Transcriber’s Note
Misspelling in quoted matter (journal entries, correspondence, etc.) ispreserved as printed. Further notes may be found at the end of the text.
Second Edition.
The Admiral
A Romance of Nelson in the
Year of the Nile
By
Douglas Sladen
Author of “A Japanese Marriage,” etc.
A law unto himself
London
Hutchinson and Co.
Paternoster Row
1898
NOTE.
The cover is an exact reproduction in theoriginal colours of a rare old print. The dateshave of course been added. The clouds, towhich Nelson points with his sword, expressthe wars and rumours of wars, with which theyear 1798 was overhung. The sword indicatesthe spirit with which he approached questionsof national honour.
Preface.
SOME years ago, Professor J. K. Laughton’sadmirable selection of “Letters and Dispatchesof Horatio, Viscount Nelson,”inspired me with such an interest in Nelson’swonderfully human and graphic correspondencethat I studied the larger and earlier “Dispatchesand Letters of Lord Nelson,” collected by SirHarris Nicolas. The present book is theoutcome of a long and affectionate study ofthese two works, and the well-thumbed pages ofSouthey and Jeaffreson.
But since, at the time of my first visit to Sicily,a little more than two years ago, I had definitelybefore me the project of writing a Nelson novelfor the one-hundredth anniversary of the Battleof the Nile (August 1st, 1898), I have readmost of the important works dealing withLord Nelson’s life, especially Captain Mahan’s[Pg vi]“Life of Nelson,” which is a monument ofimpartiality, research, and the application ofprofessional knowledge to literature. I havealso, by the kindness of Lord Dundonald, Mr.Morrison, and others, had the opportunity ofseeing a quantity of unpublished Nelsoniana,which have been of the utmost value to me informing a final opinion of the character of myhero.
The main object of this book is to present tothe reader, in the year of the centenary of the Nile,the real Nelson, without extenuation or malice.No doubt it would have been easier to ensurepopularity by passing over the weaknesses in hischaracter and representing him only as an ever-victoriouswarrior. But this did not seem to methe right course to pursue with a character likeNelson. Those who have studied his letters inthe pages of Nicolas and Laughton, and thosewho have studied his life in the pages of CaptainMahan (who, it must be remembered, is aprofessional writer, the chief naval expert of theUnited States, writing upon the greatest Englishsea-strategist), cannot fail to have been impressedby the intensely human note which he struckin almost every letter.
People love to read about Nelson, not only[Pg vii]because he was the greatest sea-commander w