days a fine and spacious harbor. There his charge ended; but his
mental constitution never allowed him to look upon a military task as
well done while anything remained to do. In the spirit of his famous
saying, fifteen years later, "Were ten ships out of eleven taken, I
would never call it well done if the eleventh escaped, if able to get
at her," he determined to go with the troops. With his temperament it
was impossible to turn his back upon the little body of soldiers,
whose toilsome advance up the tropical stream might be aided and
hastened by his ready seamen.

The first objective of the expedition was Fort San Juan, a powerful
work controlling the river of the same name, and thereby the only
natural water transit between the sea and Lake Nicaragua. Upon the
possession of this, as a position of vantage and a safe depot for
supplies and reinforcements, Dalling based his hopes of future
advance, both west and south. Nelson took with him forty-seven seamen
and marines from his ship's company; the former, aided by some
Indians, doing most of the labor of forcing the boats against the
current, through shoal and tortuous channels, under his own constant
supervision and encouragement. A small outpost that withstood their
progress was by him intrepidly stormed, sword in hand, by sudden
assault; and upon reaching Fort San Juan he urgently recommended the
same summary method to the officer commanding the troops. The latter,
however, was not one of the men who recognize the necessity for
exceptional action. Regular approaches, though the slower, were the
surer way of reducing a fortified place, and entailed less bloodshed.
Professional rule commonly demanded them, and to professional rule he
submitted. Nelson argued that through delays, which, however incurred,
were now past discussion, the expedition had reached its destination
in April, at the end of the healthy, dry season, instead of shortly