but they are far overbalanced by his virtues. In his professional line he is superior to near two-thirds, I am sure, of the list; and in attention to orders, and respect to his superior officer, I hardly know his equal; this is what I have found him.” In a subsequent letter he says, “H.R.H. keeps up strict discipline in his ship; and without paying him any compliment, she is one of the finest ordered frigates I have seen.” The marriage of Nelson and the accomplished Frances Herbert Nisbet[1], took place at Nevis, March 11, 1787. The bride was given away by Prince William Henry; who with many others congratulated their friend in having borne off the principal favourite of the island. In the month of May following H.R.H., having completed the tour of the islands[2], sailed from Grenada, and arrived at Jamaica on the 31st. In August he proceeded to Quebec, and thence returned to Plymouth, where he anchored Dec. 2/th, after an absence of one year and a half.
On his arrival in England, the Prince was appointed to command the Andromeda frigate, in which ship he again visited the West Indies. The Andromeda anchored at Port Royal, Nov. 15, 1788, when the whole House of Assembly waited on H.R.H. with their congratulations; and on the 2d of December, they voted a thousand guineas to be laid out in the purchase of an elegant star, ornamented with diamonds, to be presented to him, as an humble testimony of the very high respect and esteem the island entertained for his eminent virtues, and the happiness they felt in seeing him among them; as well as the grateful sense they had of the particular attention paid by H.R.H. to the duties of a profession, which was the support and defence of the British empire in general, and of that island in particular[3].
On the 19th May 1789, H.R.H. was created Duke of
- ↑ Mother of the present Captain Josiah Nisbet, of whom a Memoir will appear in a subsequent part of this work.
- ↑ The House of Assembly at Barbadoes passed a vote to present H.R.H. with a gold-hilted sword, valued at three hundred guineas. The Council and Assembly of Dominica presented him with a time-piece of equal value.
- ↑ At a subsequent period the same body voted three thousand guineas, to purchase a piece of plate to be presented to H.R.H., as a testimony of their sense of his great parliamentary services in the important question relative to the African Slave-trade.
