e mild climate
than because feeling the necessity of prosecuting his cure; yet that
his health was far from securely re-established is evident, for a
severe relapse followed his return to London. On the 7th of May, 1781,
he writes to his brother: "You will say, why does not he come into
Norfolk? I will tell you: I have entirely lost the use of my left arm,
and very near of my left leg and thigh." In estimating Nelson's
heroism, the sickly fragility of his bodily frame must be kept in
memory; not to excuse shortcomings of nerve or enterprise, for there
were none, but to exalt duly the extraordinary mental energy which
rather mocked at difficulties than triumphed over them.

While yet an invalid he had again applied for employment, and, as the
war was still raging, was appointed in August, 1781, to the
"Albemarle," a small frigate of twenty-eight guns. He was pleased with
the ship, the first commissioned by himself at home, with a long
cruise in prospect; and, together with his expressions of content with
her, there appears that manifestation of complete satisfaction with
his officers and crew, with those surrounding him as subordinates,
that so singularly characterized his habit of mind. "I have an
exceeding good ship's company. Not a man or officer in her I would
wish to change.... I am perfectly satisfied with both officers and
ship's company." Down to the month before Trafalgar, when, to the
bidding of the First Lord of the Admiralty to choose his own officers,
he replied, "Choose yourself, my lord; the same spirit actuates the
whole profession, you cannot choose wrong," there is rarely, it might
almost be said never, anything but praise for those beneath him. With
the "Agamemnon," "We are all well; indeed, nobody can be ill with my
ship's company, they are so fine a set." At the Nile, "I had the
happiness to command a band of brothers; therefore night was to my
advantage. Each knew his duty, and I was sure each would feel for a
French ship. _My friends_ readily conceived my plan." His ships in the
Mediterranean, in 1803, "are the best commanded and the very best
manned" in the navy. So his frequent praise of others in his
despatches and letters has none of the formal, perfunctory ring of an
official paper; it springs evidently from the warmest appreciation and
admiration, is heartfelt, showing no deceptive exterior, but the true
native fibre of the man, full of the charity which is kind and
thinketh no evil. It was