of which even Franklin had despaired, is certainly not a man to be dismissed from the court of history as a mere adventurer, a person of no importance, even if he cannot leave it without a stain upon his character. I would hardly go so far as Disraeli and say, "As to his moral conduct, it would seem that few characters have been more subject to scrutiny and less to condemnation." I do not take Paul Jones to have been a Galahad or even a Lancelot. But whatever his moral delinquencies may have been, I have discovered none to make me ashamed of avowing a profound admiration for his extraordinary gifts and astonishing achievements.

The papers on "Trafalgar and the Nelson Touch" were written in 1905, and published in The Times during the early autumn of that year. I had previously enjoyed an opportunity of talking the matter over with Colonel Desbrière, of the French General Staff, the distinguished author of a monumental work, well known to all students of the subject, entitled Projets et tentatives de débarquement aux Iles Britanniques, 1793-1805. But I found that at the time of my visit to Colonel Desbrière at the French War Office he had not completed those studies and researches which have since borne such abundant fruit in his supplementary volume, entitled Trafalgar, which was only published in 1907. This will explain why no mention was made of Colonel Desbrière's work in my articles as they originally appeared. The importance of his researches and of the conclusions he has drawn from them lies not merely in his profound acquaintance with the whole subject, and the singularly acute and detached judgment he has brought to its discussion, but in the fact that he alone has had access to all the documents bearing on the subject which are preserved in the French and Spanish archives, the most important of them being printed in his volume. for the first time. It is for this reason extremely gratifying to me to find that working on lines in

no sense suggested by myself-for the very slight assistance I was able to afford him in his study of the subject is more than generously acknowledged in his preface-and on materials entirely inaccessible to me, he has reached conclusions so closely akin to my own. He and I have reached our respective conclusions by different and independent paths. But how closely those conclusions coincide may be seen from the following sentences which I quote from his final chapter:

Quant au dispositif d'attaque des Anglais, il semble démontré qu'il différa tout à fait des deux colonnes généralement admises. Pour la division du Sud, celle de Collingwood, aucun doute ne peut subsister et l'engagement sur tout le front des alliés prouve bien que l'ordre de former la ligne de relèvement fut exécuté. Pour la division du Nord, celle de Nelson, la ligne de file se transforma au moment de l'engagement en un ordre semi-déployé sur un front de quatre ou cinq vaisseaux. L'amiral attaqua bien le premier mais il fut immédiatement soutenu à sa droite et à sa gauche.

There are a few points of detail concerning which I am more or less at variance with Colonel Desbrière, but they are none of them of primary importance, and there are others in respect of which his analysis corroborates mine in a very remarkable manner. These I have duly indicated in the notes appended at their proper place in the present volume. I would here. add that the most striking corroboration of all is that furnished by three pictorial diagrams, representing three successive stages of the battle, which are preserved in the archives of the Captain-General at Cadiz, and are reproduced in black-and-white facsimile by Colonel Desbrière. Coloured facsimiles of these diagrams were presented in 1907 by the Spanish Government to the British Admiralty, and now hang in the room of the Permanent Secretary of the Admiralty. I am informed that the original drawings were made

by the Chief of the Staff of the Spanish Admiral Gravina, who commanded the rear of the allied line, his flag flying in the Principe d'Asturias. The first of these diagrams represents the moment when Collingwood, in the Royal Sovereign, had just broken the allied line astern of the Santa Ana, and the remaining ships of his line were about to follow his example. But they are not shown in the diagram as ranged in a line astern of the Royal Sovereign, and therefore perpendicular to the enemy's line. That is the traditional representation in this country, but it finds no countenance whatever from the diagram prepared by Gravina's Chief of the Staff. The rear ships of Collingwood's line are shown in a position which runs in a direction approximately parallel to the rear of the allied line, and all engaged simultaneously. There may be some pictorial exaggeration in this, though it may be noted that the Swiftsure recorded in her log "At half-past noon, the whole fleet in action, and Royal Sovereign had cut through the enemy's line"; but, in any case, the draughtsman, from his position on board the Principe d'Asturias, must certainly have known as well as any one whether the line of the attacking fleet was perpendicular or parallel to that of the allied rear during the first phase of the onslaught. He represents it as parallel, or nearly so; and his testimony on this point seems to me well-nigh conclusive in itself, and at any rate quite incontrovertible when taken in connection with all the other evidence to the same effect. As to the character of Nelson's attack his testimony is of course far less weighty, because his position in the line was far removed from that of the Bucentaure and the ships ahead of her. But it is worthy of note that he represents the Victory and two ships astern of her firing their port broadsides, as I have shown they must have done when they first opened fire, and steering direct for a gap in the allied line between the Bucentaure and the Redoutable. No other ships in Nelson's

column are shown as having opened fire at this period of the action. A reproduction of this diagram will be found at page 68.

I have to thank the authorities of the Admiralty for their kindness in allowing me to reproduce, I believe for the first time, and to use as a frontispiece to this volume, the very remarkable portrait of Nelson which hangs in the Board Room at the Admiralty. This portrait was painted at Palermo in 1799 by Leonardo Guzzardi. It is not one of the more attractive portraits of Nelson, but, as I have explained on page 96, it has a special significance in the evidence it seems to afford as to Nelson's state of health and of mind at this critical period of his career. My best thanks are also due to the Earl of Camperdown for his permission to reproduce, at page 133, the beautiful portrait of his illustrious ancestor by Hoppner, which stands as the frontispiece of his valuable biography of that great seaman.

My readers will bear in mind that the essays collected in this volume were originally written at different dates, some of them several years ago. They are all of them, therefore, necessarily affected by the "psychological atmosphere" which prevailed when they were written. I have so far revised them as to correct statistics and other statements of fact which the lapse of time has rendered obsolete, and even this has proved to be far from easy in the case of an essay like that on "The Strategy of Position," where I have attempted not, I fear, with entire success, to describe the strategic disposition of the Fleet which was initiated at the end of 1904 in terms of the kaleidoscopic developments of more recent years. But I have not otherwise attempted to modify the psychological atmosphere of their original date. That would have been quite impossible without rewriting them altogether. This remark applies especially to the lecture on "The Higher Policy of Defence" with which the volume concludes. It now has to reappear in a

psychological atmosphere very different from that in which it was originally written. For this reason, were I to deliver another lecture on the same subject today, I daresay I should express myself very differently as regards the order, stress, and application of the arguments employed. Nevertheless, I remain a convinced and wholly unrepentant adherent of the doctrines I enunciated in 1902. They were not my doctrines. I was merely the unworthy mouthpiece of the lessons I learnt many years ago at the feet of the late Admiral Colomb and of other naval officers, most of whom are happily still living, who were associated with him in his life-long endeavour to bring back to his countrymen a renewed sense of the things which belong to their peace. Even the title which I gave to the lecture, "The Higher Policy of Defence," was not of my own invention. It was, I believe, first employed, many years ago, by my friend Sir George Clarke, the present Governor of Bombay, with whom it was my high privilege to be associated, in 1897, in the publication of a volume of collected essays, entitled The Navy and the Nation. If I have any claim to speak with authority on the matters I have discussed in this present volume, I should certainly base it myself mainly on the fact that Sir George Clarke did not disdain twelve years ago to link his name with mine in the publication of a former volume, which has assuredly owed whatever influence it has exercised far more to his contributions than to mine. That volume was saturated from its first page to its last with the higher policy of defence. In the preface which Sir George Clarke and I drafted togetherthough it is only right to say now that its composition was mainly the work of his pen-we wrote:

That the sea communications of the Empire must be held in war; that if they are so held, territorial security against serious attack both at home and abroad is, ipso facto, provided; that if they are not so held, no army of any assigned magnitude, and