Nelson was disgusted that his consent should have been awaited.

"The English seldom get much by negotiation except the being laughed at, which we have been; and I don't like it.

Had we taken, which in my opinion we ought to have done, the men-of-war and convoy, worth at least L300,000, how much better we could have negotiated:--given the Bey L50,000, he would have been glad to have put up with the insult offered to his dignity;" and he plainly intimates his dissatisfaction with Linzee.

This irresponsible and irreflective outburst was, however, only an instance of the impatience his enterprising, energetic spirit always felt when debarred from prompt action, whether by good or bad reasons; for almost on the same day he expresses the sounder judgment: "Had we latterly attempted to take them I am sure the Bey would have declared against us, and done our trade some damage." No advantage could have accrued from the seizure of the French vessels, at all proportioned to the inconvenience of having the hostility of Tunis, flanking as it did the trade routes to the Levant.
The British had then quite enough on their hands, without detaching an additional force from the north coast of the Mediterranean, to support a gratuitous quarrel on the south.

As a matter of mere policy it would have been ill-judged.
Nelson, however, did not as yet at all realize the wideness of the impending struggle, for it was in these very letters that he expressed a wish to exchange to the West Indies.