of Nelson’s ships, the putting back to Toulon or anywhere to refit the topmasts, sails, or rigging would have been highly reprehensible.  But in any case, I question whether the British would have shown the white feather or lack of resource under any circumstances.  On a man-of-war they were supposed to have refits of everything, and men, properly qualified, in large numbers to carry out any prodigious feat.  On the other hand, the British have always excelled in their nautical ability to guard against deficiency in outfit, which was not overtested unless there were sufficient cause to demand such a risk.  This applies especially to the sailing war vessels in Nelson’s time.  I think there can be no question that the French vessels were both badly officered and manned with incapable sailors and that the damage which led them back to Toulon was caused by bad judgment in seamanship.  What they called a severe gale would have been regarded by an Australian clipper or Western Ocean packet-ship in the writer’s early days as a hard whole-sail breeze, perhaps with the kites taken in.  It was rare that these dashing commanders ever carried away a spar, and it was not because they did not carry on, but because they knew every trick of the vessel, the wind, and the sea.  It was a common saying in those days when vessels were being overpowered with canvas, “The old lady was talking to us now,” i.e. the vessel was asking to have some of the burden of sail taken off her.  I have known topmasts to be carried away, but it generally occurred through some flaw in a bolt or unseen defect in the rigging.  So much depends on the security of little things.  But when a catastrophe of this kind occurred on board a British merchantman or war vessel the men had both the courage, skill, training, and, above all, the matchless instinct to clear away the wreck and carry out the refitting in amazingly short time.  That was because we were then, and are now under new conditions, an essentially seafaring race.  And it was this superiority that gave Nelson such great advantages over the French commanders and their officers and seamen, though it must be admitted they were fast drilled by the force of circumstances into foes that were not to be looked upon too lightly.

The elusive tactics of the French admirals then were in a lesser degree similar to those practised by the Germans now, if it be proper to speak or think of the two services at the same time without libelling them.  The French were always clean fighters, however much they may have been despised by Nelson.  They were never guilty of cowardly revenge.  They would not then, or now, send hospital ships to the bottom with their crews and their human cargoes of wounded soldiers and nurses.  Nor would they indiscriminately sink merchant vessels loaded with civilian passengers composed of men, women, and children, and leave them to drown, as is the inhuman practice of the German submarine crews of to-day.