To him is due the vast abyss between the quarter-deck and lower-deck which marks the Navy of to-day. Whether this, advantageous as it was a hundred odd years ago, is equally advantageous now, is another matter. It makes a barrier altogether different from that existing between officer and man in the Army--it is something closely akin to the racial differences mark in India; and this sorts ill with the democratic ideas of to-day, when class distinction is quite a different matter from what it was a hundred years ago. There are still possible two views of the question. One is embodied in a letter I received some few years ago from a man from the lower-deck. He wrote, “When I was a boy in a training ship, my captain seemed to me something as far away and above me as God himself, and the impression thus created I have carried with me towards all officers ever since. Though in private life I might meet his brother with feeling of perfect equality, I could never be other than ill at ease meeting an officer in the same conditions.” Here, at any rate, is the psychology of what St. Vincent aimed at. To-day, however, one is far more likely to hear about “the side of officers,” or that “officers, when cadets, are taught to regard the men with contempt!” The conditions are such, that despite mixed cricket and football teams, mutual sympathy between officers and men is well nigh impossible. Of “the great God Routine” which St. Vincent set up, it is beyond question that it is to-day an irritating superfluity to both officers and men alike. To resume. As the Spaniards obstinately refused to come out from Cadiz, St. Vincent sent Nelson in to bombard them with mortar boats; but this attempt to force them out did not succeed. Following upon this, Nelson, with three seventy-four’s, one fifty, three frigates and a cutter, was despatched to Santa Cruz. On the night of July 24th, he led a boat attack in person. Most of the boats missed the Mole and were stove in. Such as reached the Mole were met by a withering fire. Nelson was struck on the right elbow by a grape shot, and taken back to the _Theseus_, where his arm was amputated. Troubridge took command of the 300 odd men who had got ashore, and being surrounded by the Spanish, made terms, whereby the Spaniards found boats for his party to return to their ships. The squadron rejoined St. Vincent, and Nelson sailed for England to recover. The blockade of the Texel had been vigorously maintained till October, when Duncan returned to Spithead to refit. He had no sooner done so than the Dutch, under De Winter, came out--presumably with a view to reaching Brest. Duncan’s frigates, however, promptly reported them, and sailing at once he met them off Camperdown, on October 11th. The rival fleets were:-- BRITISH. DUTCH. 7 of 74 guns. 4 of 74 guns. 7 of 64 guns. 7 of 64 guns. 2 of 50 guns. 4 of 50 guns. -- -- 16 15 -- --