e his name famous, and
won immortal honour to himself by daring and successful enterprises in
the naval service of his country, which none have surpassed at an age so
young as his, and which few have rivalled during a long life-time spent
in war. But he sought to follow up those triumphs of his prowess on the
sea by peaceful victories at home over private jealousy, official
intrigue, and political wrong-doing, and thereby he brought on himself
opposition which, boldly resented, caused the unjust forfeiture of the
rewards that were his due, and weighed him down with a terrible load of
disappointed hope and undeserved reproach. Seeking relief from these
grievous sufferings, and opportunity of further work in a profession
very dear to him and in generous aid of nations striving to throw off
the tyranny to which they had long been subjected, he entered the
service of three foreign states in succession. But in helping others he
only brought fresh trouble on himself. He rescued Chili and Peru from
Spanish thraldom, only to find that the people whom he had freed
therefrom were themselves enthralled by passions which even he could do
nothing to overcome, and which drove him from their shores, barely
thanked and quite unrecompensed. He fought the battles of the young
empire of Brazil against Portugal, doubled her territories, and more
than doubled her opportunities of future development, only to be cruelly
spurned by the faction then in power, and denied the fulfilment of
national pledges which a later generation has but tardily and slightly
regarded. Harder yet was his treatment by the Greeks, who, having asked
him to lead them in their contest with their Turkish masters, refused to
follow his leadership, gave him no assistance in his plans for fighting
on their behalf, and, in return for the services which, in spite of all
the difficulties in his way, he was able to render them, offered him
little but insult. Thus more than half his life was wasted--wasted as
far as he himself was concerned, though the gain to others from every
one of his achievements was great indeed. Returning then to peaceful
work in England, he chiefly spent the years remaining to him in efforts
to win back the justice of which he had been deprived, and in efforts,
yet more zealous, to benefit his country by exercise of the inventive
talents in which he was almost as eminent as in warlike powers. But
those talents were slighted, though from them has, in part