avorite captains; "but that I don't mind, if I can
but get at them."

The wind hauling somewhat to the southward on the 5th, allowed the
fleet to lay a course for Gibraltar. The operation of getting bullocks
was stopped at once, and the ships weighed. In this brief stay, the
water of the fleet had been completed and another transport cleared.
Next day Gibraltar was reached. The wind, westerly still, though fair
for this stretch, remained foul for beating out of the Straits against
a current which ever sets to the eastward; and many of the officers,
presuming on a continuance of the weather that had so long baffled
them, hurried their washing ashore. Nelson, however, keenly vigilant
and with long experience, saw indications of a change. "Off went a gun
from the Victory, and up went the Blue Peter,[97] whilst the Admiral
paced the deck in a hurry, with anxious steps, and impatient of a
moment's delay. The officers said, 'Here is one of Nelson's mad
pranks.' But he was right."[98] The wind came fair, a condition with
which the great admiral never trifled. Five hours after the anchors
dropped they were again at the bows, and the fleet at last standing
out of the Mediterranean; the transports in tow of the ships of war.
Nelson's resolve was fast forming to go to the West Indies. In fact,
at Tetuan, acting upon this possibility, he had given conditional
orders to Bickerton to remain in command of the Mediterranean
squadron, assigning to that service half a dozen frigates and double
that number of smaller cruisers, and had transferred to him all
station papers necessary for his guidance,--a promptness of decision
which sufficiently shows one of the chief secrets of his greatness.
"If I fail," said he to Dr. Scott, "if they are not gone to the West
Indies, I shall be blamed: to be burnt in effigy or Westminster Abbey
is my alternative." Evidently he was not unmindful of the fickle
breath of popular favor, whose fluctuations Radstock was noting. Dr.
Scott, who witnessed his chief's bearing at this time, always
considered that he never exhibited greater magnanimity than in this
resolution, which Jurien de la Graviere also has called one of his
finest inspirations.

Great, indeed, was his promptitude, alike in decision and in act; but
he was no less great in his delays, in the curb he placed on his
natural impetuosity. "God only knows, my dear friend," he wrote at
this moment to Davison, "what I have suffered by not getting at t