"that Sir Sidney Smith will not take any
ship from under my command, without my orders;" but he evidently
expected that he would, and was determined to forestall the
possibility of such an affront.

Nelson's services had been so eminent, and were at this time so
indispensable, and his exceptions to the manner in which Smith had
been intruded into his command were so well founded, that the matter
was rectified as rapidly as the slow round of communications in that
day would permit. The Admiralty disclaimed any intention of
circumscribing his control in the Mediterranean, and Smith received
peremptory orders from St. Vincent to report himself to Nelson by
letter for orders. The latter of course carried out the Admiralty's
wishes, by intrusting to Smith the immediate direction of operations
in the Levant, while retaining in his own hands the general outlines
of naval policy. He kept a very tight rein on Smith, however, and
introduced into the situation some dry humor, unusual with him. The
two brothers, envoys, he addressed jointly, in his official letters,
by the collective term "Your Excellency." "I beg of your Excellency,"
he says in such a letter, "to forward my letter to Sir Sidney Smith,
Captain of the Tigre. I have this day received letters from Sir Sidney
Smith, in his Ministerial capacity, I believe. I _wish_ that all
Ministerial letters should be written in your joint names; for it may
be difficult for me to distinguish the Captain of the man-of-war from
the Joint Minister, and the propriety of language in one might be very
proper to what it is in the other." To the naval captain he writes: "I
must _direct_ you, whenever you have Ministerial affairs to
communicate, that it is done jointly with your respectable brother,
and not mix naval business with the other. I have sent you my orders,
which your abilities as a sea-officer will lead you to punctually
execute."

Nelson resented to the end this giving to a junior naval officer, by a
side-wind, an authoritative position in diplomatic affairs, which, on
the naval side, properly belonged to him. "Sir Sidney should
recollect," he told Earl Spencer, meaning doubtless that the latter
also should recollect, "how I must feel in seeing him placed in the
situation which I thought naturally would fall to me." It was a
singular step on the part of the Government, justified neither by
general practice, nor by particular ability on the part of the person
chosen; and all Nel