IN THE MASTERTON LIBRARY.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXX, Issue 8496, 27 July 1907, Page 5

IN THE MASTERTON LIBRARY.

(Specially written for the Wairarapa Age.) NO. XI.—THE LIFE OF NELSON. —A. T. Mahan. Part B. The first article on this book dealt generally with the method adopted by the author. It is now proposed to deal more in detail with the actual incidents in the career of the great Admiral. Nelson was born on September 2Dtb, 1758. His career falls naturally into five stages. The first period deals ! with his childhood days. The second j period from when he went to sea until ho reached the age of 34 years covers what may be broadly designated as his apprenticeship to the calling of a great sea captain. Before the close of this period he had come into some prominence through his fearlessness and sound judgment in enforcing the Navigation Acts in the West Indies. The third dates from 1793 when he was appointed to the command of the Agamennon down to the battle of Cape St. Vincent in 1797, when—then in command of the Captain—he won the battle by breaking from the British line without waiting for orders, thereby preventing the junction of two sepai'ated portions of the Spanish fleet. With the opening of this period commences Nelson's page in history. This was the period, to quote the author, in which "expectation passed into fulfilment, when development long arrested by unpropitious circumstances resumed its outward progress under the benign influence of favouring environment, and the bud whose rare promise had long been noted by a few discerning eyes unfolded into the brilliant flower destined in the magnificence of its maturity to draw the attention of a world." The fourth period opens with Nelson recognised by the nation as a great naval strategist, "and concludes with the destruction of the French Fleet at the Nile in 1798. This was undoubtedly the happiest period in the great Admiral's life. Recognised by the nation and successful against her foes his love of fame was being gratified to the full. His private life, also, was not unhappy. The idea of infidelity to his wife had never crossed his mind, and his conscience j was clear. The fifth and last period dates t from his meeting with Lady Hamil* ton immediately after the Nile, and the unhappy domestic events that followed to that closing day when amid the thunder of victorious guns and hf.p-py m the knowledge that England was saved, his indomitable spirit went forth to meet his God. The stories of his boyhood are interesting in that they foreshadow the underlying qualities of character that were responsible for his greatness. Two striking characteristics were a high se!ls§ of honour and contempt for personal gain. fliit the rhdihspring of bis character '.vas what in an ordinary person '.voald be deemed extreme vanity. H: was possessed with a consuming desire for honourable fame combined with an extraordinary confidence in his own capacity. A confidence that never abated notwithstanding the extreme delicacy of his frame. Two illustrative stories are told of his early youth:— One winter day he and his elder brother were going to school on their ponies. They turned back on account of the depth of the snow, and the elder reported that they could not get on. The father said—"lf that be so I have, of course, nothing to say but I wish you to try again, and I leave it to your honour not to turn back unless necessary." On the second attempt the elder was more than once for returning, but Horatio stuck it out, saying—"Remember it was left to our honour!" and they got through. The second story tells how Nelson one night, at school, robbed a master's pear tree, and brought in the fruit, which he gave to the other boys. He refused to eat any of them himself saying he had taken them only because the others were afraid. The story, told by Southey, of Nelson sitting out bj the brook, and when asked if he did not feel any fear, replying — "What is fear; I do not know what fear is," is very judiciously omitted by Mahan. The story proves nothing beyond the fact that the boy had heard a word of which he did not know the meaning. Mahan, however, tells another story of a' later stage, which tends to show that although in the heat and joy of battle Nelson rose superior to fear, yet he felt fear under certain circumstances like any ordinary mortal. He was being driven upon an occasion by a friend bshind a spirited four-in-hand. They had not proceeded far before a peculiar anxiety was observed in Nelson's countenance, and presently he said: "This is too much for me; you must set me down." In vain was he assured that the horses were prefectly under control. He would descend and the vehicle was walked back again. When Nelson was twelve years old he went to sea in the Raisonable under the command of his uncle Captain Joseph Suckling. This uncle had promised to provide for one of the family. But when he heard that Nelson with his puny frame and sickly constitution was to go to sea he exclaimed in dismay— "What has poor little Horatio done that he being so weakly should be sent to rough it at sea? But let him come, and if a cannon ball takes off his head he will at (feast be provided for." "Under such gloomy foreboding," says Captain Mahan, "began the most dazzling career that the sea, the mother of so many heroes, has ever seen."