before dark, he laid himself down with a conscious feeling that everything had been done, which it was in his power to do, for the safety of the ships, and the lives of those intrusted to his care, and this conviction set his mind at ease.”  The apprehensiveness with which Gardner was afflicted “is further exemplified by an anecdote told by Admiral Sir James Whitshed, who commanded the Alligator, next him in the line.  Such was his anxiety, even in ordinary weather, that, though each ship carried three poop lanterns, he always kept one burning in his cabin, and when he thought the Alligator was approaching too near he used to run out into the stern gallery with the lantern in his hand, waving it so as to be noticed.”  From Gardner’s rank at the time, the conversation narrated must have occurred during the early years of the French Revolution, when Howe was over sixty-seven.  As illustrative of character it is particularly interesting, for Gardner was not only a much younger man, but one whose gallantry and competence had been eminently proved as a captain in several hard fought battles, while as an admiral in chief command he later acquired considerable reputation as a tactician.

Composure under suspense is chiefly a matter of temperament; of the constitutional outfit with which Nature favors some, and does not others.  It may be cultivated by its happy possessor; but when wanting, the sufferer can supply its place only by laborious self-control, the tension of which by itself expends the energies it seeks to maintain, and so imposes limitations of strength that are often insuperable obstacles to achievement, especially if prolonged.  The strain of this endurance is prominent among those borne by commanders-in-chief, who can at no moment afford to be lax, nor yet precipitate; and it increases with time at compound interest.  Howe’s native imperturbability was therefore one of the chief factors in his great professional powers, making possible the full exercise of all the others.  By dint of it principally he reached the eminence which must be attributed to him as a general officer; for it underlay the full, continuous, and sustained play of the very marked faculties, personal and professional, natural and acquired, which he had.  It insured that they should be fully developed, and should not flag; for it preserved his full command over them by delivering him from the factitious burdens of the imagination.

This quality not only entered into his external professional life, but characterized the habitual temper of his mind.  “He divested himself in a remarkable manner,” says his biographer, “of every approach to a state of anger or resentment”—­instancing herein, it may be noted, the improvement of a natural gift; “and he carefully abstained from all irritating language, whether in speaking or writing.  In the perusal of the four hundred letters and upwards that have been mentioned, embracing opinions of, and unreserved discussions upon, the merits or otherwise of many and various characters, of all classes of individuals, it did not fail forcibly to strike the reader of them, how invariably, with one single exception, he takes the good natured and favorable side of every question.  In the whole series, the harshest word employed is ‘blockhead,’ bestowed on his steward for not taking care of his own interests.”