Let the reader remember that the above are but a few episodes of the most complete and glorious victory ever obtained in naval warfare. Without the loss of one single vessel to the conqueror, more than half the ships of the enemy were captured or destroyed, while the remainder escaped into harbour to rot in utter uselessness. Twenty-one vessels were lost for ever to France and Spain. It is to be hoped and believed that no such contest will ever again be needed; but should it be needed, it will have to be fought by very different means. The instance of four great ships locked together, dealing death and destruction to each other, has never been paralleled. Imagine that seething, fighting, dying mass of humanity, with all the horrible concomitants of deafening noise and blinding smoke and flashing fire! It is not likely ever to occur in modern warfare. The commanders of steam-vessels of all classes will be more likely to fight at out-manœuvring and shelling each other than to come to close quarters, which would generally mean blowing up together. It would be interesting to consider how Nelson would have acted with, and opposed to, steam-frigates and ironclads. He would, no doubt, have been as courageous and far-seeing and rapid in action as ever, but hardly as reckless, or even daring. [Illustration: THE “VICTORY” AT CLOSE QUARTERS WITH THE “REDOUBTABLE.”] “And still, though seventy years, boys, Have gone, who, without pride, Names his name—tells his fame Who at Trafalgar died?” May we always have a Nelson in the hour of national need! The day for such battles as this is over; there may be others as gloriously fought, but never again by the same means. Ships, armaments, and modes of attack and defence are, and will be, increasingly different. Those who have read Nelson’s private letters and journals will remember how he gloried in the appreciation of his subordinate officers just before Trafalgar’s happy and yet fatal day, when he had explained to them his intention to attack the enemy with what was practically a wedge-formed fleet. He was determined to break their line, and, Nelson-like, he did. But that which he facetiously christened the “Nelson touch” would itself nowadays be broken up in a few minutes and thrown into utter confusion by any powerfully-armed vessel hovering about under steam. Or if the wedge of wooden vessels were allowed to form, as they approached the apex, a couple of ironclads would take them in hand coolly, one by one, and send them to the bottom, while their guns might as well shoot peas at the ironclads as the shot of former days.