Possible Clues:

• Authority in the main a young chap backed around community
• Officer is to think highly of everyone hiding their bottoms
• Rodney, perhaps, might mean very well by dropping out
• Eg, Nelson
• Benbow, say, like Crichton lacking breadth and energy
• For one the fleet, but not the fleet of foot
• Supreme commander of a fleet
• Supreme naval commander
• Stopped short to look with pleasure at a large butterfly
• One's at sea, but red in the air