on and carried the vessel by
boarding. Although he was but a couple of months over fifteen, Nelson
gave him at once his commission into the vacancy made by the
lieutenant. One very dark night, the "Victory" being under way, a
midshipman, at the imminent risk of his life, leaped into the sea to
save a seaman who had fallen overboard, and otherwise would have been
drowned. Nelson gave him, too, his commission the following morning;
but, seeing the jubilation among the young man's messmates, and
thinking the act might be a dangerous precedent, he leaned over the
poop and said, smiling good-naturedly, "Stop, young gentlemen! Mr.
Flin has done a gallant thing today, and he has done many gallant
things before, for which he has now got his reward. But mind, I'll
have no more making lieutenants for men falling overboard."

The power thus to reward at discretion, and speedily, though liable to
abuse, was, he claimed, essential to the due influence of a
commander-in-chief; his subordinates must feel that it was in his
power to make their future, to distinguish them, and that they were in
so far dependent upon him. Nevertheless, with him as with others,
personal interest had a weight which qualified his argument. The
premature[73] and disastrous promotion of his stepson, at his request,
by St. Vincent, was a practical abuse which in most minds would
outweigh theoretical advantages. Writing to Sir Peter Parker about
this time, he said, "You may be assured I will lose no time in making
your grandson a postcaptain. It is the only opportunity ever offered
me, of showing that my feelings of gratitude to you are as warm and
alive as when you first took me by the hand: I owe all my honours to
you, and I am proud to acknowledge it to all the world." Such
enduring gratitude is charming to see, and tends to show that Nelson
recognized some other reason for Parker's favor to himself than
deference to Suckling's position; but it is scarcely a good working
principle for the distribution of official patronage, although the
younger Parker was a good and gallant officer.

Among the military duties that weighed upon Nelson, not the least was
the protection of British trade. The narrow waters of the
Mediterranean favored the operations of privateers, which did not have
to go far from their ports, and found shelter everywhere; for the
littoral states, in their weakness and insecurity, could but feebly
enforce neutrality either in their continenta