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I Have closed the war, said Nelson, in one of his letters,
without a fortune; but there is not a speck in my character. True honor, I hope, predominates in my mind far above riches. He did not apply for a ship, because he was not wealthy enough to live on board in the manner which was then become customary. Finding it, therefore, prudent to economize on his half-pay during the peace, he went to France, in company with Captain Mac- namara, of the navy, and took lodgings at St. Omer’s. The death of his favorite sister, Anne, who died in consequence of going out of the ball-room, at Bath, when heated with dancing, affected his father so mnch, that it had nearly occasioned him to return in a few weeks. Time, however, and reason and religion, overcame this grief in the old man; and Nelson continued at St. Omer’s long enough to fall in love with the daughter of an English clergyman. This second attachment appears to have been less ardent than the first; for, upon weighing the evils of a straitened income to a married man, he thought it better to leave France, assigning to his friends something in his accounts as the cause. This prevented him from accepting an invitation from the Count of Deux Fonts to visit him at Paris, couched in the handsomest terms of acknowledgment for the treatment which he had received on board the Albemarle. The self-constraint which Nelson exerted in subduing this attachment, made him naturally desire to be at sea: and when, upon visiting Lord Howe at the Admiralty, he was asked if he wished to be employed, he made answer that he did. Accordingly, in March, he was appointed to the Boreas, twenty-eight guns, going to the Leeward Islands, as a cruiser, on the peace establishment. Lady Hughes and her family went out with him to Admiral Sir …