again for the north, where the
Virgin Islands, with those of Montserrat, Nevis, and St. Christopher,
were put under his especial charge,--the sloop "Rattler," Captain
Wilfred Collingwood, a brother of the well-known admiral, being
associated with the "Boreas." At first the two officers confined their
action to warning off American vessels, and at times forcing them to
leave ports where they had anchored; but they found that either the
vessels returned during the absence of the ships of war, or that
permissions to land, upon what they thought trivial grounds, were
given by the Customs' officials, in virtue of the exceptions to the
law above mentioned.

There matters stood until the 11th of January, 1785, Nelson acting by
the authority of the commander-in-chief, but exercising his own
discretion, and with forbearance, in carrying out his instructions. On
the day named he received another order from the admiral, modifying
the first upon the grounds of a more mature consideration, and of "the
opinion of the King's Attorney-General" in the islands. Nelson was now
directed, in case of a foreign merchant-ship coming within the limits
of his station, to cause her to anchor near his own vessel and to
report her arrival, and situation in all respects, to the governor of
the colony where he then was; "and if, after such report shall have
been made and received, the governor or his representative shall think
proper to admit the said foreigner into the port or harbour of the
island where you may be, _you are on no account to hinder or prevent
such foreign vessel from going in accordingly, or to interfere any
further in her subsequent proceedings_."

Here the admiral not only raised, but also decided, the point as to
whether the enforcement of the Navigation Act rested with naval
officers, or was vested only in the civil authorities of the islands.
Nelson was convinced that an essential part of the duty of ships of
war, and especially when peace took from them so much of their
military function, was to afford to the commerce of the nation proper
protection, of which a necessary feature, according to the ideas of
the age, was the interdiction of foreign traders. A seaman, he
plausibly argued, could decide better than an unprofessional man the
questions of injuries and distress upon which the unlawful traffic
largely hinged. "In judging of their distress, no person can know
better than the sea officers," he wrote to Hughes. "The gov