It must not be inferred that there was any personal bitterness on Nelson’s part regarding the Moutray affair. He conceived it to be a question of principle, of doing right and shunning wrong: “The character of an Officer is his greatest treasure: to lower that, is to wound him irreparably.” He was certainly on excellent terms with the Commissioner’s wife, for whom he cherished the most friendly feelings. Indeed, in one of his letters he calls her his “dear, sweet friend.... Her equal I never saw in any country, or in any situation.” Let it be frankly admitted, however, that Nelson sometimes wore his heart on his sleeve, and readily betrayed a state of feeling approaching deep affection for any member of the gentler sex who showed by her ready sympathy that she possessed a kindly disposition. In the communication in which the above passage occurs he notes that several of his comrades had similar amorous tendencies. One officer has proposed and been refused, another is forestalled in proposing to the lady of his choice by a more venturesome lover, a third is “attached to a lady at Nevis,” the said lady being a relation of the future Mrs Nelson. He concludes with a reference to a niece of Governor Parry, who “goes to Nevis in the _Boreas_; they trust any young lady with me, being an old-fashioned fellow.”
On the 12th May 1785 Nelson confides to his brother William that he has made the acquaintance of “a young Widow,” and towards the end of the following month he tells the same correspondent, “between ourselves,” that he is likely to become a “_Benedict_.... Do not tell.” The lady of his choice was Mrs Nisbet, then twenty-seven years of age and the mother of a boy. We are fortunate in having copies of many of his letters to her, for there is a wealth of affection--scarcely love--and much sage philosophy in them. “My greatest wish is to be united to you;” he writes on the 11th September 1785, “and the foundation of all conjugal happiness, real love and esteem, is, I trust, what you believe I possess in the strongest degree towards you.... We know that riches do not always insure happiness; and the world is convinced that I am superior to pecuniary considerations in my public and private life; as in both instances I might have been rich.” “You are too good and indulgent;” he avers on another occasion, “I both know and feel it: but my whole life shall ever be devoted to make you completely happy, whatever whims may sometimes take me. We are none of us perfect, and myself probably much less so than you deserve.” “Fortune, that is, money, is the only thing I regret the want of, and that only for the sake of my affectionate Fanny. But the Almighty, who brings us together, will, I doubt not, take ample care of us, and prosper all our undertakings. No dangers shall deter me from pursuing every honourable means of providing handsomely for you and yours....”
