it.  Now every means to ensure success is provided; another is to reap the credit; while it is probable that I, with the capital ships, might be ordered to cruise in such a manner as to prevent his failing in this attempt.  To fit out his ships for this service I have been kept here,[5] and even now have their Lordships’ directions, at least in terms, to obey him.  He is to judge of what he wants for his expedition; he is to make his demands, and I am to comply with them.  I have therefore directed my flag immediately to be struck, and left their Lordships’ orders with Vice-Admiral Holburne.  For no consequence that can attend my striking it without orders shall ever outbalance with me the wearing it one moment with discredit.

      I am, etc. 
      E. HAWKE.

It is impossible to justify so extreme a step as abandoning one’s command without permission, and especially under circumstances that permitted the orderly course of asking for detachment.  Nevertheless, Hawke did well to be angry; and, as is sometimes the case, an injudicious and, in point of occasion, unseemly loss of temper, doubtless contributed to insure for him in the future, to a degree which forbearance or mere remonstrance would not have assured, the consideration essential to his duties.  Many will remember the effect produced by Plimsoll’s unparliamentary outbreak.  The erroneous impression, that admirals and generals fit to be employed at all were to be ridden booted and spurred, needed correction.  Hawke had misapprehended the intention of the Government, in so far as believing that the light squadron was to be employed in Basque Roads, the scene of last year’s failure; but he was right in thinking that intrusting the enterprise to another, on that occasion his junior, would be a reflection upon himself, intensified by making the command practically independent, while he was limited to the covering duty.  Under these circumstances, erroneously imagined by him, the squadron should have been attached to his command, and the particular direction left to him; the Government giving to him, instead of to Howe, the general orders which it issued, and arranging with him beforehand as to the command of the detached squadron.

But even under the actual conditions, of an intention to operate on the western Channel coast of France, it would have been graceful and appropriate to recognize Hawke’s eminent past, and recent experience, by keeping under his command the ships he had himself fitted for the service, and directing him to despatch Howe with the necessary instructions.  It was as in the Nile campaign, where the general directions were sent to St. Vincent, with a clear expression of the Government’s preference for Nelson as the officer to take charge.  The intended scene of Howe’s operations, if not formally within Hawke’s district, was far less distant from Brest than Toulon and Italy were from Cadiz, where St. Vincent covered Nelson’s detachment.  In the wish for secrecy,