I need hardly say how private all this is, but you are so closely associated with all the wonders we effected from October 21, 1904, onwards, that I feel bound to take you into my inmost confidence. Jellicoe retorted I had praised Beatty--_so I had!_ See my reply thereon. I told the Dardanelles Commission (why they asked me I don’t know!) that Jellicoe had all the Nelsonic attributes except _one_--he is totally wanting in the great gift of Insubordination. Nelson’s greatest achievements were all solely due to his disobeying orders! But that’s another story, as Mr. Kipling would say. Wait till we meet, and I’ll astonish you on this subject! Any fool can obey orders! But it required a Nelson to disobey Sir John Jervis at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent, to disregard the order to retire at Copenhagen, to go into the Battle of the Nile by night with no charts against orders, and, to crown all, to enter into the Battle of Trafalgar in a battle formation contrary to all the Sea orders of the time! BLESS HIM! Alas! Jellicoe is saturated with Discipline! He is THE ONE MAN to command the Fleet, BUT he is not the man to stand up against a pack of lawyers clothed with Cabinet garments, and possessed with tongues that have put them where they are! David was nodding when he said in the Psalms: “A man full of words shall not prosper on the Earth.” _They are the very ones that_ DO _prosper!_ For War, my dead Friend, you want a totally differently constituted mind to that of a statesman and politician! There are great exemplars of immense minds being utter fools! They weigh everything in the Balance! I know great men who never came to a prompt decision--men who could talk a bird out of a tree! War is Big Conceptions and Quick Decisions. Think in Oceans. Shoot at Sight! The essence of War is Violence. Moderation in War is Imbecility. All we have done this war is to imitate the Germans! We have neither been Napoleonic in Audacity nor Cromwellian in Thoroughness nor Nelsonic in execution. Always, always, always “TOO LATE”! I could finish this present German submarine menace in a few weeks, but I must have POWER! My plans would be emasculated if I handed them in. I must be able to say to the men I employ: “_If you don’t do what I tell you, I’ll make your wife a widow and your house a dunghill!!!_” (_and they know I would!_) Don’t prescribe till you’re called in! Someone else might put something else in the pill! Heaven bless you! When people come and sympathise with me, I always reply, with those old Romans 2,000 years ago expelled: “Non fugimus: Nos fugamur.” “We are not Deserters, We are Outcasts.” Yours, etc. (Signed) FISHER. _From a Privy Councillor to Lord Fisher_ _Jan. 8th, 1917._