[104] Author’s italics.

[105] Author’s italics.

[106] One of the easternmost of the Azores.

[107] The report of the American schooner, which saw the allied fleet, June 15th.

[108] Of Biscay.

[109] The extent of Brereton’s fault (if at fault) depended, probably, upon the character and responsibility of the man he had on lookout at so critical a moment, and the care with which he tested the report made to him.  Brereton did not know of Nelson’s arrival, possibly not of his approach.  At the same time men must take the blame of carelessness, when harm comes of it.  Ball, commenting to Nelson upon the incident, said:  “I think orders should be given, that when a fleet is discovered, an officer should be sent for to witness it, and that one should be at the signal hill at the rising and setting of the sun.  I have often reflected on these circumstances, and on the little attention generally paid them.”  As it stands, the whole affair is a warning to officers, of what results may flow from errors small in themselves.

CHAPTER XXI.

NELSON’S LAST STAY IN ENGLAND.

AUGUST 19—­SEPTEMBER 15, 1805.  AGE, 46.

The “Victory” was delayed in quarantine twenty-four hours, when orders from London directed her release.  At 9 P.M. of the 19th of August, Nelson’s flag was hauled down, and he left the ship for Merton, thus ending an absence of two years and three months.  His home being but an hour’s drive from the heart of London, the anxieties of the time, and his own eagerness to communicate his views and experience, carried him necessarily and at once to the public offices—­to the Admiralty first, but also to the Secretaries for Foreign Affairs and for War, both of whom had occasion for the knowledge and suggestions of so competent and practised an observer.  The present head of the Admiralty, Lord Barham, had succeeded to the office, unexpectedly, upon the sudden retirement of Melville the previous May.  He was a naval officer, eighty years of age, who since middle life had exchanged the active sea-going of the profession, for civil duties connected with it.  He had thus been out of touch with it on the military side; and although Nelson was of course well known to him by reputation and achievement, he had not that intimate personal experience of his character and habit of thought, upon which was based the absolute confidence felt by St. Vincent, and by all others who had seen the great warrior in active service.  “Lord Barham is an almost entire stranger to me,” wrote Nelson; but after their interview he left with him the journals in which were embodied the information obtained during his recent command, with his comments upon the affairs of the Mediterranean in particular, and, as incidental thereto, of Europe in general.  Barham, who gave proof of great military capacity during his short term of office, was so much impressed by the sagacity and power of Nelson’s remarks, that he assured the Cabinet he ought by all means to go back to the Mediterranean; and it may be assumed that the latter’s wish so to do would have been gratified, at the time of his own choosing, had not other events interposed to carry him away earlier, and to end his career.