est Indies back to the Channel.

So much for Nelson's share of the work. But Nelson could neither have
educated himself nor made full use of his education if the navy of his
day had not been inspired with the will to fight and to conquer, with
the discipline that springs from that will, and had not obtained through
long experience of war the high degree of skill in seamanship and in
gunnery which made it the instrument its great commander required. These
conditions of the navy in turn were products of the national spirit and
of the will of the Government and people of Great Britain to devote to
the navy as much money, as many men, and as vigorous support as might be
necessary to realise the national purpose.

The efforts of this nature made by the country were neither perfect nor
complete. The Governments made mistakes, the Admiralty left much to be
desired both in organisation and in personnel. But the will was there.
The best proof of the national determination is to be found in the best
hated of all the institutions of that time, the press-gang, a brutal and
narrow-minded form of asserting the principle that a citizen's duty is
to fight for his country. That the principle should take such a shape
is decisive evidence no doubt that society was badly organised, and that
education, intellectual and moral, was on a low level, but also, and
this is the vital matter, that the nation well understood the nature of
the struggle in which it was engaged and was firmly resolved not only to
fight but to conquer.

The causes of the success of the French armies in the period between
1792 and 1809 were precisely analogous to those which have been analysed
in the case of the British navy. The basis was the national will,
expressed in the volunteers and the levy _en masse_. Upon this was
superimposed the skill acquired by the army in several years of
incessant war, and the formal cause of the victories was Napoleon's
insight into the art of command. The research of recent years has
revealed the origin of Napoleon's mastery of the method of directing an
army. He became an officer in 1785, at the age of sixteen. In 1793, as a
young captain of artillery, he directed with remarkable insight and
determination the operations by which the allied fleet was driven from
Toulon. In 1794 he inspired and conducted, though still a subordinate, a
series of successful operations in the Maritime Alps. In 1796, as
commander-in-chief of the Army of It