"He is right; my love is founded on esteem, the only foundation that can make the passion last. I need not tell you what you so well know, that I wish I had a fortune to settle on you; but I trust I have a good name, and that certain events will bring the other about; it is my misfortune, not my fault. You can marry me only from a sincere affection; therefore I ought to make you a good husband, and I hope it will turn out that I shall."
Again he writes, "I daily thank God, who ordained that I should be attached to you. He has, I firmly believe, intended it as a blessing to me, and I am well convinced you will not disappoint his beneficent intentions."
These are certainly very different letters from those which he wrote in after years to Lady Hamilton, whom he idolized. Undoubtedly Nelson mistook loneliness of heart for love; as he wrote to Lady Hamilton years after, "I never did love any one else.... I have been the world around, and in every corner of it, and never yet saw your equal, or even one who could be put in comparison with you." Nelson and Mrs. Nisbet were married March 12, 1787, Prince William giving away the bride. Many of his friends in the service regretted that he had married before his honors had been more fully won. "The Navy," said Captain Pringle, the day after the wedding, "yesterday lost one of its greatest ornaments by Nelson's marriage. It is a national loss that such an officer should marry; had it not been for that circumstance, I foresaw that Nelson would become the greatest man in the service."
Nelson took his wife to England, arriving at Spithead July 4, about four months after their marriage. He had applied for a ship-of-the-line, but no notice was taken of the request. He retired with his wife to the parsonage at Burnham Thorpe, and at the request of his aged father remained there. He was in very poor health and living on half-pay. "From the 30th of November, 1787, to the 30th of January, 1793," says W. Clark Russell, in his life of the hero, "Nelson, whose delicate form enclosed the genius of the greatest sea-captain the world has ever produced, was compelled by departmental neglect to lie by in an almost poverty-stricken retirement."
Again and again he asked for employment. The prince recommended him to Lord Chatham, but nothing was done. In December, 1792, Nelson wrote, "If your lordships should be pleased to appoint me to a cockle-boat I should be grateful." He would have left the service, if he had had means to live on shore. He was irritated beyond measure by this neglect, and perhaps Mrs. Nelson did not find the parsonage a perfect haven of rest and peace.
Finally Nelson concluded to take refuge in France. That country had become a republic Sept. 21, 1792. She soon found herself, on account of her democratic principles, engaged in war with various countries, Great Britain among them. Feb. 1, 1793, she declared war against England, Holland, and Spain. Sardinia was already at war with France. As soon as England was involved in war, Nelson was needed; and he was assigned to the Agamemnon, a fine ship of sixty-four guns, called by the seamen, "Old Eggs-and-Bacon." She sailed for Gibraltar June 27, 1793, with Lord Hood's fleet, nineteen sail-of-the-line, and a convoy of merchant-ships.
When Lord Hood arrived in the Mediterranean, he stationed his ships off Toulon, which soon surrendered to the British, without firing a shot. Nelson was at once ordered to Naples with despatches for Sir William Hamilton, the British minister, and to ask for ten thousand Italian troops, to help in the preservation of Toulon.
King Ferdinand and his queen, Maria Caroline, the daughter of Maria Theresa of Austria, gave Nelson most cordial welcome at Court, feeling that the English were "the saviours of Italy." Sir William Hamilton told his wife that he was going to introduce her to a little man, not handsome, "but an English naval officer, who will become the greatest man that England ever produced. I know it from the few words I have already exchanged with him. I pronounce that he will one day astonish the world.... Let him be put in the room prepared for Prince Augustus."
Lady Hamilton received Nelson with her accustomed grace and cordiality. He wrote his wife, "She is a young woman of amiable manners, and who does honor to the station in which she is raised.... She has been wonderfully kind and good to Josiah."