would enrage the peoples he had to conciliate.  After the ordeal was over, and Russia was at war with France, a leading Swedish statesman wrote to him:  “You have been the guardian angel of my country; by your wise, temperate, and loyal conduct, you have been the first cause of the plans which have been formed against the demon of the continent....  Once more I must tell you, that you were the first cause that Russia had dared to make war against France; had you fired one shot when we declared war against England, all had been ended and Europe would have been enslaved.”  Saumarez, an extremely religious man, may have reflected that “he who ruleth his spirit is greater than he that taketh a city.”

Though in the strictest sense professional, the Baltic service of Saumarez involved little of purely military interest.  Shortly after his assuming the command, in 1808, a Russian fleet which had been keeping the sea took refuge, on the approach of the allied British and Swedes, in a harbor on the Gulf of Finland.  Saumarez followed close upon their heels, and after a consultation and reconnoissance of the position, which consumed two days, secured the co-operation of the Swedish admiral for an attack on the day following; an essential condition, for the Russian force was superior to his own in the proportion of eight to six.  Unhappily, the wind shifted, and blew an adverse gale for eight days; at the end of which time the enemy had so far fortified the surroundings that Saumarez thought it inexpedient to attack.  In this decision he was supported by the opinion of captains of such established reputation as, joined to his own brilliant record, must be taken to justify his action, which seems to have caused some dissatisfaction in England.  On the face, it could not but be a disappointment to people accustomed to the brilliant victories of Nelson, and his apparent invincibility by obstacles; but in the end it was all for the best, for doubtless the mortifying destruction of a Russian fleet would not have furthered the reconciliation, which soon became a leading object with the British government and the great bulk of the Russian nation.  It is, however, probable that to this frustration of public expectation, which had been vividly aroused by preceding accounts of the conditions, is to be attributed the delay in granting the peerage, eagerly desired by Saumarez in his later days,—­not for itself merely, but as a recognition which he not unnaturally thought earned by his long and distinguished service.  Saumarez held the Baltic command through five eventful years,—­from 1808 to 1812.  After Napoleon’s disastrous Russian expedition, affairs in that sea no longer required a force adequate to his rank, and he then finally retired from service afloat, still in the full maturity of a healthy prime, at the age of fifty-five.  The remainder of his life, with brief exception, was passed in his native island of Guernsey, amid those charms of family affection and