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Empire of the Seas
the niece of the Governor of Nevis, Frances Nisbet, whom he married in 1787. He returned to England and was at his father’s home in Norfolk for the next five years. As war with Revolutionary France began in 1793 he was recalled and given command of the 64-gun Agamemnon, a ship that delighted him. He took part in the British expedition to Corsica and lost the sight of his right eye at the Siege of Calvi. He had his first taste of fleet battle under the over-cautious Admiral Hotham in 1795. He much preferred Sir John Jervis when he took over the fleet, but Jervis decided to withdraw from the Mediterranean and Nelson, now in command of the 74-gun Captain, had to complete the evacuation of Corsica. Nelson had his first success in battle on St Valentine’s Day 1797 when he anticipated Jervis’s order and took several ships off Cape St Vincent. Nelson lost his right arm during a catastrophic attack on
Gillray expressed the popular mood after the Nile, showing Nelson as ‘The British Hero Cleansing ye Mouth of the Nile’ by destroying the ‘Revolutionary Crocodiles’. (National Maritime Museum, PW3893)
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