His Intercourse with Prince William Henry.

he enforced the spirit of the Navigation Act first drew my attention to the commercial interests of my country. We visited the different islands together, and as much as the manœuvres of fleets can be described off the head-lands of islands, we fought over again the principal naval actions in the American war. Excepting the naval tuition which I received on board the Prince George, when Admiral Sir R. G. Keats was lieutenant of her, and for whom both of us equally entertained a sincere regard, my mind took its first decided naval turn from this familiar intercourse with Nelson."

In a letter to Captain Locker, Nelson thus expresses his opinion of the Prince :-" You must have heard long before this reaches you that Prince William is under my command. I shall endeavour to take care that he is not a loser by that circumstance. He has his foibles, as well as private men, but they are far overbalanced by his virtues. In his professional line he is superior to near two-thirds, I am sure, of the list; and, in attention to orders and respect to his superior officer, I hardly know his equal this is what I have found him."

On the first day of 1787, he thus writes to Mrs. Nisbet. "What is it to attend on princes! let me attend on you and I am satisfied. Some are born for attendants on great men; I rather think that is not my particular province. His Royal Highness often tells me he believes I am married, for he never saw a lover so easy, or say so little of the object he has a regard for. When I tell him I certainly am not, he says, then he is sure I must have a great esteem for you, and that it is not what is vulgarly -I do not much like the use of that word - called love. He is right; my love is founded on esteem, the only foundation that can make the passion last. I need not tell you what you so well know, that I

Nelson's Marriage.

wish I had a fortune to settle on you; but I trust I have a good name, and that certain events will bring the other thing about: it is my misfortune, not my fault. You can marry me only from a sincere affection; therefore I ought to make you a good husband, and I hope it will turn out that I shall."

At length, on the 11th of March, 1787, Captain Nelson was married at Nevis, in a very private manner, to Mrs. Nisbet; his friend, Prince William Henry, giving away the bride. It is a singular fact that there were professional men who felt severe disappointment at this event, fearing lest it should abate his spirit of enterprise and patriotism, from which they had formed the highest anticipations of his future eminence. Thus, Captain Pringle, meeting one of the commodore's officers, on the day after his marriage, remarked: "The navy yesterday lost one of its greatest ornaments by Nelson's marriage. It is a national loss that such an officer should marry : had it not been for that circumstance, I foresaw that Nelson would become the greatest man in the service." If Captain Pringle was not aware of Nelson's strict notions of duty, which, as we have seen, was with him paramount to every other consideration, yet time proved the accuracy of the opinion which he had formed of his character.

About this time, Mr. Herbert was so displeased with his only daughter, that he had resolved to disinherit her, and to leave his whole fortune, which was very great, to his niece. Nelson, however, generously used all his influence to prevent this injustice, though he would have been a gainer by it, and did not rest till he had effected a complete reconciliation between the President and his child.

In a letter to Captain Locker, written about ten days after his marriage, he says: "My time since

Nelson exposes Abuses in the Civil Service of the Navy. November has been entirely taken up in attending the Prince on his tour round these islands. However, except Granada, this is the last; when I shall repair to English Harbour, and fit the Boreas for a voyage to England. Happy shall I be when that time arrives. No man has had more illness or trouble on a station than I have experienced; but let me lay a balance on the other side — I am married to an amiable woman, that far makes amends for every thing. Indeed, until I married her, I never knew happiness; and I am morally certain she will continue to make me a happy man for the rest of my days. Prince William did me the honour to stand her father on the occasion; and has shown every act of kindness that the most sincere friendship could bestow. His Royal Highness leaves this country in June, by which time I hope my orders will arrive, or that somebody will be appointed to the command. The wonder to me is that any independent man will accept it, for there is nothing pleasant to be got by it."

During the latter part of his stay on this station, the indefatigable mind of Nelson was directed to the scandalous practices of the officers of the dock-yard at Antigua, and of the contractors, prize-agents, and others in the civil service of the navy in the West Indies generally. When he became senior officer, and bills for goods purchased for the navy were brought to him for his signature, he desired to be furnished with the original vouchers, to ascertain whether the goods in question had been purchased at the market price: but he was told that it was not customary to produce vouchers. He then wrote to the comptroller of the navy, representing the abuses to which such a practice was likely to lead; but the answer which he received seemed to intimate that the old forms were deemed quite sufficient. Soon afterwards he received positive information of very

Nelson exposes Abuses in the Civil Service of the Navy. extensive frauds committed upon the government. The informers were two merchants of Antigua, one of whom had held official situations in several of the islands; and the only reward they desired was a certain per-centage upon the sums that might be recovered. "These gentlemen," Nelson thus wrote to the Duke of Richmond, then at the head of the ordnance department, "are not publishers of this fraud merely for the honour of serving the public: interest has its weight. I send you an account of one quarter's fraud, and I examined several in the books; but they declined my having more, until they were satisfied government would reward them in proportion to the frauds discovered. As a man who

has more than once stood forward to detect and bring to punishment those who are guilty of defrauding the public, I may venture to express myself freely. In Antigua, in the different departments, at least, they say, £300,000: at St. Lucie, as much; at Barbadoes, not far short; and at Jamaica, upwards of a million. What of this may be recovered, if any, I know not however, this good effect it surely will have, that of preventing the like in future. But there is one observation which I beg leave to make. It will be said, 'vouchers are produced, and merchants have attested that they are at the market price.' In this country the market price is what an article will sell for, and there is no merchant here but will declare that, in signing vouchers for each other, they never look at the article, saying, 'A thing is always worth what it will bring;' therefore vouchers are no check in this country."

Before this business could be thoroughly sifted, Nelson's term of service on the Leeward Island station expired; and in June, 1787, he sailed for England. During the three years that he had commanded the Boreas in the West Indies, not an officer or man

Returns to England.

of her crew had died- a circumstance probably not to be paralleled in such a climate. His attention to the health of his people was, indeed, unremitting. He never suffered the ship to remain many days at any island. The Boreas was always on the wing, and, when other ships happened to be in company, Nelson was continually forming the line, exercising the men, and chasing. In the hurricane months, which obliged him to remain at anchor in English Harbour, Antigua, he encouraged music, dancing, and single-stick, on board; and the officers, especially the younger ones, performed plays. These recreations served to keep up the spirits of the ship's company, by furnishing constant employment for their minds.

His first step on his arrival in England was to prosecute the affair of the peculations in the West Indies, and though Nelson had eventually the satisfaction of knowing that he had put the investigation into a proper course, which ended in the detection and punishment of some of the parties, and seeing that all his representations were attended to, and that every step which he recommended was adopted, still his own efforts were suffered to pass without reward, or even mark of commendation. Indeed, from a letter which he addressed to Lord Howe, they seem to have been entirely overlooked. "I had hopes," he says, "that the Admiralty would have ordered me the same allowance at least as was given to a junior officer left in the command at Jamaica ; and I hope your lordship will give me countenance in an application for it. I trust it is incontrovertible that I did my duty with the most rigid exactness, and that the business of the naval yard was never paid more attention to than by myself. The navy board, I am sure, at this moment, must know that the difficulties said by their officers to be thrown in the way of