The contrast between the events detailed in the last few chapters on the one hand, and on the other those which occurred in the nine years preceding the Peace of Amiens, must strike the most casual reader very forcibly. Where, in those earlier years, was that splendid daring with which Captain Rogers led his men to victory, that dogged obstinacy which brought Captain Anthony successfully out of three fights against a heavy superiority of force within two years, that self-sacrificing zeal which animated Captain Dyneley in his great exploit at Dominica, enabling him to accept the whole burden of the risk which the merchants declined, and so to save a rich island for the British crown? The evil days on the Falmouth Station had passed away like a dream, and if they are here recalled, it is but with the object of claiming for the Headquarter Staff, and for the officers themselves, full credit for the patient labours which had destroyed the evil practices and created the better spirit. None but those who have shared in the labour of controlling a large body of subordinates can fully appreciate the difficulty of carrying out even such changes of practice as are generally accepted as necessary and reasonable. There is among every large body of men an inertia which only time and patience can overcome. The individual can be moved, but the mass as a whole declines to stir. So it is when rules not specially distasteful are enforced; but when the new regulation cuts at the root of ancient privilege, when it strikes off a profit which by long prescription is regarded as a right, then a number of forces come into opposition more powerfully than the dead weight just mentioned, and the administrator finds his judgment and discretion subjected to a heavy strain. Therefore, to have enforced the new rules, and not only that, but to have evolved and called out a spirit so different from that which existed on the Falmouth Station ten years before, was an achievement of which the Postmaster General and the Secretary might well feel proud. The conduct of the Packets had been increasingly brilliant, and when the year 1812 began they were in a state of discipline and ardour which would have done credit to any naval force.