expostulate with him as his friend, and when,
after two years' service, Murray had to leave the ship, he refused to
replace him,--he would have Murray or none. In truth, such readiness
to flare up must needs be the defect of that quality of promptness,
that instant succession of deed to thought, which was a distinguishing
feature of Nelson's genius and actions. Captain Hillyar more than once
alludes to this trait as characteristic of the fleet, to which its
chief had transmitted his own spirit. "I have had to-day to lament,"
he says, speaking of some trifling disappointment, "the extreme
promptitude with which we all move when near his lordship."

But, while traces of this failing may be detected here and there by
the watchful reader, as Nelson himself gleaned useful indications
amid the rubbishy mass of captured correspondence, there survives,
among the remains left by those in daily contact with him, only the
record of a frank, open bearing, and unfailing active kindness.
"Setting aside his heroism," wrote Dr. Scott after Trafalgar, "when I
think what an affectionate, fascinating little fellow he was, how
dignified and pure his mind, how kind and condescending his manners, I
become stupid with grief for what I have lost." "He is so cheerful and
pleasant," wrote the public secretary, Mr. Scott, "that it is a
happiness to be about his hand." Dr. Gillespie notes "his noble
frankness of manners, freedom from vain formality and pomp (so
necessary to the decoration of empty little great men), which can only
be equalled by the unexampled glory of his naval career, and the
watchful and persevering diligence with which he commands this fleet."
"Nelson was the man to _love_" said Captain Pulteney Malcolm, who knew
intimately both him and Wellington. "I received Captain Leake," Nelson
himself says, speaking of an army officer on a special mission to the
Mediterranean, "with that openness which was necessary to make myself
as well acquainted with him in three days, as others might do in as
many years. I have given him all the knowledge of the men, their
views, &c. &c., as far as I have been able to form a judgment." The
remark is valuable, for it shows that frankness and cordiality were
recognized by him as the wisest and most politic method of dealing
with men. "Our friend, Sir Alexander," he says testily, "is a very
great diplomatic character, and even an admiral must not know what he
is negotiating about. You shall judge, viz