of character, in this exalted man, was a determined resolution of
accomplishing, to it's fullest possible extent, the business, whatever
it might be, which was once committed to his charge; and that, in every
expedition, it formed his chief pride, to effect even more than could
have been expected, by those who had, from the greatest possible
confidence in his skill and ability, selected him for the enterprise. It
was this invariable principle that, by prompting him to serve on shore,
at the batteries before Calvi, cost him the vision of an eye; and it was
to this same cause, that he owed the loss of his arm at Teneriffe.
Conformably to this grand characteristic, having so honourably received
the Earl of St. Vincent's orders to seek and to destroy the French
armament, which he had at length gloriously encountered at the mouth of
the Nile; he still internally regretted, that the wound on that occasion
received in his forehead, by rendering him almost wholly blind, had
proved the sole cause of a single French ship's escape. Not that this
undoubted conviction in his own bosom, that he should certainly have
captured or destroyed the whole fleet, conveys the smallest reflection
on any other officer for not having effected the same purpose: for, most
assuredly, though many captains in this noble squadron might boast of
equal bravery with himself, and of much skill too, Lord Nelson greatly
surpassed them all, and perhaps every other naval commander, in that
promptitude of vigorously winged imagination which instantaneously rises
to the exigency. The moment Captain Berry had, on first beholding the
position of the French fleet at anchor, fully comprehended the entire
scope of his adored admiral's design for the attack, he exclaimed, in an
extacy--"If we succeed, what will the world say?"--"There is no if in
the case," coolly replied the admiral: "that we shall succeed, is
certain; who may live to tell the story, is a very different question!"
So positive was this great man of success, even before the battle
commenced.