There then came what promised to be, and in fact turned out to be, a long period of peace.  With no distinguished war service to point to, and with the prospect before him of only uneventful employment, or no employment afloat at all, Nelson might well have been disheartened to the verge of despondency.  That he was not disheartened, but, instead thereof, made a name for himself in such unfavourable circumstances, must be accepted as one of the most convincing proofs of his rare force of character.  To have attracted the notice, and to have secured the confidence, of so great a sea-officer as Lord Hood constituted a distinction which could have been won only by merit so considerable that it could not long remain unrecognised.  The war of American Independence had still seven months to run when Lord Hood pointed to Nelson as an officer to be consulted on ’questions relative to naval tactics,’ Professor Laughton tells us that at that time Nelson had never served with a fleet.  Lord Hood was one of the last men in the world to go out of his way to pay to a youthful subordinate an empty compliment, and we may confidently base our estimate of an officer’s merits on Lord Hood’s belief in them.

He, no doubt, gave a Wide signification to the term ‘tactics,’ and used it as embracing all that is included in the phrase ’conduct of war.’  He must have found out, from conversations with, and from the remarks of, the young captain, whom he treated as intimately as if he was his son, that the latter was already, what he continued to be till the end, viz. a student of naval warfare.  This point deserves particular attention.  The officers of the navy of the present day, period of peace though it be, can imitate Nelson at least in this.  He had to wait a long time before he could translate into brilliant action the result of his tactical studies.  Fourteen years after Lord Hood spoke of him as above related, by a ’spontaneous and sudden act, for which he had no authority by signal or otherwise, except his own judgment and quick perceptions,’ Nelson entirely defeated the movement of the enemy’s fleet, contributed to the winning of a great victory, and, as Captain Mahan tells us, ’emerged from merely personal distinction to national renown.’  The justification of dwelling on this is to be found in the necessity, even at this day, of preventing the repetition of mistakes concerning Nelson’s qualities and disposition.  His recent biographers, Captain Mahan and Professor Laughton, feel constrained to tell us over and over again that Nelson’s predominant characteristic was not mere ’headlong valour and instinct for fighting’; that he was not the man ’to run needless and useless risks’ in battle.  ’The breadth and acuteness of Nelson’s intellect,’ says Mahan, ’have been too much overlooked in the admiration excited by his unusually grand moral endowments of resolution, dash, and fearlessness of responsibility!’