history, the matter was quickly settled.  On September 3d, the day after Blackwood’s arrival, he writes to Rose:  “I shall rejoice to see you on board the Victory, if only for a moment; but I shall certainly not be an advocate for being at Portsmouth till one of the Victory’s anchors are at the bows."[118] The next day, the 4th, Lord Minto writes:  “Lord Nelson has been here to-day.  He is going to resume the command of the Mediterranean as soon as the Victory is ready, which will be within a week.”  On the 5th he himself tells a friend, “All my things are this day going off for Portsmouth.”

The ten days that followed were for him, necessarily, very busy; but mental preoccupation—­definiteness of object—­was always beneficial to him.  Even the harassing run to and from the West Indies had done him good.  “I am but so-so,” he had written to his brother upon arrival; “yet, what is very odd, the better for going to the West Indies, even with the anxiety.”  To this had succeeded the delightful fortnight at home, and now the animation and stir of expected active service.  Minto had already noted his exhilaration amid the general public gloom, and after his death, speaking of these last days, said, “He was remarkably well and fresh, and full of hope and spirit.”  The care of providing him with adequate force he threw off upon the Admiralty.  There was, of course, a consultation between him and it as to the numbers and kind of vessels he thought necessary, but his estimate was accepted without question, and the ships were promised, as far as the resources went.  When Lord Barham asked him to select his own officers, he is said to have replied, “Choose yourself, my lord, the same spirit actuates the whole profession; you cannot choose wrong.”  He did, nevertheless, indicate his wishes in individual cases; and the expression, though characteristic enough of his proud confidence in the officers of the navy, must be taken rather as a resolve not to be burdened with invidious distinctions, than as an unqualified assertion of fact.

Nelson, however, gave one general admonition to the Cabinet which is worthy to be borne in mind, as a broad principle of unvarying application, more valuable than much labored detail.  What is wanted, he said, is the annihilation of the enemy—­“Only numbers can annihilate."[119] It is brilliant and inspiring, indeed, to see skill and heroism bearing up against enormous odds, and even wrenching victory therefrom; but it is the business of governments to insure that such skill and heroism be more profitably employed, in utterly destroying, with superior forces, the power of the foe, and so compelling peace.  No general has won more striking successes over superior numbers than did Napoleon; no ruler has been more careful to see that adequate superiority for his own forces was provided from the beginning.  Nelson believed that he had fully impressed the Prime Minister that what was needed now, after two and a half years of