It is, however, quite certain that when the 51st regiment went on service in 1793, its general condition left nothing to be desired, since Moore had paid attention to such weeding-out of officers as was necessary when he first took up the command in 1790, and all young officers who joined afterwards were kept under his ever-watchful eye until he was sure of them. "He felt that a perfect knowledge and an exact performance of the humble, but important duties of a subaltern officer, are the best foundations for subsequent military fame";[13] and he required from his officers a punctilious attention to duty and a thorough knowledge of their profession, so that they might be looked up to and respected by the soldiers whom they were called upon to command. And, a perfect gentleman himself, he had no place in the 51st for any officer who was not the same. He was not a martinet, and he did not ride rough-shod over his officers and men, but he knew exactly when the occasion demanded a right enforcement of discipline, and when discipline could be relaxed without detriment to the "machine," which he proudly described, in September 1793, as being in as good order as he could get it. So much has been said here of Colonel Moore's characteristics,[14] because he was Sam Rice's first commanding officer, and because his teachings left their mark upon the man who served continuously with Moore's old regiment for thirty-eight years. To return to affairs in the Mediterranean: Colonel Moore, as senior officer with the reinforcements which joined Lord Hood's fleet in Hyères Bay, immediately went on board the _Victory_, and reported his arrival to the Admiral, who somewhat churlishly remarked that the reinforcements were meagre and had arrived too late to be of any use. He forgot that the delay was due to dilatoriness on the part of his own naval officers, and he forgot also that had the reinforcements arrived a fortnight earlier, they could not have prevented the evacuation of Toulon, since, on the 16th December, the enemy had captured the forts which dominated the anchorage of the British fleet.