Some of his methods, let us say, then, were hardly
English in conception, and the system of secret reports on officers in the Navy led to a good deal of heart-searching, and to some extent undermined the confidence of brother officers in one another. Further, we cannot applaud the persistent manner in which he used the Press as the instrument of his schemes. If, however, he often gave very bad advice because he thought too renklessly—such as his advice : "Never deny ; never explain ; never apologise "—he has also left behind him sayings of amazing pithiness and shrewd sense which will long be preserved in the Navy. He was a man who came and conquered by his own strength and not through any favouritism or caprices of fortune.