been imaginary, is a most noteworthy feature of his character, and
goes far to explain the attraction he exerted over others, the
enthusiasm which ever followed him, the greatness of his success, and
also, unhappily, the otherwise almost inexplicable but enduring
infatuation which enslaved his later years, and has left the most
serious blot upon his memory.

Though thus pleased with his surroundings, his own health continued
indifferent. He excuses himself for delay in correspondence, because
"so ill as to be scarce kept out of bed." In such a state, and for one
whose frame had been racked and weakened by three years spent in the
damp heat of the tropics, a winter's trip to the Baltic was hardly the
best prescription; but thither the "Albemarle" was sent,--"it would
almost be supposed," he wrote, "to try my constitution." He was away
on this cruise from October to December, 1781, reaching Yarmouth on
the 17th of the latter month, with a large convoy of a hundred and ten
sail of merchant-ships, all that then remained of two hundred and
sixty that had started from Elsinore on the 8th. "They behaved, as all
convoys that ever I saw did, shamefully ill; parting company every
day." After being several days wind-bound in Yarmouth Roads, he
arrived in the Downs on the first day of 1782. The bitter cold of the
North had pierced him almost as keenly as it did twenty years later in
the Copenhagen expedition. "I believe the Doctor has saved my life
since I saw you," he wrote to his brother. The ship was then ordered
to Portsmouth to take in eight months' provisions,--a sure indication
that she was intended for a distant voyage. Nelson himself surmised
that she would join the squadron of Sir Richard Bickerton, then
fitting out to reinforce the fleet in the East Indies. Had this
happened, he would have been on hand to hear much and perchance see
something of one of his own professional forerunners, the great French