Such circumstances are extremely liable to cause friction and bad blood, and St.Vincent, who with all his despotism was keenly alive to the just susceptibilities of meritorious officers, was very careful to explain to them that he had with the greatest reluctance yielded to the necessity of combining the preparations for defence under a single flag-officer, who should have no other care.

The innate tact, courtesy, and thoughtful consideration which distinguished Nelson, when in normal conditions, removed all other misunderstandings.

"The delicacy you have always shown to senior officers," wrote St.Vincent to him, "is a sure presage of your avoiding by every means in your power to give umbrage to Admiral Dickson, who seems disposed to judge favourably of the intentions of us all: it is, in truth, the most difficult card we have to play." "Happy should I be," he said at another time, "to place the whole of our offensive and defensive war under your auspices, but you are well aware of the difficulties on that head." From first to last there is no trace of a serious jar, and Nelson's instructions to his subordinates were such as to obviate the probability of any.

"I feel myself, my dear Lord," he wrote St.Vincent, relative to a projected undertaking on the Dutch coast, "as anxious to get a medal, or a step in the peerage as if I had never got either.

If I succeeded, and burnt the Dutch fleet, probably medals and an earldom.