to remain below.  But Nelson, as soon as he knew he was not going to die, became bored with the inactivity and insisted on writing a dispatch to the Admiralty.  His secretary was too excited to carry out his wishes, so he tackled it himself.  But his suffering being great and his mind in a condition of whirling confusion, he did not get far beyond the beginning, which intimated that “Almighty God had blessed His Majesty’s arms.”  The battle raged on.  The Orient was set on fire and her destruction assured.  When Nelson was informed of the terrible catastrophe to the great French line-of-battle ship, he demanded to be assisted to the deck, whereupon he gave instructions that his only boat not destroyed was to be sent with the Vanguard’s first lieutenant to render assistance to the crew.  He remained on deck until the Orient blew up, and was then urged to go to bed.

But sleep under the circumstances and in view of his own condition would not come.  All night long he was sending messages directing the plan of battle the news of which was to enthral the civilized world.  Nelson himself was not satisfied.  “Not one of the French vessels would have escaped,” he said, “if it had pleased God that he had not been wounded.”  This was rather a slur on those who had given their best blood and really won the battle.  Notwithstanding the apparent egotism of this outburst, there are sound reasons for believing that the Admiral’s inspiring influence was much discounted by his not being able to remain on deck.  The sight of his guiding, magnetic figure had an amazing effect on his men, but I think it must be admitted that Nelson’s head was not in a condition at that time to be entirely relied upon, and those in charge of the different ships put the finishing touches to the victory that was won by the force of his courage and commanding genius in the initial stages of the struggle.

II

Nelson was a true descendant of a race of men who had never faltered in the traditional belief that the world should be governed and dominated by the British.  His King, his country, and particularly the profession to which he belonged, were to him the supreme authorities whose destiny it was to direct the affairs of the universe.  With unfailing comic seriousness, intermixed with occasional explosions of bitter violence, he placed the French low down in the scale of the human family.  There was scarcely a sailor adjective that was not applied to them.  Carlyle, in later years, designated the voice of France as “a confused babblement from the gutters” and “scarcely human”; “A country indeed with its head cut off”; but this quotation does not reach some of the picturesque heights of nautical language that was invented by Nelson to describe his view of them.  Both he and many of his fellow-countrymen regarded the chosen chief on whom the French nation had democratically placed an imperial crown as the embodiment of a wild beast.