the very antithesis; it was his delightful egotism and vanity that added to his charm and made him such a fascinating personality.  His direct slap-dash, unconventional phrases and flashes of naval brilliancy, whether in search of, or engaged in battle with the enemy, together with a natural kindness to his officers and men of all ranks, filled them with confidence and pride in having him as their chief.  The “Nelson touch,” the “drubbing” he swore in his own engaging way that Mr. Villeneuve—­as he called him to Blackwood—­was to have when he caught him, the putting of the telescope to his blind eye at Copenhagen when the signal was flying to leave off action, and then “No, damn me if I do,” had an inspiring effect on his men and strengthened the belief in his dauntlessness and sagacity.  “What will Nelson think of us?” remarked one of the men aboard one of the frigates that obeyed the signal.  But Nelson went on fighting with complete success.  “Luckily,” says Wellington, “I saw enough to be satisfied that he was really a very superior man.”  Why “luckily”?  What difference would his lack of knowledge have made?  The Duke was hardly the type of man to understand the powerful personality whose style, “so vain and silly, surprised and almost disgusted” him.  That view does not stand to his credit, and no one else held it.

But let us see what a greater man than either Wellington or Nelson says of both.  Napoleon, at St. Helena, spoke in very high terms of Lord Nelson,[9] and indeed attempted to palliate that one stigma on his memory, the execution of Carraciolli, which he attributed entirely to his having been deceived by that wicked woman Queen Caroline, through Lady Hamilton, and to the influence which the latter had over him.  He says of the Duke:  “Judging from Wellington’s actions, from his dispatches, and, above all, from his conduct towards Ney, I should pronounce him to be a poor-spirited man, without generosity, and without greatness of soul (’Un homme de peu d’esprit, sans generosite, et sans grandeur d’ame’).  Such I know to be the opinion of Benjamin Constant and of Madame de Stael, who said that, except as a general, he had not two ideas.  As a general, however, to find his equal amongst your own nation, you must go back to the time of Marlborough, but as anything else, I think that history will pronounce him to be a man of limited capacity (’Un homme borne’)."[10]

“Nelson is a brave man.  If Villeneuve at Aboukir and Dumanoir at Trafalgar had had a little of his blood, the French would have been conquerors.  I ought to have had Dumanoir’s head cut off.  Do you not think more highly of Nelson than of the best engineers who construct fortifications?  Nelson had what a mere engineer officer can never acquire.  It is a gift of nature.”