Note 237 — Chapter VI
Reading edition
The story of the early life of Lord Nelson well illustrates the difficulties between the colonists, the Americans, and the English government. In 1784 Captain Nelson found himself, as commanding the Boreas frigate, the senior captain on the West India Station, under a general who hesitated about his duties, and was more than half inclined to support the enemies of England, and an admiral who candidly admitted he had not read the instructions from home under which he was bound to act. How Nelson solved the difficulty by simply enforcing the Acts of Parliament, and how Collingwood, in the Mediator, stood firmly by him, is well told by Southey in his ‘Life of Lord Nelson,’ pp. 54-60 (Bohn’s ed.).