His remains lie in the family church at Dalesford, and, to once more quote the words of Sir Alfred Lyall, “in Westminster Abbey a bust and an inscription commemorate the name and career of a man who, rising early to high place and power, held an office of the greatest importance to his country for thirteen years, by sheer force of character and tenaciousness against adversity, and who spent the next seven years in defending himself before a nation which accepted the benefits but disliked the ways of his too masterly activity.” Lord Macaulay, who throughout his famous essay does him less than justice, concludes it by making almost generous amends. “Not only had the poor orphan retrieved the fallen fortunes of his line--not only had he re-purchased the old lands and rebuilt the old dwelling--he had preserved and extended an empire.[1] He had founded a policy. He had administered government and war with more than the capacity of Richelieu. He patronised learning with the judicious liberality of Cosmo. He had been attacked by the most formidable combination of enemies that ever sought the destruction of a single victim; and over that combination, after a struggle of ten years, he had triumphed. He had at length gone down to his grave in the fulness of age, in peace after so many troubles, in honour after so much obloquy.” [1] In the territorial sense this is hardly correct. The great essayist probably meant extension in the sense of increase of prestige and influence over the still independent states of the Peninsula. IX _NELSON_ “_ENGLAND EXPECTS THAT EVERY MAN WILL DO HIS DUTY._” IX NELSON I am conscious of more difficulties ahead in beginning this sketch than I have felt with regard to any other of the series, for, while on the one hand it would be absurd to omit from the glorious ranks of our Empire-Makers the most glorious of them all, it is at the same time practically impossible to say anything fresh or even anything that is not very generally known about the man who, however much he may once have been slighted, and however inadequately his earlier services may have been rewarded during his life, has now come to be the idol of the country that he saved from invasion and the Empire that he preserved from destruction. His life has been written and re-written, his character and his actions have been discussed and rediscussed, the most private acts and thoughts of his life have been dragged out into the full glare of publicity--a fate which any great man would have to be a very great sinner to deserve--but when all this has been said and done there remains a single, sharply-defined individuality of this incomparable naval captain whom the whole world now acknowledges and reveres, quite apart from all national considerations, as the greatest sailor who ever trod a deck and the greatest naval strategist who ever planned a battle or took a fleet into action.