air is a warning to officers, of what results may flow
from errors small in themselves.

CHAPTER XXI.

NELSON'S LAST STAY IN ENGLAND.

AUGUST 19--SEPTEMBER 15, 1805. AGE, 46.

The "Victory" was delayed in quarantine twenty-four hours, when orders
from London directed her release. At 9 P.M. of the 19th of August,
Nelson's flag was hauled down, and he left the ship for Merton, thus
ending an absence of two years and three months. His home being but an
hour's drive from the heart of London, the anxieties of the time, and
his own eagerness to communicate his views and experience, carried him
necessarily and at once to the public offices--to the Admiralty first,
but also to the Secretaries for Foreign Affairs and for War, both of
whom had occasion for the knowledge and suggestions of so competent
and practised an observer. The present head of the Admiralty, Lord
Barham, had succeeded to the office, unexpectedly, upon the sudden
retirement of Melville the previous May. He was a naval officer,
eighty years of age, who since middle life had exchanged the active
sea-going of the profession, for civil duties connected with it. He
had thus been out of touch with it on the military side; and although
Nelson was of course well known to him by reputation and achievement,
he had not that intimate personal experience of his character and
habit of thought, upon which was based the absolute confidence felt by
St. Vincent, and by all others who had seen the great warrior in
active service. "Lord Barham is an almost entire stranger to me,"
wrote Nelson; but after their interview he left with him the journals
in which were embodied the information obtained during his recent
command, with his comments upon the affairs of the Mediterranean in
particular, and, as incidental thereto, of Europe in general. Barham,
who gave proof of great military capacity during his short term of
office, was so much impressed by the sagacity and power of Nelson's
remarks, that he assured the Cabinet he ought by all means to go back
to the Mediterranean; and it may be assumed that the latter's wish so
to do would have been gratified, at the time of his own choosing, had
not other events interposed to carry him away earlier, and to end his
career.

It was upon one of these visits to Ministers that Nelson and
Wellington met for the only time in their lives. The latter had just
returned from a long service in India, reaching England in September,
1805