In truth, such readiness to flare up must needs be the defect of that quality of promptness, that instant succession of deed to thought, which was a distinguishing feature of Nelson's genius and actions.

Captain Hillyar more than once alludes to this trait as characteristic of the fleet, to which its chief had transmitted his own spirit.

"I have had to-day to lament," he says, speaking of some trifling disappointment, "the extreme promptitude with which we all move when near his lordship." But, while traces of this failing may be detected here and there by the watchful reader, as Nelson himself gleaned useful indications amid the rubbishy mass of captured correspondence, there survives, among the remains left by those in daily contact with him, only the record of a frank, open bearing, and unfailing active kindness.
"Setting aside his heroism," wrote Dr.Scott after Trafalgar, "when I think what an affectionate, fascinating little fellow he was, how dignified and pure his mind, how kind and condescending his manners, I become stupid with grief for what I have lost." "He is so cheerful and pleasant," wrote the public secretary, Mr.Scott, "that it is a happiness to be about his hand." Dr.Gillespie notes "his noble frankness of manners, freedom from vain formality and pomp (so necessary to the decoration of empty little great men), which can only be equalled by the unexampled glory of his naval career, and the watchful and persevering diligence with which he commands this fleet." "Nelson was the man to _love_" said Captain Pulteney Malcolm, who knew intimately both him and Wellington.

"I received Captain Leake," Nelson himself says, speaking of an army officer on a special mission to the Mediterranean, "with that openness which was necessary to make myself as well acquainted with him in three days, as others might do in as many years.

I have given him all the knowledge of the men, their views, &c.