swells fiercer and stronger under the mighty
impulse of the great Corsican. At each of the momentous crises, so far
removed in time and place,--at the Nile, at Copenhagen, at
Trafalgar,--as the unfolding drama of the age reveals to the onlooker
the schemes of the arch-planner about to touch success, over against
Napoleon rises ever Nelson; and as the latter in the hour of victory
drops upon the stage where he has played so chief a part, his task is
seen to be accomplished, his triumph secured. In the very act of dying
he has dealt the foe a blow from which recovery is impossible. Moscow
and Waterloo are the inevitable consequences of Trafalgar; as the
glories of that day were but the fit and assured ending of the
illustrious course which was begun upon the quarter-deck of the
"Agamemnon."

With the exception of the "Victory," under whose flag he fell after
two years of arduous, heart-breaking uncertainties, no ship has such
intimate association with the career and name of Nelson as has the
"Agamemnon." And this is but natural, for to her he was the captain,
solely, simply, and entirely; identified with her alone, glorying in
her excellences and in her achievements, one in purpose and in spirit
with her officers and seamen; sharing their hopes, their dangers, and
their triumphs; quickening them with his own ardor, moulding them into
his own image, until vessel and crew, as one living organism,
reflected in act the heroic and unyielding energy that inspired his
feeble frame. Although, for a brief and teeming period, he while in
command of her controlled also a number of smaller vessels on detached
service, it was not until after he had removed to another ship that he
became the squadron-commander, whose relations to the vessel on which
he himself dwelt were no longer immediate, nor differed, save in his
bodily presence, from those he bore to others of the same division. A
personality such as Nelson's makes itself indeed felt throughout its
entire sphere of action, be that large or small; but, withal,
diffusion contends in vain with the inevitable law that forever
couples it with slackening power, nor was it possible even for him to
lavish on the various units of a fleet, and on the diverse conflicting
claims of a great theatre of war, the same degree of interest and
influence that he concentrated upon the "Agamemnon," and upon the
brilliant though contracted services through which he carried her.
Bonds such as these are