f the squadron should be
called away to act elsewhere [as Keith had called it], or if
information of the approach of an enemy's fleet should be
received,--yet their Lordships by no means approve of the seamen being
landed to form a part of an army to be employed in operations at a
distance from the coast, where, if they should have the misfortune to
be defeated, they might be prevented from returning to the ships, and
the squadron be thereby rendered so defective, as to be no longer
capable of performing the services required of it; and I have their
Lordships' commands to signify their directions to your Lordship not
to employ the seamen in like manner in future."

It was evident that the Admiralty did not fully share Nelson's
attachment to the royal house of Naples, nor consider the service of
the King of the Two Sicilies the same as that of the King of Great
Britain. Earl Spencer's private letter, while careful of Nelson's
feelings, left no room to doubt that he was entirely at one with his
colleagues in their official opinion. Nelson winced and chafed under
the double rebuke, but he was not in a condition to see clearly any
beams in his own eye. "I observe with great pain that their Lordships
see no cause which could justify my disobeying the orders of my
commanding officer, Lord Keith;" but the motives he again alleges are
but the repetition of those already quoted. He fails wholly to realize
that convictions which would justify a man in going to a martyr's fate
may be wholly inadequate to sap the fundamental military obligation of
obedience. "My conduct is measured by the Admiralty, by the narrow
rule of law, when I think it should have been done by that of common
sense. I restored a faithful ally by breach of orders; Lord Keith lost
a fleet by obedience against his own sense. Yet as one is censured the
other must be approved. Such things are." As a matter of fact, as
before said, it was by departing from St. Vincent's orders that Keith
lost the French fleet. Nor did Nelson's mind work clearly on the
subject. Thwarted and fretted as he continually was by the too common,
almost universal, weakness, which deters men from a bold initiative,
from assuming responsibility, from embracing opportunity, he could not
draw the line between that and an independence of action which would
convert unity of command into anarchy. "Much as I approve of strict
obedience to orders, yet to say that an officer is never, for any
object,