was ever given by the commander-in-chief.  He appears as it were the latter’s unacknowledged representative ashore, a plenipotentiary without credentials.  “What my situation is,” he writes to a relative, “is not to be described.  I am everything, yet nothing ostensible; enjoying the confidence of Lord Hood and Colonel Villettes, and the captains landed with the seamen obeying my orders.”  A fortnight later he writes to Hood:  “Your Lordship knows exactly the situation I am in here.  With Colonel Villettes I have no reason but to suppose I am respected in the highest degree; nor have I occasion to complain of want of attention to my wishes from any parties; but yet I am considered as not commanding the seamen landed.  My wishes may be, and are, complied with; my orders would possibly be disregarded.  Therefore, if we move from hence, I would wish your Lordship to settle that point.  Your Lordship will not, I trust, take this request amiss:  I have been struggling with it since the first day I landed.”

Hood apparently gave him full satisfaction as regards his own view of the situation.  “I am happy,” Nelson wrote, when acknowledging his reply, “that my ideas of the situation I am in here so perfectly agree with your Lordship’s;” but he did not settle the matter by a decisive order.  His object, as he seems to have explained, was to bestow a certain amount of prominence upon a young captain, Hunt, who had recently lost his ship, and who, Hood thought, would be sooner provided with another, if he appeared as in command at the guns.  Nelson acceded to this arrangement with his usual generosity.  “Your kind intention to Captain Hunt,” he wrote, “I had the honour of telling your Lordship, should be furthered by every means in my power; and my regard for him, I assure you, is undiminished.  He is a most exceeding good young man, nor is any one more zealous for the service.  I don’t complain of any one, but an idea has entered into the heads of some under him, that his command was absolutely distinct from me; and that I had no authority over him, except as a request.”  Unfortunately, Hood, in his desire to serve Hunt, not only unduly but absurdly minimized Nelson’s relations to the whole affair.  His despatch ran:  “Captain Nelson, of his Majesty’s ship Agamemnon, who had the command and directions of the seamen in landing the guns, mortars and stores,[20] and Captain Hunt who commanded at the batteries,[20] ... have an equal claim to my gratitude.”  To limit Nelson’s share in the capture of Bastia to the purely subsidiary though important function of landing the guns, was as unjust as it was unnecessary to the interests of Hunt.  The latter, being second in command ashore, and afterwards sent home with the despatches, was sure to receive the reward customarily bestowed upon such services.