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.