SIR GILBEBT ELLIOT 25

" Lord Nelson " and " Lieut-Col. Moore." This brings in the authority of the hero of the Nile, of Copenhagen, of Trafalgar. Now, as Captain Mahan has most wisely said, "After a man's reputation has been established there is always the danger of giving undue weight to his opinions expressed at an earlier time somewhat casually and not under the sobering sense of responsibility." 1 At this time Moore, Sir Gilbert Elliot, and Nelson were all in their 'prentice days. It is to be hoped that from the mistakes he made during his 'prentice days in administration Sir Gilbert learnt like the others, though he never acknowledged his errors. I pass from Lord Hood to Sir Gilbert, and broadly speaking, from the question of how Corsica was won to the sequence of events which caused its loss.

Sir Gilbert Elliot was one of those " old Whigs " who, partly under the influence of Burke's strenuous appeal to them and partly from their own spontaneous patriotic feeling, came over from their party to give their support to Pitt in the conduct of the war. Shortly before the situation at Toulon had begun to develop, he had felt it to be a matter of patriotic duty to offer his services, and had been despatched from England, with the warm approval of Burke and of most of the other statesmen of the war party, first on what, in consequence of our failure at Dunkerque, became an abortive mission, and then as Civil Commissioner to Toulon. When we also failed there, and when Corsica was attached to the British realm under the circumstances here recorded, he, during the time required to reduce the French fortresses on the island, had been chiefly in Italy, arranging very skilfully and generously for the reception of the

1 "Life of Nelson," vol. i. p. 169.