Your  illness,  sir,  has  been  brought  on  by  serving  your
king  and  country,  and,  believe  me,  I  love  both  too
well  to  be  able  to  receive  any  more."

In  later  years    Nelson   made  at  least  two   or   three


LORD    NELSON    AND    BATH  i6i

brief  stays  in  the  city.  He  was  here  at  the  latter  end
of  January  1784,  on  which  occasion  he  described  in  a
letter  to  his  brother  the  improved  health  of  his  father,
and,  after  a  glorious  display  of  naval  enterprise  with
Sir  John  Jervis  at  St.  Vincent  and  Cadiz,  in  September
1797,  he  made  another  visit  to  the  city.  Honours  were
now  coming  thick  upon  the  "  English  Sea  Dog,"  and
Bath,  which  had  been  favoured  by  his  presence  on  more
than  one  occasion,  took  the  opportunity  this  year  of
conferring  on  him  the  freedom  of  the  city,  a  dignity
shared  at  the  same  time  by  another  admiral,  Lord  St.
Vincent,  with  whom,  as  Sir  John  Jervis,  Nelson  had
seen  some  stirring  times.
In  return  for  the  valuable  services  he  had  rendered
the  nation,  Nelson  had  now  been  made  Rear-Admiral,
and  created  Knight  of  the  Bath.  In  an  attempt  to
take  Santa  Cruz  he  had  lost  his  rig-ht  arm,  and  conse-
quently  he  proposed  staying  in  Bath  for  a  month  or
two  to  recuperate.  During  this  particular  visit  to  the
city  he  was  accompanied  by  Lady  Nelson  (1761-1831),
a  daughter  of  Dr.  Nisbet,  of  Nevis,  where  Nelson  had
met  the  lady  and  married  her  on  nth  March  1787.
On  the  4th  September,  1797,  Nelson  was  in  cor-
respondence with  John  Palmer  of  Bath,  whose  son.
