his profession. This, also, his ardent imagination endowed with
possibilities and aspirations, not greater, indeed, than its deserts,
but which only the intuitions of a genius like his could realize and
vivify, imparting to slower temperaments something of his own fire. To
this association the prince afterwards attributed the awakening of
that strong interest in maritime affairs which he retained to the day
of his death. The two friends dined alternately one with the other,
and, in their association of some six months at this time, they
together fought over all the naval battles that during the recent war
had illustrated the waters through which they were then cruising.

The incessant energy displayed by Nelson, and the agitations through
which he passed during the three years of this stay upon the West
Indian station, again produced distressing symptoms in his general
health. To use his own words, the activity of the mind was "too much
for my puny constitution." "I am worn to a skeleton," he writes to Mr.
Suckling in July, 1786; and three months later to Locker, "I have been
since June so very ill that I have only a faint recollection of
anything which I did. My complaint was in my breast, such a one as I
had going out to Jamaica [in 1777]. The Doctor thought I was in a
consumption, and quite gave me up." This fear, however, proved
unfounded; nor does there appear at any time to have been any serious
trouble with his lungs.

On the 11th[16] of March, 1787, the marriage of Captain Nelson to Mrs.
Nisbet took place at Nevis. Prince William Henry, whose rule it was
never to visit in any private house, made an exception on this
occasion, having exacted from Nelson a promise that the wedding should
wait until he could be present; and he gave away the bride. Three
months later, on the 7th of June, the "Boreas" sailed for England, and