ick as a lady in a Dover
packet, until inured to the motion of the ship by the merciless calls to
my duties aloft, or to relieve the deck in my watch. We reached our
station, and joined the immortal Nelson but a few hours before that
battle in which he lost his life and saved his country. The history of
that important day has been so often and so circumstantially related,
that I cannot add much more to the stock on hand. I am only astonished,
seeing the confusion and _invariable variableness_ of a sea-fight, how
so much could be known. One observation occurred to me then, and I have
thought of it ever since with redoubled conviction; this was, that the
admiral, after the battle began, was no admiral at all: he could neither
see nor be seen; he could take no advantage of the enemy's weak points
or defend his own; his ship, the _Victory_, one of our finest
three-deckers, was, in a manner, tied up alongside a French eighty-gun
ship.

These observations I have read in some naval work, and in my mind they
receive ample confirmation. I could not help feeling an agony of
anxiety (young as I was) for my country's glory, when I saw the noble
leaders of our two lines exposed to the united fire of so many ships. I
thought Nelson was too much exposed, and think so now. Experience has
confirmed what youthful fancy suggested; the enemy's centre should have
been _macadamised_ by our seven three-deckers, some of which, by being
placed in the rear, had little share in the action; and but for the
intimidation which their presence afforded, might as well have been at
Spithead. I mean no reflection on the officers who had charge of them:
accidental concurrence of light wind and station in the line, threw them
at such a distance from the enemy as kept them in the back ground the
greater part of the day. Others, again, were in enviable situations,
but did not, as far as I could learn from the officers, do quite so much
as they might have done. This defect on our part being met by equal
disadvantages, arising from nearly similar causes, on that of the enemy,
a clear victory remained to us. The aggregate of the British navy is
brave and good; and we must admit that in this day "when England
expected every man to do his duty," there were but few who disappointed
their country's hope.

When the immortal signal was communicated, I shall never, no never,
forget the electric effect it produced through the fleet. I can compare
it to no