ll be
most advantageous to us for the next hundred years." At the same time,
with his usual circumspection, he issued a general direction to all
commanders of convoys to carry their charges well clear of the
Algerine coast, until matters were settled. In the end, the British
Ministry yielded much more than Nelson approved, but, however sorely
against the grain, he carried out all his instructions with scrupulous
subordination. It was only three days before the active campaign began
with the sortie of the French fleet, that he was rejoined by the ship
to whose captain were intrusted the final arrangements with Algiers.

For his diplomatic and naval correspondence, Nelson had two principal
secretaries, public and private, both, awkwardly enough, named Scott;
but the latter, being a clergyman and chaplain of the ship, was
colloquially brevetted Doctor, a distinction which, for convenience,
will be observed when it is necessary to mention him. He had become
known to Nelson while serving in the same capacity with Sir Hyde
Parker, and had been found very useful in the negotiations at
Copenhagen. An accomplished linguist and an omnivorous reader, Dr.
Scott was doubly useful. Upon him devolved the translating of all
despatches and letters, not only from, but to, foreign courts and
officials; for Nelson made a point of sending with all such papers a
copy in the language of the person addressed, and an apology for
failing to do so sometimes appears, on account of his secretary's
absence. The latter was also a man of wide information, acquired, not
as his superior's chiefly was, by mingling among men and dealing with
affairs, but from books; and the admiral, while rightly valuing the
teachings of experience above all, was duly sensible that one's own
experience is susceptible of further extension through that of others,
imparted either by word or pen. Nelson entertained a persuasion, so
Scott has told us, that no man ever put his hand to paper without
having some information or theory to deliver, which he fancied was not
generally known, and that this was worth looking after through all the
encumbering rubbish. For the same reason, besides being naturally
sociable, he liked to draw others into conversation, and to start
subjects for discussion, from which, when fairly under way, he would
withdraw himself into silence and allow the company to do the talking,
both in order to gather ideas that might be useful to himself, and
also t