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