Again--even a greater slight, a slight he feels more--when he looks down from his monument in Trafalgar Square, does he see anywhere those splendid Captains of his? But let alone those Captains of his--does he see anywhere a single Admiral? _Not one._ And yet who made England what she is? Those splendid Sea Heroes are in very deed “_England’s forgotten worthies_”! Yes! Nelson looks down from his isolated column, and looks in vain for Hawke, Dundonald, Howe, Hood, Rodney, Cornwallis, Benbow, “_and a great multitude which no man can number_”--all Seamen of Deathless Fame, fighting single frigate actions, cutting out the enemy’s ships from under the guns of forts, sending in fire ships and burning the enemy’s vessels thought to be safe in harbour under the guns of their forts--Doers of Imperishable Deeds![13] Death found them fighting. We have heaps of statues to everybody else. Indeed such a lot of them that they reach down as far off as Knightsbridge. But who knows about Quiberon--one of the greatest of sea fights? And if you mention Hawke, your friend probably thinks only of his worthy descendant--the cricketer. An old woman eating a penny bun asked a friend of mine called Buggins, when she was passing through Trafalgar Square, “_What are them lions a-guarding of?_” Buggins told her that her penny bun would have cost her threepence if it hadn’t been for the man them lions were a-guarding of. When I see the Duke of York’s Column still allowed to rear its futile head, and scores of other fifth-rate nonentities glorified by statues, I thank God I’m a sailor--we don’t want to be in that galley! I began my sea life with the last of Nelson’s Captains, through Nelson’s own niece; and I fitly, I think, among my last words may ask the Nation to do justice to Nelson’s Trade! This country owes all she has to the sea, it was the sea that won the late war, and if we’d stuck to the sea we should not now be thinking of bankruptcy and some of us imagining Carthage! We were led away by Militarist folly to be a conscript Nation and it will take us all we know to recover from it. We shall recover, _for England never succumbs!_ CHAPTER XII LETTERS TO LORD ESHER Lord Esher has kindly sent me three bulky volumes of letters I wrote him from 1903 onwards--I have others also. Many of them are unquotable, so blasting are they in their truth to existing reputations. It’s not my business to blast reputations--so the real gems are missing.