Saunders was a most capable admiral. He had been
flag-lieutenant during Anson's famous voyage round the
world; then Hawke's best fighting captain during the war
in which Wolfe was learning his work at Dettingen and
Laffeldt; and then Hawke's second-in-command of the 'cargo
of courage' sent out after Byng's disgrace at Minorca.
After Quebec he crowned his fine career by being one of
the best first lords of the Admiralty that ever ruled
the Navy. Durell, his next in command, was slower than
Amherst; and Amherst never made a short cut in his life,
even to certain success. Holmes, the third admiral, was
thoroughly efficient. Hood, a still better admiral than
any of those at Quebec, afterwards served under Holmes,
and Nelson under Hood; which links Trafalgar with Quebec.
But a still closer link with 'mighty Nelson' was Jervis,
who took charge of Wolfe's personal belongings at Quebec
the night before the battle and many years later became
Nelson's commander-in-chief. Another Quebec captain who
afterwards became a great admiral was Hughes, famous for
his fights in India. But the man whose subsequent fame
in the world at large eclipsed that of any other in this
fleet was Captain Cook, who made the first good charts
of Canadian waters some years before he became a great
explorer in the far Pacific.

There was a busy scene at Portsmouth on February 17, when
Saunders and Wolfe sailed in the flagship H.M.S. Neptune,
of 90 guns and a crew of 750 men. She was one of the
well-known old 'three-deckers,' those 'wooden walls of
England' that kept the Empire safe while it was growing