of navigation then in use, which prevented succour being sent, or remedy applied to any sudden reverse; and on this hazardous service, at this critical time, a body of troops was sent, not too large for its object, but far larger than the state could afford to lose. That their destruction was believed to be a deathblow is evident from Thucydides. “Everything from every place grieved them, and fear and astonishment, the greatest that ever they were in, beset them round. For they were not only grieved for the loss, which both every man in particular and the whole city sustained, of so many men–at–arms, horsemen and serviceable men, the like whereof they saw was not left: but seeing they had neither galleys enough in their haven, nor money in their treasury, nor able seamen[161] in their galleys, were even desperate at that present of their safety, and thought the enemy out of Sicily would come forthwith with their fleet into Piræus (especially after vanquishing of so great a navy), and that the enemy here would surely now, with double preparation in every kind, press them to the utmost both by sea and land, and be aided therein by their revolting confederates.”[162] Thanks to their own activity and to the supineness of their enemy, this loss did not immediately prove fatal; but the result of the war would probably have been very different, had the lives and treasure wasted in Sicily been devoted for their country in some better chosen cause. “Nick, young Nick, the deacon used to say to me (his name was Nicol as well as mine; sae folk ca’d us in their daffin’, young Nick and auld Nick), Nick, said he, never put your arm out further than you can easily draw it back again.” Baillie Jarvie’s maxim is as applicable to political affairs as to commercial and good in both. He whose fortune is already desperate may stake all on one cast; for the prosperous and powerful to do so is madness. Had Napoleon’s ambition not blinded him to this simple rule of caution, he might have died on the imperial throne: he stretched his arm too far when he marched to Moscow. No two persons could be more unlike than Napoleon and Nicias: and it is worth observing that tempers diametrically opposite led these two generals into the same error. Both tempted their fortune after the hour of success was past, and, when active measures could no longer be pursued, remained in idleness, from mere want of resolution to confess a failure by their actions; Nicias, for want of moral courage to face an unreasonable master, whose mortification was not likely to be anywise lessened by being reminded that the defeated general had always disapproved of his commission; Napoleon, from his sensitive pride, which clung to any pretence, however thin, which could conceal from himself, if not from others, that the victor of a hundred battles was at length foiled. The celebrated campaign of 1812 bears indeed a nearer resemblance to the Sicilian than to the Scythian war, and on that