the Neapolitan
Court. "Your Lordship is hereby required and directed to repair to
Minorca, with the whole, or the greater part, of the force under your
Lordship's command, for the protection of that island, as I shall, in
all probability, have left the Mediterranean before your Lordship will
receive this. Keith." The second letter of the same date ended with
the words: "I therefore trust the defence of Minorca to your Lordship,
and repeat my directions that the ships be sent for its protection."
On the receipt of these, though Capua had not yet surrendered, Nelson
at once sent Duckworth with four ships-of-the-line to Minorca,
detaining only their marines for the land operations.

It seems scarcely necessary to say that, while an officer in
subordinate command should have the moral courage to transcend or
override his orders in particular instances--each of which rests upon
its own merits, and not upon any general rule that can be
formulated--it would be impossible for military operations to be
carried on at all, if the commander-in-chief were liable to be
deliberately defied and thwarted in his combinations, as Keith was in
this case. It does not appear that Nelson _knew_ the circumstances
which Keith was considering; he only _knew_ what the conditions were
about Naples, and he thought that the settlement of the kingdom might
be prevented by the departure of several of his ships. In this
opinion, in the author's judgment, his views were exaggerated, and
colored by the absorbing interest he had come to take in the royal
family and their fortunes, linked as these were with the affections of
a particular woman; but, even granting that his apprehensions were
well founded, he was taking upon himself to determine, not merely what
was best for the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, but what was best for
the whole Mediterranean command. It was not within his province to
decide whether Minorca or Naples was the more important. That was the
function of the commander-in-chief. Had the latter, while leaving
Nelson's force unchanged, directed him to follow a particular line of
operations in the district committed to him, it is conceivable that
circumstances, unknown to his superior, might have justified him in
choosing another; but there was nothing in the conditions that
authorized his assumption that he could decide for the whole command.
And this is not the less true, because Nelson was in the general a man
of far sounder judgment an