t my own honour, Lord Hood's honour, and the honour of
our Country must have all been sacrificed, had I mentioned what I
knew; therefore you will believe what must have been my feelings
during the whole siege, when I had often proposals made to me by men,
now rewarded, to write to Lord Hood to raise the siege." "Had this
been an English town," he said immediately after the surrender, "I am
sure it would not have been taken by them. The more we see of this
place, the more we are astonished at their giving it up, but the truth
is, the different parties were afraid to trust each other." The last
assertion, if correct, conveys just one of those incidents which so
frequently concur to insure the success of a step rightly taken, as
that of Nelson and Hood in this instance certainly was. "Forty-five
hundred men," he continues, "have laid down their arms to under twelve
hundred troops and seamen. If proofs were wanting to show that
perseverance, unanimity, and gallantry, can accomplish almost
incredible things, we are an additional instance."

"I always was of opinion," he wrote in the exultation of reaction from
the weight of responsibility he had assumed by his secrecy,--"I always
was of opinion, have ever acted up to it, and never have had any
reason to repent it, that one Englishman was equal to three
Frenchmen." This curious bit of the gasconade into which Nelson from
time to time lapsed, can scarcely be accepted as a sound working
theory, or as of itself justifying the risk taken; and yet it
undoubtedly, under a grossly distorted form, portrays the temperament
which enabled him to capture Bastia, and which made him what he
was,--a man strong enough to take great chances for adequate ends.
"All naval operations undertaken since I have been at the head of the
government," said Napoleon, "have always failed, because the admirals
see double, and have learned--where I do not know--that war can be
made without running risks." It is not material certainty of success,
the _ignis fatuus_ which is the great snare of the mere engineer, or
of the merely accomplished soldier, that points the way to heroic
achievements. It is the vivid inspiration that enables its happy
possessor, at critical moments, to see and follow the bright clear
line, which, like a ray of light at midnight, shining among manifold
doubtful indications, guides his steps. Whether it leads him to
success or to failure, he may not know; but that it is the path of
wi