went so far with him that he wrote to his uncle William Suckling, asking for an allowance to enable him to marry.  “If nothing can be done for me,” said he, gloomily, “I know what I have to trust to.  Life is not worth preserving without happiness; and I care not where I may linger out a miserable existence.  I am prepared to hear your refusal, and have fixed my resolution if that should happen....  I pray you may never know the pangs which at this instant tear my heart.”  If, as is said by the gentlemen into whose hands this letter passed, Suckling consented to help him, as he certainly did at the time of his actual marriage, it seems probable that the lady refused him.

FOOTNOTES: 

[1] The precise date of Nelson’s entering the Navy, which would be that of his being rated upon the books of the “Raisonnable,” is not stated.  Accepting the times during which he was borne upon the books of different ships, as given by Sir Harris Nicolas (Letters and Despatches of Lord Nelson, vol. i. p. 4, note), and with them calculating back from October 15, 1773, the day mentioned by Nelson himself as that on which he was paid off from the “Carcass” (Nicolas, p. 5), the date of entry upon the books of the “Raisonnable” would be November 27, 1770; unless, which is unlikely, there were any lost days.  The news of the Port Egmont business reached England in October, 1770.  Clarke and M’Arthur (Life of Nelson, vol. i. p. 14, note) infer January 1, 1771, for his entry upon the “Raisonnable’s” books; but this would not allow the times which Nicolas gives with minute exactness.  For his actually joining the “Raisonnable” they give, loosely, the spring of 1771,—­March or April.  This is very possible, as rating back, for the sake of gaining constructive time needed to qualify for promotion, was tolerated by the practice of the day.

[2] Clarke and M’Arthur, vol. i. p. 31.

[3] Collingwood was nearly fifty when he got his flag.  Howe was forty-five, St. Vincent fifty-three, Saumarez forty-four, Exmouth (Pellew) forty-eight.

[4] This appears certain from his letters of July 28 and August 12, which explicitly mention that ship’s absence.

[5] The Caribbean was formerly thus styled in contradistinction to the South Sea, the Pacific, which was so called because its first discoverers saw it to the south from the Isthmus.

[6] Cornwallis was an officer of marked gallantry and conduct, who distinguished himself on several occasions, as captain, during the War of 1778, and as admiral during the wars of the French Revolution.  He was brother to Lord Cornwallis, who surrendered at Yorktown, in 1781.

[7] That is, stopped.

CHAPTER II.

The cruise of the “Boreas.”—­Controversy over the enforcement of the navigation act.—­Return to England.—­Retirement until the outbreak of the French revolution.—­Appointed to command the “Agamemnon,” 64.