"We are often separate," said Nelson, in a letter to Mrs. Nisbet a few
months before their marriage; "but our affections are not by any means
on that account diminished. Our country has the first demand for our
services; and private convenience or happiness must ever give way to the
public good. Duty is the great business of a sea officer: all private
considerations must give way to it, however painful." "Have you not
often heard," says he in another letter, "that salt water and absence
always wash away love? Now I am such a heretic as not to believe that
article, for, behold, every morning I have had six pails of salt water
poured upon my head, and instead of finding what seamen say to be true,
it goes on so contrary to the prescription, that you may, perhaps, see
me before the fixed time." More frequently his correspondence breathed a
deeper strain. "To write letters to you," says he, "is the next greatest
pleasure I feel to receiving them from you. What I experience when I
read such as I am sure are the pure sentiments of your heart, my poor
pen cannot express; nor, indeed, would I give much for any pen or head
which could express feelings of that kind. Absent from you, I feel no
pleasure: it is you who are everything to me. Without you, I care not
for this world; for I have found, lately, nothing in it but vexation and
trouble. These are my present sentiments. God Almighty grant they may
never change! Nor do I think they will. Indeed there is, as far as human
knowledge can judge, a moral certainty that they cannot; for it must
be real affection that brings us together, not interest or compulsion."
Such were the feelings, and such the sense of duty, with which Nelson
became a husband.

During his stay upon this station he had ample opportunity of observing
the scandalous practices of the contractors, prize-agents, and other
persons in the West Indies connected with the naval service. When he
was first left with the command, and bills were brought him to sign for