is apt to be
followed, though without apparent recognition of a connection between
the two, by the remark that he has not for a long time been so well.
He probably experienced, as have others, that it is not the greater
hardships of the profession, much less the dangers, but its
uncertainties and petty vexations, which tell most severely on a
high-strung organization like his own.

The immediate occasion of his going to sea was as follows. In 1770 the
Falkland Islands, a desolate and then unimportant group, lying in the
South Atlantic, to the eastward of Patagonia, were claimed as a
possession by both Spain and Great Britain. The latter had upon them
a settlement called Port Egmont, before which, in the year named, an
overwhelming Spanish squadron suddenly appeared, and compelled the
British occupants to lower their flag. The insult aroused public
indignation in England to the highest pitch; and while peremptory
demands for reparation were despatched to Spain, a number of ships of
war were ordered at once into commission. Among these was the
"Raisonnable," of sixty-four guns, to the command of which was
appointed Nelson's uncle, Captain Maurice Suckling. The latter had
some time before promised to provide for one of his sister's children,
the family being very poor; and, the custom of the day permitting
naval captains, as a kind of patronage, to take into the