In his two years off Toulon Nelson only made £6,000 of prize money, while it was a common thing for the Captain of a single man-of-war off the Straits of Gibraltar to make a haul of £20,000, and Prize-Money Admirals in crowds basked in Bath enriched beyond the dreams of avarice. Nelson practically died a pauper. Now this is another big digression which I must apologise for, but that’s the damnable part of a book. If one could walk up and down and talk to someone, it never strikes them as incongruous having a digression. I wind up this chapter, as I began it, with the fervent intention of avoiding any reference to those who have assailed me. I will only print their affectionate letters to me, for which I still retain the most affectionate feelings towards them. I regret now that on one occasion I did so far lose my self-control as to tell a specific Judas to take back his thirty pieces of silver and go and hang himself. However, eventually he did get hanged, so it was all right. CHAPTER III ADMIRAL VON POHL AND ADMIRAL VON TIRPITZ Yesterday, September 8th, 1919 (I must put this date down because yesterday in a telegram I called von Tirpitz a liar) I got an enquiry whether it was correct that in 1909, as stated by Admiral von Tirpitz, I, as First Sea Lord of the Admiralty, engineered a German Naval Scare in England in order to get bigger British Naval estimates--and that I had said this to the German Naval Attaché. I replied “Tell Tirpitz--using the immortal words of Dr. Johnson--‘you lie Sir, and you know it!’” Now, first of all, could I possibly have told the German Naval Attaché such a thing if I possessed the Machiavellian nature which is inferred by Tirpitz? Secondly, there was a vast multitude of acute domestic enemies too closely watching me to permit any such manœuvre.