Nelson, however, was too big and too broad a man not to know that, while by doing the same thing, or bearing the same thing, many times,—­by experience, that is,—­one acquires a facility not otherwise communicable, in a novel situation a man is abler to act, the more he has availed himself of the knowledge and the suggestions of others.  Absorbed with the duties of his station, it was of the first importance that he should possess every information, and ponder every idea, small and great, bearing upon its conditions, as well as upon the general political state of Europe in that period of ominous waiting, wherein great events were evidently coming to birth.  Day after day, Dr. Scott’s biographer tells us, was passed by the two together, sitting in two black leathern arm-chairs with roomy pockets, stuffed with papers, written and printed, journals and pamphlets, gathered from every source—­from prizes, from passing neutral vessels, from cruisers returning from neutral or friendly ports, or picked up by the doctor himself in the not infrequent trips on which he was sent, ostensibly for pleasure, but with a keen eye also to the collection of intelligence.  Marked externally by the abstraction of a book-worm, entirely unpractical and heedless in the common affairs of life, and subject to an occasional flightiness of action, the result in part of an injury to his head while in the service, Scott gave those who saw him going about an impression of guilelessness, which covered him from the suspicion of having a mission.  He had, says his biographer, “in union with a capacity for very difficult services, a simplicity that often put him at disadvantage in worldly matters, and it became a common joke with the Admiral, that ’the doctor would always want somebody to take care of him.’”

Nelson had everything read to him; first of all, newspapers, which were sent regularly to the fleet by British agents in various quarters.  Upon them chiefly, and not upon England, he depended for knowledge of what was happening; in Great Britain itself, as well as on the Continent.  From ten to twelve weeks was no uncommon length of time for him to be without word from home.  “I never hear from England,” he wrote to Elliot in the summer of 1804, “but as we manage to get the Paris papers regularly through Spain.  From ten days to a fortnight we get them from their date at Paris:  therefore we know the very great events which are passing in Europe—­at least as much as the French people;” a shrewd limitation.  These, therefore, together with Spanish, Italian, and other sheets, it was Scott’s daily task to read aloud to his chief, who found therein not only information but amusement.  He insisted also upon hearing the numerous ephemeral pamphlets, of which the age was prolific, and which found their way to him.  His quickness in detecting the drift of an author was marvellous.  Two or three pages of a pamphlet were generally sufficient to put him in complete possession of the writer’s object,