Yet, with all these strong attributes, capable too of a tenderness which could mourn long and deeply the loss of a valued comrade, the rule of Jervis was one of fear rather than love. It is impossible to criticise adversely measures whose extreme severity was justified, if not imperatively demanded, by the appalling crisis of the mutinies of 1797; impossible to withhold admiration, not unmingled with awe, from the impressive figure of the chief who stood unmoved and unyielding amid the smothered discontent, revolt threatening from below, the enemy's coast in sight from the deck, knowing that in every other fleet the crews had taken the ships from their officers, but determined it should not be so in the Mediterranean. Yet admiration is qualified by the feeling that to the ruthless temper of the man the position was not wholly displeasing,—that he was in his natural element when crushing opposition. A captain, who with great personal courage had quelled a rising in his ship, dragging the ringleaders with his own hands from among their followers, interceded on behalf of one of the condemned because he had previously borne a good character. "I am glad of it," replied Jervis; "hitherto we have been hanging scoundrels. Now men will know that no good character will atone for the crime of mutiny." In lesser matters, also, his tendency was to exaggerate restraint as well as punishment. "Where I would take a penknife," said Nelson, "Lord St. Vincent takes a hatchet."
With such characteristics, accompanied though they were by resolution and high professional accomplishments, it is not to be expected that the fire of genius will be found. Though not an ungenerous man, Lord St. Vincent lacked the sympathetic qualities that made Nelson at once so lovable and so great a leader of men. Escaping the erratic temper and the foibles of his great successor, upon whose career these defects have left marks ever to be regretted by those who love his memory, Jervis fell short too of the inspiration, of the ardor, which in moments of difficulty lifted Nelson far above the common plane of mankind, and have stamped his actions with the seal of genius. But after Nelson, Jervis, though of a different order, stands first among British commanders-in-chief. For inspiration he had a cool, sound, and rapid professional judgment; for ardor, a steady, unflinching determination to succeed; and these, joined to a perfect fearlessness of responsibility such as Nelson also showed, have won for him a place in the first rank of those chieftains, whether sea or land, who have not received the exceptional endowments of Nature's favorites. In the one general action which Fortune permitted to him, the battle of Cape St. Vincent, he illustrated these traits to a high degree; as Nelson then also showed that faculty of quick appreciation and instant action, in which all the processes of thought and will blend into one overpowering conviction and impulse that lesser men never know. Whether we consider the vastly superior numbers then deliberately engaged, the tactics of the admiral on the battle-field, or his appreciation of the critical position in which Great Britain then stood, Sir John Jervis's conduct on that occasion must make the battle of Cape St. Vincent ever illustrious among the most brilliant sea-fights of all ages.