gave way wholly, and his command of the "Janus," for the most part
merely nominal, soon came to an end altogether. Dalling had truly
said, "Captain Nelson's constitution is rather too delicate for
service in this northern ocean."[5] Before starting on the
expedition, he had himself written to his friend Locker: "If my health
is not much better than it is at present, I shall certainly come home
after this trip, as all the doctors are against my staying so long in
this country. You know my old complaint in my breast: it is turned out
to be the gout got there. I have twice been given over since you left
this country with that cursed disorder, the gout." In such weakness he
lived and worked through a month of a short campaign, in which, of the
"Hinchinbrook's" crew of two hundred, one hundred and forty-five were
buried in his time or that of his successor, Collingwood,--a mortality
which he justly cites as a further proof of the necessity for
expedition in such climates. But, though he survived, he escaped by
the skin of his teeth. Worn out by dysentery and fatigue, he was
carried ashore in his cot, and soon after taken to Sir Peter Parker's
house, where Lady Parker herself nursed him through. Her kindness to
him and his own debility are touchingly shown by a note written from
the mountains, where he was carried in his convalescence: "Oh, Mr.
Ross, what would I give to be at Port Royal! Lady Parker not here, and
the servants letting me lay as if a log, and take no notice." By
September, 1780, it was apparent that perfect restoration, without
change of climate, was impossible, and in the autumn, having been
somewhat over three years on the station, he sailed for home in the
"Lion," of sixty-four guns, Captain Cornwallis,[6] to whose careful
attention, as formerly to that of Captain Pigot, he gratefully
attributed his life. The expedition with which he had been associated
ended in failure, for although a part of the force pushed on to Lake
Nicaragua, sickness compelled the abandonment of the conquests, which