"At this moment," wrote Nelson some few months later, "there are nearly fifty sail employed in the trade between the Islands of St.
Kitts, Nevis, and America, which are truly British built, owned, and navigated.

Had I been an idle spectator, my firm belief is that not a single vessel would have belonged to those islands in the foreign trade." His own action was further endorsed by the ministry, which now gave captains of ships-of-war much more extensive powers, thereby justifying his contention that it was within their office to enforce the Navigation Act.

Nor was this increased activity of the executive branch of the government the only result of Nelson's persistence.

His sagacious study of the whole question, under the local conditions of the West Indies, led to his making several suggestions for more surely carrying out the spirit of the Law; and these were embodied the next year in a formal Act of the Legislature.
With so vivid a career as that of Nelson ahead, the delay imposed by this wrangling episode is somewhat dreary; but it undeniably shows his characteristics in the strongest light.

Duty, not ease; honor, not gain; the ideal, not the material,--such, not indeed without frailty and blemish, were ever his motives.