An affront to a nation, even though it is made by a person in a subordinate position, may bring about far-reaching trouble.  Reverse the position of the traducer of a prominent man or his nation, and it will be easy to arrive at a correct conclusion as to the temper that would be aroused, say, in this country.  We know that during a war passions are let loose and charges made by the combatants against each other which are usually exaggerated, but one thing is certain, that our soldiers and sailors have always had the well-deserved reputation of being the cleanest fighters in the world.  There have never been finer examples of this than during the present war.  But in justice to ourselves and to the French during the Napoleonic wars, I think it was grossly impolitic to engender vindictiveness by unjustifiable acrimony.  Up to the time that Nelson left the Mediterranean for England, except for the brilliant successes of the Nile and the equally brilliant capture of the balance of the French Mediterranean fleet, and subsequently the capitulation of Malta on the 5th September, 1800, our share in the war was an exhausting and fruitless failure.

The responsibility for this clearly lies at the door of the Government who planned it, and in no way attaches to Nelson and his coadjutors, whose naval and also shore exploits could not be excelled.  First, it was a blink-eyed policy that plunged us into the war at all; and secondly, it was the height of human folly to waste our resources in the erroneous belief that the highly trained military men of France could be permanently subjugated in the Mediterranean by the cowardly, treacherous villains of which the Roman States armies and Governments were composed.  History is not altogether faithful to the truth in its honeyed records of the ministerial pashas who tranquilly increased the national debt, inflicted unspeakable horrors on the population, and smirched our dignity by entering into a costly bond of brotherhood with an inveterate swarm of hired bloodsucking weasels.  Such, forsooth! was the mental condition of the wooden souls who managed the nation’s affairs, that they allowed Nelson to add another blot to our national history escutcheon by taking Ferdinand Bourbon’s throne under his protection.  It is true that Ferdinand “did not wish that his benefactor’s name should alone descend with honour to posterity,” or that he should “appear ungrateful.”  So the Admiral was handsomely rewarded by being presented with the Dukedom of Bronte and a diamond-hilted sword which had been given to the King by his father when he became Sicilian King.  It would be nonsense even to suspect Nelson of accepting either gifts or titles as a bribe to sacrifice any interest that was British.