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THE meagre scraps of information—hearsay evidence, much of it—have been gathered together time and again; Southey made much of them in his mellifluous prose. They tell us almost nothing which is worth knowing. We cannot form a picture of the young Nelson with one half of the clarity of that of the young Napoleon, because the materials are wanting. There was no Bourrienne at Nelson’s side to give us facts and descriptions (even erroneous ones) which might be used to fill the gap. The few anecdotes which we have could be told about almost any boy, and partly for that reason will not be told here. One noticeable fact is that the only motive which has been put forward for Nelson’s desiring to go to sea is the wish to relieve his father of the burden of supporting him—hardly the most significant beginning of a career. We can trace no vocation such as Napoleon undoubtedly felt towards a military life.

However it was, this twelve-year-old son of a Norfolk parsonage took advantage of the fortunate possession of an uncle who was a Captain in the Royal Navy to be entered into the service at a time of expansion during an alarm of war. Captain Suckling was a man of some distinction in his profession, who later was to hold appointments of very considerable influence; at the moment it sufficed that, as Captain, he had a certain amount of patronage, being able to appoint on board his ship one or two children as “captain’s servants” and midshipmen. The alarm of war passed, and Captain Suckling was transferred to the “Triumph” guardship in the Medway; his nephew nominally went with him. Yet while he was borne upon the books of the “Triumph” he was nevertheless sent to the West Indies as a seaman in a merchant vessel (he was not yet thirteen, remember) to learn as much of his trade as would be possible in the circumstances—more, apparently, than he would learn in a Medway guardship—and on his return he was employed in small boat work attendant upon the “Triumph,” which was the best method possible in the circumstances of habituating him to command and responsibility; the method is employed to this day in the navies of the world for the training of young officers. Constant work amid the shoals and currents of the Thames estuary did something more: it instilled that self-confidence amid this kind of peril which was to find its expression at moments of vital importance in English history at the Nile and at Copenhagen.

His next employment seems to have been obtained (unless Captain Suckling’s influence had more to do with it than Nelson knew or admitted in his own biographical sketch) solely by that influence of his own personality, which was to become so powerful a means to advancement and success. An expedition into North Polar regions was being fitted out; the decision had been made that no boys were to accompany it, but Nelson, who was personally acquainted with Captain Lutwidge of the “Carcass” (a bomb-vessel which was one of the two ships to sail), succeeded in persuading him to include him among the exceptions. The expedition sailed, did nothing in particular, and came back again with not much knowledge gained; its one contribution to history is the well-worn anecdote which displays Nelson on the ice planning an attack on a polar bear with the butt end of his musket—an anecdote which is of no use to us, because, although it may illustrate extreme personal bravery, it hardly gives proof of the various other qualities which Nelson possessed.

Then on his return he found again how useful an uncle may be, for only a fortnight passed before he was employed again, this time on the corvette “Seahorse,” in which he sailed forthwith to East Indian waters. His period of pupation as a “captain’s servant” drew to an end at last on this voyage, and he became a full midshipman, presumably holding His Majesty’s warrant, and on the way to exchanging it for His Majesty’s commission. But after two years he was invalided home to England, a very sick man (or boy—he was just eighteen) with, implanted in him, apparently, the beginning of that weakness of constitution which was to go with him through life. All the same, there was a silver lining to the cloud, for eighteen months before his return his invaluable uncle had been appointed Comptroller of the Navy, and in consequence held a position of much patronage and more influence, the first proof of which to Nelson was his appointment as acting lieutenant on the “Worcester,” 64. Six months’ service on the trade route to the Mediterranean followed, and then came his examination as lieutenant, which he passed well despite the fact that his uncle, who was on the board, concealed the relationship between them from his colleagues—proof enough, seemingly, that at this stage at least his seamanship was not so poor as to merit Codrington’s description of him as “no seaman.” Then Suckling did Nelson his last great service, by giving him his immediate appointment to “Lowestoft,” 32, about to sail to the Jamaica station, where fever and other incidentals of service were likely either to cut a career short or give it a decided impetus by rapid promotion.

And, moreover, there was likelihood of promotion. The discontent of the American colonies had, some time before, expanded into active revolt. British armies were moving ponderously about the rebel states, or being transferred hither and thither by sea; even sea power could not multiply the scanty British forces sufficiently to enable them to hold down the whole huge area which was in rebellion. Already American privateers had made their appearance, bearing letters of marque and reprisals, and their activity already foretold the time, close at hand, when the linen ships from Belfast to Liverpool would need convoy in the Irish Sea itself. Already French sympathy (or not so much sympathy with America as antagonism to England) had displayed itself in the shape of liberal treatment of privateers and the private despatch of succours. To pin down the privateers and to intercept the contraband called for a blockade of the whole American coast, and the vast number of ships necessary for that undertaking America was to learn to her cost when later she had to fight her own rebels. The demands of military convoy, of commerce protection, and of blockade meant an expanding navy, and an expanding navy meant at least that there would be no hindrance to promotion.

Sea power had come to the rescue of Quebec, and ensured Canada against invasion, had carried Howe from Boston to Halifax and back again to New York; it was sea power which would decide a protracted struggle one way or the other. A year before Nelson received his commission the Declaration of Independence made it certain that some at least of the rebels would fight it out to the bitter end, and Nelson had hardly crossed the Atlantic before Burgoyne started on his disastrous march to the Hudson. Lord George Germain neglected his duty, and the uninspired but painstaking efforts of King George III were nullified. Howe directed his own blow where it would do no harm; his victory on the Brandywine and his capture of Philadelphia could not save Gentleman Johnny Burgoyne from being hemmed in at Saratoga. The surrender of his six thousand British troops was a disaster worse than that of Kloster-Seven; to find its parallel in English history we must go back three and a half centuries to the relief of Orleans. The news resounded throughout Europe; it meant the redoubling of American effort, but, worse still, it meant the intervention of that European power whose influence was most to be dreaded. Now, if ever, were Lagos and Quiberon to be avenged.

The end of the Seven Years’ War had found the French Navy in the condition usual to it at the end of a prolonged struggle with England. Fleet actions and attrition had worn down its material, and continued blockade had ruined its personnel. The French mercantile marine had been driven from the seas. Only a few bold privateersmen had continued the struggle, and by their efforts had given French maritime tradition a character which was for generations later to mould French naval policy. But, if French Ministers and French Admirals were to hold faulty theories about the employment of sea power, the genius of one French Minister was at least able to supply a French navy capable of action, even were that navy to be misdirected. Choiseul’s tenure of power had been signalized by an extraordinary maritime development. The French Navy had been rebuilt. The loss of so many ships left room for the introduction of new designs, and, ship for ship, the French vessels which were built were superior to the English ones. The influence of the Court was brought into play to popularize the service among the indispensable nobility, with such good results that before long a Prince of the Blood Royal held a subordinate command in the fleet—which was more than Louis XIV himself effected, for in his reign a mere legitimatized prince only condescended to accept full command. To man the fleet a long service enlistment was instituted, and could be supplemented by an Inscription Maritime which would bring in a substantial though fleeting reinforcement. For the supply of officers the Naval College was revived—Colbert had begun it nearly a century before—so that cadets could receive professional training, to counterbalance the system by which budding English officers (Nelson among them be it remembered) were trained in the extensive English merchant service. In a young navy a naval school implies a school of naval thought, and in a navy without past traditions of victory a school of naval thought will generally carry with it original thinking. Numerically the French fleet was little smaller than the British; its officers had largely received uniform training; it had developed ideas of its own—phrases which in 1914 were just as applicable to the Imperial German Navy. It was unfortunate, however (from the French point of view), that the ideas which were developed were not such as led to decisive success, with the result that a crisis which on the face of it was far more serious than any in 1914 was passed through without serious damage to England.

France had never in all her history enjoyed the relief from strain which is brought by a victory at sea. Her immediate independence, thanks largely, of course, to her powerful army, had never turned on the destruction of hostile ships. She could not look back to a vital victory similar to that of the English over the Armada. The reduction of her insurgent Huguenots had been achieved in the face of superior British sea power by reason of her overwhelming land power, of the misdirection of British effort, and of particular circumstances. Her victory at Beachy Head had been barren of results through Louis XIV’s infirmity of purpose. Duquesne’s splendid victories over Spaniards and Dutch in the Mediterranean had brought small profit because little had been at stake. On the other hand, La Gallissonnière’s partial action with Byng had won the magnificent prize of Minorca, despite the fact that Byng was neither attacked nor pursued with determination. The destruction of ships, to the French naval mind, was ranked (was actually described, in fact, by French writers) as merely the destruction of ships. The consequent profits of such destruction seem, amazingly, to have escaped detection, and French ingenuity was devoted towards finding ends which sea power could attain while avoiding decisive action and losses—a search which was only not quite as barren of results as the contemporary endeavour to find the philosopher’s stone or to square the circle.

A tactical system, naturally, had to be developed to accord with this perverted strategy. One was evolved and brought to perfection, apparently more as the result of staff work than by test in action, but which nevertheless succeeded in baffling a whole generation of not too incapable British Admirals. It consisted, as is well known, in taking the leeward position in a fleet action, firing at the enemy’s spars in preference to his hulls, and, as soon as close action was imminent, dropping away to leeward and repeating the manœuvre as often as was possible. Perhaps La Gallissonnière was the man who devised the method, or perhaps it may have originated by accident during his action with Byng off Minorca and been subsequently developed after study by the leaders of naval thought. The whole principle of keeping the fleet out of harm’s way, strategically if possible and tactically if necessary, was sufficient, for most of the period of the war just beginning, to disconcert the English command, although it is strongly to be suspected that the English did not realize until the closing period of the war that they were struggling against a particular system; especially when the entry of Spain and of the United Provinces into the war gave the allies a superiority of numbers which made, on occasions, the English Admirals just as chary of offering battle as their opponents were of accepting it. Yet when the situation began to dawn upon the English they began steadily to devise means to turn it to their advantage. Previously the long line ahead had brought good results when opposed to another line ahead which was equally willing to fight a battle; but it was a helpless formation, except under particular circumstances, when an attempt was to be made to compel battle. Something else had to be done; and, once the English had grasped that, pamphlets and private correspondence began to circulate in the endeavour to find a remedy.

According to some, Rodney found a remedy at the Saints, and some of those who believe this attribute the merit of his discovery to Rodney himself, some to his Flag-Captain, some to Clerk, whose pamphlet on fleet tactics has attracted more attention now than then, and some to plain, blind chance. What Rodney did was to take advantage of the windward position while engaging on opposite courses to break his opponent’s line in two places (some say he did it by accident as a result of a flaw of wind and the blinding smoke), and though the battle ended in a victory and the capture of several prizes it was by no means as overwhelming a success as such a manœuvre would seem to make likely. This again has been attributed to Rodney’s lack of energy, to bad blood between him and his juniors, and to misfortune. Incidentally, it may also be mentioned that both at the time and since it has been denied that Rodney’s manœuvre contributed towards the victory. Cornwallis, who later was to prove himself a bold, persevering and thoughtful sailor, was hot against his Admiral’s conduct; there was quite a large body of opinion that maintained that the victory would have been greater if the action had been maintained in single line ahead—and that point, again, is clouded by the fact that in this particular case the French were fighting under conditions when even to them an action seemed likely to be less damaging than refusal of action.

Even as late in the war as this, a fleet in action was nominally subject to the fighting instructions drawn up a century earlier by James II when Lord High Admiral, which laid down the line ahead as the formation for battle and strictly forbade any captain to leave the line. It was these instructions which had formed the basis of the charges against Mathews after Toulon, and which had preyed so much upon the mind of the wretched Byng at Minorca. There can be no denying that a large conservative opinion still held to the spirit of these instructions and vigorously opposed the suggested innovations of the new school, despite the lessons of Keppel’s unfortunate action off Ushant, of Arbuthnot’s indecisive battles and of various other incidents during a prolonged war.

So that during Nelson’s early, most impressionable years (he was always ready to receive new impressions all his life) his attention was constantly being drawn to this, the ultimate problem of every naval officer: how best to bring a number of ships into action with a hostile fleet without crippling damage, and, following on that problem, the equally difficult one of how to arrange to have a greater number of guns bearing than the enemy. The problems are easy to state, but well-nigh impossible to solve, given an enemy of fair skill and of some reluctance to enter into action; the solution is as hard to perceive at the present day as it was a hundred and fifty years ago. Neither Jutland nor August 10th, 1804, displayed the ability of a superior fleet to close with an absconding enemy, which is why Nelson’s suggestions on the matter are of such peculiar interest; furthermore, it is worth noticing that Nelson’s ideas of tactics while he was still a very young captain were considered sufficiently sound and illuminating for him to be indicated to Prince William as the man to go to for instructions.

Nor was it only to tactics that Nelson’s attention was drawn. The American War of Independence is, from the naval point of view, one long series of missed opportunities—more so, that is to say, even than the general run of wars. Both the English and the allies threw away chances. There was the chance of crushing a fragment of the French Fleet at Newport, R.I., with less risk of failure (Mahan endorses the declaration) than there was at Copenhagen. There were the half-dozen opportunities thrown away by the French in the West Indies, leaving out of account those which were rendered unsuitable by Hood’s vigour and resolution. There were the chances which came Rodney’s way before the battle of the Saints, and, above all and more important than any, there were the whole months of opportunity enjoyed by the Allied Fleets when they swept the Channel in superior numbers and the British fleet was constrained to avoid them—the only time that a Continental fleet has commanded the narrow seas since Beachy Head, and as lacking in results. To Nelson, who, by a series of chances, lived on the fringe of history, as it were, during all this period, the realization of what was being missed was intense and impressive. It is to these years that his later resolves of never to lose an hour or waste a wind can be traced: and what those resolves meant to England it is the purpose of this book to show.

We left him newly arrived in Jamaica in July, 1777, a lieutenant not yet nineteen. Then we find him gaining the interest and the affection of Captain Locker of the “Lowestoft,” so much so that when the deadliness of climate sent Locker home on sick leave his earnest recommendation decided Nelson’s transfer, in July 1778, as third lieutenant of the “Bristol,” in which Sir Peter Parker, Admiral commanding the station, flew his flag. Once more Nelson’s personality made itself felt. Both Parker and his wife grew fond of him (and, reading between the lines of various letters, it seems safe enough to conclude that it was desirable to stand well with Lady Parker if one wished to stand well with Sir Peter), and after death or promotion had removed two of Nelson’s immediate superiors in three months Parker gave Nelson his next important step by promoting him Commander in the “Badger” brig, December, 1778. Captain Suckling, that fairy uncle, had died the very same month as Nelson went to the “Bristol,” and Nelson was now without any influence other than what he could procure for himself. It is this fact which makes his rapid promotion so impressive; it was either his talents or his apparent promise of talent which affected Parker, if it was not a rapidly developed personal affection. Nelson, in fact, when he lost his uncle, found in Parker an ally who in the circumstances would be of more immediate use to him even than a Comptroller of the Navy. And it does not seem to be over-straining probability when we decide that personal affection was not Parker’s sole or principle motive, because his possession of an eye for talent is confirmed by his simultaneous promotions of Collingwood, who succeeded Nelson in a number of different appointments.

In June, 1779, thanks to Admiral Parker, Nelson attained Captain’s rank in His Majesty’s Navy, at the mature age of twenty. He had been Commander for just six months; and despite the fact that for some years past a desperate war had been waged in every sea in the world he had yet to see a shot fired in anger. Promotion at this rate is inconceivable to our minds nowadays, and throws a lurid light on the power and responsibility of Admirals in command of stations in those days of difficult communication and much delegation of authority. Yet Nelson’s rise was not phenomenal; it was distinctly more rapid than that of the majority, but it was equalled and surpassed by a number of his contemporaries, which constitutes a fair argument against Lord Fisher’s later factious dictum in favour of favouritism. The system which produced Nelson produced also uncounted swarms of other Admirals who were found wanting and who languished undistinguished as Port Admirals or without employment. It can at least be considered equally as risky and wasteful as the modern arrangement which calls for seniority as well as selection, and it undoubtedly was more liable to abuse; although comparison is difficult, because of the undeniable fact that in those days a naval officer had less to learn in the technique of his profession that he would have nowadays—and this in despite of the opposing fact that the more distinguished of the flag-officers of the last war were men who previously had received promotion out of their turn (for service on land, in large part), and had thereby escaped some of the years of preliminary training which the modern system accepts as necessary to the best practice of the naval art.

As a Captain, Nelson was no longer in need of friends to procure him promotion, which would come to him automatically; what he was in need of was employment, and with a war in progress and the navy expanding there was no fear of his being in want of that for some time to come. He had been posted to the “Hinchinbrook,” one of the smaller frigates of the squadron. A momentary scare of a French attack upon Jamaica (d’Estaing at the moment was sweeping through the West Indies with a gigantic armada) gave him promise of active service, and as soon as the danger passed he was transferred again from his command of the batteries of Fort Charles (at Port Royal) and went forth on ordinary cruiser duty, making a number of captures—Spain had just entered the war and Spanish ships were good prize—which were much to his profit under the old system of prize money, by which the Captain of a fortunate cruiser could accumulate an enormous fortune. This early financial benefit, nevertheless, was not a true augury, because Nelson (largely because of his insistence on being employed in fighting rather than in commerce destruction) later made very little money, comparatively, out of these profitable side-lines.

Even at this period of his career fighting came to him as a matter of course. There was a certain Dalling, Governor of Jamaica, who found himself, now that d’Estaing had passed on to Savannah, free from the imminent menace of attack and with the troops and stores accumulated for that contingency at his disposal. With a temerity which remains astonishing (but which may have been of that class which made the British Empire what it is) Dalling proceeded to divest himself of the services of five hundred of his scanty regular troops and to launch a wild expedition upon the South American mainland. There is an oddly familiar ring about most of the details of this campaign. On the map it looked as if success would bring gigantic benefits. From Atlantic to Pacific the line across Nicaragua by way of San Juan river and Lake Nicaragua has repeatedly appeared to thoughtful men as the most advantageous route for commerce, and the Spaniards actually employed it as such, but only to a small extent, because the Panama route, expensively maintained, was, slightly, both more practicable and more convenient. But on the map, and after only casual study, the object of the expedition seemed both easy of attainment and most eminently desirable. There was a fort or two to be taken, and a hundred miles of river to be ascended, before command of Lake Nicaragua could be attained, but that command (apparently, though, authority did not really consider what was to happen after that) once attained, surely the trade routes could be controlled, an expedition pushed on to the Pacific, a naval force created there, and booty comparable with that of Drake or Anson captured! There would be quantities of prize money. Dalling despatched to carry out this promising scheme a force of five hundred infantry and one small ship of war. Whether or not England, pressed to extremity elsewhere, would be able to exploit any successes they might achieve (successes not to be expected by a sane judgment) was more than he was capable of knowing. Moreover, he sent the expedition at the wrong time, and after profitless discussion. If only he had committed one more mistake, and sent the naval force first and the troops later, the analogy would be complete between this effort and a much more costly one of some time later which was also inspired by a cursory study of the map and a gross mis-estimate of probabilities and resources.

Nelson himself, writing twenty years later, thoroughly condemned the time of despatch of the expedition and the corresponding arrangements, although he did not display such acute disapproval of the whole wild squandering of effort, but Nelson, as we know, held (to say the least of it) lofty ideas as to the effectiveness of small bodies of troops landed from ships. He brought to the business all the splendid energy and determination he gave to all enterprises in which he was engaged. His orders only were to convoy the troops to the harbour of San Juan de Norte (Greytown), but on his arrival inspection of possibilities on the spot convinced him that it would be as well to continue to give the army his assistance. The force had arrived three months too late, for the water in the river had by this time (April) fallen too low to allow of easy navigation. Mosquito Indians (whom some describe as the finest canoe-men in the world) were recruited from the neighbouring coast, and with these and fifty seamen and marines Nelson proceeded to conduct five hundred troops, with baggage and stores, including siege equipment, upstream along a tropical river encumbered with sandbars. He succeeded, forcing his way through to the fort of San Juan, an outpost of which he stormed on his arrival. But the fort itself was a tougher nut to crack. The officer commanding the land forces refused to attempt to storm (and seeing what his position was, in a hostile country with communications running back down the torrent he had ascended with so much difficulty, one can hardly blame him) and decided to proceed by regular approaches. Nelson took charge of the guns in the batteries while the parallels were being made, and at length the fort succumbed to the inevitable but lengthy attack of siege operations. But Nelson was not present to witness this success, for he had been recalled to take command of a much larger frigate, the “Janus.” His health was ruined for the time, nevertheless. Exposure, malaria, yellow fever—all the plagues which came to be so well known when first the French and then the Americans were labouring at Panama a few miles to the south—were let loose upon the wretched English. Fort San Juan fell, indeed, and a hardy handful of soldiers struggled through to Lake Nicaragua, but the splendid dreams of Governor Dalling proved only to be dreams. The exhausted survivors could effect nothing, and the expedition was withdrawn, after three-quarters of its numbers had perished. It was a result similar to that attendant upon at least a dozen similar efforts by England during the two centuries following the Stuart accession.

Nelson himself was a very sick man on his return to Jamaica. His command of the “Janus” came to a speedy end, and he was sent home to England at his own request as an invalid on board the “Lion,” Captain Cornwallis. Cornwallis, one of the most promising of the Captains in the navy, was later to sustain the burden of the blockade of Brest while Nelson commanded in the Mediterranean; a hard-fighting officer, it was his fate never to command in a successful fleet action, but to have his reputation largely based on a skilful retirement in face of superior numbers. It was from his lips during this voyage that Nelson must have received personal information about what had been taking place in the other theatres of war, where time and again fleet had encountered fleet with small result. For five months in England Nelson was a nearly helpless invalid. He himself attributed his weakness largely to gout—“gout in the breast”—but prolonged service in the West Indies, in districts reeking with malaria and yellow fever, explains his illness much more satisfactorily.

After his cure at Bath he was appointed to the small frigate “Albemarle,” which ship he himself commissioned. His letters to his brother and to Captain Locker (late of the “Lowestoft,” a man to whom history is greatly in debt in consequence of his preservation of the numerous letters written him by Nelson) are full of his ideas about the ship, her officers and her crew. He has nothing but praise for them, as was always to be the case with anything under his command. Perhaps it was Nelson’s willingness to be pleased (not a decided characteristic of the Naval officer of that or any other age) which led some of his contemporaries to describe him as “no seaman,” but perhaps at the same time it was the root of his popularity and the devotion he always inspired. However it may be, it is worth comparing Nelson’s “I am perfectly satisfied with both officers and ship’s company” and “Not an officer or man in her I would wish changed” with Wellington’s description of the army that bore unflinching such terrible punishment at Waterloo as “a despicable army,” every man of which “had enlisted for drink,” and with the same general’s insulting general order in the autumn of 1812 to the army which had just won the battle of Salamanca; and there can be no doubt either of the love borne towards Nelson or of the dislike (respectful dislike) evinced for Wellington. The clearest proof of the greatness of the two men is the way in which they allowed for these factors, the one when he plunged into action at the Nile, sure of the most earnest co-operation of his subordinates, and the other in half a hundred Peninsular actions where he made sure of implicit obedience by being always on the spot where a decision was to be reached.

But this new command with which Nelson was so pleased bade fair to be the death of him, for he was despatched to bring home a convoy from the Baltic in December, after three years in the tropics and a crippling illness. He remarked pithily in a letter on his return, “I have been almost frozen on the other side of the water.” As it might be to make amends, the Admiralty’s next decision was to send him to the East Indies, where Suffren and Hughes were fighting out their long-drawn struggle. But chance dictated that history should be deprived of the example of Nelson engaged as a subordinate in a fleet action fought out with determination; a storeship drove from her anchors on board the “Albemarle” and did her so much damage that she had to go into dock at Portsmouth and was not fit for service for three months. As a result Bickerton sailed without him, and the “Albemarle” was sent with the “Dædalus” on convoy duty to Quebec, where, despite Nelson’s earlier fears, the climate appears to have restored him to the best of health. The chance that threw the storeship upon the “Albemarle” did more than keep Nelson from service in Indian waters: it brought him into contact with one of the greatest of English Admirals (perhaps the greatest of the period), Hood. Nelson’s professional achievements so far were very small compared with those of many of his fellow captains. A commerce-destroying voyage from the St. Lawrence had been successful (although pecuniarily unprofitable to Nelson because the captures failed to reach port), and he had succeeded in throwing off the pursuit of four French ships of the line and a frigate, who discovered him upon the clearing of a fog, by running in amongst the shoals beside Boston Bay: the ships of the line broke off the pursuit, and were imitated by the frigate as soon as Nelson hove to and challenged action. But these services, and the taking of Port Juan, were all Nelson had to his credit when duty brought him into New York, where lay Hood and the main fleet. The battle of the Saints had been fought and won the previous spring; Hood had left the Caribbean Sea in pursuit of the French, and was now about to return to the West Indies. There was likelihood of vigorous action, and Nelson’s whole heart was set upon sharing in it.

That he attained his wish is a further proof of the power of his personality. There is little enough to be surprised at, presumably, in Hood’s agreeing to take the “Albemarle” with the fleet: the remarkable thing is that Admiral Digby, Nelson’s immediate superior, should have consented to part with her, when the blockade duties upon which he was engaged called for the employment of as many units as he could gather into his command. Nelson, however, had already approached him on the matter, and had thrust aside Digby’s unbelieving remonstrance that his present station was the best for prize money, and had displayed so much sincerity that when Hood approached Digby on the subject the latter yielded. Nelson had once more placed himself in a situation to obtain the favour which might mean so much to him, and he obtained that favour, as he always did. Hood’s notice of him now brought him later the “Agamemnon” and all the opportunities of the Mediterranean service.

Even at the moment he became a man of mark. Hood, whose conduct in half a dozen actions showed him to be a man who knew his subject, came speedily to the opinion that Nelson was an original and sound thinker on tactics, and to this he drew the attention of Prince William, soon to be Duke of Clarence, and later Lord High Admiral and eventually William IV. Moreover, Nelson’s extraordinary disinterestedness in wishing to leave the profitable cruising ground off the New England coast attracted sufficient attention for the “Albemarle” to be ordered to sail for the West Indies two days after the main fleet, so that any prize she took would not have to be shared—a favour which, as ever, brought in nevertheless small profit to Nelson, although after she had rejoined she captured a ship full of stores intended for the French fleet. They proved, in the end, to be stores which enabled the English fleet to go to sea much less ill-equipped than would otherwise have been the case.

But no decisive results attended the campaign. Vaudreuil devoted most of his energy to keeping out of Hood’s way, and Hood was unable to get within reach of him. His frigates (Nelson’s among them) sought him in vain. One proof of French activity was encountered by Nelson, when he found that Turk’s Island, one of England’s oldest colonies, had fallen to a small force of French troops and a squadron. Nelson made a prompt effort to recover the place, taking under his orders such English ships as he could whose captains were junior to him, but the island was prepared for resistance and the attempt failed. His landing force was too small to be pitted against the French infantry, and there were batteries ready to oppose any attack by sea upon the town. Nelson called off his men and the incident closed.

And two years before an apprehensive note in one of Nelson’s letters had sounded the beginning of the end of the war. “I much fear for Lord Cornwallis; if something was not immediately done, America is quite lost.” The letter had dealt with Graves’s report on his action against Grasse in the Chesapeake. “Something” was not immediately done—there was little left that could be done by that time, and Cornwallis, hemmed in at Yorktown and with Grasse between him and the sea-borne succour, had surrendered. With his capture had passed England’s last chance of the reconquest of the revolted colonies. Sea power badly employed, and helped in the last resource by good luck, had freed America, although that same power skilfully handled might have dealt a blow at England herself from which she could not have recovered. The allied naval and military strength had devoted itself to wasteful and generally unsuccessful attempts upon unessential objectives. America was free, which was a deceptively brilliant proof of victory. West Indian islands had changed hands. Minorca had fallen, although Gibraltar still held out, thanks to amazing bad management on the part of the French and Spaniards and brilliant service by the English. The allies had spent their energy on clumsy hacking at the limbs instead of striking with all their strength at the heart. They had allowed themselves to be imposed upon by the phantom of the “fleet in being” which had deterred the French once before at a vital moment in William III’s reign. Their navies, even as before, had decayed and wilted under the stress of war, which had at the same time strengthened and developed the British military marine. Warfare for the moment had lost its sting; its stakes had become national prestige rather than national existence. A plan of campaign which threatened the life of a nation had become unthinkable on account of its very scope. The pedantry and cynicism of the eighteenth century, its objectless irreligion, had combined with the developed etiquette of international relations and hostilities to set warfare upon much the same footing as Olympic games in the public estimation. Only when the French Revolution came to make the existence of a government dependent upon military victory did war regain its overwhelming importance in the scheme of things. It is one of the ironies of history that the wealthiest nation in the world should owe its birth to a war which had aimed so low.

The French Government was tottering towards bankruptcy. No great personality had arisen in France who could direct French effort or coerce France’s allies. England was humiliated and ready to admit the loss of her American possessions, and France could hardly visualize a greater success, flinched from paying the price such success would demand, and had come to doubt its attainment. England, on the other hand, was resigned to the loss of America, and she was healed in her self-esteem by Rodney’s victory at the Saints and by the negative success of the defence of Gibraltar. In such an international state of mind peace was made.

Hood and his fleet were ordered home, and Nelson followed him, after first accompanying Prince William to Havana. That gave him contact again with Royalty, which was always desirable in a service wherein employment was largely a matter of patronage, and on his arrival in England Hood took him to Court, presented him to the King, and, apparently, sang his praises to Lord Howe and the other people who mattered. One can hardly decide which is the more surprising, Hood’s discernment in perceiving the promise of this junior Captain, whose war service only included the disastrous Nicaraguan campaign and the abortive attempt on Turk’s island, or the power of the personality of this young man of twenty-four in impressing itself upon the notice of the hard-bitten Admiral, who was surrounded by captains twice as old with records twenty times as distinguished.