ing his ship out
of the line at Cape St. Vincent without waiting for signals. After
that day and the Nile he could afford to take liberties, and sometimes
took them with less justification than in his early career.

When the Moutray question arose, Nelson was already engaged in a more
far-reaching dispute, not only with his commander-in-chief, but with
the colonial authorities and the popular sentiment of the West India
Islands. Like most men, great and small, he shared the prepossessions
of his day and generation; differing, however, from others, in that he
held his opinions as principles, from asserting which he was not to be
deterred by the ill-will or dislike of those immediately about him.
Upon arriving in the West Indies he found nourishing a system of trade
extremely beneficial to the islands, but which his education condemned
as hurtful to Great Britain, as it certainly was contrary to then
existing laws that had for a century previous regulated the commerce
of the kingdom. In 1784, a year only had elapsed since the United
States had been formally recognized as independent, thereby becoming,
in British estimation as well as in their own, a nation foreign to the
British flag. By the Navigation Laws, first established by Cromwell,
but continued under the restored monarchy without serious modification
until 1794, trade with the Colonies was reserved to vessels built in
Great Britain or her dependencies, and manned in three-fourths part by
British subjects. The chief object and advantage of the law were
conceived to be, not merely a monopoly of the trade,--concerning the
economical wisdom of which serious doubts began to be felt,--but the
fostering of the British merchant service as a nursery of seamen, upon
whom, in time of war, the navy could draw. The military strength of
the Empire was thought to be involved in the enforcement of the
Navigation Act.[9]

Before the United States declared their independence, they, as British
colonies, enjoyed the privilege of trading with their fellow-colonists
under what was then the common flag; and the nearness of the two
regions contributed to the advantage of both in this traffic, in which
the continental communities were the chief suppliers of many articles
essential to the islands, notably provisions and lumber. This mutual
intercourse and dependence promoted a sympathy which was scarcely
disguised in the West Indies during the War of Independence; indeed,
Nelson wrote th