would be aroused, say, in this country. We know that during a war
passions are let loose and charges made by the combatants against each
other which are usually exaggerated, but one thing is certain, that
our soldiers and sailors have always had the well-deserved reputation
of being the cleanest fighters in the world. There have never been
finer examples of this than during the present war. But in justice to
ourselves and to the French during the Napoleonic wars, I think it was
grossly impolitic to engender vindictiveness by unjustifiable
acrimony. Up to the time that Nelson left the Mediterranean for
England, except for the brilliant successes of the Nile and the
equally brilliant capture of the balance of the French Mediterranean
fleet, and subsequently the capitulation of Malta on the 5th
September, 1800, our share in the war was an exhausting and fruitless
failure.

The responsibility for this clearly lies at the door of the Government
who planned it, and in no way attaches to Nelson and his coadjutors,
whose naval and also shore exploits could not be excelled. First, it
was a blink-eyed policy that plunged us into the war at all; and
secondly, it was the height of human folly to waste our resources in
the erroneous belief that the highly trained military men of France
could be permanently subjugated in the Mediterranean by the cowardly,
treacherous villains of which the Roman States armies and Governments
were composed. History is not altogether faithful to the truth in its
honeyed records of the ministerial pashas who tranquilly increased the
national debt, inflicted unspeakable horrors on the population, and
smirched our dignity by entering into a costly bond of brotherhood
with an inveterate swarm of hired bloodsucking weasels. Such,
forsooth! was the mental condition of the wooden souls who managed the
nation's affairs, that they allowed Nelson to add another blot to our