Their destruction would have enabled Nelson to carry out the policy which his genius had told him was the only true one to pursue at this momentous crisis. He would have cut off Napoleon’s communications and deprived him of his supplies. Then he would have blockaded the Egyptian Coast and left the future conqueror of Austerlitz to perish amidst the sands of Egypt. As he said to himself: “To Egypt they went with their own consent, and there they shall remain while Nelson commands this squadron--for never, never will he consent to the return of one ship or Frenchman. I wish them to perish in Egypt and give an awful lesson to the world of the justice of the Almighty.” This was a pitiless pronouncement, but no one who has read the history of the Napoleonic wars can doubt the accuracy of Nelson’s foresight or the true humanity of his policy, for, if this had happened only a few thousands out of the five million lives which these wars are computed to have cost would have been lost. There would have been no Austerlitz, or Wagram, or Jena for France to boast of; but, on the other hand, there would have been no Leipsic, no Moscow, and no Waterloo. As usual, however, Nelson, although he had magnificently restored the credit of the British arms at sea, was crippled by shortness of means and baulked by the stupidity and incompetence of his masters at home. Sir Sidney Smith’s policy was preferred to his, with the result that Napoleon was permitted to desert his army and live to become the curse of Europe for the next seventeen years. But, if he did not do all he wanted to do, when Nelson won the battle of the Nile he completely established his claim to be considered one of the Empire-makers of Britain, for if he had not followed the French with that unerring judgment of his, and if he had not, in defiance of all accepted naval tactics, attacked them in what was considered to be an unassailable position--that is to say, moored off shore in two lines with both ends protected by batteries--all the work that Clive and Hastings had done in India might have been undone, and, considering the miserable state of our national defences, we might either have lost India or had to wage such an exhausting war for it that we could not possibly have taken the decisive share that we afterwards did in the overthrow of the French power. As he said in one of his most famous utterances while the British fleet was streaming into the bay: “Where there is room for a Frenchman to swing, there is room for an Englishman to get alongside him.” That was Nelson. His idea was always to get alongside, to get as close as possible to the enemy and to hit him as hard as he could. Mere defeat was not enough for him. He wanted a fight to a finish, the finish being the absolute destruction or capture of the hostile force. This was not because there was anything particularly ferocious in his nature. On the contrary, a more tender-hearted man never lived.