valued more highly.  On the 14th of August the sudden lifting of a fog showed the “Albemarle” within gunshot of a French squadron, of four ships-of-the-line and a frigate, that had just come out of Boston.  A close chase followed, lasting nine or ten hours; but Nelson threw off the heavy ships by running among the shoals of George’s Bank, which he ventured to do, trusting to the cool head and aptitude for pilotage acquired in earlier life.  The frigate followed warily, watching for a chance to strike at advantage; but when the ships-of-the-line had been dropped far enough to be unable to help their consort, the British vessel hove-to[7] in defiance, and the enemy fell back upon his supports.

Shortly after this escape, so many of the ship’s company fell ill with scurvy that Nelson decided to go back to Quebec, where he arrived on the 17th of September.  “For eight weeks,” he wrote, “myself and all the officers lived upon salt beef; nor had the ship’s company had a fresh meal since the 7th of April.”  The fears for his health that he had expressed before sailing from England had happily proved groundless, and a month’s stay in port which now followed, at the most delightful and invigorating of the American seasons, wrought wonders for him.  His letters to Locker state that the voyage agreed with him better than he had expected; while from the St. Lawrence he wrote to his father, “Health, that greatest of blessings, is what I never truly enjoyed until I saw Fair Canada.  The change it has wrought, I am convinced, is truly wonderful.”  This happy result had been due, in part at least, to surroundings that told favorably upon his sensitive nervous system, and not to the bracing climate alone.  He had been actively occupied afloat, and had fallen desperately in love with a fair Canadian, around whom his ardent imagination threw that glamour of exaggerated charm in which he saw all who were dear to him, except his wife.  Her he seems from the first to have looked upon with affection indeed, but without rapture or illusion.  The Canadian affair came near ending in an imprudent offer, from which he was with difficulty deterred by a cool-headed friend.  The story runs that, the ship being ordered to New York and ready for sea, he had bidden her good-bye and gone on board, expecting to sail next day; but that, unable to bear the approaching separation, he returned to the city, and was on his way to the lady’s home when his friend met him.

Tearing himself away from his mistress by a violent effort, Nelson, on the 20th of October, sailed for New York.  Arriving on the 13th of November, he found there a large part of the West India fleet, under Lord Hood, who had been second in command to Rodney on the occasion of the latter’s celebrated victory over De Grasse in the previous April.  Rodney had since then been recalled to England, while Hood had gone to Boston to look after a division of the beaten French fleet, which was there refitting.