Nelson seems to have enjoyed the experience. In a sketch of his life, which he wrote several years later for the _Naval Chronicle_, he says: “From this voyage I returned to the _Triumph_ at Chatham in July 1772; and, if I did not improve in my education, I returned a practical seaman, with a horror of the Royal Navy, and with a saying, then constant with the seamen, ‘Aft the most honour, forward the better man!’ It was many weeks before I got in the least reconciled to a man-of-war, so deep was the prejudice rooted; and what pains were taken to instil this erroneous principle in a young mind! However, as my ambition was to be a seaman, it was always held out as a reward, that if I attended well to my navigation, I should go in the cutter and decked longboat, which was attached to the commanding officer’s ship at Chatham. Thus by degrees I became a good pilot, for vessels of that description, from Chatham to the Tower of London, down the Swin, and to the North Foreland; and confident of myself amongst rocks and sands, which has many times since been of the very greatest comfort to me. In this way I was trained, till the expedition towards the North Pole was fitted out; when, although no boys were allowed to go in the ships (as of no use), yet nothing could prevent my using every interest to go with Captain Lutwidge in the _Carcass_; and, as I fancied I was to fill a man’s place, I begged I might be his coxswain: which, finding my ardent desire for going with him, Captain Lutwidge complied with, and has continued the strictest friendship to this moment. Lord Mulgrave, who I then first knew, continued his kindest friendship and regard to the last moment of his life. When the boats were fitted out to quit the two ships blocked up in the ice, I exerted myself to have the command of a four-oared cutter raised upon, which was given me, with twelve men; and I prided myself in fancying I could navigate her better than any other boat in the ship.” In this cold, matter-of-fact way, Nelson dismisses a phase of his life fraught with peril and adventure. When the majority, if not all, of his former school-fellows were reading of the doings of gallant seamen and brave soldiers he was undergoing actual experiences. The expedition in question had been suggested by the Royal Society, and was commanded by Captain Constantine John Phipps, eldest son of Lord Mulgrave. The _Racehorse_ and _Carcass_, heavy ships known as bombs because they mounted one or more mortars for use in bombardments when on ordinary service, sailed from the Nore on the 4th June 1773. All went well until the 31st July, when the ice closed upon the vessels, and further progress became impossible. [Illustration: Nelson and the Bear Stephen Reid]