the breast of an officer: that it is much better to serve an
ungrateful Country than to give up his own fame. Posterity will do him
justice; a uniform conduct of honour and integrity seldom fails of
bringing a man to the goal of fame at last."

This struggle with Sir Richard Hughes, in which Nelson took the
undesirable, and to a naval officer invidious, step of disobeying
orders, showed clearly, not only the loftiness of his motives, but the
distinguishing features which constituted the strength of his
character, both personal and military. There was an acute perception
of the right thing to do, an entire readiness to assume all the
responsibility of doing it, and above all an accurate judgment of the
best way to do it,--to act with impunity to himself and with most
chances of success to his cause. Its analogy to a military situation
is striking. There was a wrong condition of things to be righted--a
victory to be won. To achieve this a great risk must be taken, and he
was willing to take it; but in so doing he made such choice of his
ground as to be practically unassailable--to attain his end without
lasting harm to himself. That Nelson would have managed better had he
been ten years older is very probable. Likely enough he betrayed some
of the carelessness of sensibilities which the inexperience of youth
is too apt to show towards age; but, upon a careful review of the
whole, it appears to the writer that his general course of action was
distinctly right, judged by the standards of the time and the
well-settled principles of military obedience, and that he pursued an
extremely difficult line of conduct with singular resolution, with
sound judgment, and, in the main, with an unusual amount of tact,
without which he could scarcely have failed, however well purposing,
to lay himself open to serious consequences. Certainly he achieved
success.