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.