The most remarkable instance, however, of this promptness to assert the dignity and rights of his official position, allowing no man to despise his youth, occurred very soon after his arrival upon the station, and brought him to a direct issue with his commander-in-chief,—if not, indeed, with an authoritative precedent set by so great a man as Lord Rodney. Young though he still was in years,—only twenty-six,—Nelson was by date of commission the senior captain in the small squadron, of some half-dozen vessels, to which the economies of the administration had reduced the Leeward Islands station. Being thus next in rank to the admiral, the latter, who made his headquarters at Barbadoes in the southern part of the station, sent him to the northern division, centring about the island of Antigua. Having remained in harbor, as was usual, during the hurricane months, Nelson cruised during the winter and until February, 1785, when some damage received compelled the "Boreas" to put into Antigua for repairs. Here he found a vessel of the squadron, whose own captain was of course junior to him, flying a Commodore's broad pendant, which asserted the official presence of a captain superior to himself in rank and command, and duly qualified to give him orders. He at once asked the meaning of this from the ship's proper commander, and was informed by him that Captain Moutray, an old officer, twenty years his senior on the post list, and then acting as Commissioner of the Navy, a civil office connected with the dockyard at Antigua, had directed it to be hoisted, and claimed to exercise control over all men-of-war in the harbor, during the admiral's absence.
Nelson was not wholly unprepared for this, for Hughes had notified him and the other captains that Moutray was authorized by himself to take this step. Being then away from the island, he had replied guardedly that if Commissioner Moutray was put into commission, he would have great pleasure in serving under him,—thus reserving his decision to the moment for action. He now took the ground that an officer not commissioned afloat, but holding only a civil appointment, could not exercise naval command,—that an order authorizing him to do so was invalid,—that to entitle him to such command he must be put into military commission by being attached to a ship in commission. He therefore flatly declined to obey Moutray's orders, refusing to admit his claim to be considered a commodore, or entitled to military obedience, unless he produced a commission. This he held to when Moutray gave him a written order to put himself under his command.
On technical points of this kind Nelson was a clear and accurate thinker, and in the admiral he had to do with a muddle-headed, irresolute superior. Hughes had already been badly worried and prodded, on matters concerning his own neglected duties, by his unquiet young subordinate, who was never satisfied to leave bad enough alone, but kept raising knotty points to harass an easy-going old gentleman, who wanted only to be allowed to shut his eyes to what went on under his nose. He was now exasperated by Nelson's contumacy, but he was also a little afraid of him, and supported his own order by no more decisive action than laying the case before the Admiralty, who informed Nelson that he should have referred his doubts to the admiral, instead of deciding for himself in a matter that concerned "the exercise of the functions of his [the admiral's] appointment." This was rather begging the question, for Nelson expressed no doubts, either to Hughes or in his explanatory letter to the Admiralty. The latter in turn shirked thus the decision of the question,—for, if Nelson was right, Hughes's order was illegal and not entitled to obedience; if he was wrong, he had been guilty of flagrant insubordination, and should have been sharply dealt with. The Government probably thought that the admiral had blundered in undertaking to give military authority to a civil official,—a step so generally disastrous in experience that it is now explicitly forbidden by the regulations of most navies. It is worthy of note that twenty years later, when commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean, Nelson directed the captains of ships cruising in the Straits of Gibraltar to consult on all occasions with the Commissioner of the Navy resident in Gibraltar, as well as to receive his advice, if proffered,—adding that the commissioner's opinion of their conduct would have great weight with himself; but he did not put them under his orders.[8]
Reasoning from Nelson's position, as the pendant was flying without proper authority on board a ship under his immediate command, he should, as senior captain afloat, have gone further and hauled it down. Of his authority to do so he felt no doubt, as is evident from his letter to the Admiralty; but his motive for refraining was characteristic. He was unwilling to wound Moutray; just as, before Trafalgar, in direct disregard of the Admiralty's orders, he allowed an admiral going home under charges to take with him his flagship, a vessel of the first force and likely to be sorely needed in the approaching battle, because he was reluctant to add to the distress the officer was undergoing already. "I did not choose to order the Commissioner's pendant to be struck, as Mr. Moutray is an old officer of high military character; and it might hurt his feelings to be supposed wrong by so young an officer." The question solved itself shortly by the Commissioner's returning to England; but the controversy seems to have made no change in the friendly and even affectionate relations existing between him and his wife and Nelson. For Mrs. Moutray the latter had formed one of those strong idealizing attachments which sprang up from time to time along his path. "You may be certain," he writes to his brother at the very period the discussion was pending, "I never passed English Harbour without a call, but alas! I am not to have much comfort. My dear, sweet friend is going home. I am really an April day; happy on her account, but truly grieved were I only to consider myself. Her equal I never saw in any country or in any situation. If my dear Kate [his sister] goes to Bath next winter she will be known to her, for my dear friend promised to make herself known. What an acquisition to any female to be acquainted with, what an example to take pattern from." "My sweet, amiable friend sails the 20th for England. I took my leave of her three days ago with a heavy heart. What a treasure of a woman." Returning to Antigua a few weeks later, he writes again in a sentimental vein very rare in him: "This country appears now intolerable, my dear friend being absent. It is barren indeed. English Harbour I hate the sight of, and Windsor I detest. I went once up the hill to look at the spot where I spent more happy days than in any one spot in the world. E'en the trees drooped their heads, and the tamarind tree died:—all was melancholy: the road is covered with thistles; let them grow. I shall never pull one of them up." His regard for this attractive woman seems to have lasted through his life; for she survived him, and to her Collingwood addressed a letter after Trafalgar, giving some particulars of Nelson's death. Her only son also died under the latter's immediate command, ten years later, when serving in Corsica.
The chief interest of the dispute over Moutray's position lies not in the somewhat obscure point involved, but in the illustration it affords of Nelson's singular independence and tenacity in a matter of principle. Under a conviction of right he throughout life feared no responsibility and shrank from no consequences. It is difficult for the non-military mind to realize how great is the moral effort of disobeying a superior, whose order on the one hand covers all responsibility, and on the other entails the most serious personal and professional injury, if violated without due cause; the burden of proving which rests upon the junior. For the latter it is, justly and necessarily, not enough that his own intentions or convictions were honest: he has to show, not that he meant to do right, but that he actually did right, in disobeying in the particular instance. Under no less rigorous exactions can due military subordination be maintained. The whole bent of advantage and life-long training, therefore, draws in one direction, and is withstood by nothing, unless either strong personal character supplies a motive, or established professional standing permits a man to presume upon it, and to exercise a certain right to independence of action. At this time Nelson was practically unknown, and in refusing compliance with an order he took a risk that no other captain on the station would have assumed, as was shown by their failure a few months later to support their convictions in an analogous controversy, upon which Nelson had entered even before the Moutray business. In both cases he staked all upon legal points, considered by him vital to the welfare of the navy and the country. The spirit was identically the same that led him to swing his ship out of the line at Cape St. Vincent without waiting for signals. After that day and the Nile he could afford to take liberties, and sometimes took them with less justification than in his early career.
When the Moutray question arose, Nelson was already engaged in a more far-reaching dispute, not only with his commander-in-chief, but with the colonial authorities and the popular sentiment of the West India Islands. Like most men, great and small, he shared the prepossessions of his day and generation; differing, however, from others, in that he held his opinions as principles, from asserting which he was not to be deterred by the ill-will or dislike of those immediately about him. Upon arriving in the West Indies he found nourishing a system of trade extremely beneficial to the islands, but which his education condemned as hurtful to Great Britain, as it certainly was contrary to then existing laws that had for a century previous regulated the commerce of the kingdom. In 1784, a year only had elapsed since the United States had been formally recognized as independent, thereby becoming, in British estimation as well as in their own, a nation foreign to the British flag. By the Navigation Laws, first established by Cromwell, but continued under the restored monarchy without serious modification until 1794, trade with the Colonies was reserved to vessels built in Great Britain or her dependencies, and manned in three-fourths part by British subjects. The chief object and advantage of the law were conceived to be, not merely a monopoly of the trade,—concerning the economical wisdom of which serious doubts began to be felt,—but the fostering of the British merchant service as a nursery of seamen, upon whom, in time of war, the navy could draw. The military strength of the Empire was thought to be involved in the enforcement of the Navigation Act.[9]
Before the United States declared their independence, they, as British colonies, enjoyed the privilege of trading with their fellow-colonists under what was then the common flag; and the nearness of the two regions contributed to the advantage of both in this traffic, in which the continental communities were the chief suppliers of many articles essential to the islands, notably provisions and lumber. This mutual intercourse and dependence promoted a sympathy which was scarcely disguised in the West Indies during the War of Independence; indeed, Nelson wrote that many of the inhabitants were as arrant rebels as those who had renounced their allegiance. Under these conditions, when peace was restored, the old relations were readily resumed; and as there had really been considerable inconvenience and loss to the islanders from the deprivation of American products, the renewal was eagerly promoted by popular sentiment. The local authorities, as usual and natural, yielded to the pressure around them, and in entire disregard of the known policy of the home government permitted American vessels to trade openly under their own colors. In Jamaica the governor had even gone so far as to authorize formally a free trade, during pleasure, with the United States, contrary to the explicit orders of his superiors in Great Britain. Where scruples were felt or hesitation was shown, advantage was taken of the exceptions of the law, which allowed vessels in distress to sell so much of their cargoes as would pay for necessary repairs. With the tendency of commerce to evade restrictions by liberal stretching of the conscience, the merchant captain and the colonial officer found little difficulty in arranging that the damage should be great enough to cover the sale of the whole lading.
After laying up in Antigua during the hurricane season of 1784, Nelson was summoned to Barbadoes in November, with the other captains, to receive orders for the winter's cruising. These, when issued, were found to direct only the examination of anchorages, and the gathering of information about supplies of wood and water. Nelson's attention had been drawn already to the American traffic; and he, with his friend Collingwood, who was again on the station, went to the admiral, and urged that it was the duty of ships of war to enforce the Navigation Laws. The admiral professed ignorance of these; and Nelson himself remarks that British vessels up to that time had been so much cheaper built than others, that they had, without artificial protection, naturally absorbed their own colonial trade,—the question, therefore, had dropped out of sight till it was revived by American competition. A copy of the Act being then produced, Hughes gave an order requiring his vessels to enforce it; making special mention of the changed relations of the United States to Great Britain, whereby they were "to be considered as foreigners, and excluded from all commerce with the islands in these seas."
With these instructions Nelson sailed again for the north, where the Virgin Islands, with those of Montserrat, Nevis, and St. Christopher, were put under his especial charge,—the sloop "Rattler," Captain Wilfred Collingwood, a brother of the well-known admiral, being associated with the "Boreas." At first the two officers confined their action to warning off American vessels, and at times forcing them to leave ports where they had anchored; but they found that either the vessels returned during the absence of the ships of war, or that permissions to land, upon what they thought trivial grounds, were given by the Customs' officials, in virtue of the exceptions to the law above mentioned.
There matters stood until the 11th of January, 1785, Nelson acting by the authority of the commander-in-chief, but exercising his own discretion, and with forbearance, in carrying out his instructions. On the day named he received another order from the admiral, modifying the first upon the grounds of a more mature consideration, and of "the opinion of the King's Attorney-General" in the islands. Nelson was now directed, in case of a foreign merchant-ship coming within the limits of his station, to cause her to anchor near his own vessel and to report her arrival, and situation in all respects, to the governor of the colony where he then was; "and if, after such report shall have been made and received, the governor or his representative shall think proper to admit the said foreigner into the port or harbour of the island where you may be, you are on no account to hinder or prevent such foreign vessel from going in accordingly, or to interfere any further in her subsequent proceedings."