He was now on his return to the islands, where the enemy was expected to make a vigorous aggressive campaign the following spring.  Extensive preparations were in fact on foot for the reduction of Jamaica, frustrated six months before by De Grasse’s mishap.  Nelson thus found himself again in tantalizing contact with the stirring circumstance that preludes hostilities, in which he himself had little hope to share; for the “Albemarle” belonged to the North American station, where all active naval operations had ceased with the surrender of Cornwallis the year before.  He went, therefore, to Hood, and begged to be transferred to his squadron.  In vain did Admiral Digby, his own commander-in-chief, tell him that he was on a good station for prize-money.  “Yes,” he replied, “but the West Indies is the station for honour.”

Digby was reluctant to part with a frigate, as all admirals were; but Hood, either from an intuitive faculty for judging men, or from his conversations with Nelson eliciting the latter’s singular knowledge of the higher part of his profession, wished to push an officer of so much promise, and succeeded in obtaining the transfer of the “Albemarle” to his squadron.  “I am a candidate with Lord Hood for a line-of-battle ship,” wrote Nelson to Locker; “he has honoured me highly, by a letter, for wishing to go off this station to a station of service, and has promised me his friendship.”  A few months later he wrote again:  “My situation in Lord Hood’s fleet must be in the highest degree flattering to any young man.  He treats me as if I were his son, and will, I am convinced, give me anything I can ask of him.”  This was really the beginning, the outstart, of Nelson’s great career; for Hood’s interest in him, then aroused, and deepened by experience to the utmost confidence and appreciation, made itself felt the instant the French Revolutionary War began.  Nelson then came at once under his orders, went with him to the Mediterranean, and there speedily made his mark, being transferred from admiral to admiral with ever-growing tokens of reliance.  Despite the lapse of time, and the long interval of peace, it is no exaggeration to say that there is a direct connection of cause and effect between his transfer to Hood’s fleet, in the harbor of New York, and the battle of Cape St. Vincent, in 1797, when he emerged from merely professional distinction to national renown, standing head and shoulders above all competitors.  In the four days that followed his arrival in New York, Nelson took the tide at the flood, and was borne on to fortune.  Yet in this, as in many other instant and happy decisions, we may not see the mere casting of a die, the chance result of an irreflective impulse.  The determination to change into Hood’s squadron, with its powerful, far-reaching effect upon his future, was in necessary logical sequence to Nelson’s whole habit of thought, and wish, and previous preparation.  He was swept into the current that carried him on to fame by the irresistible tendency of his own conscious will and cherished purpose.  Opportunity flitted by; he was ready, and grasped it.