If the authorities at home had only had the same opinion of his abilities as those had who were able to watch his operations on the spot, and particularly in Italy, it is quite possible that the whole history of Europe might have been changed and that Napoleon would never have won that series of brilliant victories which cost such an infinity of blood and treasure, and which bore no fruits but such as resembled all too closely the fabled Dead Sea apples. Nelson’s patriotism may have been of a somewhat narrow-minded order, and his hatred of the French may have partaken somewhat of the nature of bigotry, but there can be no doubt that he was the one man in Europe who saw what was coming and had the ability, if he had only had the power, to save the world from the horrors of the Napoleonic wars. Thus, for instance, if his advice had been taken, the splendid victory of Aboukir Bay might have been turned into the decisive battle of the war which only ended with Waterloo. As it was, he to some extent took the law into his own hands. He saw perfectly well that Napoleon’s ultimate point of attack was not Egypt but India. He sent an officer with dispatches to the Governor of Bombay, advising him of the defeat of the French Fleet, and in this dispatch he said: “I know that Bombay was their first object if they could get there, but I trust that now Almighty God will overthrow in Egypt these pests of the human race. Buonaparte has never yet had to contend with an English officer, and I shall endeavour to make him respect us.” In another dispatch to the Admiralty he taught a lesson which we have only lately begun to learn. In those days of the old wooden-walls the handy, light-heeled frigate was to the ships of the line what the swift cruisers of to-day are to the big battleships. They were the eyes and ears of the fleet, and they could be sent on errands which were impossible to the huge three-deckers. After the battle of the Nile was won he said in this dispatch: “Were I to die this moment _want of frigates_ would be found stamped on my heart. No words of mine can express what I have suffered, and am suffering, for want of them.” The inner meaning of these bitter words was one of vast importance, not only to Britain, but to all Europe. They meant really that the most splendid victory that had so far been won at sea had been robbed of half its results. For want of the lighter craft, even of a few bomb-vessels and fire-ships which he had implored the authorities to send him, Napoleon’s store-ships and transports in the harbour of Alexandria escaped attack and certain destruction.