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NEL He was also attached to the Russian embassy in Constantinople after the peace of 1774. He obtained employment and promotion from the Emperor Paul, whom he accompanied in 1797-98 in a journey to Moscow, Kazan, and White Russia. In addition to high titular rank, Neledinski derived from the imperial bounty an estate and village containing several hundred serfs. He died in 1829. A complete edition of his ballads, contributed to various periodicals, has yet to appear. Gretsch has printed in his Manual of Russian Literature, ii., 233, a state paper written by Neledinski as a model of that kind of writing.—R. H.  NELSON,, Viscount Nelson, Duke of Bronte, vice-admiral, the most renowned of English naval heroes, was born in the county of Norfolk on the 29th September, 1758, at Burnham Thorpe, the village of which his father was rector. His great-grandmother, by the mother's side, was the eldest sister of Sir Robert Walpole the statesman, and Nelson was named Horatio, after his godfather, the second Lord Walpole. He was the fifth son of a large family, and when he was nine lost his mother. Her brother, Maurice Suckling, a captain in the navy, then offered to take charge of one of her boys. Three years later, when Nelson was twelve, he read in a newspaper that his uncle had been appointed to the command of the Raisonnable, a 64. Already he wished to become a sailor, and their father being absent, he pressed an elder brother to write to Captain Suckling, and ask that he should be allowed to accompany his uncle to sea. "What," was Captain Suckling's reply; "what has poor Horatio done, that he above all the rest should be sent to rough it at sea?" But "poor Horatio," though feeble physically and wasted by the ague, was known to be a boy of spirit and courage. He had received some schooling at Downham-Market in Norfolk, and afterwards at North Walsham, when in December, 1770, he entered the navy as a midshipman of his uncle's ship the Raisonnable. He remained on board of it only five months, when it was paid off after the settlement of the dispute with Spain about the Falkland islands. Captain Suckling was removed to the Triumph, a guardship in the Thames, and such a life afloat being thought too idle for a boy. Nelson was sent a voyage to the West Indies in a merchantman, commanded by a former officer of his uncle's. This voyage made him something of a practical seaman, but he returned from it infected with a dislike for the royal navy. He joined the Triumph, stationed at Chatham, and his uncle endeavoured to wean him of his disgust for the service. He was rewarded for attention to his navigation by permission to go in the cutter and decked long-boat attached to the Triumph, on trips to the Tower one way, to the North Foreland another, and he thus gained a knowledge of pilotage which was afterwards extremely useful to him. But his temperament required more exciting employment, and in 1773 he obtained, through his uncle, the post of coxswain on board the Carcass, Captain Lutwidge, in the exploring expedition towards the north pole, which Captain Phipps, afterwards Lord Mulgrave, accompanied, and has chronicled. After this voyage of novel experiences and hardships he was placed with Captain Farmer in the Seahorse, 20 guns, going out to the East Indies, where his health in eighteen months gave way. He was sent home in the Dolphin, Captain Pigot, and it was during his homeward voyage, with health and spirits broken, that he was visited by one of those radiant moods of mind which, as he himself described it, is singularly characteristic of his enthusiastic and mobile nature. "I felt impressed," he said, "with a feeling that I should never rise in my profession. My mind was staggered with a view of the difficulties I had to surmount, and the little interest I possessed. I could discover no means of reaching the object of my ambition. After a long and gloomy reverie, in which I almost wished myself overboard, a sudden glow of patriotism was kindled within me, and presented my king and country as my patron. 'Well, then,' I exclaimed, 'I will be a hero! and confiding in Providence, I will brave every danger." On his return to England he found his uncle comptroller of the navy, and he was appointed acting lieutenant of the Worcester, 64, with which he went to Gibraltar and bark. He had been now four years a midshipman. On the 9th of April, 1777, he passed a very creditable examination for a lieutenancy, and the day after he was appointed second lieutenant of the Lowestoffe frigate, Captain William Locker, then fitting out for Jamaica. To a war with her revolted American colonies, England added in 1778 one with France, and in 1779 with Spain. After distinguishing himself with the Lowestoffe, Nelson was recommended by its captain to Sir Peter Parker, then commander-in-chief on the West India station, who removed him to the Bristol flag-ship, and after some other changes, he was made a post-captain on the 11th of June, 1779, a few months before he had reached the age of twenty-one. In 1780 he was commissioned to convey the transports and land the troops which were intended to take fort San Juan on the San Juan river, which flows from Lake Nicaragua into the Atlantic, and then to cut off the communications of the Spaniards between their possessions in North and in South America. Volunteering to do a great deal more than he had been ordered to do, he transported the troops not only to, but in the boats of his ship the Hinchinbrook, up the river San Juan, and by his gallantly contributed to the capture of San Juan. The officer in command of the troops spoke, in his despatches to the government, of Nelson's services in the highest terms. The day before the surrender of the fortress Nelson left the expedition to take the command of the Janus, 44 guns, at Jamaica; but on arriving there, his health much shattered by the climate of the isthmus, forced him to return to England, where he drank the Bath waters for a few months. In August, 1781, he was appointed to the Albemarle, and cruised in the North seas during the winter, a trying station for an invalid, but one which allowed Nelson to obtain with the Danish coasts a familiarity very useful in a signal enterprise of his after life. Ordered to Quebec with the Albemarle, he joined the fleet under Lord Hood, with whom Prince William Henry, afterwards duke of Clarence, and William IV., was serving. Nelson was already a prominent officer, and Lord Hood introduced him to the prince, who at once recognized his merits and became his friend. "I was then," said the afterwards king of England, "a midshipman on board the Barfleur, 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. Nelson after this went with us to the West Indies, and served under Lord Hood's flag during his indefatigable cruise off Cape François. Throughout the whole of the American war the height of Nelson's ambition was to command a line-of-battle ship; as for prize-money it never entered his thoughts:"—an interesting reminiscence of the sailor-king's. "I have closed the war," said Nelson in one of his letters, "without a fortune, but there is not a speck on my character." Peace was concluded in January, 1783; in July Nelson was in England, and presented by Lord Hood to the king. In March, 1784, he was appointed to the Boreas, 28 guns, going to the Leeward islands as a cruiser on the peace establishment; and when he arrived in the West Indies he found himself senior captain, and second in command on that station. He was known previously as a brave and skilful officer, but it was now that he first displayed the moral daring which was one of his chief characteristics, and that he showed himself able and ready to defy any amount of opposition from superiors or from equals when he thought his own bold course favourable to the interests of his country and nation. The Americans were at this time trading with the West India islands, taking advantage of the register of their ships which had been issued while they were British subjects. Nelson deemed the practice both inimical to British interests and forbidden by the navigation act, as he construed it. He gave orders to enforce that act. He was opposed by the governor of the Leeward islands, by the planters en masse, and by the admiral himself. He seized some American ships; was prosecuted in the colonial courts; pleaded his own cause successfully; and the explanatory memorial which he addressed to the king was so satisfactory, that orders were sent from the home government that he should be defended at the expense of the crown. Amid the anxiety caused by the prosecution, he made a marriage of affection. The lady was in her eighteenth year, the widow of Dr. Nisbet, a physician, and niece of Mr. Herbert, 