NELSON. 139 



Sir Hyde Parker, to destroy the confederacy against England (of Denmark, Sweden, 

 and Russia) instigated by Napoleon. When the fleet arrived at the bay of Copen- 

 hagen the admiral regarded the enemy as impregnable; but Nelson was per- 

 mitted to attack with 12 ships-of-the-line and, though his losses were heavy, he 

 won what his fleet was sent for - - the dissolution of the confederacy. Nelson 

 was promptly given full command over the fleet, relieving Parker. 



The third great campaign was that against the French-Spanish naval com- 

 bination with which Napoleon planned to invade England. After much effort 

 he finally succeeded in engaging the main fleet off Trafalgar, October 21, 1805. 

 He had already carefully instructed his captains as to tactics; but on the day of 

 battle the position of the enemy's fleet was unexpected. Rapidly adjusting his 

 tactics to meet the emergency and signaling "England expects that every man 

 will do his duty," he ordered Collingwood, second in command, to cut the enemy's 

 line in two near the middle while Nelson engaged the enemy's flagship just in front 

 of the middle. With his 27 ships Nelson defeated the 33-ship fleet of the allies 

 and took or destroyed in action 18 of them. But Nelson was killed by a musket- 

 shot from the rigging of the enemy and died on the day of his victory. 



In attempting to interpret the life-work of Nelson we do well to consider the 

 words of his greatest biographer, Mahan (1897, i, p. 2) : 



"The man's self and the man's work, what he was and what he did, the nature 

 which brought forth such fruits, the thoughts which issued in such acts, hopes, 

 fears, desires, quick intuitions, painful struggles, lofty ambitions, happy oppor- 

 tunities have blended to form that luminous whole, known and seen of all, but 

 not to be understood except by the patient effort to resolve the great result into 

 its several rays, to separate the strands whose twisting has made so strong a cord." 



Of this "nature" the most striking characteristic is a dualism on the one 

 hand a prevailing depression and on the other a tendency at times to loose all 

 fetters of his spirit and exhibit as little control of it as a young child. In the latter 

 state ambition rises; fear, even reasonable caution, disappears; action follows 

 close upon ideas, and ideas often crowd one upon the other; the output of energy, 

 of joy, of self-satisfaction is extreme; responsibility is readily assumed. This 

 state is that of feeble inhibition; in an extreme type of this state "hysterical" 

 symptoms are shown. 



Nelson was often depressed. He repeatedly writes in this strain. Thus, 

 in June 1795: "I am out of spirits, although never in better health." (Mahan, 

 i, p. 175.) Some time after the battle of the Nile, while at Palermo, he writes: 

 "My only wish is to sink with honour into the grave, and when that shall please 

 God, I shall meet death with a smile. ... I am ready to quit this world of trouble, 

 and envy none but those of the estate six feet by two." Says Mahan (i, 413): 

 "Mingled as these expressions were with despondent broodings over his health, 

 even if the latter were well founded, they are the voice of a mind which has lost 

 the string of self-content. The sense of duty abides, but dogged, cheerless; 

 respondent rather to the force of habit than to the generous ardor of former days." 

 Again, on Channel service, in 1801, he writes to Lady Hamilton: "My heart is 

 ready to flow out of my eyes. I am not unwell but I am very low [i.e. in spirits]]- 

 I can only account for it by my absence from all I hold dear in this world" (Mahan, 

 n, 139). As a young man of 27, at the island of St. Nevis, it was observed of him 

 at a party: "He came up just before dinner, much heated, and was very silent; 

 but he seemed, according to the old adage, to think the more. Having drunk 



