
reierring to her as a person to whom gratitude was 
due for kindness and attention. After the disastrous 
expedition up the river San Juan de Nicaragua, 
when so many perished from the suffering of over- 
labour, and Nelson was saved from dysentery to a- 
chieve his great name, he was conveyed on shore in 
his cot, to Couba’s, and thence to the Admiral’s 
country residence in the mountains of St. Andrew’s 
for change of air, and to be nursed under the eyes of 
Lady Parker. Tired as much of his do-nothing 
solitude, as of his slow recovery, he writes to Her- 
eules Ross of Kingston, the Coryphceus of Navy 
Agents in those days, 1780,—to say, that where he 
was, a sick Lieutenant was as little thought of as a 
log of wood, and sensitive under the discomfort of 
his situation, he exclaims—‘“ Oh, Mr Ross, what 
would I give to be at Couba’s lodgings, in Port Roy- 
al.” I find that Couba has not ‘perished from the 
pubic memory. She was a kind-hearted negress, 
named Couba Cornwallis—had been the mistress of 
Admiral Cornwallis, when a young officer on this 
station, and in the fashion of those days, when the 
fortune that gave a woman a friend in these Colonies 
gave her also a family name,—the African Couba, 
became Couba Cornwallis. When prince William, 
was a midshipman under Lord Hood, a wild frolick- 
some sailor-boy,—as they remember him, Couba’s 
care soothed many a headache ;—her timely waich- 
fulness checked many a fever of the Royal blood.— 
William, Duke of Clarence and King of England, 
seems to have narrated to his kind princely-hearted 
partner; now of sainted memory, as the good Queen 
Adelaide,— anecdotes of her kindness, for she sent 
