to action, and the
enemy were forced back into port.

One such incident was far from ending the ordeal through which the
admiral had to pass, and which was prolonged throughout the period of
the Cadiz blockade. In May, 1798, when Nelson was sent into the
Mediterranean to win the Battle of the Nile, the detachment committed to
him was replaced by a dozen ships-of-the-line from the Channel, seething
with the mutinous temper which at home had been humored rather than
scotched. Immediately on their joining, request was made for a Court
Martial on some men of the _Marlborough_, on board which two violent
mutinies had occurred,--one on the passage out. St. Vincent, having
known beforehand that this ship had been pre-eminent for
insubordination, had ordered her anchored in the centre of the fleet,
between the two lines in which it was ranged; and the Court met without
delay. The remainder of the incident is quoted substantially from one of
St. Vincent's biographers, for it illustrates most forcibly the
sternness of his action, as well when dealing with weakness in officers
as with mutiny in crews. The written order to the commander of the
division of launches appears among the earl's papers, as does also a
similar one in the case of a mutiny on board the _Defence_ some months
earlier. The ulterior object of parading these boats was kept profoundly
secret. They appeared to be only part of the pageantry, of the solemn
ceremonial, with which the wisdom of the great commander-in-chief
providently sought to invest all exhibitions of authority, in order to
deepen impression.

The object of the last mutiny on board the _Marlborough_ had been to
protect the life of a seaman forfeited by a capital crime. No sooner was
one sentenced to die than the commander-in-chief ordered him to be
executed on the following morning, "and by the crew of the _Marlborough_
alone, no part of the boats' crews from the other ships, as had been
used on similar occasions, to assist in the punishment,--his lordship's
invariable order on the execution of mutineers. On the receipt of the
necessary commands for this execution, Captain Ellison of the
_Marlborough_ waited upon the commander-in-chief, and reminding his
lordship that a determination that their shipmates should not suffer
capital punishment had been the very cause of the ship's company's
mutiny, expressed his conviction that the _Marlborough's_ crew would
never permit the man to be hanged on board