Now for such work as I have described you don’t want sea art; you want the Craven scholar, and I had him. A Sea Officer can never be an efficient clerk—his life unfits him. He can’t be an orator; he’s always had to hold his tongue. He can’t argue; he’s never been allowed. Only a few great spirits like Nelson are gifted with the splendid idiosyncrasy of insubordination; but it’s given to a few great souls. I assure you that long study has convinced me that Nelson was nothing if not insubordinate. This is hardly the place to describe his magnificent lapses from discipline, which ever led to Victory. It’s only due on my part, who have had more experience than anyone living of the civilian clerks at the Admiralty, to vouch for the fact that Sir Evan Macgregor, the ablest Secretary of the Admiralty since Samuel Pepys, Sir Graham Greene, Sir Oswyn Murray, Sir Charles Walker and my friends V. W. Baddeley, C.B., and J. W. S. Anderson, C.B., W. G. Perrin, J. F. Phillips, and many others have done work which has never been exceeded as regards its incomparable efficiency. I can’t recall a single lapse.
The outcome of this expanded Naval War Staff beyond its real requirements, such as I have indicated, and which were provided for while I was First Sea Lord, was that a Chief of the Staff, in imitation of him at the War Office, was planked into the Admiralty and indirectly supplanted the First Sea Lord. I won’t enlarge on this further. It’s many years before another war can possibly take place, and it’s now a waste of educated labour to discuss it further. All I would ask is for anyone to take up the last issue of the Navy List and see the endless pages of Naval Officers at the Admiralty or holding shore appointments. There has never been anything approaching these numbers in all our Sea History! It is deplorable!
The Naval War College, which I established at Portsmouth, is absolutely a different affair. There it can be arranged that all the Officers go to sea daily and work as if with the fleet, with flotillas of Destroyers that are there available in quantities. These Destroyers would represent all the items of the fleet; and the formations of war and the meetings of hostile fleets could be practised and so constitute the Naval War College a real gem in war efficiency.
Aged 14. Midshipman.
H.M.S. “Highflyer,” China.
CHAPTER IX
RECAPITULATION OF DEEDS AND IDEAS
“Friends, Romans, Countrymen, lend me your ears!”
We have arranged that in this book you (to whom I am dictating) are to insert a réchauffé of my fugitive writings and certain extracts from the three bulky volumes of my letters to Lord Esher, which he has so very kindly sent me.
All, then, that I have to say in this chapter will be a summing up of all that is in my opinion worth saying, and you are going to be responsible for the rest. My judgment is that the British Public will be sick of it all long before you come to the end of your part. One can have too much jam. Nor do you seem inclined to put in all the “bites.” For instance, it was told King Edward, who warned me of what was being said, that my moral character was shocking. No woman will ever appear against me at the Day of Judgment. One dear friend of mine attributed all his life’s disasters to kissing the wrong girl. I never even did that. However, there is no credit in my morality and early piety. For I ever had to work from 12 years old for my daily bread, and work hard, so the Devil never had a “look in.” I love Dr. Watts, he is so practical.