Being senior to Nelson, and of course to Bickerton, he could only have this position by reducing the latter's station, which had extended to Cape Finisterre.

The line between the two commands was drawn at the Straits' mouth, a rather vague phrase, but Gibraltar was left with Nelson.

Orde thus got the station for prize-money, and Nelson that for honor, which from youth until now he most valued.

"The arrangement," wrote his friend, Lord Radstock, "will be a death-stroke to his hopes of the galleons; but as your chief has ever showed himself to be as great a despiser of riches as he is a lover of glory, I am fully convinced in my own mind that he would sooner defeat the French fleet than capture fifty galleons." Nevertheless, Nelson was sorely aggrieved, and complained bitterly to his correspondents.

"I have learnt not to be surprised at anything; but the sending an officer to such a point, to take, if it is a Spanish war, the whole harvest, after all my trials (God knows unprofitable enough! for I am a much poorer man than when we started in the Amphion,) seems a little hard: but _patienza_." "He is sent off Cadiz to reap the golden harvest, as Campbell was to reap my sugar harvest.