younger men of the service that all rushed into rivalry of daring

which disdained every warning of prudence, and led to acts of
heroicenterprise which tended greatly to exalt the glory of our

nation."
These are his words, and they are true. The dashing young frigate

captain, the man who in middle age was nothing loth to give chase
single-handed in his seventy-four to a whole fleet, the man of

enterprise and consummate judgment, the old Admiral of the Fleet,
the good and trusted servant of his country under two kings and a

queen, had felt correctly Nelson's influence, and expressed himself
with precision out of the fulness of his seaman's heart.

"Exalted," he wrote, not "augmented." And therein his feeling and
his pen captured the very truth. Other men there were ready and

able to add to the treasure of victories the British navy has given
to the nation. It was the lot of Lord Nelson to exalt all this

glory. Exalt! the word seems to be created for the man.
XLVII.

The British navy may well have ceased to count its victories. It
is rich beyond the wildest dreams of success and fame. It may

well, rather, on a culminating day of its history, cast about for
the memory of some reverses to appease the jealous fates which

attend the prosperity and triumphs of a nation. It holds, indeed,
the heaviest inheritance that has ever been entrusted to the

courage and fidelity of armed men.
It is too great for mere pride. It should make the seamen of to-

day humble in the secret of their hearts, and indomitable in their
unspoken resolution. In all the records of history there has never

been a time when a victorious fortune has been so faithful to men
making war upon the sea. And it must be confessed that on their

part they knew how to be faithful to their victorious fortune.
They were exalted. They were always watching for her smile; night

or day, fair weather or foul, they waited for her slightest sign
with the offering of their stout hearts in their hands. And for

the inspiration of this high constancy they were indebted to Lord
Nelson alone. Whatever earthlyaffection" target="_blank" title="n.友爱；慈爱">affection he abandoned or grasped,

the great Admiral was always, before all, beyond all, a lover of
Fame. He loved her jealously, with an inextinguishable ardour and

an insatiable desire - he loved her with a masterful devotion and
an infinite trustfulness. In the plenitude of his passion he was

an exacting lover. And she never betrayed the greatness of his
trust! She attended him to the end of his life, and he died

pressing her last gift (nineteen prizes) to his heart. "Anchor,
Hardy - anchor!" was as much the cry of an ardent lover as of a

consummateseaman. Thus he would hug to his breast the last gift
of Fame.

It was this ardour which made him great. He was a flaming example
to the wooers of glorious fortune. There have been great officers

before - Lord Hood, for instance, whom he himself regarded as the
greatest sea officer England ever had. A long succession of great

commanders opened the sea to the vast range of Nelson's genius.
His time had come; and, after the great sea officers, the great

naval tradition passed into the keeping of a great man. Not the
least glory of the navy is that it understood Nelson. Lord Hood

trusted him. Admiral Keith told him: "We can't spare you either
as Captain or Admiral." Earl St. Vincent put into his hands,

untrammelled by orders, a division of his fleet, and Sir Hyde
Parker gave him two more ships at Copenhagen than he had asked for.

So much for the chiefs; the rest of the navy surrendered to him
their devotedaffection" target="_blank" title="n.友爱；慈爱">affection, trust, and admiration. In return he gave

them no less than his own exalted soul. He breathed into them his
own ardour and his own ambition. In a few short years he

revolutionized, not the strategy or tactics of sea-warfare, but the
very conception of victory itself. And this is genius. In that

alone, through the fidelity of his fortune and the power of his
inspiration, he stands uniqueamongst the leaders of fleets and

sailors. He brought heroism into the line of duty. Verily he is a
terrible ancestor.

And the men of his day loved him. They loved him not only as
victorious armies have loved great commanders; they loved him with

a more intimate feeling as one of themselves. In the words of a
contemporary, he had "a most happy way of gaining the affection" target="_blank" title="n.友爱；慈爱">affectionate

respect of all who had the felicity to serve under his command."
To be so great and to remain so accessible to the affection" target="_blank" title="n.友爱；慈爱">affection of

one's fellow-men is the mark of exceptionalhumanity. Lord
Nelson's greatness was very human. It had a moral basis; it needed

to feel itself surrounded by the warm devotion of a band of
brothers. He was vain and tender. The love and admiration which

the navy gave him so unreservedly soothed the restlessness of his
professional pride. He trusted them as much as they trusted him.

He was a seaman of seamen. Sir T. B. Martin states that he never
conversed with any officer who had served under Nelson "without

hearing the heartiest expressions of attachment to his person and
admiration of his frank and conciliatory manner to his

subordinates." And Sir Robert Stopford, who commanded one of the
ships with which Nelson chased to the West Indies a fleet nearly

double in number, says in a letter: "We are half-starved and
otherwise inconvenienced by being so long out of port, but our

reward is that we are with Nelson."
This heroic spirit of daring and endurance, in which all public and

private differences were sunk throughout the whole fleet, is Lord
Nelson's great legacy, triply sealed by the victoriousimpress of

the Nile, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar. This is a legacy whose value
the changes of time cannot affect. The men and the ships he knew

how to lead lovingly to the work of courage and the reward of glory
have passed away, but Nelson's uplifting touch remains in the

standard of achievement he has set for all time. The principles of
strategy may be immutable. It is certain they have been, and shall

be again, disregarded from timidity, from blindness, through
infirmity of purpose. The tactics of great captains on land and

sea can be infinitely discussed. The first object of tactics is to
close with the adversary on terms of the greatest possible

advantage; yet no hard-and-fast rules can be drawn from experience,
for this capital reason, amongst others - that the quality of the

adversary is a variable element in the problem. The tactics of
Lord Nelson have been amply discussed, with much pride and some

profit. And yet, truly, they are already of but archaic interest.
A very few years more and the hazardous difficulties of handling a

fleet under canvas shall have passed beyond the conception of
seamen who hold in trust for their country Lord Nelson's legacy of

heroic spirit. The change in the character of the ships is too
great and too radical. It is good and proper to study the acts of

great men with thoughtfulreverence, but already the precise
intention of Lord Nelson's famous memorandum seems to lie under

that veil which Time throws over the clearest conceptions of every
great art. It must not be forgotten that this was the first time

when Nelson, commanding in chief, had his opponents under way - the
first time and the last. Had he lived, had there been other fleets

left to oppose him, we would, perhaps, have learned something more
of his greatness as a sea officer. Nothing could have been added

to his greatness as a leader. All that can be affirmed is, that on
no other day of his short and gloriouscareer was Lord Nelson more

splendidly true to his genius and to his country's fortune.
XLVIII.

And yet the fact remains that, had the wind failed and the fleet
lost steerage way, or, worse still, had it been taken aback from

the eastward, with its leaders within short range of the enemy's
guns, nothing, it seems, could have saved the headmost ships from

capture or destruction. No skill of a great sea officer would have
availed in such a contingency. Lord Nelson was more than that, and

his genius would have remained undiminished by defeat. But
obviously tactics, which are so much at the mercy of irremediable

accident, must seem to a modern seaman a poor matter of study. The
Commander-in-Chief in the great fleet action that will take its

place next to the Battle of Trafalgar in the history of the British
navy will have no such anxiety, and will feel the weight of no such

dependence. For a hundred years now no British fleet has engaged
the enemy in line of battle. A hundred years is a long time, but

the difference of modern conditions is enormous. The gulf is
great. Had the last great fight of the English navy been that of

the First of June, for instance, had there been no Nelson's
victories, it would have been wellnigh impassable. The great