ore; that neither adds
to nor detracts from the object of it. No definite opinion of the time
is given. Blackwood and Hardy, as witnesses, would know. In any case
it is an extraordinary document, and indicates unusual mental control
of which few human beings are possessed. His mind must have been
saturated with thoughts of the woman when the great battle was within
a few minutes of commencing. Early in the morning, when he was walking
the poop and cabin fixings and odds and ends were being removed, he
gave stern instructions to "take care of his guardian angel," meaning
her portrait, which he regarded in the light of a mascot to him. He
also wore a miniature of her next his heart. Unless Captain Hardy and
Captain Blackwood and others to whom he confided his love potions
were different from the hearty, unconventional seamen of the writer's
early sea-life, a banquet of interesting epithets could have been left
to us which might have shocked the severely decorous portion of a
public who assume a monopoly of inherent grace but do not understand
the delightful simple dialect of the old-time sailor-men.

There can be small doubt that Nelson's comrades had many a joke in
private about his weird and to them unnecessarily troublesome love
wailings, which would be all the more irksome when they and he had
serious business in hand. Poor Sir Thomas Troubridge appears to have
been the only one to have dealt frankly with him about carrying his
infatuation to such lengths--especially at a time when the public
service was in need of his undivided attention--and Nelson never had a
kindly feeling towards him afterwards. This gallant officer and loyal
friend was in command of the _Blenheim_ (seventy-four guns) when she
and the _Java_ (twenty-three guns) foundered with all hands near the
island of Rodriguez, in the East Indies, on the 1st February, 1807.
Nelson harboured a childish bitterness against Admiral Troubridge
because of his plain speaking, and especially after the latter was
appointed a Lord of the Admiralty. He always believed the "hidden
hand" to be that of his former friend, to whom he delighted at one
time to give the term "Nonpareil." In a letter to a friend he says: "I
have a sharp eye, and almost think I can see it. No, poor fellow," he
continues, "I hope I do him injustice; he surely cannot forget my
kindness to him," He boasts of how he spoke to St. Vincent, the former
"Nonpareil." In another eloquent passage he complain