carrying out of
this decision, with ships in such condition, in a region where winds
and seas were of exceptional violence, and supplies of food and water
most difficult to be obtained, because surrounded in all directions by
countries either directly hostile, or under the overmastering
influence of Bonaparte, that made the exercise of Nelson's command
during this period a triumph of naval administration and prevision. It
does not necessarily follow that an officer of distinguished ability
for handling a force in the face of an enemy, will possess also the
faculty which foresees and provides for the many contingencies, upon
which depend the constant efficiency and readiness of a great
organized body; though both qualities are doubtless essential to
constitute a great general officer. For twenty-two months Nelson's
fleet never went into a port, other than an open roadstead on a
neutral coast, destitute of supplies; at the end of that time, when
the need arose to pursue an enemy for four thousand miles, it was
found massed, and in all respects perfectly prepared for so distant
and sudden a call. To quote his own words, written a year before this
summons in reply to an intimation from the Admiralty to be on his
guard against Spain, "I have the pleasure to acquaint you that the
squadron under my command is all collected, except the Gibraltar,[60]
complete in their provisions and stores to near five months, and in a
perfect state of readiness to act as the exigency of the moment may
determine." "With the resources of your mind," wrote St. Vincent, when
unable to reinforce him, "you will do very well;" and Nelson, when he
put off his harness, might have boasted himself that the prediction
was more than fulfilled.

Provisions, water, and supplies of all sorts were brought to the ships
on their station, either at sea, or in unfrequented roadsteads within
the limits of the cruising ground. "I never could have spared the
ships to go to Gibraltar for them," he wrote to St. Vincent, to whom
he expressed his satisfaction with the way the plan worked. He soon
abandoned, in fact, the method of sending individual ships for water,
because of the long absence thus entailed. When water could not be
brought in transports, or rather could not easily be transhipped owing
to the badness of the season, he thought it better to take the whole
fleet to the nearest watering-place than to divide its strength. Fresh
provisions, absolutely indispen