1. 26. The Hindostan, a store-ship, was burnt on April 2nd, 1804, the day before the capture of the Swift.

1. 27. but for importance it is lost, but its importance is very insignificant. The use of 'loss' and 'lost' in such different senses so close together is rather confusing.

1. 31. committed, placed in an embarrassing position by the disclosure of our secret intentions.

p. 237, 1. 2. in a book, printed by the French government.

1. 28. the mines of Peru, the silver mines from which Peru derives most of her wealth.

p. 238, 1. 7. a right English feeling, a spirit of firm confidence in the superiority of English sailors.

1. 9. in high feather, in fine feather, or in full feather means in excellent condition, like a bird whose feathers are abundant and do not droop.

1. 12. was a good sea boat, did well in rough weather. Slow sailing boats may be good boats when the water is stormy. Mr. Marsden, secretary to the admiralty.

1. 13. like a plumpudding, studded with shot as thickly as a plum-pudding is with plums or raisins.

1. 16. lay salt upon their tails, catch them. Children are often told in fun that the way to catch birds is to lay salt on their tails. They try to carry out this plan of capture literally, but the real meaning is that they will be able to catch the birds when they lay the salt on their tails and not till then.

1. 27. a point of honour, a course that they felt themselves bound to adopt in order to avoid being disgraced.

1. 30. might have been spared, might not have taken place, as the Spaniards could have surrendered without disgrace to a stronger squadron.

p. 239, 1. 10. I fancied-but nay. Notice the aposiopesis, that is, the abrupt break in the middle of the unfinished sentence.

p. 240, 1. 18. All is mine, right or wrong, all the glory is mine, if I have acted right, and all the responsibility is mine, if I have acted wrong.

1. 35. not carried away a spar, not got a single spar broken.

p. 241, 1. 4. without a bulkhead up. See note on p. 150, 1. 26. Such of the bulkheads as are movable are taken down when a ship is cleared for action.

1. 9. rendezvous (Fr. rendez vous, present yourselves), place of meeting. The word, though naturalised in English, retains its French pronunciation, 'rongdyvoo.'

1. 21. Gantheaume, after taking Napoleon back to France, attempted to carry succours to the French army in Egypt.

p. 242, 1. 7. Dead foul, straight against us. A foul wind is the opposite of a fair wind. 'Dead' is here used adverbially in the sense of entirely' as in 'dead beat,' 'dead tired.'

1. 15. the Gut, the main part of the channel between Spain and Africa.

p. 243, 1. 26. made Madeira, reached Madeira.

p. 244, l. 12. master here means captain. For another meaning see note on p. 4, 1. 26.

1. 16. Bocas of Trinidad, narrow channels between Trinidad and the American continent.

1. 20. the Orinoco flows into the sea near Trinidad.

1. 24. fetching to windward of, getting to the windward side of. 1. 27. Advices. See note on p. 142, 1. 19. 'Advice' in its

ordinary meaning has no plural.

1. 28. the Diamond Rock, a rocky islet off the south-west end of Martinique.

p. 245, 1. 1. Rodney. See note on p. 23, 1. 1.

1. 19. which is very foolish. The antecedent of 'which' is 'being miserable.'

1. 21. June is the reading of the first and other editions, but July 18th, the date given by Sir N. Nicolas, is obviously required by the context.

p. 246, l. 15. proofs of sagacity, etc. Zadig, a sage, was the hero of a well-known fiction of Voltaire. Among other proofs of his sagacity he is represented as inferring from the traces left by a horse he had never seen that it galloped well, was five feet high, and had a small hoof; that its tail was three feet and a half long; that the studs of its bits were of twenty-three carat gold, and that its shoes were of silver of eleven penny-weights.

1. 20. been run on board by another ship, been in a collision struck by another ship.

1. 21. log-book. See note on p. 235, 1. 23.

1. 33. the prize-master, the French officer who was sent to command the captured vessel.

1. 34. his reckoning, the estimate of the position of the ship he had left calculated mainly by astronomical observations and entered in that ship's log-book. This reckoning the prize-master would naturally have ascertained before leaving the French ship of war, and have written down in the log-book of the vessel intrusted to his charge, in order that it might be the starting point of his daily reckonings. Not having done so, he tried

to calculate his new ship's position by back reckonings, that is, by making the basis of his calculation the last known position of the privateer, which happened to be Corvo, one of the Azores, and noting how far and in what direction she had sailed each day since leaving that port, which information he found in the English log-book up to the moment when the English sailors in the privateer first sighted the French fleet. All this he copied out on the scrap of dirty paper; but the movements of the ship after that point, when in the excitement of the chase no more entries had been made in the log-book, he had to conjecture by the help of his memory, and this was the "unaccountedfor run," i.e. the progress made by the ship noted on the dirty paper but not confirmed by the English log-book.

1. 36. her work, the distance traversed by the ship.

p. 247, 1. 2. in his endeavour, noted down by the prize-master in his attempt to find out, etc." Clarke and M'Arthur, from whom the story is taken, make Nelson say "This dirty scrap of paper contains his work for the number of days since the privateer last set (i.e. took the bearings of) Corvo, with an unaccounted-for run, which I take to have been the chase in his endeavour, etc." In this version of the story "his work in his endeavour" means the calculation made by the prize-master in his endeavour. Southey by changing 'his' into her' and putting a semi-colon after Corvo did his best to make Nelson's reasoning unintelligible.

1. 8. If this explanation be correct. Clarke and M'Arthur, from whom this story is taken, add that "subsequent information proved that he was correct in every part of this interpretation."

CHAPTER IX.

p. 248, 1. 13. a somewhat similar occasion.

See p. 64.

p. 249, 1. 5. wanted resolution, he had not enough firmness to declare, shrank from declaring.

1. 7. trudge it, see note on p. 2, 1. 13. To trudge is to walk in a laborious way. The meaning of this proverb is that great exertions can only be expected from those who are in want. Pope, following Horace, tells a story to point this moral. A general addressing a soldier who had won fame and wealth by a great deed of valour points out a hostile castle to be taken, and says,

"Advance and conquer! go where glory calls!

More honours, more rewards attend the brave;"

to which the soldier replies--

"D'ye think me, noble general, such a sot?

Let him take castles, who has ne'er a groat."

1. 26. Emmas ... Nelsons. See note on p. 215, l. 16.

p. 250, 1. 4. Gaul, Lat. Gallus, properly the name of the old Celtic inhabitants of France, is sometimes applied poetically to modern Frenchmen. 'France' is derived from the name of a German confederacy which conquered that country in the end of the fifth century.

1. 19. a lord. As Nelson had no son, his brother would succeed to his title on his death and become Lord Nelson.

1. 20. a dead set, colloquial for a determined attack. 'Set' in this phrase means direction, as when we speak of the set of a current.

1. 21. once. See p. 150, 1. 27.

1. 35. Amen, so be it. A Hebrew word expressive of resignation to God's will.

p. 251, 1. 10. alloy of selfishness. An alloy is a baser mixed with a finer metal, and so is used metaphorically, as here, to express evil mixed with good. 'Of selfishness' is a definitive genitive See p. 23, 1. 14.

1. 12. with all his heart, etc. Mark, xii. 30.

1. 18. wedged, squeezed, as a wedge is on each side by the wood it is forced through.

1. 24. his birthday. It was his forty-sixth birthday. He really arrived off Cadiz and joined Collingwood the day before.

1. 27. fire no salute. Compare the precautions taken to conceal from Hasdrubal Nero's arrival at the camp of Livius before the battle of the Metaurus.

1. 32. commander, commander-in-chief. What Nelson actually wrote was "The officers who came on board to welcome my return forgot my rank as commander-in-chief in the enthusiasm with which they greeted me. Cp. p. 87, 1. 22.

p. 252, 1. 3. secrecy is seldom practicable, because public measures are generally discussed in Parliament beforehand.

1. 22. decoy. See note on p. 113, 1. 17.

1. 28. French ports in the bay, Nantes, Bordeaux, and other ports in the Bay of Biscay.

p. 253, 1. 8. a new pension, in addition to the pension of £2000 granted him after the Battle of the Nile, p. 124, 1. 6.

1. 15. the eyes of the fleet, because they give information of the position of the enemy. Compare p. 106, 1. 35.

1. 21 annihilate. Compare note on p. 117, 1. 15. The Carthagena squadron, six Spanish ships in the port of Carthagena. 1. 28. in their way. On their way' is more usual. Perhaps 'in' is a misprint for 'on.'

p. 254, 1. 10. insisted on his returning. Southey rather exaggerates Nelson's imprudence by making it appear that he sent Sir Robert Calder home in a ninety gun ship of his own accord against the latter's will. Nelson's own account of the matter to Lord Barham is as follows, "Sir Robert Calder felt so much even at the idea of being removed from his own ship which he commanded, that I much fear I shall incur the censure of the Board of Admiralty, without your Lordship's influence with the members of it. I may be thought wrong, as an officer, to disobey the orders of the Admiralty, by not insisting on Sir Robert Calder's quitting the Prince of Wales for the Dreadnought, and for parting with a ninety gun ship before the force arrives which their Lordships have judged necessary." Southey therefore should have written did not insist on his not returning.' From a letter of Sir Robert Calder's it appears that Nelson did in the first instance ask him to leave his own ninety gun ship behind.

1. 16. the Nelson touch, the plan of attack characteristic of Nelson. Touch seems here to be used in the sense of characteristic trait, or something by which a characteristic trait is manifested. Compare Shakespeare's proverbial line, "One touch of nature makes the whole world kin," Troilus and Cressida, iii. 3, 1. 175.

1. 27. with an advanced squadron. This arrangement was not carried out in the battle, in which, as we shall see, the English fleet advanced in two lines but with no advanced squadron.

1. 32. cut off three or four ahead of the centre, break through the French line a little in advance of the centre, and so separate from the van of the French fleet the three or four ships between that point and the centre. Nelson's line breaking through the centre was similarly to cut off the ships behind the centre, except the twelve rearmost ships which were to be cut off by Collingwood.

1. 34. one fourth superior. to bring an overwhelming portion of the hostile fleet.

As at the Nile, Nelson's plan was superiority against a particular

p. 255. 1. 17. the repeating ships, ships that repeat for the information of the whole fleet the signals made by the admiral or by ships on the look out.

1. 28. telegraphed by flags. The electric telegraph was not invented till 1835.

1. 35. keep the port of Cadiz open, cepted from the entrance to the port.

prevent their being interCompare note on p. 74, 1.