ly
challenged at that time and afterwards. I recognized the justice of a
criticism which alleged that I had not sufficiently examined the other
side of the case, as presented by Italian authors. This I now did,
rewriting my account for the second edition. I found no reason to
change my estimate of Nelson's conduct, but rather to confirm the
favorable aspects; but what was more instructive to me was that even
so large an oversight did not when remedied affect the portrait. The
personality remained as first conceived; Nelson had acted in
character. The same was substantially true of a more pregnant
incident, the discovery of a number of his letters to his wife, which
had escaped the diligent search made by the editor of his
correspondence, Sir Harris Nicolas. After lying concealed for the
half-century between Nicolas and myself, they turned up shortly after
my book was in print. Here was more self-revelation; how might it
modify my picture? The event was ushered in with a great flourish of
trumpets, the walls of Jericho were about to fall, and I own I felt
anxious. Some of the letters were published; permission to see the
others was refused me. As these have not since been given to the
world, I fancy that they sustain the opinion expressed by me on those
that were; that beyond emphasizing somewhat his hardness to Lady
Nelson during the period of his growing alienation, they add little to
the impression before formed. A slight touch of the brush, another
line in the face, that is all.

The question of Nelson's action at Naples was brought forward in a way
which required from me some controversial writing. To this I have no
intention of alluding here, beyond stating that up to the present my
confidence has not been shaken in my defence of the main lines of his
conduct, clearing him of the deceit and double-dealing alleged against
him. I say this because there may be some who have thought me silenced
by argument, in that I have not seen fit to rise to such crude taunts
as that, "After this Captain Mahan will not undertake," etc. What
Captain Mahan will or will not do is of no particular importance; but
when the repute of such an one as Nelson is at stake, burdened by the
weight of calumny laid upon him by Southey's ill-instructed censures,
it is right to repeat that nothing I have seen since I last wrote,
about 1900, has appeared to me to call for further answer.

_The Life of Nelson_, and _The War of 1812_, of which I hav