offee
and liqueurs close the dinner about half-past 4 or 5 o'clock, after
which the company generally walk the deck, where the band of music
plays for nearly an hour.[67] A 6 o'clock tea is announced, when the
company again assemble in the Admiral's cabin, where tea is served up
before 7 o'clock, and, as we are inclined, the party continue to
converse with his lordship, who at this time generally unbends
himself, though he is at all times as free from stiffness and pomp as
a regard to proper dignity will admit, and is very communicative. At 8
o'clock a rummer of punch with cake or biscuit is served up, soon
after which we wish the Admiral a good night (who is generally in bed
before 9 o'clock). Such is the journal of a day at sea in fine or at
least moderate weather, in which this floating castle goes through the
water with the greatest imaginable steadiness."

Another medical officer, who served on board the "Victory" soon after
the writer of the lines just quoted, has transmitted some other
interesting particulars of Nelson's personal habits and health, which
relate to the general period now under narration.

"An opinion has been very generally entertained, that Lord Nelson's
state of health, and supposed infirmities arising from his former
wounds and hard services, precluded the probability of his long
surviving the battle of Trafalgar, had he fortunately escaped the
Enemy's shot: but the writer of this can assert that his Lordship's
health was uniformly good, with the exception of some slight attacks
of indisposition arising from accidental causes; and which never
continued above two or three days, nor confined him in any degree with
respect to either exercise or regimen: and during the last twelve
months of his life, he complained only three times in this way. It is
true, that his Lordship, about the meridian of life, had been subject
to frequent fits of the gout; which disease, however, as well as his
constitutional tendency to it, he totally overcame by abstaining for
the space of nearly two years from animal food, and wine, and all
other fermented drink; confining his diet to vegetables, and commonly
milk and water. And it is also a fact, that early in life, when he
first went to sea, he left off the use of salt, which he then believed
to be the sole cause of scurvy, and never took it afterwards with his
food.

"His Lordship used a great deal of exercise, generally walking on deck
six or seven hours in the d