am blockading Genoa, according to the orders of the
Admiralty, and in the way I think most proper. Whether modern law or
ancient law makes my mode right, I cannot judge; and surely of the
mode of disposing of a fleet, I must, if I am fit for my post, be a
better judge than any landsman, however learned he may appear. It
would be the act of a fool to tell Europe where I intend to place the
ships, for the purpose of effectually obeying my orders; not a captain
can know it, and their positions will vary, according to the
information I may receive.... I endeavour, as well as I am able, to
obey my orders, without entering into the nice distinctions of
lawyers. I will not further take up your time on a subject which,
without being a lawyer, merely as a man, could have admitted of no
dispute." Along with much truth, there was in this a certain amount of
special pleading, as appeared when he took the further position that,
to intercept ships from Genoa, bound to the Atlantic, there was no
better place than the Gut of Gibraltar. When a definition of
international law is stretched as far as that, it will have little
elastic force left.

A petty, yet harassing, diplomatic difficulty, curiously illustrative
of maritime conditions at that day, ran unsettled through almost the
whole of his command. Malta, under the Knights, had been always at war
with the Barbary Powers; and there was trouble in impressing upon the
rulers of the latter that, when it passed into British hands, its
people and ships were under British protection. Several Maltese
vessels had been taken by Algerine cruisers, and their crews enslaved.
When Nelson came out in 1803, he found pending these cases, and also
the question of compelling, or inducing, the Dey to receive back the
British consul, whom he had expelled with insult. In the absence of a
British representative, the negotiations were intrusted wholly to the
admiral.

Nelson's feelings were strongly excited. He was tenacious of
everything he conceived to touch his country's honor, and long service
in the Mediterranean had made him familiar with the outrages on its
defenceless coasts practised by these barbarians, under the pretence
of war with the weaker states. Even in the remote and impoverished
north of Sardinia, the shepherds near the beaches watched their flocks
with arms beside them, day and night, to repel the attacks of
marauders from the sea. Not only were trading-vessels seized, but
descents w