d plan in favor of one vastly more hazardous, but
which seized and held the otherwise fleeting chance,--led him here
also at San Juan, unknown, and scarcely more than a boy, to press the
policy of immediate attack.

The decision was not in his hands, and he was overruled; whereupon,
with his usual readiness to do his utmost, he accepted the course he
disapproved, and, without nursing a grievance, became at once active
in erecting batteries and serving the guns. "When unfortunate
contentions," says one dispassionate narrator, "had slackened the
ardour for public service, Captain Nelson did not suffer any narrow
spirit to influence his conduct. He did more than his duty: where
anything was to be done, he saw no difficulties." Great as his merits
were, he was never insensible to them; and, in the sketch of his
career, furnished by him to his chief biographers, he records his
exploits with naive self-satisfaction, resembling the sententious
tablets of Eastern conquerors: "I boarded, if I may be allowed the
expression, an outpost of the enemy, situated on an island in the
river; I made batteries, and afterwards fought them, and was a
principal cause of our success." But this simple, almost childlike,
delight in his own performances, which continually crops out in his
correspondence, did not exaggerate their deserts. Major Polson,
commanding the land forces, wrote to Governor Dalling: "I want words
to express the obligations I owe to Captain Nelson. He was the first
on every service, whether by day or night. There was not a gun fired
but was pointed by him, or by Captain Despard, Chief Engineer."
Dalling, after some delay, wrote in the same sense to the Minister of
War in London, warmly recommending Nelson to the notice of the home
Government.

While the siege was in progress, Nelson received word of his
appointment to a better ship, the "Janus," of forty-four guns, and it
became necessary for him to join her. He left Fort San Juan only the
day before it surrendered, and returned to Jamaica; but his health now
gave way wholly, and his command of the "Janus," for the most part
merely nominal, soon came to an end altogether. Dalling had truly
said, "Captain Nelson's constitution is rather too delicate for
service in this northern ocean."[5] Before starting on the
expedition, he had himself written to his friend Locker: "If my health
is not much better than it is at present, I shall certainly come home
after this trip, as all