eeded the delightful fortnight at
home, and now the animation and stir of expected active service. Minto
had already noted his exhilaration amid the general public gloom, and
after his death, speaking of these last days, said, "He was remarkably
well and fresh, and full of hope and spirit." The care of providing
him with adequate force he threw off upon the Admiralty. There was, of
course, a consultation between him and it as to the numbers and kind
of vessels he thought necessary, but his estimate was accepted
without question, and the ships were promised, as far as the resources
went. When Lord Barham asked him to select his own officers, he is
said to have replied, "Choose yourself, my lord, the same spirit
actuates the whole profession; you cannot choose wrong." He did,
nevertheless, indicate his wishes in individual cases; and the
expression, though characteristic enough of his proud confidence in
the officers of the navy, must be taken rather as a resolve not to be
burdened with invidious distinctions, than as an unqualified assertion
of fact.

Nelson, however, gave one general admonition to the Cabinet which is
worthy to be borne in mind, as a broad principle of unvarying
application, more valuable than much labored detail. What is wanted,
he said, is the annihilation of the enemy--"Only numbers can
annihilate."[119] It is brilliant and inspiring, indeed, to see skill
and heroism bearing up against enormous odds, and even wrenching
victory therefrom; but it is the business of governments to insure
that such skill and heroism be more profitably employed, in utterly
destroying, with superior forces, the power of the foe, and so
compelling peace. No general has won more striking successes over
superior numbers than did Napoleon; no ruler has been more careful to
see that adequate superiority for his own forces was provided from
the beginning. Nelson believed that he had fully impressed the Prime
Minister that what was needed now, after two and a half years of
colorless war, was not a brilliant victory for the British Navy, but a
crushing defeat for the foe. "I hope my absence will not be long," he
wrote to Davison, "and that I shall soon meet the combined fleets with
a force sufficient to do the job well: for half a victory would but
half content me. But I do not believe the Admiralty can give me a
force within fifteen or sixteen sail-of-the-line of the enemy; and
therefore, if every ship took her opponent, we shou