The Admiral: A Romance of Nelson in the Year of the Nile

Transcriber’s Note
Misspelling in quoted matter (journal entries, correspondence, etc.) is preserved as printed. Further notes may be found at the end of the text.
Second Edition.
By Douglas Sladen Author of “A Japanese Marriage,” etc.
A law unto himself
London Hutchinson and Co. Paternoster Row 1898
The cover is an exact reproduction in the original colours of a rare old print. The dates have of course been added. The clouds, to which Nelson points with his sword, express the wars and rumours of wars, with which the year 1798 was overhung. The sword indicates the spirit with which he approached questions of national honour.

SOME years ago, Professor J. K. Laughton’s admirable selection of “Letters and Dispatches of Horatio, Viscount Nelson,” inspired me with such an interest in Nelson’s wonderfully human and graphic correspondence that I studied the larger and earlier “Dispatches and Letters of Lord Nelson,” collected by Sir Harris Nicolas. The present book is the outcome of a long and affectionate study of these two works, and the well-thumbed pages of Southey and Jeaffreson.
But since, at the time of my first visit to Sicily, a little more than two years ago, I had definitely before me the project of writing a Nelson novel for the one-hundredth anniversary of the Battle of the Nile (August 1st, 1898), I have read most of the important works dealing with Lord Nelson’s life, especially Captain Mahan’s “Life of Nelson,” which is a monument of impartiality, research, and the application of professional knowledge to literature. I have also, by the kindness of Lord Dundonald, Mr. Morrison, and others, had the opportunity of seeing a quantity of unpublished Nelsoniana, which have been of the utmost value to me in forming a final opinion of the character of my hero.
The main object of this book is to present to the reader, in the year of the centenary of the Nile, the real Nelson, without extenuation or malice. No doubt it would have been easier to ensure popularity by passing over the weaknesses in his character and representing him only as an ever-victorious warrior. But this did not seem to me the right course to pursue with a character like Nelson. Those who have studied his letters in the pages of Nicolas and Laughton, and those who have studied his life in the pages of Captain Mahan (who, it must be remembered, is a professional writer, the chief naval expert of the United States, writing upon the greatest English sea-strategist), cannot fail to have been impressed by the intensely human note which he struck in almost every letter.