Tearing himself away from his mistress by a violent effort, Nelson, on the 20th of October, sailed for New York. Arriving on the 13th of November, he found there a large part of the West India fleet, under Lord Hood, who had been second in command to Rodney on the occasion of the latter's celebrated victory over De Grasse in the previous April. Rodney had since then been recalled to England, while Hood had gone to Boston to look after a division of the beaten French fleet, which was there refitting. He was now on his return to the islands, where the enemy was expected to make a vigorous aggressive campaign the following spring. Extensive preparations were in fact on foot for the reduction of Jamaica, frustrated six months before by De Grasse's mishap. Nelson thus found himself again in tantalizing contact with the stirring circumstance that preludes hostilities, in which he himself had little hope to share; for the "Albemarle" belonged to the North American station, where all active naval operations had ceased with the surrender of Cornwallis the year before. He went, therefore, to Hood, and begged to be transferred to his squadron. In vain did Admiral Digby, his own commander-in-chief, tell him that he was on a good station for prize-money. "Yes," he replied, "but the West Indies is the station for honour."
Digby was reluctant to part with a frigate, as all admirals were; but Hood, either from an intuitive faculty for judging men, or from his conversations with Nelson eliciting the latter's singular knowledge of the higher part of his profession, wished to push an officer of so much promise, and succeeded in obtaining the transfer of the "Albemarle" to his squadron. "I am a candidate with Lord Hood for a line-of-battle ship," wrote Nelson to Locker; "he has honoured me highly, by a letter, for wishing to go off this station to a station of service, and has promised me his friendship." A few months later he wrote again: "My situation in Lord Hood's fleet must be in the highest degree flattering to any young man. He treats me as if I were his son, and will, I am convinced, give me anything I can ask of him." This was really the beginning, the outstart, of Nelson's great career; for Hood's interest in him, then aroused, and deepened by experience to the utmost confidence and appreciation, made itself felt the instant the French Revolutionary War began. Nelson then came at once under his orders, went with him to the Mediterranean, and there speedily made his mark, being transferred from admiral to admiral with ever-growing tokens of reliance. Despite the lapse of time, and the long interval of peace, it is no exaggeration to say that there is a direct connection of cause and effect between his transfer to Hood's fleet, in the harbor of New York, and the battle of Cape St. Vincent, in 1797, when he emerged from merely professional distinction to national renown, standing head and shoulders above all competitors. In the four days that followed his arrival in New York, Nelson took the tide at the flood, and was borne on to fortune. Yet in this, as in many other instant and happy decisions, we may not see the mere casting of a die, the chance result of an irreflective impulse. The determination to change into Hood's squadron, with its powerful, far-reaching effect upon his future, was in necessary logical sequence to Nelson's whole habit of thought, and wish, and previous preparation. He was swept into the current that carried him on to fame by the irresistible tendency of his own conscious will and cherished purpose. Opportunity flitted by; he was ready, and grasped it.
At this turning-point the commendable diligence of his principal biographers has again secured for us a striking description of the young captain's personal appearance, and of the impression produced by his manner upon an interested acquaintance, who afterwards became a warm friend and admirer as well as a frequent correspondent. The narrator—then Prince William Henry, afterwards King William IV.—gave the following account, apparently at some period between 1805, when Nelson fell, and 1809, when the first edition of Clarke and M'Arthur's Life appeared. "I was then a midshipman on board the Barfleur," Lord Hood's flagship, "lying in the Narrows off Staten Island, and had the watch on deck, when Captain Nelson, of the Albemarle, came in his barge alongside, who appeared to be the merest boy of a captain I ever beheld; and his dress was worthy of attention. He had on a full-laced uniform; his lank unpowdered hair was tied in a stiff Hessian tail, of an extraordinary length; the old-fashioned flaps of his waistcoat added to the general quaintness of his figure, and produced an appearance which particularly attracted my notice; for I had never seen anything like it before, nor could I imagine who he was, nor what he came about. My doubts were, however, removed when Lord Hood introduced me to him. There was something irresistibly pleasing in his address and conversation; and an enthusiasm, when speaking on professional subjects, that showed he was no common being." The Countess of Minto, in her Life of Lord Minto, speaks of Nelson's "shock head" at the time (1794) when he was a frequent visitor at the house of Minto, then Sir Gilbert Elliott, and Viceroy of Corsica; a trivial detail, but confirmatory, so far, of the picture drawn by the prince. The latter continued: "Nelson, after this, went with us to the West Indies, and served under Lord Hood's flag during his indefatigable cruise off Cape François.... I found him warmly attached to my father [King George III.], and singularly humane. He had the honour of the King's service and the independence of the British navy particularly at heart; and his mind glowed with this idea as much when he was simply captain of the Albemarle, and had obtained none of the honours of his Country, as when he was afterwards decorated with so much well-earned distinction."
The war of 1778 was now fast drawing to its close; the preliminaries of peace being signed in January, 1783, though not ratified till the following September. Hood cruised off Cap François, a naval station of the French at the west end of Haiti, to intercept the fleet from Boston, which was understood to be on its way to the Caribbean; but the enemy, learning his whereabouts, went through the Mona Passage, east of the island, thus avoiding a meeting, and was next heard of by the British as being off Curaçao far to the southward. Nelson, therefore, had no opportunity to show his prowess in battle; and as only three letters remain covering this uneventful period, little is known of his movements, except that he made an abortive attempt to recapture Turk's Island from the French with a small force of ships he was able to gather at short notice. An interesting indication of the spirit which animated him transpires in the first of the three letters mentioned. He had received unexpected orders to wait in New York after Hood's leaving. "I was to have sailed with the fleet this day, but for some private reasons, when my ship was under sail from New York to join Lord Hood, at Sandy Hook, I was sent for on shore, and told I was to be kept forty-eight hours after the sailing of the fleet. It is much to my private advantage," allowing more latitude for picking up prizes, without having to share with the other ships, "but I had much rather have sailed with the fleet." "Money," he continues, "is the great object here," on the North American Station, "nothing else is attended to,"—a motive of action which he always rejected with disdain, although by no means insensible to the value of money, nor ever thoroughly at his ease in the matter of income, owing largely to the lavish liberality with which he responded to the calls upon his generosity or benevolence. A year later he wrote in the same strain: "I have closed the war without a fortune; but I trust, and, from the attention that has been paid to me, believe, that there is not a speck in my character. True honour, I hope, predominates in my mind far above riches."
When news of the peace reached the West Indies, Hood was ordered to return with his fleet to England. Nelson went home at the same time, being directed first to accompany Prince William Henry in a visit to Havana. The "Albemarle" reached Spithead on the 25th of June, 1783, and was paid off a week later, her captain going on half-pay until the following April. The cruise of nearly two years' duration closed with this characteristic comment: "Not an officer has been changed, except the second lieutenant, since the Albemarle was commissioned; therefore, it is needless to say, I am happy in my ship's company." And again he writes: "My ship was paid off last week, and in such a manner that must flatter any officer, in particular in these turbulent times. The whole ship's company offered, if I could get a ship, to enter for her immediately." Nelson was keenly alive to the impolicy and injury to the service involved in the frequent changes of officers and men from ship to ship. "The disgust of the seamen to the Navy," he wrote immediately after leaving the Albemarle, "is all owing to the infernal plan of turning them over from ship to ship, so that men cannot be attached to their officers, or the officers care twopence about them." This element of personal attachment is never left out