to see clearly any beams in his own eye.  “I observe with great pain that their Lordships see no cause which could justify my disobeying the orders of my commanding officer, Lord Keith;” but the motives he again alleges are but the repetition of those already quoted.  He fails wholly to realize that convictions which would justify a man in going to a martyr’s fate may be wholly inadequate to sap the fundamental military obligation of obedience.  “My conduct is measured by the Admiralty, by the narrow rule of law, when I think it should have been done by that of common sense.  I restored a faithful ally by breach of orders; Lord Keith lost a fleet by obedience against his own sense.  Yet as one is censured the other must be approved.  Such things are.”  As a matter of fact, as before said, it was by departing from St. Vincent’s orders that Keith lost the French fleet.  Nor did Nelson’s mind work clearly on the subject.  Thwarted and fretted as he continually was by the too common, almost universal, weakness, which deters men from a bold initiative, from assuming responsibility, from embracing opportunity, he could not draw the line between that and an independence of action which would convert unity of command into anarchy.  “Much as I approve of strict obedience to orders, yet to say that an officer is never, for any object, to alter his orders, is what I cannot comprehend.”  But what rational man ever said such a thing?  “I find few think as I do,—­but to obey orders is all perfection!  What would my superiors direct, did they know what is passing under my nose?  To serve my King and to destroy the French I consider as the great order of all, from which little ones spring, and if one of these little ones militate against it, I go back to obey the great order.”  There is so much that is sound in these words, and yet so much confusion might arise in applying them, that scarcely any stronger evidence could be given that each case must rest on its own merits; and that no general rule can supplant the one general principle of obedience, by which alone unity and concentration of effort, the great goal of all military movement, can be obtained.

During this period of agitation and excitement, Nelson’s health did not show the favorable symptoms that usually attended a call to exertion.  Much may be attributed to a Mediterranean summer, especially after the many seasons he had passed in that sea; but it can readily be believed that such exceptional responsibilities as he had just assumed could not but tell, even upon his resolute and fearless temper.  “I am really sorry,” wrote Troubridge to him, from the siege of St. Elmo, “to see your Lordship so low-spirited, all will go well;” and a few days later, “Your Lordship must endeavour to fret as little as possible—­we shall succeed.  His Majesty’s arrival will relieve your Lordship; and if he punishes the guilty, the people will be happy.”  The day after he had refused to obey Keith’s order, he wrote to him, “I am truly so very