law is apparent from these expressions. He had, however, something to
console him, for he was at this time wooing the niece of his friend
the president, then in her eighteenth year, the widow of Dr. Nisbet, a
physician. She had one child, a son, by name Josiah, who was three
years old. One day Mr. Herbert, who had hastened half-dressed to receive
Nelson, exclaimed, on returning to his dressing-room, "Good God! if
I did not find that great little man, of whom everybody is so afraid,
playing in the next room, under the dining-table, with Mrs. Nisbet's
child!" A few days afterwards Mrs. Nisbet herself was first introduced
to him, and thanked him for the partiality which he had shown to her
little boy. Her manners were mild and winning; and the captain, whose
heart was easily susceptible of attachment, found no such imperious
necessity for subduing his inclinations as had twice before withheld
him from marrying. They were married on March 11, 1787: Prince William
Henry, who had come out to the West Indies the preceding winter, being
present, by his own desire, to give away the bride. Mr. Herbert, her
uncle, was at this time so much displeased with his only daughter, that
he had resolved to disinherit her, and leave his whole fortune, which
was very great, to his niece. But Nelson, whose nature was too noble
to let him profit by an act of injustice, interfered, and succeeded in
reconciling the president to his child.

"Yesterday," said one of his naval friends the day after the wedding,
"the navy 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
this, Nelson would have become the greatest man in the service." The
man was rightly estimated; but he who delivered this opinion did not
understand the effect of domestic love and duty upon a mind of the true
heroic stamp.