the combined force of the enemy, wherever it may be necessary.”  The commander-in-chief, in short, wished to mass his forces, for the necessities of the general campaign, as he considered them.  Nelson now flatly refused obedience, on the ground of the local requirements in his part of the field.  “Your Lordship, at the time of sending me the order, was not informed of the change of affairs in the Kingdom of Naples, and that all our marines and a body of seamen are landed, in order to drive the French scoundrels out of the Kingdom, which, with God’s blessing will very soon be effected, when a part of this squadron shall be immediately sent to Minorca; but unless the French are at least drove from Capua, I think it right not to obey your Lordship’s order for sending down any part of the squadron under my orders.  I am perfectly aware of the consequences of disobeying the orders of my commander-in-chief.”  It cannot be said that the offensiveness of the act of disobedience is tempered by any very conciliatory tone in the words used.  The reason for disobedience makes matters rather worse.  “As I believe the safety of the Kingdom of Naples depends at the present moment on my detaining the squadron, I have no scruple in deciding that it is better to save the Kingdom of Naples and risk Minorca, than to risk the Kingdom of Naples to save Minorca.”  When he thus wrote, Nelson knew that Bruix had joined the Spanish fleet in Cartagena, making a combined force of forty ships, to which Keith, after stripping Minorca, could oppose thirty-one.

None of Nelson’s letters reached Keith until long after he had left the Mediterranean, which probably prevented the matter being brought to a direct issue between the two, such as would have compelled the Admiralty to take some decisive action.  On the 10th of July the commander-in-chief sailed from Port Mahon for Cartagena, following on the tracks of the allied fleets, which he pursued into the Atlantic and to Brest, where they succeeded in entering on the 13th of August, just twenty-four hours before the British came up.  The narrow margin of this escape inevitably suggests the thought, of how much consequence might have been the co-operation of the dozen ships Nelson could have brought.  It is true, certainly, as matters turned out, that even had he obeyed, they could not have accompanied Keith, nor in the event did any harm come to Minorca; but there was no knowledge in Nelson’s possession that made an encounter between the two great fleets impossible, nor was it till three days after his former refusal to obey, that he knew certainly that Keith had given up all expectation of a junction with himself.  Then, on the 22d of July, he received two letters dated the 14th, and couched in tones so peremptory as to suggest a suspicion that no milder words would enforce obedience—­that his Commander-in-chief feared that nothing short of cast-iron orders would drag him away from the Neapolitan Court.  “Your Lordship is hereby required and directed to repair