"I hope I am not a bad man to have passages in my behaviour which it is not expedient to discuss with my wife. I have now lived thirty-nine years, and I have ever, I think, been eminently amenable to the gentle influence of women. But, not even excepting the young lady at Quebec whom I should have left the service to marry, becoming a fellow-settler with the United Empire loyalists in Upper Canada, if it had not been for the wise persuasions of my valued friend Alexander Davison, I have never known but two of them in the intimate fashion which is open to landsmen. I am telling the strict truth when I say that I never kissed a lady until I married Lady Nelson, nor after till within this few days; though what harm there be in it I know not, if it be conducted in decent and not outrageous fashion. It seems to me a natural mode of expression of sympathy between a man and a woman who are friends sufficient, and I feel confident that I never did it before solely from the fact that my seafaring life, up to the time I was married, prevented my forming a friendship close enough to require such expression. And in the years that I was on shore before St. Vincent, my life was filled with the friendship and companionship of my wife and father. "It is now a day above a week since I landed in Naples more dead than alive; and that I am now alive, though very unwell, and weary of this country of fiddlers and poets, and ----, and scoundrels, is due, I may say, solely to my Lady Hamilton, who took me into the Embassy and by giving me the best chamber in Naples for an ailing man, and the best-chosen nourishment, and her own unremitting attention, gave me life and strength for this very trying week. "It has ever been my belief that in making and keeping men well--I am speaking now of ships' crews exposed to the ailments that come of prolonged cruises, such as scurvy and the rest--the keeping them entertained plays the most important part; and for this reason I have promoted all manner of diversions and educational exercises among them. And this is the treatment my Lady applied to me.