the
commanders blamed the ministers. The recriminations exchanged between
Nottingham and Russell were loud and angry. Nottingham, honest,
industrious, versed in civil business, and eloquent in parliamentary
debate, was deficient in the qualities of a war minister, and was not
at all aware of his deficiencies. Between him and the whole body of
professional sailors there was a feud of long standing. He had, some
time before the Revolution, been a Lord of the Admiralty; and his own
opinion was that he had then acquired a profound knowledge of maritime
affairs. This opinion however he had very much to himself. Men who
had passed half their lives on the waves, and who had been in battles,
storms and shipwrecks, were impatient of his somewhat pompous lectures
and reprimands, and pronounced him a mere pedant, who, with all his book
learning, was ignorant of what every cabin boy knew. Russell had always
been froward, arrogant and mutinous; and now prosperity and glory
brought out his vices in full strength. With the government which he
had saved he took all the liberties of an insolent servant who believes
himself to be necessary, treated the orders of his superiors with
contemptuous levity, resented reproof, however gentle, as an outrage,
furnished no plan of his own, and showed a sullen determination to
execute no plan furnished by any body else. To Nottingham he had a
strong and a very natural antipathy. They were indeed an ill matched
pair. Nottingham was a Tory; Russell was a Whig. Nottingham was a
speculative seaman, confident in his theories. Russell was a practical
seaman, proud of his achievements. The strength of Nottingham lay in
speech; the strength of Russell lay in action. Nottingham's demeanour
was decorous even to formality; Russell was passionate and rude. Lastly
Nottingham was an honest man; and Russell was a villain. They now became
mortal enemies. The Admiral sneered at the Secretary's ignorance of
naval affairs; the Secretary accused the Admiral of sacrificing the
public interests to mere wayward humour; and both were in the right.
[320]

While they were wrangling, the merchants of all the ports in the kingdom
raised a cry against the naval administration. The victory of which the
nation was so proud was, in the City, pronounced to have been a positive
disaster. During some months before the battle all the maritime
strength of the enemy had been collected in two great masses, one in
the Mediterranean and o