h to go to war with Great Britain, he gave
himself a night to pause; but early next day he wrote to the
Admiralty, intimating pretty plainly that, if done by its direction,
this was not the way the commander of the Mediterranean fleet should
receive word of so momentous a step taken in his district, while to
Gore he sent emphatic orders to disobey Cornwallis, although the
latter was Nelson's senior. Summing up with admirable lucidity the
facts before him, and thereby proving that the impression under which
Cornwallis's action probably was taken was erroneous, he said: "Unless
you have much weightier reasons than the order of Admiral Cornwallis,
or that you receive orders from the Admiralty, it is my most positive
directions that neither you, or any ship under your orders, do molest
or interrupt in any manner the lawful commerce of Spain, with whom we
are at perfect peace and amity."

It is permissible, because instructive, to note that in this order,
while Nelson amply provides for discretion on the part of his
subordinate, he throws the full weight of his authority on the
difficult horn of a possible dilemma, the act--so momentous to an
officer--of disobedience to a present superior; in this case the
captain sent by Cornwallis. Contrast this with the Government's orders
to the commander of the troops at Malta, when it wished him to send a
garrison to Messina.[77] Instead of saying, "You will send so many
men, _unless_ you think you _cannot_ spare them," its orders ran:
"You will send, _if_ you think you _can_ spare them." Of course, as
Nelson invariably experienced, an officer addressed in the latter
style found always a lion in his path. So his orders to Gore were not,
"Obey, _if_" but "Disobey, _unless_;" and Gore knew, as every man in
the Mediterranean knew by long trial, that, if he disobeyed, he would
have at his back, through thick and thin, the first sea-officer in
Great Britain. But Nelson's orders were always stamped with the
positive, daring, lucid character of his genius and its conceptions;
and so, except in unworthy hands, they were fulfilled in spirit as
well as in letter.

An interesting illustration of this trenchant clearness is to be found
in instructions given to the captain of the "Donegal," an eighty-gun
ship, sent under very critical circumstances to cruise off Cadiz, in
September, 1803. It appears to the author not only characteristic of
Nelson, but a perfect example of the kind of directions a