enterprise, strongly discouraged all acts of useless daring. He
was always most unwilling to risk men's lives in boat attacks, when they
could not be supported by the fire from the ships; and when his own
boats were necessarily detached on service, his anxiety for their safety
was very great. But the men, who saw in these successes only the daring
courage which obtained, but not the considerate judgment which planned
them, learned to fancy themselves invincible, and would go to what might
appear a death service, as if it were an excursion of pleasure. The crew
of the _Imperieuse_, who had often distinguished themselves in these
attacks, petitioned their captain to remain with them, when he had been
appointed to a finer ship, and offered to prove their attachment to him
by taking any two French frigates they could meet. It is right to add,
that their captain, a son of the great and good Lord Duncan, submitted
their petition to Sir Edward Pellew, who continued him with his faithful
followers. "You are a brave nation," said Napoleon at Elba to an English
captain, one of Sir Edward's officers, "so are the French; but the
English are individually brave." Services like these create the
individual bravery which Napoleon admired.

Still more important was the moral influence which these attacks
impressed on the enemy. When the inhabitants along the southern coasts
of Europe could scarcely look upon the waters without seeing an English
cruiser; when they saw the apparent ease with which their strongest
defences were carried; when they felt themselves at the mercy of the
assailants, yet always experienced their forbearance and protection; the
respect felt for an enemy so powerful and generous, taught them to
desire the more earnestly their own day of deliverance from the common
tyrant. And when the tremendous judgment which visited him in the
Russian campaign offered the prospect of his speedy and final overthrow,
every facility existed for acquainting them with the full extent of his
reverses, and preparing them to avail themselves of the earliest
opportunity to assert their freedom. "Affairs in these countries," says
Sir Edward, in one of his letters, "look well, and promise much next
summer, all over the East. Detestation, amounting to horror, is the
general expression against this tyrant of the earth."

The ordinary cares and duties of his command, and his very extensive
correspondence, for the number of letters he was in th