The Life Of Nelson, Volume I.

while at night the land wind was too fitful and unreliable to assure the ships reaching their anchorage before the enemy could discover them, and have time for adequate preparation against assault.

For these reasons, certainty of success would depend upon cooperation by the army, and for that Nelson suggested that the Elba troops, over three thousand strong, already in transports and on their way, would provide a force at once available and sufficient. Save a naval dash by Blake, more than a century before, Tenerife had never been seriously attacked. Probably, therefore, the heights commanding the town of Santa Cruz had not been fortified, and could be easily seized by the detachment designated; besides which, the water supply was exposed to interruption by an outside enemy. If only General De Burgh could be persuaded, Nelson was sure of success, and offered himself to command the naval contingent. Failing the consent of De Burgh, whom he and Jervis both thought deficient in moral courage to undertake responsibility, could not the admiral get assistance from O'Hara, the governor of Gibraltar, who would have at his disposal one thousand to fifteen hundred men? More would be better, but still with that number success would be probable. "Soldiers," regretted Nelson characteristically, "have not the same boldness in undertaking a political measure that we have; we look to the benefit of our Country and risk our own fame [not life merely] every day to serve her: a soldier obeys his orders and no more." But he thought O'Hara an exception, and then -- could not the substantial advantages move him? The public treasure of Spain that might be seized would be six or seven millions sterling. Think what that sum would be, "thrown into circulation in England!" where specie payments had just been suspended. It was nearly a year's value of the subsidies which Great Britain was lavishing on the general war. Whatever the merits of Nelson's