t as your judgment may direct you, and I am sure that
will be very proper. Only recollect, that it would be much
better to let the French Ships escape, than to run too great a
risk of losing the Donegal, yourself, and the Ship's company.

I am, &c.

NELSON AND BRONTE.

This letter fulfils his own request to the Admiralty: "All I wish and
submit to their Lordships is, that if the business is left to me, my
orders may be decisive."

Later in the same day that Nelson received Gore's letter, the
Admiralty's orders arrived, sent, as despatches too often were, by a
vessel so small and slow that it would seem they counted upon her
insignificance to elude an enemy's notice. The delay served, as has
been said, to give proof of the rapidity of Nelson's action; the
receipt of the orders enabled him also to show how much clearer were
his conceptions of adequacy than those of ordinary men. To stop
treasure-ships, or to embargo merchant-ships, when difficulty was
threatening, was no new idea to the British Government. The latter had
been done with Baltic merchantmen at the time of the Armed Neutrality.
In the case of Spain, it was a measure particularly efficacious, for
the financial solvency and belligerent capacity of that country
depended upon the galleons, which brought to her the tribute of her
colonies; and her relations and dealings with France at this time were
so partial and suspicious as to justify precautions. Evidently,
however, such a step, being avowedly preventive and not offensive,
should be taken in such a way as to avert all chance of possible
disaster. Several Spanish frigates being expected, the British
Government charged four vessels of the same rate with the task of
arresting them. Nelson, the instant he got his orders, detached to the
spot an eighty-gun ship, to which he added four other cruisers,
thinking, as he said in his orders to the captain selected, that "this
is a service of the highest importance, and that an officer of your
rank and experience should be employed therein." With such odds
against him, the Spanish commander would need no military
justification for submission. As it was, he resisted, necessitating a
fight, which under the circumstances was barbarous and brutal, and
ended in one of the Spanish vessels blowing up with several women on
board; a result due wholly to the blundering lack of foresight which
sent a corporal's guard to do the work of a sheriff's posse.