f can settle our accounts
when we meet; at present, I believe I am the richer man, therefore I
desire you will give my dear father that money." One wonders whether,
in the slightly peremptory tone of the last sentence, is to be seen a
trace of the feeling she is said, by one biographer, to have shown,
that he was too liberal to his relatives; an indication of that lack
of sympathy, which, manifested towards other traits of his, no less
marked than openhandedness, struck a jarring note within him, and
possibly paved the way to an indifference which ended so unfortunately
for both. An absent husband, however, very possibly failed to realize
what his extreme generosity might mean, to one who had to meet
household expenses with narrow means.

The political surmises with which his correspondence at this period
abounds were often crude, though not infrequently also characterized
by the native sagacity of his intellect, as yet undisciplined, and to
some extent deficient in data for accurate forecasts. The erroneous
military conception which colored much of his thought, the
propositions for ex-centric movements in an enemy's rear, by bodies
comparatively small, out of supporting distance from the rest of the
army, and resting upon no impregnable base, contributed greatly to the
faulty anticipations entertained and expressed by him from time to
time. When applied to operations directed by the consummate and highly
trained genius of Bonaparte, speculations so swayed naturally flew
wide of the mark. His sanguine disposition to think the best of all
persons and all things--except Frenchmen--made him also a ready prey
to the flattering rumors of which war is ever fertile. These
immaturities will be found to disappear, as his sphere widens and his
responsibilities increase.

After the close of the campaign, Nelson made a short cruise from Genoa
to the westward, seeing the French on November 29 in full possession
of Vado Bay. He then went to Leghorn, where he arrived on the 6th of
December and remained till the middle of January, repairing, to make
the "Agamemnon" "as fit for sea as a rotten ship can be." The longing
for rest and for home, after nearly three years' absence, was again
strong upon him in this moment of relaxation. "I fear our new admiral
is willing to keep me with him," he wrote to his brother. "He has
wrote me, I am sorry to say, a most nattering letter, and I hear I am
to be offered St. George or Zealous [much large