to put an end to the hopeless extemporizing and contempt for sober, solid, orderly administration.  The truth is that, if a government or anything else is wrongly conceived, natural laws will never help it to right itself, and it ends in catastrophe.  Such governments are inflicted on us from time to time as a chastisement, it is said, for our national sins, and the process of disintegration is deadly in its effects.  The only consoling feature of it is that history is repeating itself with strange accuracy, as may be verified by a glance into the manuscripts of Mr. Fortescue at Dropmore.  Herein you will find many striking resemblances between the constitution of the Government then and the tribulation we are passing through at the present time.  One important event of that period has been avoided up to the present; none has demanded a settlement of his differences by means of a duelling contest, as did Castlereagh and Canning.[14] They had a coalition of all the talents then as they presume to have now, though there has been no real evidence of it, either in or out of Parliament.

XII

Poor Nelson had a terrible time with one and another of them, as they had with him, if history may be relied on.  His periodical defiances and his contempt for his superiors is quite edifying.  He laid down the law like a bishop when his moods were in full play.  The great naval, commercial, and military figure to which Nelson comes nearest is Drake, and the nearest to Nelson in versatility is Lord Fisher, who must have had an engaging time with those who wished to assume control of the Navy over his level head.  I question whether any man holding a high position in the British Navy, at any time, could combine naval, military, and administrative genius, together with sound common sense, as Nelson did.  We have devoted so much attention to the study of his naval accomplishments that many of his other practical gifts have been overlooked.  It is common belief, in civilian circles at any rate, and there is good ground for it, that both the naval and military men do not realize how much their existence depends on a well-handled and judiciously treated mercantile marine.  I have too much regard for every phase of seafaring life to criticize it unfairly, but, except on very rare occasions, I have found naval and military men so profoundly absorbed in their own professions that they do not trouble to regard anything else as being essential.

The present war will have revealed many things that were not thought of in other days.  One of Nelson’s outstanding anxieties was lest any harm should befall our commerce, and he protected it and our shipping with fine vigilance and with scant support from the then Government, which would not supply him with ships; this at times drove him to expressions of despair.  Privateering was more rampant then than it is now, and the belligerents had great difficulty in enforcing