letter to his friend Locker:  “Sir Richard Hughes was a delicate business.  I must either disobey my orders, or disobey Acts of Parliament, which the admiral was disobeying.  I determined upon the former, trusting to the uprightness of my intention.  In short, I wrote the Admiral that I should decline obeying his orders, till I had an opportunity of seeing and talking to him, at the same time making him an apology.”

Hughes’s first impulse was to supersede his recalcitrant subordinate, and bring him to trial.  He learned, however, that many of the other captains, of whom the court must be formed, shared his junior’s views, although they shrank, with the submissiveness of military men, from the decisive act of disobedience.  The result of a trial must therefore be doubtful.  He was, moreover, a fiddler, as Nelson continually styled him, shifting back and forth, from opinion to opinion, and to be relied upon for only one thing,—­to dodge responsibility, if possible.  Consequently, no official action was taken; the commander-in-chief contented himself with washing his hands of all accountability.  He had given orders which would clear himself, in case Nelson’s conduct was censured in England.  If, on the contrary, it was approved, it would redound to the credit of the station.

The matter was soon brought to a test.  The governors and all the officials, particularly of the Custom House, resented the action of the naval officers; but the vigilance of the latter so seriously interrupted the forbidden traffic under American colors, that recourse was had to giving British registers to the vessels concerned, allowing them to trade under British flags.  This, however, was equally contrary to the Navigation Act, which forbade British registry to foreign-built ships, except when prizes taken in war; and the disguise wast too thin to baffle men like Collingwood and Nelson.  The latter reported the practice to the home Government, in order that any measures deemed necessary might be taken.  Meanwhile he patiently persisted in turning away all vessels, not British built, which he encountered, confining himself for the time to this merely passive prevention; but finding at last that this was not a sufficient deterrent, he gave notice that after the 1st of May, 1785, he would seize all American vessels trading to the islands, “let them be registered by whom they might.”  Accordingly, on the 2d of May he arrested an American-built schooner, owned in Philadelphia and manned entirely by Americans, but having a British register issued at the island of St. Christopher.

The Crown lawyer was now called upon to prosecute the suit.  He expressed grave doubts as to a naval captain’s power to act by virtue simply of his commission, the sole authority alleged by the captor; and, although he proceeded with the case, his manner so betrayed his uncertainty that Nelson felt it necessary to plead for himself.  To the confusion of all opponents the judge decided in his favor, saying he had an undoubted right to seize vessels transgressing the Navigation Laws.  The principle thus established, Nelson on the 23d of the same month, at the island of Nevis, upon the same grounds, seized four vessels,—­one of which had been registered at Dominica by Governor Orde, a naval captain senior in rank to himself, and with whom he came into unpleasant contact upon several occasions in his later life.