Summing up with admirable lucidity the facts before him, and thereby proving that the impression under which Cornwallis's action probably was taken was erroneous, he said: "Unless you have much weightier reasons than the order of Admiral Cornwallis, or that you receive orders from the Admiralty, it is my most positive directions that neither you, or any ship under your orders, do molest or interrupt in any manner the lawful commerce of Spain, with whom we are at perfect peace and amity." It is permissible, because instructive, to note that in this order, while Nelson amply provides for discretion on the part of his subordinate, he throws the full weight of his authority on the difficult horn of a possible dilemma, the act--so momentous to an officer--of disobedience to a present superior; in this case the captain sent by Cornwallis.

Contrast this with the Government's orders to the commander of the troops at Malta, when it wished him to send a garrison to Messina.[77] Instead of saying, "You will send so many men, _unless_ you think you _cannot_ spare them," its orders ran: "You will send, _if_ you think you _can_ spare them." Of course, as Nelson invariably experienced, an officer addressed in the latter style found always a lion in his path.

So his orders to Gore were not, "Obey, _if_" but "Disobey, _unless_;" and Gore knew, as every man in the Mediterranean knew by long trial, that, if he disobeyed, he would have at his back, through thick and thin, the first sea-officer in Great Britain.

But Nelson's orders were always stamped with the positive, daring, lucid character of his genius and its conceptions; and so, except in unworthy hands, they were fulfilled in spirit as well as in letter.
An interesting illustration of this trenchant clearness is to be found in instructions given to the captain of the "Donegal," an eighty-gun ship, sent under very critical circumstances to cruise off Cadiz, in September, 1803.

It appears to the author not only characteristic of Nelson, but a perfect example of the kind of directions a junior would wish to have in a difficult case, when desirous to carry out the spirit of his superior's orders.