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_."

Here the admiral not only raised, but also decided, the point as to
whether the enforcement of the Navigation Act rested with naval
officers, or was vested only in the civil authorities of the islands.
Nelson was convinced that an essential part of the duty of ships of
war, and especially when peace took from them so much of their
military function, was to afford to the commerce of the nation proper
protection, of which a necessary feature, according to the ideas of
the age, was the interdiction of foreign traders. A seaman, he
plausibly argued, could decide better than an unprofessional man the
questions of injuries and distress upon which the unlawful traffic
largely hinged. "In judging of their distress, no person can know
better than the sea officers," he wrote to Hughes. "The governors may
be imposed upon by false declarations; we, who are on the spot,
cannot." He was aware, also, that a petition for relaxing the Act in
favor of the American trade with the West Indies had been referred to
the home government, by which it had been explicitly rejected.
Strengthened by this knowledge, but actuated, after all, chiefly by
his invariable resoluteness to assume responsibility where he felt he
was right, he replied to the admiral's letter with a clear statement
of the facts, concluding with the words: "Whilst I have the honour to
command an English man-of-war, I never shall allow myself to be
subservient to the will of any Governor, nor coöperate with him in