The boy’s father’s name was Nelson. He was a clergyman of the Church of England. His wife had died when this boy was a baby, leaving eight children for the invalid father to care for. Once while the father was away for his health, young Horatio heard that his mother’s brother had been appointed to the command of a British man-of-war. Horatio said to an older brother: “Do, William, write to my father and tell him that I should like to go to sea with Uncle Maurice.”
Thinking the navy might be a good place for the boy and a benefit to his health, Doctor Nelson wrote to his brother-in-law. The bluff sea-captain wrote right back:
“What has poor Horatio done, who is so weak, that he, above all the rest, should be sent to rough it out at sea? But let him come, and the first time we go into action a cannon-ball may knock off his head and provide for him at once.”
Thus young Horatio Nelson entered the Royal Navy. One of his first trips was as coxswain on a voyage to the Arctic regions. While dragging the ship’s boats over the ice, the sailors had to fight with walruses and polar bears. Coxswain Nelson killed a big white bear and carried home the skin for his father.
When Horatio was fifteen he made a voyage on the warship Seahorse to the East Indies. A year and a half in that hot climate made the frail lad so ill that he had to go home. Of his thoughts while sailing home on sick leave he once said:
“After a long and gloomy revery in which I almost wished myself overboard, a sudden glow of patriotism was kindled within me and presented my king and country as my patrons. My mind exulted in the idea. ‘Well then,’ I exclaimed, ‘I will be a hero, and trusting in God, I will brave every danger.’ ”
Young Nelson had too much pluck to be sick long. England was then at war with France and Spain, and he fought his country’s enemies in malarial regions where hundreds of his fellows died from the poisoned air and serpent bites. When Horatio was twenty-two his health again failed, and he had to spend months in Brighton to recover it.
When peace was signed between England and France, in 1783, Nelson was twenty-five. He was presented at court in that year, as he was a favorite with the Duke of Clarence who afterward became King William the Fourth.
The next year Captain Nelson was placed in command of the battle-ship Boreas. He was very kind to the thirty midshipmen on board. When a boy was afraid to climb a mast, Nelson would say to him with a winning smile: