that reach any great degree of perfection, and, while a very desirable gift, it is by no means indispensable to the highest order of naval excellence.  Nelson did not at all equal Pellew in this respect, as is indicated by an amusing story transmitted by a Colonel Stewart, who served on board the great admiral’s flag-ship during the expedition against Copenhagen:  “His lordship was rather too apt to interfere in the working of the ship, and not always with the best judgment or success.  The wind, when off Dungeness, was scanty, and the ship was to be put about.  Lord Nelson would give the orders, and caused her to miss stays.  Upon this he said, rather peevishly, to the officer of the watch, ’Well, now see what we have done.  Well, sir, what mean you to do now?’ The officer saying, with hesitation, ’I don’t exactly know, my lord.  I fear she won’t do,’ Lord Nelson turned sharply to the cabin, and replied, ’Well, I am sure if you do not know what to do with her, no more do I, either.’  He went in, leaving the officer to work the ship as he liked.”  Yet Nelson understood perfectly what ships could do, and what they could not; no one could better handle or take care of a fleet, or estimate the possibility of performing a given manoeuvre; and long before he was called to high command he was distinguished for a knowledge of naval tactics to which few, if any other, of his time attained.  He was a great general officer; and whether he had the knack of himself making a ship go through all her paces without a fault mattered as little as whether he was a crack shot with a gun.

A ship is certainly the most beautiful and most graceful of machines; a machine, too, so varied in its movements and so instinct with life that the seaman affectionately transfers to her credit his own virtues in handling her.  Pellew’s capacity in this part of his profession was so remarkable that it is somewhat singular to find him, in his first frigate action, compelled to discard manoeuvring, and to rely for victory upon sheer pluck and luck.  When war with the French republic began in 1793, his high reputation immediately insured him command of a frigate, the Nymphe.  The strength of England as a naval power lay largely in the great reserve of able seamen manning her merchant ships; but as these were scattered in all quarters of the world, great embarrassment was commonly felt at the outbreak of a war, and especially when it came with the unexpected rapidity of the revolutionary fury.  As the object of first importance was to get the fleets of ships-of-the-line to sea, Pellew had to depend chiefly upon his own indefatigable exertions to procure a crew for his vessel.  Seamen being hard to find, he had on board a disproportionate number of landsmen when the Nymphe, on the 19th of June, 1793, encountered the French vessel Cleopatre, of force slightly inferior, except in men, but not sufficiently so to deny the victor the claim of an even fight.