2O HOOD v. NAPOLEON

of the eighteenth might very well serve as models. The case is different with two men, Lord Hood and Sir Gilbert Elliot. To obtain a full view of them other light besides Moore's must be thrown on their figures.

Lord Hood was now seventy years of age, and, till Nelson came into contact with Sir John Jervis, afterwards Lord St. Vincent, he looked up to Lord Hood as our best Admiral afloat. Unfortunately Hood had the same incapacity for judging of land affairs that Napoleon had for affairs at sea. In a measure, as Captain Mahan has admirably shown, Nelson shared this quality with him. I do not think it will be found easy to resist the evidence here supplied that at Toulon Napoleon so completely outwitted Hood that, whereas if Hood would have condescended to suppose that in regard to their own business on shore all soldiers were not necessarily fools, he might have carried away and added to our navy the whole of the French fleet then in Toulon, he in the result was only able very imperfectly to destroy it from want of time. The facts on which Napoleon's success were based were so simple that they were clearly evident to General Dundas, who was on shore; and they would probably have been realised by Lord Hood himself, when they were pointed out to him, had he not remained on shipboard, taking for granted that any dangers that were suggested by mere landsmen could not be worth considering.

The true reading of the facts of this earlier period is of supreme importance to the general history of the war, because, as Captain Mahan has shown conclusively, it was the initial advantage which we gained against France by the even partial destruction of her fleets,