It was upon one of these visits to Ministers that Nelson and Wellington met for the only time in their lives.  The latter had just returned from a long service in India, reaching England in September, 1805.  His account of the interview, transmitted to us by Croker, is as follows:—­

WALMER, October 1st, 1834.  We were talking of Lord Nelson, and some instances were mentioned of the egotism and vanity that derogated from his character.  “Why,” said the Duke, “I am not surprised at such instances, for Lord Nelson was, in different circumstances, two quite different men, as I myself can vouch, though I only saw him once in my life, and for, perhaps, an hour.  It was soon after I returned from India.  I went to the Colonial Office[110] in Downing Street, and there I was shown into the little waiting-room on the right hand, where I found, also waiting to see the Secretary of State, a gentleman, whom, from his likeness to his pictures and the loss of an arm, I immediately recognised as Lord Nelson.  He could not know who I was, but he entered at once into conversation with me, if I can call it conversation, for it was almost all on his side and all about himself, and in, really, a style so vain and so silly as to surprise and almost disgust me.  I suppose something that I happened to say may have made him guess that I was somebody, and he went out of the room for a moment, I have no doubt to ask the office-keeper who I was, for when he came back he was altogether a different man, both in manner and matter.  All that I had thought a charlatan style had vanished, and he talked of the state of this country and of the aspect and probabilities of affairs on the Continent with a good sense, and a knowledge of subjects both at home and abroad, that surprised me equally and more agreeably than the first part of our interview had done; in fact, he talked like an officer and a statesman.  The Secretary of State kept us long waiting, and certainly, for the last half or three quarters of an hour, I don’t know that I ever had a conversation that interested me more.  Now, if the Secretary of State had been punctual, and admitted Lord Nelson in the first quarter of an hour, I should have had the same impression of a light and trivial character that other people have had; but luckily I saw enough to be satisfied that he was really a very superior man; but certainly a more sudden and complete metamorphosis I never saw."[111]

This is not the only record that remains to us of those interesting interviews with Cabinet Ministers, although the most have passed away unnoted.  It was in one of them that he uttered a military opinion, for whose preservation we are indebted to his own mention of it in a private letter; an opinion so characteristic of his habits of thought, his reasoned motives of action, that, although it has before been quoted, it is fitting to repeat it in his own words and in full.