head and aptitude for pilotage acquired in earlier life. The frigate
followed warily, watching for a chance to strike at advantage; but
when the ships-of-the-line had been dropped far enough to be unable to
help their consort, the British vessel hove-to[7] in defiance, and the
enemy fell back upon his supports.

Shortly after this escape, so many of the ship's company fell ill
with scurvy that Nelson decided to go back to Quebec, where he arrived
on the 17th of September. "For eight weeks," he wrote, "myself and all
the officers lived upon salt beef; nor had the ship's company had a
fresh meal since the 7th of April." The fears for his health that he
had expressed before sailing from England had happily proved
groundless, and a month's stay in port which now followed, at the most
delightful and invigorating of the American seasons, wrought wonders
for him. His letters to Locker state that the voyage agreed with him
better than he had expected; while from the St. Lawrence he wrote to
his father, "Health, that greatest of blessings, is what I never truly
enjoyed until I saw _Fair_ Canada. The change it has wrought, I am
convinced, is truly wonderful." This happy result had been due, in
part at least, to surroundings that told favorably upon his sensitive
nervous system, and not to the bracing climate alone. He had been
actively occupied afloat, and had fallen desperately in love with a
fair Canadian, around whom his ardent imagination threw that glamour
of exaggerated charm in which he saw all who were dear to him, except
his wife. Her he seems from the first to have looked upon with
affection indeed, but without rapture or illusion. The Canadian affair
came near ending in an imprudent offer, from which he was with
difficulty deterred by a cool-headed friend. The story runs that, the
ship being ordered to New York and ready for sea, he had bidden her
good-bye and gone on board, expecting to sail next day; but that,