professional tone, which in them received realization.  Faithful in the least, Jervis, when the time came, was found faithful also in the greatest.  Nor was the future confined to his own personal career.  Though he must yield to Nelson the rare palm of genius, which he himself cannot claim, yet was the glory of Nelson, from the Nile to Trafalgar, the fair flower that could only have bloomed upon the rugged stalk of Jervis’s navy.  Upon him, therefore, Nelson showered expressions of esteem and reverence, amounting at times almost to tenderness, in his early and better days.  In later years their mutual regard suffered an estrangement which, whatever its origin, appears as a matter of feeling to have been chiefly on the part of the younger man, whose temper, under the malign influence of an unworthy passion, became increasingly imbittered, at strife within itself and at variance with others.  The affectionate admiration of St. Vincent for his brilliant successor seems to have remained proof against external differences.

It was poetic justice, then, that allotted to St. Vincent the arrangement of the responsible expedition which, in 1798, led to the celebrated Battle of the Nile; in its lustre and thorough workmanship the gem of all naval exploits.  To him it fell to choose for its command his brilliant younger brother, and to winnow for him the flower of his fleet, to form what Nelson after the victory called “his band of brothers.”  “The Battle of the Nile,” said the veteran admiral, Lord Howe, “stands singular in this, that every captain distinguished himself.”  The achievement of the battle was Nelson’s own, and Nelson’s only; but it was fought on St. Vincent’s station, by a detachment from St. Vincent’s fleet.  He it was who composed the force, and chose for its leader the youngest flag-officer in his command.  Bitter reclamations were made by the admirals senior to Nelson, but St. Vincent had one simple sufficient reply,—­“Those who are responsible for measures must have the choice of the men to execute them.”

When St. Vincent, in 1799, quitted the Mediterranean, he had yet nearly a quarter of a century to live.  His later years were distinguished by important services, but they embody the same spirit and exemplify the same methods that marked his Mediterranean command, which was the culminating period of his career.  In 1801, when Pitt’s long term of office came to an end, he became First Lord of the Admiralty,—­the head of naval affairs for the United Kingdom,—­and so continued during the Addington administration, till 1804.  In 1806, at the age of seventy-two, he was again for a short time called to command the Channel fleet; but in 1807 he retired from active service, and the square flag that had so long flown with honor was hauled down forever.