is almost
unexampled instance of good health, though mostly, no doubt, imputable
to a healthy season, must in some measure, also, be ascribed to the wise
conduct of the captain. He never suffered the ships to remain more
than three or four weeks at a time at any of the islands; and when the
hurricane months confined him to English Harbour, he encouraged all
kinds of useful amusements--music, dancing, and cudgelling among the
men; theatricals among the officers; anything which could employ their
attention, and keep their spirits cheerful. The BOREAS arrived in
England in June. Nelson, who had many times been supposed to be
consumptive when in the West Indies, and perhaps was saved from
consumption by that climate, was still in a precarious state of health;
and the raw wet weather of one of our ungenial summers brought on cold,
and sore throat, and fever; yet his vessel was kept at the Nore from the
end of June till the end of November, serving as a slop and receiving
ship. This unworthy treatment, which more probably proceeded from
inattention than from neglect, excited in Nelson the strongest
indignation. During the whole five months he seldom or never quitted the
ship, but carried on the duty with strict and sullen attention. On the
morning when orders were received to prepare the BOREAS for being paid
off, he expressed his joy to the senior officer in the Medway, saying,
"It will release me for ever from an ungrateful service; for it is my
firm and unalterable determination never again to set my foot on board
a king's ship. Immediately after my arrival in town I shall wait on the
First Lord of the Admiralty, and resign my commission." The officer to
whom he thus communicated his intentions behaved in the wisest and most
friendly manner; for finding it in vain to dissuade him in his present
state of feeling, he secretly interfered with the First Lord to save him
from a step so injurious to himself, little foreseeing how deeply
the welfare and honour of England were at that moment at stake. This
interference produced a letter from Lord Howe the day before the ship
was paid off, intimating a wish to see Captain Nelson as soon as
he arrived in town; when, being pleased with his conversation, and
perfectly convinced, by what was then explained to him, of the propriety
of his conduct, he desired that he might present him to the king on
the first levee-day; and the gracious manner in which Nelson was then
received effectually