A letter to the same correspondent, dated the 8th February 1782, reveals something of Nelson’s philosophy of life. “We all rise by deaths,” he asserts. “I got my rank by a shot killing a post-captain, and I most sincerely hope I shall, when I go, go out of [the] world the same way; then we go all in the line of our profession--a parson praying, a captain fighting.” He had his wish gratified, as we all know. There was something more than a suspicion of the Stoic in Nelson, for while it cannot be said that he was unaffected by passion, he certainly displayed praiseworthy indifference to creature comforts when at sea. That he grumbled to the authorities proves nothing to the contrary. It was usually with reference to half-unseaworthy ships, which added to the trials and troubles of his men and oftentimes precluded him from doing himself justice where the enemy was concerned. His letters prove conclusively that he had the utmost faith in God, whom he regarded as a powerful Ally.
Shortly afterwards Nelson sailed with a convoy to Newfoundland and Quebec. The experience was anything but pleasant, and when he returned to the latter place in the middle of September he was “knocked up with scurvy,” the old-time sailor’s curse, owing to a diet of salt beef for eight weeks. “In the end,” he says, “our cruise has been an unsuccessful one; we have taken, seen, and destroyed more enemies than is seldom done in the same space of time, but not one arrived in port. But, however, I do not repine at our loss: we have in other things been very fortunate, for on 14 August we fell in with, in Boston Bay, four sail-of-the-line,[11] and the _Iris_, French man-of-war, part of M. Vaudreuil’s squadron, who gave us a pretty dance for between nine or ten hours; but we beat all except the frigate, and though we brought to for her, after we were out of sight of the line-of-battle ships, she tacked and stood from us. Our escape I think wonderful: they were, upon the clearing up of a fog, within shot of us, and chased us the whole time about one point from the wind....” Nelson managed to avoid the enemy by “running them amongst the shoals of St George’s Bank,” a manœuvre which caused the larger ships to stop pursuit. When he prepared for action the commander of the frigate, deeming discretion the better part of valour, wisely decided to rejoin his comrades.