skilful tactician. The defence and the attack of
seaports, embracing as they do both occupation of permanent positions
and the action of mobile bodies, are tactical questions; differing much,
yet not radically, from field operations, where positions are taken
incidentally, but where movement of armed men is the principal factor.
In the one sense St. Vincent displayed a high degree of aptitude for
ordered permanent dispositions, which is the side of tactics most akin
to strategy. On the more distinctively tactical side, in the movements
of a fleet in action, he had little opportunity. As far as shown by his
one battle, Cape St. Vincent, it would not appear that either by nature
or cultivation he possessed to any great extent the keen insight and
quick appreciation that constitute high tactical ability.

Earl St. Vincent rendered three great services to England. The first was
the forming and disciplining the Mediterranean fleet into the perfection
that has been mentioned. Into it, thus organized, he breathed a spirit
which, taking its rise from the stern commander himself, rested upon a
conviction of power, amply justified in the sequel by Cape St. Vincent
and the Nile, its two greatest achievements. The second was the winning
of the Battle of St. Vincent at a most critical political moment. The
third was the suppression of mutiny in 1797 and 1798. But, in estimating
the man, these great works are not to be considered as isolated from his
past and his future. They were the outcome and fruitage of a character
naturally strong, developed through long years of patient sustained
devotion to the ideals of discipline and professional tone, which in
them received realization. Faithful in the least, Jervis, when the time
came, was found faithful also in the greatest. Nor was the future
confined to his own personal career. Though he must yield to Nelson the
rare palm of genius, which he himself cannot claim, yet was the glory
of Nelson, from the Nile to Trafalgar, the fair flower that could only
have bloomed upon the rugged stalk of Jervis's navy. Upon him,
therefore, Nelson showered expressions of esteem and reverence,
amounting at times almost to tenderness, in his early and better days.
In later years their mutual regard suffered an estrangement which,
whatever its origin, appears as a matter of feeling to have been chiefly
on the part of the younger man, whose temper, under the malign influence
of an unworthy passion, became i