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OFnglisiJ Mm nf miction 
 
 NELSON 
 
First Edition 1895. Reprinted 1895, 1904, 1909 
 Reprinted {Prize Library) 1900 
 
HORATIO NELSON 
 After the Portrait by J, t£opp7ier in St. James s Palace 
 
■NELSON' 
 
 BY ^ 
 
 JOHN KNOX LAUGHTON 
 
 MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 
 ST. MARTIN'S STREET, LONDON 
 
 1909 
 
1>f, 
 
 
 HENRY MORSE STEFHEIlf 
 
NOTE 
 
 The chief authorities for Nelson's professional life are 
 Nicolas's Despatches and Letters of Lord Nelson (7 vols. 8vo, 
 1844-6) and James's Naval History, checked by ships' logs, 
 pay-books, etc. etc., the official correspondence of Lord Hood, 
 Lord St. Vincent, Lord Keith, Sir William Hamilton, and 
 others, now in the Public Kecord Office, and by the French 
 narratives in Victoires et GonquStes, etc.. Chevalier's Histoire 
 de la Marine Frangaise, and Troude's Batailles Navales de la 
 France. For his private life the principal authority is The 
 Hamilton-Nelson Papers (2 vols. Bvo, 1894), privately printed 
 for Mr. Alfred Morrison from his splendid collection of 
 original MSS. Many of these have been used by Mr. J. C. 
 Jeafifreson in his Lady Hamilton and Lord Nelson (2 vols, 
 post 8vo, 1888) and The Queen of Naples and Lord Nelson 
 (2 vols, post 8vo, 1889). The account of the watering the 
 fleet at Syracuse and the estimate of Lady Hamilton's public 
 services here given, follow a discussion of these questions in 
 The United Service Magazine for April and May 1889. The 
 ponderous Life by Clarke and M 'Arthur (2 vols, royal 4to, 
 1808), which has been the basis of all later Lives, can only 
 be read with great caution, owing to the easy and uncritical 
 attitude of the authors. Many of the anecdotes introduced 
 in it are demonstrably mere galley -yarns, many are cer- 
 tainly incorrectly told, and many rest on very doubtful 
 authority. But very many of the anecdotes in common 
 circulation are derived from the Life (2 vols. 8vo, 1806) by 
 Harrison, who wrote it to the order of Lady Hamilton, by 
 way of magnifying her claims on the Government. It is not 
 too much to say that the book is "a pack of lies," and that 
 no one statement in it can be accepted unless it is independ- 
 ently confirmed from other sources. 
 
 'AOl 
 
 478 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 Family and Early Sp:rvice ..... 1 
 
 PAGE 
 
 CHAPTER II 
 North America and the West Indies . . . 24 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 Corsica . .^ 
 
 • 46 
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 The Gulf of Genoa . «« 
 
 • - . DO 
 
 CHAPTER V 
 St. Valentine's Day . oo 
 
NELSON 
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 The Battle of the Nile 
 
 PAGE 
 . 100 
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 Naples and Palekmo ...... 125 
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 The Battle of the Baltic 
 
 151 
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 The Mediteuiianean Command 
 
 176 
 
 CHAPTER X 
 The Pursuit to the West Indies . 
 
 196 
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 Trafalgar 
 
 208 
 
CHAPTER I 
 
 FAMILY AND EARLY SERVICE 
 
 lijj O c tobe r , 1781, t ho f or teiea^-Eaglaiitd-seemed to have 
 r eached their lowest l evel War abroad and faction at 
 home had pretty ^elLdone- their worst for a country 
 ruled V^yjoh^pT-y flnrl rnrrjgpf.mn Lord George Germain, 
 branded by a court-martial as "incapable of serving His 
 Majesty in any military capacity," was Secretary for 
 War ; and the Earl of Sandwich, 
 
 spared by Fate 
 Only to show, on mercy's plan, 
 How far and long God bears with man, 
 
 was First Lord of the Admiralty. When experienced 
 generals, pitted against each other by the insolence of 
 the one, held divided command with no unity of counsel ; 
 when the noblest admirals, feeling neither life nor honour 
 safe under the rule of the other, implored the King to 
 excuse them from service, it is not to be wondered at 
 that the results were big with ruin and dismay. The 
 war against the revolted provinces of North America, 
 assisted by France, Spain, and Holland and supported 
 a B 
 
NELSON 
 
 by the Northern Confederation, seemed as though on 
 the point of ending in the utter subversion of the 
 Empire. The drawn battle on the Doggerbank had 
 shown us unable to crush even the Dutch ; and the 
 French victory off the mouth of the Chesapeake had 
 ensured the independence of the colonies. And as if to 
 mark the period, Lord Hawke, who twenty years before 
 had raised our naval power to its greatest height, — 
 Lord Hawke died on October 17th. 
 
 When on the 18th Horace Walpole wrote, "Lord 
 Hawke is dead, and does not seem to have bequeathed 
 his mantle to anybody," no one would have been more 
 surprised than himself had he been told that the mantle 
 had fallen on a little, insignificant -looking and badly- 
 dressed cousin of his own ; a young captain, for whom 
 family interest had procured early promotion, but who 
 " was still absolutely unknown, even in the Navy, except 
 by the few commanding officers who had troubled them- 
 selves to think of the abilities of a subordinate. Many 
 years, indeed, w^ere still to pass before it was revealed 
 to the world that Hawke's brightest attributes had 
 descended to Nelson, and that the pupil of Locker, 
 Hawke's lieutenant, was to raise the renown of the 
 British Navy to a still greater height by a victory tran- 
 scending even that of Quiberon Bay. 
 
 Horatio Nelson, fifth son of the Eeverend Edmund 
 Nelson, Eector of Burnham Thorpe in the county of 
 Norfolk, was born at Burnham Thorpe on September 29th, 
 1758. The doctrine of hereditary transmission of genius 
 seems to find but little support in his pedigree. On the 
 father's side he was of a family of parsons. His grand- 
 father, Edmund Nelson, was Eector of Hilborough in 
 
FAMILY HISTORY 
 
 Norfolk ; his father, also Edmund, was likewise Eector of 
 Hilborough, as well as of Burnham Thorpe, Burnham St. 
 Albert, and Wolterton ; two of his brothers were clergy- 
 men, and two of his aunts, his father's sisters, married 
 clergymen ; all, so far as is known, most commonplace 
 men, men who did their duty in their station of life, 
 but without a spark of talent or genius to accredit their 
 relationship. 
 
 The mother's side is more promising. Mrs. Nelson's 
 father, also a clergyman. Dr. Maurice Suckling, Pre- 
 bendary of Westminster and Rector of Wooton in Nor- 
 folk, was grandnephew of that Sir John Suckling whose 
 early death may have prevented his reputation as a poet 
 standing higher than it even now does. There had 
 been other men of ability in the family. Robert, Dr. 
 Suckling's grandfather, was Sheriff of Norfolk in 1664; 
 Maurice, Dr. Suckling's son, the brother of Mrs. Nelson, 
 served in the navy with some distinction, and when in 
 command of the Dreadnought took part in a gallant little 
 action which made some noise at the time. 
 
 In October, 1757, Captain Forrest in the Princess 
 Augusta^ with the Dreadnought and Edinburgh, all 60-gun 
 ships, was detached by the admiral at Jamaica to cruise 
 off Cape Francois, in order to intercept the homeward- 
 bound trade on the point of sailing for France. The 
 escort, however, proved stronger than was expected, and 
 on the 21st, a day to be afterwards still more famous 
 in the annals of the Nelson family, it put to sea in 
 advance of the convoy, in order to capture, destroy, or 
 drive off the English cruisers. It consisted of four ships 
 of the line and three large frigates. When Forrest 
 made them out, he summoned his two colleagues, Suck- 
 
NELSON 
 
 ling and Langdon, to a consultation which is said to 
 have lasted just half a minute. As they met on the 
 quarter-deck of the Princess Augusta^ Forrest said, 
 " Well, gentlemen, you see they are come out to engage 
 us." Suckling replied, "I think it would be a pity 
 to disappoint them " ; Langdon agreed with him, and 
 Forrest closed the conference with, " Very well then ; 
 go on board your ships again." And so forming line, 
 the Dreadnought leading, the three ships ran down to 
 attack the seven. A severe action followed, and after 
 about three hours the French drew off, the English not 
 being able to follow. They had twenty-three men killed 
 and about a hundred wounded, many of them danger- 
 ously ; their masts and rigging were cut to pieces ; the 
 Dreadnought had lost her main and mizen topmasts ; they 
 were in no state to keep the sea, and were obliged to 
 return to Jamaica. The object of the French com- 
 modore, M. de Kersaint, was really gained, for after he 
 had repaired his damage, his convoy was able to sail 
 without molestation ; but the credit of the action rested 
 with Forrest and his companions, who had not hesitated 
 to attack a very superior force, and had fought it without 
 disadvantage. 
 
 Captain Suckling's mother, the wife of Dr. Suckling, 
 was Anne, daughter of Sir Charles Turner, Baronet, of 
 Warham in Norfolk, by Mary, sister of Sir Eobert 
 Walpole, K.G., for so many years First Lord of the 
 Treasury, created Earl of Orford in 1742, and of Horatio 
 Walpole, created Lord Walpole of Wolterton in 1756, 
 whose son Horatio, second Lord Walpole of Wolterton, 
 and afterwards Earl of Orford, was godfather and name- 
 father to his little cousin, or, in strictness, his first cousin 
 
STORY OF HIS NAME 
 
 twice removed. The relationship, though becoming 
 distant, had always been recognised : the family feeling 
 had been kept up ; and it was the Walpoles that, by the 
 presentation of Edmund Nelson to the several rectories 
 of Burnham Thorpe, Burnham St. Albert, and Wolterton, 
 had ensured a provision for Catharine Suckling's hus- 
 band, as they had probably done before for her father 
 and her brother. 
 
 About the name of Horatio there is a little to be said. 
 Sir Edward Walpole, the father of Eobert and Horatio, 
 of Mary and another daughter, Dorothy, was the com- 
 panion in arms during the Civil War of Sir Horatio 
 Townshend, first Viscount Townshend, who was the 
 name -father of Walpole's son Horatio, and the father 
 of Charles, second Viscount Townshend, who married 
 Walpole's daughter Dorothy. The name Horatio, which 
 came into the Nelson family from the Walpoles, came 
 into the Walpole family from the Townshends, to whom 
 it came from the Veres, by the marriage of Sir Eoger 
 Townshend (father of Sir Horatio, first Viscount Town- 
 shend) with Mary, daughter and heiress of Sir Horatio 
 Vere, Lord Vere of Tilbury, who was knighted by the 
 Earl of Essex at Cadiz in 1596. And thus, though there 
 was no known blood-relationship. Nelson was connected 
 by the rites of the Church and old family friendship 
 with ''the fighting Veres," carrying memory back to 
 the sack of Cadiz, and with Sir Roger Townshend, who 
 was knighted by Lord Howard on the quarter-deck of the 
 Ark during the battles with the Spanish Armada. 
 
 There is another possible, and indeed probable, rela- 
 tionship which would connect the Nelson family still 
 more closely with early naval achievement. They had 
 
NELSON 
 
 been settled for many generations in North Norfolk, 
 and must have intermarried with North Norfolk 
 families, and among others with those from which 
 sprang Shovell, Narbrough, Myngs, and Fisher, who 
 were certainly related to most of the minor gentry all 
 round Blakeney. It is no stretch of imagination to 
 suggest that this relationship included the Nelsons ; and 
 that the aptitude for naval affairs, the genius for naval 
 command which distinguished Horatio Nelson, was a 
 reversion to the earlier type which first broke through 
 the French line at Barfleur, led Eupert's attack on the 
 Dutch off the North Foreland, or steered the Margaret 
 and John into the thick of the Spanish galleons in the 
 battle of Gravelines. 
 
 The family of the Eev. Edmund Nelson was a large 
 one. It numbered eleven in all, boys and girls ] but of 
 these, three died in infancy, and four others before 
 Horatio, three of them unmarried, the fourth married 
 but leaving no child. Three were still alive at the time 
 of Horatio's death : William, seventeen months older 
 than himself, the companion of his infancy and of his 
 school-days, his friend and correspondent through life, 
 a clergyman. Prebendary and Vice-Dean of Canterbury, 
 created Earl Nelson of Trafalgar after his brother's 
 death; Susanna, born in 1755, who married in 1780 Mr. 
 Thomas Bolton, to whose son the title passed on the 
 failure of William's male descendants ; and Catherine, 
 born in 1767, who in 1787 married Mr. George Matcham 
 and had issue. Mrs. Nelson died in December 1767, a 
 few months after Catherine's birth, her eldest living son, 
 Maurice, being then a little over fourteen, and Horatio 
 just nine. 
 
ENTERS THE NA VV 
 
 Of Nelson's childhood we really know very little. 
 He himself has chronicled that he was at the grammar- 
 school at Norwich, and afterwards at North "VYalsham, 
 where a brick in the wall is still pointed out, marked 
 with the letters H. N. Many years later Captain 
 George Manby wrote that he had been Nelson's school- 
 fellow at Downham ; but the recollections of an old man 
 are not always to be trusted, and in any case, as Nelson 
 himself did not remember it, it must have been for a 
 very short time and in his infancy. It appears certain 
 that North Walsham was his last school, and probable 
 that he went to it in the January after his mother's 
 death. As to the many anecdotes of his childhood, they 
 have either been made to order, or are exaggerations of 
 old family jokes. That he told his grandmother he had 
 seen nothing to be afraid of, and that his grandmother 
 repeated it as something grand ; that he stole the pears 
 out of his schoolmaster's garden, and jeered at his school- 
 fellows for not venturing, and such like, may be true 
 enough, without being worth repeating : many a little 
 fellow has said or done the same, and many a grand- 
 mother has asserted her belief that there never was 
 such a boy. We approach the domain of known fact 
 when, on November 17th, 1770, Captain Suckling was 
 appointed to the command of the 64:-gun ship Baisonnablef 
 and on January 1st, 1771, entered his little nephew on 
 her books as a midshipman. 
 
 Just then there was some excitement in the Navy, 
 which had been in a state of dull quietude for the last 
 seven years, since the Peace of Paris. The action of 
 Spain in June, 1770, forcibly seizing the Falkland Islands 
 and ejecting the English garrison, had disturbed this 
 
NELSON 
 
 repose. The Civis Romanus theory was in the air. Spain 
 was to be taught that she could not be allowed to settle 
 international questions in this arbitrary manner where 
 England was concerned. Many ships were put in com- 
 mission, and no doubt, on joining the RaisonnaUe at 
 Chatham, the young midshipman heard a good deal about 
 bringing " the haughty Dons " to reason. The haughty 
 Dons were, however, sufficiently reasonable to understand 
 that they had provoked a storm which they could not 
 stand against unaided. France, whatever might be her 
 goodwill, was not then prepared to support her with arms, 
 and so Spain withdrew her pretensions and her troops. 
 The English soldiers returned to Port Egmont, and the 
 matter happily ended with the paying off of several of 
 the ships which had been specially commissioned. Suck- 
 ling was turned over to the Triumphj the guardship in 
 the Medway, and took his nephew with him, this time 
 in the rating of "c aptain's ser vant.'^ 
 — — At-tbairdate therewere two officially recognised ways 
 for a young gentleman to join the Navy. One was as a 
 midshipman from the Eoyal Academy at Portsmouth, 
 after a two years' course of study ; the other, and more 
 usual, was as captain's servant, which did not and was 
 not understood to convey any idea of menial duties, 
 but simply of dependence. Nothing was more common 
 than for the captain's son or brother, cousin or, as in 
 this case, nephew, to be also the captain's servant; and 
 as with his own relations, so also was it with those of his 
 friends. The custom was as old as any organisation in 
 the Navy ; but towards the end of Queen Elizabeth's 
 reign, when it was found that the privilege was abused, 
 and that captains entered servants in excessive numbers. 
 
I 
 
 CAPTAIN'S SERVANT 
 
 a limit was fixed at t^YO for every fifty or part of fifty in the 
 ship's company ; and so it continued, with scarcely a break, 
 for two hundred years. It did, of course, bring into the 
 service many officers of the best class ; but it also added 
 largely to the emoluments of the captain, who received 
 the pay of his servants, their necessary expenses being 
 provided for by an allowance from their friends. In a 
 similar way, other officers were allowed to enter their 
 own servant, — that is, to bring a young relation into the 
 service, and have him trained, according to the custom 
 of the time, as a "naval cadet." In a court-martial held 
 in 1777, it was incidentally stated that the master's 
 servant was doing duty as a quarter-deck petty officer, — 
 that is, as a midshipman — and that the young man was 
 the master's brother. 
 
 Besides these, the officially prescribed ways for a 
 young gentleman to enter the Nav}^, a large number 
 entered in some other irregular rating, as " able seaman " 
 or midshipman. An able seaman was supposed to be, 
 as the name implies, qualified to perform a~sealnan's 
 duty ; a midshipman was supposed to be a capable petty 
 officer; and to enter a little boy, fresh from school or 
 perhaps from the nursery, in either rating was an abuse 
 which was not dishonest only because it was universal, 
 and was known by the Admiralty to be so. Suckling's 
 rating his twelve-year-old nephew as a midshipman in 
 the EaisonnahU was such an abuse; his rating him 
 captain's servant in the Triumph was in strict accordance 
 with the Instructions. What was not in accordance 
 with the Instructions was the forthwith sending him out 
 of the ship, lending him to a merchant -ship, while 
 borne on the books of the Triumph for pay and victuals. 
 
 ) 
 
NELSON 
 
 But this again was sanctioned by custom. Every 
 admiral and captain in the service did it, and knew that 
 it was done, and believed that there was no harm in it. 
 It was not till seventeen years later that, in 1788, a 
 check was put on the practice by the celebrated court- 
 martial on Captain Coffin, who was tried on a charge of 
 knowingly signing a false muster -book, four young 
 gentlemen, borne as captain's servants, being therein 
 declared to be present, when in fact they had never been 
 on board the ship. 
 
 Clearly such a case, and it was the common type, was 
 morally as well as legally wrong. For a very little boy 
 to be learning his letters or even his Latin Grammar 
 on shore while he, or rather his captain for him, was 
 receiving pay and victuals as an apprentice on board 
 ship, was clearly as contrary to the spirit as to the letter 
 of the law. Suckling could at least have shown that 
 his servant was learning the rudiments of seamanship 
 in a rough but practical way. The ship to which 
 Horatio Nelson was lent was commanded by John 
 Kathbone, who had served through a great part of the 
 Seven Years' War as a master's mate of the Dreadnoughty 
 and had passed his examination -, but on being paid off, 
 and finding neither promotion nor even employment in 
 the Navy, had returned to the merchants' service, and 
 a,s now mast er of a ship tradi ng; to the West j ndies. 
 The voyage out and home would seem to have lasted 
 about a year, and in July, 1772, the boy returned to the 
 Triumph. The exact date, of which there is no record, 
 was probably the 19th, when he was rated midshipman. 
 He was now, he says, a practical seaman. No doubt he 
 had picked up a good deal, including the swagger. " Aft 
 
ARCTIC EXPERIENCE 
 
 the most honour, forward the better man," he had learned 
 to say, and to fancy himself all " heart of yam and 
 Stockholm tar." Suckling easily knocked this nonsense 
 out of him ; and yet it is possible that the consciousness 
 of having once felt it remained, and gave him through 
 life a sense of kinship with the fore-mast men and a 
 marvellous power of winning their love and confidence. 
 Meantime he was set to study navigation, and as a 
 reward of industry was allowed to go in the decked 
 long-boat, the Triumphls tender in fact; and so gradu- 
 ally, he says, he became a good pilot for vessels of 
 that description in the Medway and the Thames, and 
 confident of himself among rocks and sands. 
 
 In the spring of 1773, at his own earnest request, 
 supported, no doubt, by Suckling's, Captain Lutwidge 
 entered him as a midshipman on board the Carcass, t hen 
 fitting for a voyage uf Arctic discovery in company with 
 the Racehorse, commanded by Captain Phipps afterwards 
 LoM Mulgrave. The share of a boy not yet fifteen 
 in such an expedition was of course very small; it is 
 notable only as a part of the education which was 
 forming the man ; an education of trial and hardship, of 
 seamanship and reaiiy.-ei:2^ Onlheir return, the 
 
 sEips paid off at Deptford on October 14th, 1773; and 
 on the" 27th, young Nelson, who had meantime been 
 borne on the books of the Triumph, was rated as a mid- 
 shipman of the Seahorse, a 24-gun frigate, being described 
 on her books as " aged 18 " ; it was a way then in vogue, 
 which often served to cloak gross irregularities. 
 
 The SeaJwrse was at this time fitting out for the East 
 Indies, one of the squadron which sailed on November 
 19th, 1773, under the command of Commodore Sir 
 
NELSON 
 
 Edward Hughes, the same who afterwards fought five 
 indecisive battles with M. de Suffren, in which pluck and 
 goodwill held their own against superior science and dis- 
 affection. It is impossible to doubt that as the news of 
 these actions reached him, Nelson, if only from his per- 
 sonal interest in Hughes, closely studied the details, 
 and marked where Hughes, where Suffren had the 
 advantage, and how tactical skill on the one side, or 
 unity of purpose on the other, was singly insufficient. 
 But this was nearly ten years later. 
 
 The captain of the Seahmse was George Farmer, who 
 afterwards, on October 6th, 1779, commanded the Quebec 
 in an unequal action against the French frigate Sur- 
 veillante. The Quebec caught fire and blew up, with the 
 loss of most of her men. Farmer, who had been already 
 wounded in the arm, was last seen sitting on the cathead 
 encouraging his men. In recognition of his bravery and 
 good conduct, his eldest son, then a lad of seventeen 
 who had been a captain's servant in the Seahorse, was 
 made a baronet, and a pension of ^200 a year was con- 
 ferred on the widow, with an additional £25 for each 
 of her nine children ; in order (in the very exceptional 
 words of the Admiralty minute) " to excite an emula- 
 tion in other officers to distinguish themselves in the 
 same manner, and render Captain Farmer's fate rather 
 to be envied than pitied, as it would give them reason 
 to hope that if they should lose their lives with the 
 same degree of stubborn gallantry, it would appear to 
 posterity that their services had met with the approba- 
 tion of their sovereign." Such was the captain under 
 whose care and discipline Nelson was placed as he was 
 changing from a boy into a young man. He was fortu- 
 
I IN THE SEAHORSE 13 
 
 nate too in his companions, with one of whom, Thomas 
 Troubridge, a year or two older than himself, his later 
 associations were peculiarly intimate. 
 
 man," and on October 81 st^ 1775, ^^^ "ix^^ p^^ d mid- ^ — ^ 
 sTitpiiiaii. Ilrls not to Ee supposed that these changes 
 made any real change to the boy, further than the trifling 
 difference of pay, between three and four pounds a year. 
 The number of midshipmen on board the frigate was 
 limited, and the first change meant that, for some reason 
 or other, Captain Farmer wished to give the rating to 
 some one else, to his own son, in fact, the future baronet ; 
 when there was again a vacancy, it was given to Nelson. 
 How little real diff'erence there was appears from Nelson's 
 own statement, that when he first joined the Seahorse^ as 
 a midshipman, "he watched in the fore-top," and in 
 time, when an able seaman, " was placed on the quarter- 
 deck." In the Seahorse he "visited almost every part of 
 the Ea&t Indies, from Bengal to Bussorah"; but under 
 the trying climate, possibly of the Persian Gulf, his 
 health gave way, and on March 14th, 1776, the commo- 
 dore ordered him to be discharged to the Dolphin for 
 a passage to England. The kindness of Captain Pigot, 
 he says, saved his life, and he seems to have regained 
 his health by the time the Dolphin reached England. 
 She was paid off" on September 24th, 1776 ; and two days 
 after ^WsorrWaslL^ointed lieutenahTorttie 64-gun~sEip 
 Jpyjl LPsfp^^^hyjp^frrTcr nrfjpvf^ Dou^ as.'^nie 
 
 C6minander-in-Chief at Portsmouth. Captain Suckling 
 was at this time Comptroller of the Navy, and the interest 
 of the Comptroller was, in some respects, as great as, if 
 not greater than, that of the First Lord of the Admiralty. 
 
14 NELSON 
 
 Nelson joined the Worcester on October 8th, and was 
 kindly received by her captain, Mark Eobinson, to whom 
 he brought a letter of introduction from his uncle. 
 Robinson took him to call on the Commander-in-Chief, 
 and for the short time they remained at Portsmouth 
 treated him rather as an equal and a friend than as a 
 very young acting-lieutenant. He was a good and brave 
 officer, and five years later, in command of the Shrewsbury, 
 led the van in the unfortunate action oflf the mouth of 
 the Chesapeake, where, by the loss of his leg and the 
 severe damage sustained not only by the Shrewsbury 
 but by all the ships in the van, he impressed a valu- 
 able lesson on Nelson's tactical studies. During the 
 winter the Worcester was sent to Gibraltar in charge of 
 convoy, and Nelson was gratified by being placed in 
 charge of a watch, and by Eobinson's compliment that 
 "he felt as easy when he, Nelson, was on deck as any 
 officer in the ship." On their return to England he 
 passed his examination at the Navy Office, and the next 
 day, April 10th, 1777, was promoted to be lieutenant of 
 the Lowestoft, a 32-gun frigate fitting for the Jamaica 
 station. 
 
 When Nelson joined this ship with his first com- 
 mission, he received from his uncle, the Comptroller, 
 a very remarkable letter on his duties as an officer; 
 remarkable, as showing the low standard of order, when 
 an experienced captain thought it necessary to point out 
 and insist on matters of detail which have long seemed 
 commonplaces of the service, such, for instance, as to 
 see the yards square, the ropes taut, no ropes hanging 
 over the side, and to be particular in working the sails 
 together; "Nothing," he wrote, "is so lubberly as to 
 
CAPTAIN LOCKER 15 
 
 hoist one sail after another." The captain of the Lower 
 stoft was William Locker, who had distinguished himself 
 in the Seven Years' War, when first-lieutenant of the 
 Experiment^ by boarding and capturing the French T6U 
 'maque. He had afterwards, in the Sapphire frigate, been 
 a witness of the battle of Quiberon Bay, and in March, 
 1760, had joined the Royal George, Hawke's flagship in 
 the Bay of Biscay. Hawke took much kindly notice of 
 Locker, who has left us a most favourable opinion, not 
 of the great admiral's achievements, which are written 
 in the history of Europe, but of his discipline and of 
 his good influence on his own officers and on the Navy 
 generally. Locker always regarded this as the happiest 
 time of his service : " He was received into the personal 
 friendship of his admiral, and, profiting by his advice 
 and experience, he matured much of that professional 
 knowledge which he had previously gained." 
 
 What Locker had received from Hawke he no^ 
 passed on to Nelson. It would be too much to say that 
 he foresaw the importance of his lessons ; it is enough 
 to suppose that, himself a good officer filled with anec- 
 dotes of the service and illustrations of former wars, 
 within his own experience or handed down by tradition, 
 he found in his young lieutenant, recommended to 
 him in the first instance as the nephew of the Comp- 
 troller, a thirst for knowledge, a zeal for the service, a 
 restless energy, which won on his heart and led him to 
 treat his junior with an affectionate freedom unusual 
 even now, but still more so in 1777. The great debt 
 which Nelson owed to Locker, and through Locker to 
 Hawke, has perhaps not been sufficiently recognised; 
 for indeed it can only be recognised by considering what 
 
i6 NELSON 
 
 sort of a man Locker was, a man who not only had been 
 taken by the hand by Hawke, but who had made it the 
 business of his leisure to collect a vast store of informa- 
 tion respecting the service, a store which was afterwards 
 the basis of Charnock's Biographia Navalis. 
 
 Of Nelson's service in the Lowestoft there is little to 
 say. He himself has related one incident which is 
 notable, not so much for itself as for the way in which 
 he introduced the story and told it. In the last year of 
 the century he was asked by M 'Arthur, one of the 
 editors of the Naval Chronicle^ to furnish some notes of 
 his life for the use of that periodical, and contributed a 
 sketch, in the course of which, after speaking of his 
 joining the Lowestoft, he went on : " Whilst in this 
 frigate, an event happened which presaged my character j 
 and as it conveys no dishonour to the officer alluded to, 
 I shall relate it. Blowing a gale of wind and very heavy 
 sea, the frigate captured an American letter of marque. 
 The first-lieutenant was ordered to board her, which he 
 did not do owing to the very high sea. On his return 
 on board, the captain said, * Have I no officer in the ship 
 who can board the prize 1 ' On which the master ran to 
 the gangway to get into the boat ; when I stopped him, 
 saying, ' It is my turn now ; and if I come back, it is 
 yours.' This little incident has often occurred to my 
 mind ; and I know it is my disposition that difficulties 
 and dangers do but increase my desire of attempting 
 them." 
 
 What others may think of at least equal importance 
 is his statement that, finding the frigate not sufficiently 
 active for his mind, he got sent into a schooner, the 
 Lowestoft's tender, and in her made himself " a complete 
 
X IN THE BRISTOL 17 
 
 pilot for all the passages through the islands situated on 
 the north side of Hispaniola." His later service did not 
 indeed take him to those waters ; but familiarity with 
 ticklish navigation in one sea is the best teacher for 
 similar work in others ; and the youthful practice on 
 the north coast of Hispaniola prepared the man for bold 
 navigation in Aboukir Bay, in the Sound, or in the Lion's 
 Gulf. 
 
 Early in 1778 Sir Peter Parker, at that time Com- 
 mander-in-Chief at Jamaica, moved Nelson into the 
 Bristol, his flagship, then considered as in itself a pro- 
 motion. It was, at any rate, a certain road to it, 
 especially on a sickly station like Port Royal. At that 
 time all vacancies occurring on any foreign station were 
 filled up by the Commander-in-Chief, and such promotions 
 were generally confirmed by the Admiralty, or, indeed, 
 always when the vacancies were caused by death 
 When the vacancy to be filled up was a commander's, 
 the admiral, as a rule, promoted his first-lieutenant ; if 
 it was a lieutenant's, he promoted the senior mate of the 
 flagship. He kept a list of men whom, for family or 
 other reasons, he wished to promote, and as occasion 
 ofl"ered appointed them to the flagship in turn, each 
 one as the junior of his rank, and moving gradually up 
 till he became first and was in turn promoted. With 
 such an appointment merit might occasionally have 
 something to do, but as a rule it depended entirely on 
 interest. Parker's quickness to discover the ability of 
 the young lieutenant of the Lowestoft has often been 
 spoken of. There had been no way in which Nelson 
 could possibly have shown any ; and though Locker may 
 have been asked for his opinion of the lad (he was but 
 o 
 
i8 NELSON CHAP 
 
 little, over nineteen), there can be no doubt that his 
 chief merit in Parker's eyes was his relationship to the 
 Comptroller. 
 
 In the present age of liberty, equality, and competitive 
 examinations, it is difficult to realise that through last 
 century, and indeed down to the middle of this, and 
 even later, interest was almost everything ; and that an 
 admiral was more likely to promote his own kinsman, 
 or the kinsman of a friend, or of some one who might, 
 he judged, be able and willing to render him some 
 equivalent service, than a mere nobody, however good 
 an officer he had shown himself. There were indeed 
 exceptions. During the great war Lord St. Vincent and, 
 taught by him and his own sense of right. Nelson 
 made many promotions dependent on merit and good 
 service; but such conduct was even then exceptional, 
 and would have been still more so five -and -twenty 
 years earlier. Every one will admit that good service 
 in time of war ought to be a paramount claim to pro- 
 motion : even those who were the most notorious jobbers 
 would have admitted it theoretically, though in practice 
 they put it far from them; but failing a demand in 
 favour of merit, which in time of peace does not always 
 display itself very clearly, promotion by interest was, in 
 some respects, not so bad for the service as it appears at 
 first sight. For one thing, it promoted a considerable 
 number of men at an early age, and there was always a 
 possibility that among these there might be some man 
 of ability and genius who would come to the front when 
 wanted. 
 
 When promotion from the rank of lieutenant is regu- 
 lated almost entirely by seniority, it is rare for a man to 
 
PROMOTION X9 
 
 be made a commander before he is thirty-five ; more 
 commonly he is verging on forty. With from five to 
 ten years as commander, and fifteen or sixteen as captain, 
 the defence which has been adopted against filling the 
 admiral's list with old men is to retire all captains at 
 the age of fifty-five ; but for many of those who do be- 
 come admirals it is a mere chance between promotion and 
 retirement. Few indeed are younger than fifty. But 
 during the greater part of last century, when lieutenants 
 were frequently made at the age of eighteen and became 
 captains before they were twenty, even though further 
 promotion was delayed, they were still comparatively 
 young when they got their flag. Boscawen was a rear- 
 admiral and on his way out to India as Commander-in- 
 Chief when he was thirty-seven. Hawke, who was not 
 the son of a peer, was forty-two when he was sent out 
 in command of the Channel Fleet and annihilated 
 L'fitendu6re in the Bay of Biscay. Howe and Jervis, of 
 a later date, were involved in the stagnation of the list 
 which followed the War of the Austrian Succession, and 
 were respectively forty-four and fifty-two when they got 
 their flag ; but Howe was a captain at twenty, and even 
 Jervis was one at twenty-five. Later on, again, pro- 
 motion was accelerated, and Nelson became a rear-admiral 
 when a little over thirty-eight ; under the present system 
 he would have been but a young captain, if not still 
 a commander, at the time of his death. 
 
 His probation in the Bristol was not long,., -On 
 
 )ecember 8th, 1778, when about six weeks over twenty, 
 
 - iie waTTOTmn tori t ^ brrT Tff i rm inr lor of ll i n ft TTiTi/iT Mi]^ 
 
 from which, after six months of uneventful cruising, he 
 
 was further promoted on June 11th, 1779, to bo captain 
 
NELSON 
 
 of the Hinchinhroke^ a frigate-built French prize which 
 had been brought into the service, and so named in com- 
 pliment to the Earl of Sandwich. She was just then out 
 on a cruise, and as she overstayed her time, much anxiety- 
 was felt about her at Jamaica. It was reported that she 
 was captured ; and when D'Estaing, after his ignomini- 
 ous repulse by Harrington at St. Lucia, his inglorious 
 success at Grenada, and his discreditable retreat from 
 St. Kitts, came to the Cape, where there were said to be 
 upwards of twenty thousand men ready to embark and 
 a large number of transports collected to receive them, 
 people supposed that he might prove more enterprising 
 against a defenceless colony than he had shown himself 
 against a line of battle. Every possible preparation 
 was made in Jamaica for his coming. The few ships 
 were moored in commanding positions ; all those in the 
 neighbourhood were called in ; batteries were thrown up 
 on shore, and some seven thousand men were got to- 
 gether, five hundred of them in Fort Charles, under 
 Nelson's command. It was a false alarm, false from 
 beginning to end. The rumoured fleet of transports at 
 the Cape was merely the homeward trade for France 
 waiting for a convoy. There was no such body of 
 troops ; and D'Estaing, though under orders to return 
 with the trade, yielded to the prayers of the revolted 
 colonists and sailed for the coast of North America, in 
 order to meet with another repulse at Savannah, after 
 which he went back to France. 
 
 Meantime the Hinchinhroke got safely to Jamaica, and 
 Nelson, having joined her, was presently ordered on a 
 cruise for a couple of months. He came in again in 
 the middle of September, having made four prizes which 
 
IN NICARAGUA 
 
 he calculated would bring him about £800. At Port 
 Royal he lived on shore with Captain Cornwallis, with 
 whom he contracted a lifelong friendship. The fortune 
 of the service did not bring them much together after- 
 wards ; but at a very critical moment in their careers, 
 and in the history of the country, the two men were 
 supplementing each other's work, the one commanding 
 the blockade of Brest, the other of Toulon. 
 
 At-^is-4ime-Jielson^was offered the command of a 
 large Spanish store-ship, which ha(P^5ee!p faT Ught^in 
 byXaptain Inglis of the Salisbury, and was now ordered 
 to be fitted as a 36 -gun frigate. He declined her, 
 possibly because in the HirichinhroJce he was appointed to 
 the naval command of an expedition against the city of 
 Granada on Lake Nicaragua. Unfortunately the season 
 was too late by three months. Instead of arriving at 
 San Juan in January, when the floods had subsided and 
 the weather was fine, they did not arrive till the middle 
 of April, when the rainy season had set in. The result 
 was that the men, wet through two or three times a 
 day, and exposed by night to pestilential damp and 
 malaria, fell sick rapidly. The seamen seem to have 
 suffered most. Their work was extremely heavy. 
 Nelson claimed to have carried troops in boats up a 
 river which none but Spaniards had ascended since the 
 time of the buccaneers ; to have boarded, so to speak, 
 an outpost of the enemy situated on an island in the 
 river; to have made batteries and afterwards fought 
 them ; and to have been a principal cause of the success ; 
 and his statement is fully corroborated by the official 
 report of Colonel Poison, who commanded the troops. 
 " I want words," he wrote, "to express the obligations I 
 
NELSON 
 
 owe Captain Nelson. He was the first on every service, 
 whether by night or by day. There was scarcely a gun 
 but what was pointed by him or Lieutenant Despard." 
 
 Nelson's energy and zeal long supported him, but at 
 last he too was prostrated by the prevailing fever and 
 dysentery. He was apparently in a dying condition 
 when he was recalled to Jamaica by his appointment 
 to the 44-gun ship Janus, and took a passage in the 
 Victor sloop. He was succeeded in the HinchinbroTce 
 by his friend Cuthbert Collingwood, who, though some 
 ten years older, was only now promoted to the rank of 
 captain. It gives a clearer idea of the virulence of the 
 sickness to find that out of a complement of two hundred 
 men the Hinchinhroke buried one hundred and forty-five ; 
 and Nelson believed that forty-five more died shortly 
 afterwards. At Jamaica he himself lay for some time 
 at death's door, his life being probably preserved by the 
 tender care and indefatigable nursing of Lady Parker. 
 He was still unable to undertake any duty, and on 
 September 4th sailed for England in the Liorij with his 
 friend Cornwallis. He landed at Portsmouth on 
 November 24th, 1780, and went straight to Bath, the 
 refuge of invalid naval ofiicers all through last century. 
 He was then so ill that he had to be carried to and from 
 bed, in the most excruciating pain. 
 
 By the middle of January he wrote that, being 
 physicked three times a day, drinking the waters three 
 times, and bathing every other night, he was on the 
 mending hand ; and on the 28th he began to speak of 
 being appointed to a ship. He had not yet, he said, 
 quite recovered the use of his limbs, but had no doubt 
 he would be perfectly well in two or three weeks. He 
 
I A SERIOUS ILLNESS 23 
 
 was, however, still in the doctor's hands through Feb- 
 ruary ; but by Monday, March 6th, he wrote : "I never 
 was so well in health that I can remember. I have fixed 
 to come to town on Wednesday or Thursday next," a 
 fixture afterwards postponed till the following Monday. 
 It was at this time that he had occasion to remark on 
 the smallness of the fees charged by his physician. 
 Doctor Woodward, and wished to increase the payment, 
 to which Woodward replied : " Pray, Captain Nelson, 
 allow me to follow what I consider to be my professional 
 duty. Your illness, sir, has been brought on by serving 
 your king and country, and, believe me, I love both too 
 well to be able to receive any more." 
 
 The Bath cure did not, however, prove quite so well 
 established as Nelson had thought, and through May he 
 was again under the doctor's hands in London, where 
 he was living with his uncle William Suckling, of the 
 Custom-House, the Comptroller to whom he owed so much 
 having died three years before, in July, 1778. Qn Jfoy:. 
 7th he wrote to his brother William : " I have entirely 
 lost the use of my left arm, and very near of my left leg 
 and thigh, and am at present under the care of a Mr. 
 Adair, an eminent surgeon in London ; but he gives me 
 hopes a few weeks will remove my disorder, when I will 
 certainly come into Norfolk, and spend my time there 
 till I am employed." And this he seems to have done. 
 
CHAPTEE II 
 
 NORTH AMERICA AND THE WEST INDIES 
 
 In August, 1781, Captain Nelson was appointed to 
 command the Albemarle^ a 28-gun frigate, which he 
 
 cminHl^DnB-d"ar1^orw^ on thFlITOr^HbiteTall of 
 
 her class she had very poor accommodation. Nelson, 
 however, wrote that he was " perfectly satisfied with her. 
 She has a bold entrance and a clean run " ; and again 
 some months later : " She has some good sailing in 
 her. The Argo, a new 44, we can spare a good deal 
 of sail, and I think we go full as well as the Enter- 
 p'ise." But it was a marked feature of Nelson's genius 
 to " think all his geese swans," and to believe his ship, as 
 afterwards his fleet, the very best in the Navy. So also 
 as to his officers and ship's company. In the Albemarle 
 he found his " quarter-deck filled with very gentlemanly 
 young men and seamen, an exceeding good master, and 
 good warrant officers." A little later he wrote : " I 
 have an exceeding good ship's company. Not a man or 
 officer in her I would wish to change ! " Then the ship's 
 company were '* as good a set of men as ever he saw " ; ' 
 Mitchell, a mate, was "an exceeding good petty officer"; 
 Bromwich, a lieutenant, was a " very good officer " ; the 
 master was " the best master he ever saw since he went 
 
CHAP. II CAPTAIN OF THE ALBEMARLE 25 
 
 to sea." It was needless to say he was happy in his 
 ship's conipany, and " no one could be happier in their 
 officers than he was." This was the first time, but the 
 same or similar expressions were continually repeated 
 through his whole service. 
 
 It is not necessary to suppose that Nelson was excep- 
 tionally fortunate in his officers and men. It is, on the 
 contrary, a curious thing that only one officer of his 
 training. Sir William Hoste, proved himself an excep- 
 tional man ; Sir Edward Berry and Sir Thomas Hardy 
 were good men, but not better than dozens of their 
 compeers. Apart from Nelson, most were of a very 
 ordinary type. With Nelson they were inspired, n.ot 
 by any care or pretence on his part, but by his genuine 
 nature. Whatever was his was the best. The effect of 
 this was that any officer or man coming under his com- 
 mand presently felt that his chief considered him one 
 of the finest fellows that ever lived, and forthwith 
 endeavoured, so far as lay in his power, to show that 
 this flattering opinion was a true one. 
 
 Although in wartime, the A lhemaMs service, was in 
 no respect briDiant. A tnp to Elsinore in charge of 
 convoy gave~Nelson some experience ot nortliern navi- 
 gation, which was to bear fruit in due time. In the 
 spri ng of 1782 h e was at Portsmouth and Cork, waiting 
 lor a convoy to the St. Lawrence, with which he sailed 
 in the endofApril, in company with Captain Pringle 
 in the Dcedalus^ going on the Newfoundland station. 
 In the end of May he arrived at St. John's, and there 
 heard news of the battle of April 12th. After taking 
 the convoy up the river he sailed on a cruise, from which, 
 after an absence of ten weeks, he returned to Quebec 
 
26 NELSON 
 
 :\ 
 
 in the middle of September, " knocked up with scurvy, 
 having for eight weeks," he wrote, "myself and all the 
 officers, lived upon salt beef ; nor had the ship's company 
 had a fresh meal since April 7th." 
 
 The Navy had^n^thfiniearned how to avoid this dire- 
 ful pest, but Nelson shows that he already understood the 
 importance of fresh beef. Of that, and of the measures 
 which during his long blockade of Brest Hawke had 
 taken to ensure a full supply, we need not doubt he had 
 heard from Locker ; and we may be sure that Locker's 
 teaching, now brought home to him by his own experi- 
 ence, was never afterwards forgotten. This was the 
 real fruit of the cruise, more valuable a thousand times 
 than the prizes which were taken but did not come in ; 
 more valuable than even his escape from the squadron 
 of four French ships of the line which chased him in 
 Boston Bay. 
 
 ^Lfter a few weeks at Quebec, where the health of 
 the ship's company was re-established, the Albemarle 
 went to New York, and Nelson made the acquaintance 
 of Lord Hood, who had just been made an Irish peer 
 for his services on April 12th. Hood seems to have at 
 once conceived a high opinion of the young captain of 
 the Albemaflej and with the consent of Rear- Admiral. 
 Digby, the Commander-in-Chief in North America, agreed^ 
 to take him with him ^ to the West Indies. It was at 
 this time, too, that Nelson was introduced to Prince 
 William Henry, afterwards Duke of Clarence and King 
 William the Fourth, who many years later said : "I was 
 then a midshipman on board the Barfleur, lying in the 
 Narrows off Staten Island, and had the watch on deck, 
 when Captain Nelson, of the Albemarle, came in his barge 
 
II PRINCE WILLIAM 27 
 
 alongside, who appeared to be the merest boy of a captain 
 I ever beheld ; and his dress was worthy of attention. 
 He had on a full-laced uniform ; his lank, unpowdered 
 hair was tied in a stiff Hessian tail, of an extraordinary 
 length; the old-fashioned flaps of his waistcoat added 
 to the general quaintness of his figure, and produced an 
 appearance which particularly attracted my notice ; for 
 I had never seen anything like it before, nor could I 
 imagine who he was, nor what he came about. My 
 doubts were, however, removed when Lord Hood intro- 
 duced me to him. There was something irresistibly 
 pleasing in his address and conversation ; and an enthu- 
 siasm when speaking on professional subjects that 
 showed he was no common being. Nelson after this 
 went with us to the West Indies, and served under 
 Lord Hood's flag during his indefatigable cruise off Cape 
 Fran9ois. Throughout the whole of the American War 
 the height of Nelson's ambition was to command a line- 
 of -battle ship ; as for prize-money, it never entered his 
 thoughts: he had always in view the character of his 
 maternal uncle." 
 
 Nelson himself, writing to Captain Locker from the 
 West Indies on February 25th, 1783, said: "My situa- 
 tion in Lord Hood's fleet must be in the highest degree 
 flattering to any young man. He treats me as if I was 
 his son, and will, I am convinc^Bd, give me anything I 
 can ask of him ; nor is my situation with Prince William 
 less flattering. Lord Hood was so kind as to tell him 
 (indeed, I cannot make use of expressions strong enough 
 to describe what I felt) that if he wished to ask questions 
 relative to naval tactics, I could give him as much in- 
 formation as any officer in the fleet. He will be, I am 
 
a8 NELSON 
 
 certain, an ornament to our service. He is a seaman, 
 which you could hardly suppose. Every other qualifica- 
 tion you may expect from him." As at this time Nelson 
 had never served with a fleet, his knowledge of fleet 
 manoeuvring and naval tactics must have been entirely 
 theoretical ; and it is difficult to see where he could 
 have picked it up except in conversation with Locker, 
 with Cornwallis, possibly with Parker, who might serve 
 as the horrid example, and more recently with Hood. 
 
 His coming to the West Indies, however, led to no 
 results. The war was practically over; and except a 
 casual and unsuccessful attempt^in March, 1783, to retake 
 Tur]£T]IsIand^ nothing occurred worthy of notice. In 
 May the fleet was ordere3~lf0me7"and the ZlUmarle, 
 being sent on in advance, arrived at Spithead on June 
 25th, 1783. She was paid off" on July 3rd, and Nelson 
 was placed on half-pay. 
 
 On coming to London, he was busy for some time 
 "attempting," he wrote, "to get the wages due to my 
 good fellows for various ships they have served in in 
 the war. The disgust of the seamen to the Navy is all 
 owing to the infernal plan of turning them over from 
 ship to ship, so that men cannot be attached to their 
 officers, or the officers care twopence about them." This 
 is only an early instance of the constant care Nelson 
 took of the interests of those under his command. They 
 were as part of his family, and throughout his whole career 
 to have served with him was a certain claim to his good 
 offices ; lieutenant, master, or seaman, he interested him- 
 self in all. This was no mere selfish policy ; it was a 
 true sentiment of the brotherhood of arms. But no policy 
 could have been more successful ; as he loved his officers 
 
A DISAPPOINTMENT IN LOVE 
 
 29 
 
 and men, they loved him, and the feeling spread till it 
 extended through the Navy. On paying off the Alhe- 
 marle, he wrote: "The whole ship's company offered, if 
 I could get a ship, to enter for her immediately ; but I 
 have no thought of going to sea, for I cannot afford to 
 live on board ship in such a manner as is going on at 
 present." 
 
 And so in October, after a short visit to Burnham, 
 he applied for leave of absence, and went over to France ; 
 intending, it would appear, to stay abroad for some time. 
 He took up his residence at St. Omer, and while study- 
 ing French, fell in love with a Miss Andrews, a daughter 
 of an English clergyman there. In January, 1784, he 
 consulted his uncle, William Suckling, who consented to 
 allow him £100 a year so as to enable him to marry ; 
 and on the strength of that increase to his income, he 
 seems to have proposed to Miss Andrews and to have 
 been refused. It was not a thing that he was likely to 
 talk about ; but his letter to Suckling is dated January 
 14th, 1784, and on the 19th he was in London. That 
 something had happened to make him desirous of occupa- 
 tion is clear ; for notwithstanding his previous resolve, 
 he was on March 19th appointed to the Boreas^ a 
 28 -gun frigate, superseding Captain Thomas Wells 
 who had commissioned her five or six months before. 
 She was under orders for the Leeward Islands ; but it 
 was the middle of May before she sailed from Spit- 
 head, Lady Hughes, the wife of the Commander-in- 
 Chief, and her daughter taking a passage in her, and 
 Nelson's brother William going as her chaplain. 
 
 Of William Nelson in this capacity a very few words 
 will be sufficient. He had previously wished to join the 
 
30 NELSON 
 
 Albemarle, but as his brother threw cold water on the 
 idea, he gave it up for the time. Now, the opportunity 
 of seeing the West Indies revived it, and though Nelson 
 did not approve of his entering the Navy, or think he 
 would like it, he consented to his coming. William 
 Nelson, however, soon found that his health could not 
 stand the climate, which might easily be disagreeable to 
 a man of a full habit of body and self-indulgent tempera- 
 ment, as he was ; and within a few weeks of the Boreas 
 arriving on the station, he left her and returned to 
 England. 
 
 For Lady Hughes Nelson conceived a strong dislike. 
 From the beginning he thought he was imposed on in 
 being asked to take her and her family out. " I shall 
 not be sorry to part with them," he wrote from Madeira ; 
 "they are pleasant people, but an incredible expense." 
 By the time he arrived at Antigua he seems to have 
 been heartily tired of them, more especially of Lady 
 Hughes, whom he curtly described as having "an 
 eternal clack." Of the Admiral too he presently formed 
 an unfavourable opinion, ^ir Richard Hughes was a 
 brave, amiable, and easy-tempered man, but not by any 
 means an ideal commander-in-chief. " I do not like him," 
 Nelson wrote, within a very few weeks after he joined 
 the flag; "he bows and scrapes too much for me." And 
 later on : " The Admiral lives in a boarding-house at 
 Barbadoes, not much in the style of a British Admiral " \ 
 and again : " Sir Eichard Hughes is a fiddler ; therefore, 
 as his time is taken up tuning that instrument, the 
 squadron is cursedly out of tune." This, however, was 
 after, or perhaps in consequence of, a serious difference 
 of oginion with the Admiral on two points of service, 
 
II THE NA VIGA TION LA WS 31 
 
 and a dis obedience of his orders which marked an 
 extraordinary resolution -in SO young an officer. 
 
 The first of these was a qu estion a rising^j).ut . pf . the, 
 Navigation Laws, which, it will be remembered, placed 
 great restrictions on foreign ships trading with British 
 colqijias^ The people of the United States had become 
 foreigners, but wisEed to retain the commercial privileges 
 which they had enjoyed while they were British subjects. 
 In this the island merchants were at one with them. 
 The trade with the States was lucrative ; they had no 
 wish that it should be put a stop to, and approached the 
 Admiral with a request to sanction it. Hughes, with 
 easy-going carelessness, had tacitly agreed; (but when 
 Nelson and Collingwood (now in command" of the 
 Mediator) called his attention to the Navigation Act, he 
 gave them orders to carry it into effect^ Accordingly, 
 when Nelson went to St. Kitts as ^nior officer, he 
 turned away all the American ships; on which the 
 colonial merchants again memorialised the Admiral, with 
 such success that the sent Nelson an order not to hinder 
 American ships from coming or going, if the governors 
 of the islands chose to allow thenq 
 
 The Governor of St. Kitts did choose to allow them, 
 and on Nelson remonstrating with him, said that " old 
 generals were not in the habit of taking advice from 
 young gentlemen " ; to which Nelson replied, " I have 
 the honour, sir, of being as old as the Prime Minister of 
 England, and think myself as capable of commanding 
 one of His Majesty's ships as that minister is of govern- 
 ing the State." His reply to Hughes was a more serious 
 matter ; it was in effect that the order was contrary to 
 the Act of Parliament, and he should decline obeying it 
 
32 NELSON 
 
 Hughes, easy-tempered as he was, was very angry, and 
 wished to supersede Nelson ; but, on talking the matter 
 over with the flag-captain, found that the general opinion 
 in the squadron was that Nelson was right, that the 
 order was illegal, and that they would not be bound to 
 obey it. It accordingly became a dead- letter; but it 
 was not rescinded ; nor did the Admiral give Nelson any 
 support against the attacks of the infuriated colonists. 
 
 He had seized five American ships, confining their 
 masters on board ; and while the question of the 
 ships was under adjudication, actions for illegal deten- 
 tion of the men were brought against him, and damages 
 laid at £4000. The ships were condemned ; but Nelson 
 remained a prisoner on board his own ship, subject to 
 arrest if he was found on shore, and in the certainty 
 that if tried he would be cast in the whole sum. Mr. 
 Herbert, the President of Nevis, offered to be bail for 
 him to the amount of £10,000, if he chose to suffer 
 the arrest; and that too though the stoppage of the 
 American trade was a greater loss to him than to any one 
 else in the colony. Later on, an order came out for 
 Nelson to be defended at the cost of the Crown, and 
 so, for the time, Nelson's share in the business would 
 seem to have ended ; though for several years after- 
 wards, new actions were entered and new writs issued, 
 which, though always defended by the Crown, were 
 meant to annoy and did annoy. But what perhaps 
 annoyed most of all was the Treasury sending out their 
 thanks to Sir Eichard Hughes for his activity in pro- 
 tecting British commerce, while of Nelson's conduct no 
 special notice was taken. 
 
 This question, which was as much legal or political as 
 
II THE CASE OF CAPTAIN MOUTRAY 33 
 
 naval, was still undecided when Nelson was again in diffi- 
 culties with the Admiral about another of more technical 
 interest. It was the custom of the Admiralty to appoint 
 to every dockyard at home or abroad a captain of the 
 Navy as commissioner or, as he would be now called, 
 superintendent, and this captain was generally, if not 
 always, on half-pay. At this time the commissioner at 
 Antigua was Captain Moutray, a worthy old officer 
 without much service and that of no great distinction ; 
 though he had come prominently before the public 
 some five years before by having been, as captain of the 
 Eamillies, in charge of a very large, rich, and important 
 convoy which fell into the midst of the combined French 
 and Spanish fleet off" Cape St. Vincent. Moutray had 
 been tried for carelessness and dismissed his ship ; but 
 there was a strong feeling that the fault was really with 
 the Government for allowing such a valuable convoy to 
 go into the neighbourhood of the combined fleet with- 
 out more efficient protection ; and after the change of 
 Ministry in 1782 Moutray had been appointed to this 
 commissionership as a sort of compensation. 
 
 Being on half -pay, he had, of course, « no executive 
 authority; but as, with ships continually coming and 
 going, the frequent change of senior officer appeared 
 to Hughes likely to cause inconvenience, he directed 
 Moutray to hoist a broad pennant as commodore, and 
 to take on himself the duties of senior officer in the port. 
 Now it was then, as it still is, an established rule in the 
 Navy that no authority but that of the Admiralty can 
 transfer an officer from half -pay to full-pay ; and as it 
 was perfectly well known that Moutray was on half-pay, 
 Nelson, coming to Antigua, ordered the broad pennant 
 
 D 
 
34 NELSON 
 
 to^Jbe jtjuGk, and sent Moutray notice that he could not 
 take any orders from him until the Admiralty were 
 pleased to put him on full-pay. 
 
 Moutray seems to have acquiesced readily enough, 
 knowing, no doubt, that the order was an illegal one, 
 and that his exercise of executive authority was irregular. 
 But Hughes was furious at this second instance of insub- 
 ordiimt^n^ and reported the case to the Admiralty. So 
 also did Nelson, with the result that he received a 
 reprimand for his high-handed action. He ought, he 
 was told, "to have submitted his doubts to the Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, instead of taking upon himself to 
 control Mr. Moutray's exercise of the functions of his 
 appointment." A copy of the minute was sent to Hughes 
 for his satisfaction; but as Moutray had been already 
 ordered home, nothing more was done. At the present 
 time the superintendent of a dockyard, whether at home 
 or abroad, is always an executive officer on full-pay. 
 
 In .both cases Nelson was right in his contention. 
 Moutray had not, and under the circumstances could not 
 have, any executive power ; and the permission given to 
 the American traders was in opposition to the Act of 
 Parliament. On tlie other hand, it is easy to let our 
 admiration for Nelson's later achievements blind us to 
 the irregularity of his conduct from a service point of 
 view. The first duty of an officer is to obey orders, to 
 "^J" submit his doubts to the Commander-in-Chief, and in a 
 ^ ' becoming manner to remonstrate against any order he 
 
 conceives to be improper; but for an officer to settle 
 a moot -point himself, and to act in contravention of 
 an order given under presumably adequate knowledge 
 of the circumstances, is subversive of the very first 
 
n NELSON ADMONISHED 35 
 
 principles of discipline. And these were not, it will be 
 noticed, questions arising out of any sudden and unfore- 
 8een emergency, in providing for which Nelson was 
 forced to depart from his instructions. Such emergencies 
 do arise in the course of service, and the decision of the 
 officer may be a fair test of his personal worth ; but 
 neither at St. Kitts nor at Antigua was there anything 
 calling for instant decision, or any question which might 
 not have waited, pending a reference to the Commander- 
 in-Chief or to the Admiralty. And this was the meaning 
 of the Admiralty minute on Nelson's conduct at Antigua, 
 a most gentle admonition for what might have been 
 punished as a grave offence. In themselves the matters 
 were not of much consequence ; but as marking Nelson's 
 character at an early period, and illustrating his action 
 in other and more important cases later on, they have 
 a very special significance to any one wishing to examine 
 the story of his career. 
 
 Not the least curious point about the dispute at 
 Antigua is, that while refusing to accept Moutray's 
 authority, and sternly and resolutely ordering Moutray's 
 broad pennant to be struck, he was really on very 
 friendly terms with Moutray himself, and was devotedly 
 attached to Moutray's wife, who would seem, though 
 we have no exact information, to have been many years 
 younger than her husband. "Were it not for Mrs. 
 Moutray, who is very, very good to me," Nelson wrote 
 from Antigua, shortly after his arrival on the station, " I 
 should almost hang myself at this infernal hole " ; and 
 again, in the middle of the dispute about Moutray's 
 distinguishing pennant, he wrote to his brother : " My 
 dear, sweet friend is going home. I am really an April 
 
 .v^^ 
 
36 NELSON 
 
 day ; happy on her account, but truly grieved were I 
 only to consider myself. Her equal I never saw in any 
 country, or in any situation." It is in the same letter 
 that, after giving an account of the young ladies on the 
 station and their various little projects, he adds : " A 
 niece of Governor Parry's has come out. She goes to 
 Nevis in the Boreas; they trust any young lady with 
 me, being an old-fashioned fellow." 
 
 A few weeks later, towards the middle of March, 1783, 
 he sailed for St. Kitts, in the immediate neighbourhood 
 of which he remained several months, and, as a relief 
 from the troubles of the lawsuits with which he was 
 pestered, fell in love with the niece of Mr. Herbert, 
 the President of Nevis. Herbert's niece, Frances, the 
 daughter of his sister and of William Woolward, a judge 
 of the island, who had died in February, 1779, was at 
 this time just twenty -four, having been born in the 
 early part of 1761. In June, 1779, she had married 
 Doctor Josiah Nisbet, who shortly afterwards became 
 deranged, and died within eighteen months, leaving 
 her with an infant son, dependent on her uncle. During 
 Nelson's former visit to St. Kitts he had not had an 
 opportunity of making her acquaintance ; but now, very 
 shortly after his return, he was brought to her notice 
 by a letter from a young friend who wrote to her, 
 probably from St. Kitts, in the middle or latter end of 
 March : " We have at last seen the captain of the 
 Boreas^ of whom so much has been said. He came up just 
 before dinner, much heated, and was very silent, yet 
 seemed, according to the old adage, to think the more. He 
 declined drinking any wine ; but after dinner, when the 
 President, as usual, gave the following toasts, 'The King,' 
 
11 MEETS MRS, N IS BET 37 
 
 'The Queen and Eoyal Family/ and *Lord Hood,' this 
 strange man regularly filled his glass, and observed that 
 tho^'irere^'S-lways bumper toasts with him ; which having 
 drank, he uniformly passed the bottle, and relapsed into 
 his former taciturnity. It was impossible, during this 
 visit, for any of us to make out his real character ; there 
 was such a reserve and sternness in his behaviour, with 
 occasional sallies, though very transient, of a superior 
 mind. Being placed by him, I endeavoured to rouse his 
 attention by showing him all the civilities in my power ; 
 but I drew out little more than * Yes,' and * No.' If 
 you, Fanny, had been there, we think you would have 
 made something of him ; for you have been in the habit 
 of attending to these odd sort of people." 
 
 On May 12th, Nelson, writing to his brother, says 
 incidentally that he has been visiting a young widow at 
 Nevis ; and on June 29th, after writing, " The Admiral, 
 Lady, and Miss sailed from here yesterday. Joy go 
 with them; I had rather have their room than their 
 company " — adds a postscript : " Entre nous. Do not be 
 surprised to hear I am a Benedict, for if at all, it will 
 be before a month. Do not tell." Whether he was 
 already an accepted lover it is impossible to say ; prob- 
 ably not, but at any rate he was so within a few weeks ; 
 and a letter, written from Antigua on September 11th, 
 begins "My dear Fanny," ends "Your affectionate," 
 and discusses. „ the prospect of their marriage in a 
 calm, business-like manner. The whole tone of the 
 letter, the first, apparently, he wrote to her, is rather 
 esteem than passion; it appears to be written by an 
 affectionate friend rather than by an ardent lover. So 
 much interest attaches to this point, the marriage has 
 
38 NELSON 
 
 been so often described as a genuine love-match, that it 
 may be well to reproduce this part of it. "I have 
 received a letter from Mr. Herbert, in answer to that 
 which I left at ]Sre\ds for him. My greatest wish is to 
 be united to you; and the foundation of all conjugal 
 happiness, real love, and esteem is, I trust, what you 
 believe I possess in the strongest degree towards you. 
 I think Mr. Herbert loves you too well not to let you 
 marry the man of your choice, although he may not be 
 so rich as some others, provided his character and situa- 
 tion in life render such a union eligible. I declare 
 solemnly that, did I not conceive I had the full posses- 
 sion of your heart, no consideration should make me 
 accept your hand. We know that riches do not always 
 ensure happiness : and the world is convinced that I am 
 superior to pecuniary considerations in my public and 
 private life; as in both instances I might have been 
 rich. But I will have done, leaving all my present 
 feelings to operate in your breast : only of this truth be 
 convinced, that I am your affectionate HoRATiO Nelson. 
 P.S, — Do I ask too much when I venture to hope for a 
 linel or otherwise I may suppose my letters may be 
 looked on as troublesome." It was the natural sequel to 
 this letter that he should presently write one to his uncle, 
 whose promised assistance nearly two years before had 
 enabled him to propose to Miss Andrews. Mr. Suckling 
 was equally liberal on the present occasion, and agreed to 
 make him a sufficient allowance. What Nelson asked 
 for was £100 a year for a few years, and this was prob- 
 ably what was given. .Nelson thought that Herbert 
 would give his niece two or three hundred a year during 
 his life, and he had promised to leave her £20,000 at his 
 
il ' HIS ENGAGEMENT TO HER 39 
 
 death, or the bulk of his property, which was very great, 
 if his own daughter should die before him. 
 y The financial part of the negotiation being thus 
 happily settled, the engagement was recognised; but 
 the letters which Nelson wrote in his occasional absences 
 from Nevis are, as a rule, remarkably sane, or even 
 cool, for a newly-engaged lover. Some few, indeed, are 
 more enthusiastic : some are as frantic as they ought to 
 be ; but for the most part they might have been written 
 to CoUingwood or any other intimate friend. About 
 the same date, too, he wrote to Mr. Suckling : " I have 
 not an idea of being married till near the time of our 
 sailing for England, which I did not think was to be till 
 1787; but report says — which I don't believe — we are 
 to go home this summer." 
 
 The report was not true, and the ^or^os-xemainjod -. 
 
 sometimes at Nevis, sometimes at Antigua, occasionally 
 at Barbadoes. From the biographical point of view 
 these alternations were fortunate, as they gave rise to 
 several interesting letters to Mrs. Nisbet. His life was 
 meanwhile occupied with the ordinary routine, or jv^ith } 
 the lawsuits which continued to cause him much annoy- / 
 ance and to fill both his public and private letters. 
 Climate and worry combined to wear out his health. 
 " I am worn to a skeleton," he wrote to Mr. Suckling 
 on July 5th, "but I trust that the doctors and asses' 
 milk will set me up again " ; and then follows a declara- 
 tion which curiously confirms the former statement of 
 Prince William as to the way in which the memory of 
 his uncle Maurice was ever before him. "You have 
 been my best friend, and I trust will continue as long 
 80 as I shall prove myself, by my actions, worthy of 
 
40 NELSON OHA.P 
 
 supplying that place in the service of my country which 
 my dear uncle [Maurice] left for me. I feel myself, to 
 my country, his heir; and it shall, I am bold to say, 
 never lack the want of his counsel ; I feel he gave it 
 me as a legacy, and had I been near him when he was 
 removed, he would have said, ' My boy, I leave you to 
 my country. Serve her well, and she'll never desert, 
 but will ultimately reward you.'" 
 
 In August Sir Richard Hughes went home, and 
 Nelson was left senior officer on the station, so that 
 when Prince William came out in November as captain 
 of the frigate -Pe^^?^, he was under Nelson's orders and 
 resumed his former friendship with him ; and learning 
 that his chief was going to be married, he insisted that 
 he must be present at the ceremony and give the bride 
 away. Of the Prince Nelson formed a most favourable 
 opinion, and most of his letters about this time, to Mrs. 
 Nisbet, to his brother, or to Locker, are full of his 
 praises. " In his profession he is superior to near two- 
 thirds on the list " ; "In attention to orders and respect 
 to his superior officers I hardly know his equal " ; "I 
 wish that all the Navy captains were as attentive to 
 orders as he is." Such are some of the expressions 
 regarding the future king ; and though much allowance 
 must be made for Nelson's devoted loyalty and enthusi- 
 astic attachment to the Crown, his whole correspondence 
 speaks to his high estimate of the Prince as an officer 
 and a seaman. 
 
 On March 12th, 1787, Nelson was married, the 
 Prince, as had been settled, giving the bride away. A 
 month later Nelson wrote to the Admiralty that the 
 Boreas was rotten, and would be too bad for the voyage 
 
HIS MARRIAGE 41 
 
 if she did not sail before the hurricane season. The 
 Boreas was not an old ship : she had been launched only 
 thirteen years ; but the duration of wooden ships, more 
 especially of those built during the ministry of Lord 
 Sandwich, was very capricious. The state of the ship, 
 however, made it necessary to recall her, and she 
 arrived at Spithead on July 4th, 1787, Mrs. Nelson 
 coming to England a passenger in a merchant-ship. 
 
 At tha time o i i r - ^relations-jyith-y ran cfi Tr er e-v^^^yL iin- 
 certain ; it was thought that war must break out at very 
 short notice, and that therefore it was inexpedient to 
 pay off the frigate. The fleet at Portsmouth was kept 
 ready for sea, and had it sailed, the Boreas would have 
 been attached to it. Nelson thought that nothing 
 would be done that summer, but that war was almost 
 certain to begin in the next year. In the middle of 
 August the Boreas was sent round to the Nore, but with 
 orders to be ready for sea at a moment's warning. In 
 the middle of September he wrote : " We are here lying 
 seven miles from the land on the impress service, and am 
 as much separated from my wife as if I were in the East 
 Indies. A war seems at present inevitatl^le. ... I 
 suppose Boreas will be paid off, and her men put into 
 some other ship, but what may become of me depends on 
 Lord H owe. I always was for actual service, and 
 should not like to be an idle spectator." Again, on 
 October 3rd : " I have asked Lord Howe for a ship of the 
 line, but Boreas is victualled for three months and ready 
 for sea, ordered to hold myself in momentary readiness 
 the moment my orders come on board." 
 
 His letters to his brother and Locker while lying at 
 the Nore are frequent, and show no discontent at the 
 
42 NELSON 
 
 duty he was called on to perform, no particular irrita- 
 tion with the Admiralty ; and there is absolutely no 
 reason to give the slightest credence to the story that in 
 his extreme disgust he determined to throw up his 
 commission and quit the service. Like many other 
 stories that have passed current, it probably grew up 
 out of the exaggerated repetition of some hasty remark. 
 
 The Boreas was paid off in the beginning of December, 
 and after a month in town arranging his affairs. Nelson 
 with his wife went to Bath. " I fear," he wrote, " we 
 must at present give [up] all thoughts of living so near 
 London, for Mrs. Nelson's lungs are so much affected 
 by the smoke of London, that I cannot think of placing 
 her in that situation, however desirable. For the next 
 summer I shall be down in Norfolk ; from thence I must 
 look forward." Then he made a trip to Plymouth at 
 the invitation of Prince William, who had just come home 
 in the Pegasus ; and writing to Locker, he repeated, in 
 an emphatic manner, his high opinion of the Prince as 
 an officer and seaman. "But," he added, "the gr^at 
 folks above now see he will not be a cypher, therefore 
 many of the rising people must submit to act subordi- 
 nate to him, which is not so palatable." 
 
 Late in „the summer of 1788 Nelson went into 
 Norfolk, and, after a little hesitation, made his home 
 with his father at Burnham Thorpe, where, with a few 
 breaks, he lived for the next four and a half years. He 
 was still worried by lawsuits arising out of his conduct 
 in the West Indies, whether in relation to the seizure of 
 American traders or to the detection of frauds in the 
 supply of Government stores ; and it was the end of 
 i 1789 before these were finally settled so far as he was 
 
.is. >^^ 
 
 U Z/^^ AT ^JiNHAM THORPE 43 
 
 — H^.""" — %,, 1; ' 
 
 concerned. Whether the Admiralty was altogether 
 pleased with his^cDndit^has been doubted. "He "was, it 
 is true, ofScially thanked by the several public Boards ; 
 but it is quite possible that he was marked as a man 
 likely to give trouble in time of peace by excess of zeal. 
 He himself thought that there was some pique against 
 him at the Admiralty, that Lord Hood was barely 
 civil to him; and it is certain that his applications for 
 employment met with no response beyond a formal 
 acknowledgment. The threatened rupture with Spain 
 on account of the seizure of English ships in Nootka 
 Sound, and that with Eussia on account of the occupa- 
 tion of Otchakoff, blew over; ships were commissioned 
 and^jgaid off, and Nelson was left unheeded. 
 
 There can be no doubt that he was at this time much 
 straitened in his pecuniary circumstances. A captain's 
 half -pay was but small, about £120 a year, and this, 
 with Mr. Suckling's .£100, was all that he had. Whether 
 Mr. Herbert made his niece any allowance is nowhere 
 stated ; but we are permitted to suppose that monetary 
 considerations had a great deal to do with his ardent 
 desire to be appointed to a ship. Meanwhile he led, we 
 are told, a life of almost idyllic retirement ; gardening, 
 digging, wandering in the woods with his wife, or 
 robbing birds' nests. And a great part of his time was 
 spent in reading, writing, studying charts, drawing plans. 
 That he did read a good deal, more, much more, than 
 has been supposed, is very probable; that he studied 
 charts and drew occasional plans is not improbable ; but 
 it is very unlikely that he wrote much, except letters, 
 and those at this period of his life were few. In many 
 ways, however, this time of enforced retirement was of 
 
44 NELSON 
 
 advantage to him, and, by giving him opportunity for 
 reading and reflection, completed the education which 
 had been going on in a practical way ever since he left 
 school at an age when education could scarcely have 
 begun. 
 
 But he never ceased to wish for active employment, 
 hopeless as it seemed to him. During the Spanish 
 armament he called on Lord Hood, then a Lord of the 
 Admiralty, and asked for his interest with Lord Chatham 
 (the First Lord), that he might be appointed to a ship. 
 Hood declined, and told him that "the King was im- 
 pressed with an unfavourable opinion of him." "I 
 cannot look on Lord Hood as my friend," he wrote in 
 December, 1792 ; " but I have the satisfaction of know- 
 ing that I never gave his Lordship just cause to be my 
 enemy." It is quite possible that he misunderstood 
 this. Hood had formerly given him what he wanted, 
 and was therefore his friend; now he could not grant 
 his request, and therefore was no longer his friend. 
 Probably Hood's feelings towards him were unchanged ; 
 but as he was some thirty-four years Nelson's senior, 
 the commonplaces of intimacy and friendship were 
 scarcely to be expected, and Hood was not one 
 to put himself out to appear more amiable than he 
 was. That he thought Nelson an able man, one to be 
 relied on when real work was to be done, was shown 
 by his immediately appointing him to a ship when 
 a rupture with France was imminent. War was not 
 declared till February 11th, 1793 ; but for more than a 
 month it had been looked on as inevitable. On January 
 2nd the Childers brig, looking into Brest, was fired on : 
 the shot was taken to the Admiralty, where Nelson saw 
 
APPOINTED TO THE AGAMEMNON 
 
 45 
 
 it ; and on the 7th, Lord Chatham, with many apologies, 
 offered him the command of a 64-gun ship, if he would 
 take it till there should be a 74 available. " After clouds 
 comes sunshine," he wrote to his wife. " The Admiralty 
 so smile upon me, that really I am as much surprised 
 as when they frowned." On January 30th he was ap- 
 pointed to the Agamemiwn. 
 
 -n 
 
Cy\ 
 
 CHAPTEK III 
 
 CORSICA 
 
 The commissioning of the Agamemnon was a very 
 ^, l mp^rtanlL-.£g i--4n-"''iSrelson's life. Rriiiay '^most be 
 \^A ' spoken of as^tjifiJi^g4n»ifig--Qf_his war-service ; for what 
 he had seen on the Spanish Main while" in command of 
 the Hinchinhrokej or in the West Indies while in the 
 Albemarle, was scarcely worth mentioning, except that 
 it had served to steady his own nerves and teach him 
 how far he could depend on himself. He was now, after 
 several years of reflection and of pondering over the 
 mistakes and experiences of the past, making a fresh 
 start with new officers, on a new station, and in 
 very different circumstances. He was nearly thirty-four, 
 but as yet his name was scarcely known outside his 
 own family and the circle of his intimate acquaintance. 
 To the Navy at large he could only be " the fellow that 
 had the row with old Hughes " ; and, with the exception 
 of Hood, he could be little more to the Admiralty. 
 
 It was from the. first understood that the Agamemnon 
 was to goout to the Mediterranean as part of the fleet 
 under the command of Lord Hood ; but it was the end 
 of April before she was ready to leave the Thames 
 for Spithead. She was then sent for a cruise in the 
 
CHAP. Ill HIS OPINION OF HIS OFFICERS 47 
 
 Chops of the Channel, apparently to let the newly- 
 commissioned ship shake down, though Nelson, in his 
 impatience, wrote that she was '* sported with merely to 
 hum the nation." By May 23rd the fleet of eleven sail 
 of the line under Hood's command was collected off the 
 Lizard, and a fortnight later it proceeded on its way to 
 Gibraltar and the Mediterranean. 
 
 Meantime, and in the manner natural to him. Nelson 
 had been forming his opinion of the Agamemnon^ her 
 officers and men. He joined her on February 7th, and M 
 
 on the 10th wrote : "My ship is without exception the 
 finest 64 in the service, and has the character of sailing 
 most remarkably well. . . . The officers are all good in 
 their respective stations and known to me, except the 
 surgeon." On the 21st: "I am very much disposed to 
 like Mr. Fellowes (the purser) and have told him so . . 
 but that he must be very careful that no just cause of 
 complaint can be made against him, for I will not suffer 
 any poor fellow to be lessened of his due." 
 
 It may be necessary to explain that then, as all 
 through last century and the first half of this, the chief 
 part of the purser's emoluments was derived from the 
 profit on the stores and slops which he issued ; that^jt- 
 was thus directly to his interest to issue short measures, 
 and that he was almost always suspected of doing so ; 
 that he was commonly referred to as " nip-cheese," and 
 was said to choose his steward for the size of his thumb, 
 so that by holding the measure with his thumb inside it, 
 a respectable percentage of rum could be saved. Of 
 course he was supposed to see that cloth, when being 
 issued, was stretched to the point of rending; and 
 though these devices were perhaps much exaggerated in 
 
48 NELSON 
 
 popular fancy, it is more than probable that a fraudu- 
 lent agreement was frequently made with the con- 
 tractor, by which cloth and clothes of an inferior quality 
 were accepted and issued at the full price. Against 
 such practices Nelson waged unceasing war, and took 
 the earliest opportunity of letting the purser of the 
 Agamemnon understand that he would not put up with 
 any nonsense. 
 
 That Nelson was one of the most popular captains 
 who ever commanded a ship is well known. But he 
 was popular with his men not by pandering to their 
 weaknesses aud irregularities, but by a careful and 
 continuous attention to their comforts and their rights ; 
 he won the love of his officers not by tolerating neglect 
 of duty, but by starting with the belief that they 
 were all as determined as himself to do their duty to 
 the utmost of their power, and that it was impossible 
 he could be mistaken. It was thus that by April 
 18th he wrote : "I not only like the ship but think 
 I am well appointed in officers, and we are manned 
 exceedingly well, therefore have no doubt but we shall 
 acquit ourselves well should the French give us a meet- 
 ing. . . . With a 'good ship and ship's company, we can 
 come to no harm. We appear to sail very fast." And 
 on the 29th : " We are all well : indeed, nobody can be 
 ill with my ship's company, they are so fine a set." In 
 reality, of course, they were at first much the same as 
 those of the other ships commissioned at the same time 
 and manned in the same way. What they were after 
 they had been a couple of years under the influence of 
 Nelson is a very difi*erent thing. 
 
 On the way to Gribraltar, in order to save time, the 
 
Ill STATE OF THE SPANISH NAVY 49 
 
 Agamemnon^ with five other ships, was sent into Cadiz to 
 wat^4_a.nd Nelson had an opportunity of forming an 
 estimate of the Spanish navy. " We dined on board the 
 Ccmcepcion^ of 112 guns, with the admiral," he wrote on 
 June 23rd, "and all restraints of going into their 
 arsenals and dockyards were removed. They have four 
 first-rates in commission at Cadiz, and very fine ships, 
 but shockingly manned. If those twenty-one sail of the 
 line which we are to join in the Mediterranean are not 
 better manned, they cannot be of much use." 
 
 A fortnight later the English fleet fell in with the 
 Spanish off Alicante, twenty-four sail of the line. As 
 the English, on first seeing them, formed line of battle, 
 the Spaniards attempted to do the same, but after 
 several hours' trial did not succeed. Then, having made 
 out Hood's private signals, they sent down a frigate to 
 explain that they were very sickly ; and no wonder, for 
 they had been sixty days at sea. Nelson thought this 
 ridiculous, for he wrote : " From the circumstance of 
 having been longer than that time at sea do we attribute 
 our getting healthy. It has stamped with me the ex- 
 tent of their nautical abilities ; long may they remain in 
 their present state." 
 
 Nelson arrived at a right conclusion from false reason- 
 ing. The English seamen of 1793 were scarcely better 
 than those of 1778 when the fleet coming to Spithead after 
 a cruise of a couple of months off Ushant sent upwards 
 of four thousand men to hospital ; and this had been 
 the rule. Nelson would seem also to have forgotten his 
 own cruise in the Albemarle in 1782. Hawke, indeed, 
 in 1759 had succeeded in keeping a fleet at sea and in 
 health for months together, but it was by a system of 
 E 
 
so NELSON 
 
 constant reliefs; and Eodney in 1782 had been equally 
 fortunate, but the fleet was not continuously at sea. It 
 was jonly. with the beginning of th^ war of the FrenctT 
 Revolution that, following the lessons taught by Captain 
 Cook, and by the rediscovery of the specific value of 
 lemon-juice, it became possible to keep a fleet healthy 
 without frequent refreshment. Hood's fleet had indeed 
 refreshed at Cadiz or Gibraltar, but independent of that, 
 its health seems to have been extraordinary. The mere 
 fact that the Spanish fleet of twenty-four sail of the line 
 had nineteen hundred sick on board after sixty days 
 at sea, was not in itself a proof of want of seamanship, 
 though the inability to form line of battle in several 
 hours might be considered so; and Nelson, putting to- 
 gether that fact, what he had seen at Cadiz, and what he 
 had heard of Eodney's action off Cape St. Vincent, was 
 fully justified in forming the conclusion that the Langara 
 of 1793 was no better seaman than the Langara of 1780, 
 and that the men he commanded were far from efficient. 
 It does not, however, appear that this conclusion was 
 generally accepted in the English fleet ; and for several 
 years the Spanish navy was held to be as strong in 
 reality as in outward show. 
 
 In the middle of July the fleet arrived off Toulon, 
 and instituted a close blockade of that port and Marseilles. , 
 Nelson wrote that "not a boat could get in, and the 
 old saying *that hunger will tame a lion' was never 
 more strongly exemplified." On August 23rd com- 
 missioners were sent on board the flagship Victory^ to 
 treat for peace on the basis of declaring a Monarchical 
 form of government in France ; and a Eepublican army 
 having taken possession of Marseilles, Toulon surrendered 
 
in SUSPICIONS OF SPANISH TREACHERY 51 
 
 tx) the English, putting the citadel, the forts, and the 
 ships at Hood's disposal. Langara with the Spanish 
 fleet joined Hood just at this time, and the two together 
 went into the harbour, while Nelson, in the Agamemnon^ 
 was hurriedly despatched to Naples to ask for and to 
 bring back ten thousand troops to garrison the forts and 
 hold the city. 
 
 This last he was not able to do; for, though the 
 Neapolitan Government received him with open arms 
 and readily promised the troops, just as preparations 
 were being made for a visit from the King, the Aga- 
 memnon was hurried to sea by the news of a French ship 
 of war being in the offing. Whether the news was false 
 or not does not appear; but at any rate Nelson saw 
 nothing of her, and hearing of a French 40-gun frigate 
 at Leghorn, he put in there, hoping she might attempt 
 to sail. This she would not do while the Agamemnon 
 was there ; and after waiting a few days for her. Nelson 
 rejoined the Admiral at Toulon. The troops were mean- 
 time sent from Naples, and with them two ships of the 
 line, one of which, the Tancredi, was commanded by the 
 Chevalier Francisco Caracciolo, at this time an officer 
 of good repute in the Neapolitan navy. By the middle 
 of October Toulon was held by a force of upwards of 
 twelve thousand men under the white flag of the Bour- 
 bons. But notwithstanding the numbers, the garrison 
 had no cohesion, consisting as it did of so many diff'erent 
 nationalities, all speaking different languages, with 
 different interests, and recognising no one commander. 
 
 It is certain that the English in general, and probably 
 Hood himself, believed Lan^aii, t^^^^ treacherous 
 
 communication with the Convention ; and though there 
 
52 NELSON 
 
 does not seem to be any clear evidence of this, the 
 mere suspicion was in itself a marked element of weak- 
 ness. Hood would have sent the French ships away ; 
 but the Toulonese not unnaturally objected to this. 
 They were in arms against the Convention, not against 
 France, and believed that the revolt of Toulon was but 
 the prelude to the uprising of all France. The Spaniards 
 were equally opposed to the ships being taken possession 
 of by the English, and Hood, obliged to keep terms with 
 his allies whom he mistrusted, was unable to provide 
 for the security of the ships or of the city, as he would 
 fain have done. Thus it was that when the Republicans 
 attacked in force, they had little difficulty in rendering 
 themselves masters of the inefficient defences. 
 
 Then followed a scene of confusion and terror such 
 as has rarely been paralleled. Hood, seeing that the 
 place was untenable, gave orders for its evacuation, and 
 warned the inhabitants to provide for their safety. This 
 was on December 1 7th. It had already been determined 
 to burn the arsenal and the ships, men-of-war and 
 merchant-ships. The signal was made for the fleets to 
 put to sea; many of the ships, with their topmasts 
 struck, were busy refitting; one, the Courageux^ was 
 hove down. They were got ready in a marvellously 
 short time, and hauled out into the roadstead. During 
 the 18th the English got their sick, wounded, and 
 soldiers on board without confusion ; but the Spaniards, 
 Piedmontese, and Neapolitans were less able, and the 
 disorder became very great. The terror and despair of 
 the Toulonese were extreme. They sought to get on 
 board the English and Spanish ships of war, which re- 
 ceived crowds : the Princess Royal had four thousand of 
 
m EVACUATION OF TOULON 53 
 
 them on board, the Rohust^ three thousand ; others got 
 on board merchant-ships, fishing-boats, anything that 
 could float. In all about fifteen thousand were able to 
 leave the town. Many were drowned ; many were killed 
 by the shot from the French batteries. Then night came 
 on ; the city and harbour were lighted up by the blazing ^^-^^^ 
 dockyard and a number of ships of the line, set on fire at>^ 
 by a party under the orders of Captain Sir Sidney 
 Smith. The Spaniards had undertaken to set fire to 
 the ships in the inner basin ; but in the confusion and 
 consequent panic they neglected to do so, with one 
 exception, the powder-magazine. This, which ought 
 of course to have been scuttled and sunk where she 
 was, was stupidly, — it cannot have been treacherously 
 — set on fire, and the terrific explosion increased 
 the panic. During the night the fleets got into the 
 outer road, and put to sea on the 19th as the Eepublican 
 troops entered the town, to wreak a terrible vengeance 
 on the miserable remnant of the inhabitants, — the 
 old, the weak, women and children, who had been 
 unable to get on board any vessel. The number who 
 perished, — killed during the siege, drowned on the night 
 of the 18th, or butchered afterwards by the victors — is 
 estimated at about six thousand. 
 
 With all this, however. Nelson had nothing to do. 
 On joining^;H0od:^efi--Oxi^^ been sentlo 
 
 cruise^jm- the coast^orXofsica, and a few days later 
 received orders to joiiTXoliniiodore Linzee, Hood*s 
 brother-in-law, ofi* the south end of Sardinia. In going 
 to the rendezvous, on October 22nd, ofi" Cagliari, ha_Jbll 
 in with a squadron of five French sliipsT'which proved 
 to be a brig, a corvette, and three large frigates. One 
 
54 NELSON 
 
 of these last he cut off and brought to action ; but her 
 consorts coming up, she joined them, and the Agamemnon 
 was in no case to pursue them. The main topmast 
 was shot to pieces, mainmast, mizenmast, and foreyard 
 badly wounded, and the rigging much cut. There is a 
 prevalent opinion that in the old war a frigate could not 
 and never did engage a ship of the line. Of course it 
 is a mistake : scores of instances could be adduced to 
 prove that it is ; and this is a very marked one. The 
 frigate engaged, the Melporribne^ though much damaged 
 herself, succeeded during a running fight in doing a 
 great deal of damage to the Agamemnon ; and it appears 
 certain that a bolder conduct on the part of the other 
 two large frigates must have placed the Agamemnon 
 in a very awkward predicament. The result of the 
 encounter, slight as it was, leaves no room to doubt 
 Nelson's opinion that they had a very great superiority 
 of force, and ought to have made a concerted attack on 
 him. The French officers did not recognise this, and 
 were probably very well satisfied with getting away from 
 a 64-gun ship. 
 
 On joining Linzee, the little squadron of three 74-gun 
 ships, the Agamemnon^ and two frigates went to Tunis, 
 where the business was to negotiate with the Bey, and 
 if possible bring away the French 80-gun ship Duquesne 
 together with some merchantmen. Nelson, who believed 
 that the English never succeeded in a negotiation against 
 the French, was not surprised at their failure on this 
 occasion, and thought that they ought to have helped 
 themselves to the ships, and given the Bey £50,000 to 
 put up with the insult to his dignity; as it was, he 
 wrote. "We got nothing but being laughed at, and I 
 
Ill BLOCKADE OF CORSICA 55 
 
 don't like it." He thought that Linzee had not shown 
 as much decision in the matter as he might have done, 
 and was well pleased when Hood, in "a very handsome 
 letter," gave him an independent command of a frigate 
 squadron oh' the coast of Corsica and Italy, to protect^ 
 the trade, blockade Genoa, and look after the French 
 frigates at San Fiorenzo, — the same that he had fallen 
 in with on October 22nd. This was in the end of 
 November, and on December 26th he was at Leghorn, 
 whence he sent to the Admiralty the intelligence that 
 reached him as to the loss of Toulon. A month later 
 Hood, leaving the greater part of the fleet to watch 
 Toulon, joined him on the coast of Corsica, which he 
 had now determined to reduce. 
 
 A close blockade had been kept up by Nelson's 
 squsi^dron, and when the transports7a7ieF15MiI|f§cattered 
 by a gale, were got together and the troops landed, Sg;n_ 
 Fiorenzo surrendered without resistance on February 
 17th, the French garrison retiring to Bastia, which 
 Hood wished to attack at once. On the 19th Nelson 
 wrote to him that he had been looking at Bastia, and 
 thought that, besides the seamen and Corsicans, they 
 ought to have a thousand troops for a successful attempt. 
 The General in command of the soldiers at San Fiorenzo, 
 however, refused to make the attempt with all the men 
 he had, about eighteen hundred, or until a reinforcement 
 of two thousand men could be brought up from Gibraltar. 
 With the force at their disposal, he considered the siege 
 "to be a most visionary and rash attempt, and such as 
 no officer would be justified in undertaking." Hood 
 tried to argue the point ; but as he could not command, 
 the General remained firm, and refused to move. 
 
 \'>t 
 
56 NELSON 
 
 Nelson had meantime made several desultory attacks 
 on the seawar^ batteries, and had convinced himself 
 that the' place was not likely to make any prolonged 
 resistance;^ one thousand men, he wrote, would certainly 
 take it ; with five hundred and the Agamemnon he would 
 attempt it. Hood was anxious to make the trial, but was 
 unwilling to risk his ships in doing soldiers' work ; and 
 it was only after Nelson's repeated assurances that the 
 attempt was feasible, assurances supported by the opinion 
 of two young officers. Lieutenant Duncan of the Artillery 
 and Mr. de Butts of the Engineers, that he gave way. 
 As the General refused to let him have any troops, with 
 the exception of a few artillerymen, the work had to be 
 done entirely from the fleet, from which the marines and 
 soldiers serving as marines, nearly twelve hundred 
 strong, were landed on April 4th, under the command 
 of Lieutenant-Colonel Villettes of the Sixty-Ninth Regi- 
 ment, and a party of two hundred and fifty seamen 
 commanded by Nelson, with whom were Captains 
 Anthony Hunt, Serocold, and Bullen. Six 13-inch and 
 two 10-inch mortars were also landed, and ten of the 
 Agamemncmls long 24-pounders. It was with these that 
 the seamen were chiefly concerned ; they made the roads, 
 they dug the trenches, they built the batteries, they 
 cut down trees, they laid platforms, they dragged 
 the guns into position, and when there they worked 
 them. For so small a number of men the labour was 
 extremely hard ; but they went about it with a will. The 
 progress of the siege, however, was slow, the force 
 employed in it being too small to permit the business 
 to be hurried. 
 
 But meantime, with the assistance of a considerable 
 
ill CAPTURE OF BASTIA 57 
 
 body of Corsicans, the investment on the land side was 
 secure, and the blockade by sea was rigidly enforced. 
 The garrison made several ineffectual attempts to obtain 
 relief by boats ; their provisions and ammunition were 
 running short ; they had many men killed and wounded, 
 and many sick ; and on May 19th they sent off a flag of 
 truce with proposals to surrender. On the 24th the 
 garrison, to the number of four thousand five hundred 
 men, mar'chedTout and laid down their arms. Nelson 
 wrote of " four thousand five hundred men laying down 
 their arms to less than one thousand British soldiers who 
 were serving as marines," and in the excitement of the 
 moment it probably seemed so to him and those im- 
 mediately concerned ; but in his calmer moments no one 
 knew better than he did that the success was mainly due 
 to the action of the fleet, and that without it the small 
 force on shore would have been altogether unequal to 
 the task. 
 
 (TThat much of the credit of the success belonged to 
 Nelson must be admitted.) Without his ..confidence 
 Hood would scarcely have made the attempt; and his 
 command of the seamen gave him a large share of the 
 responsibility of what was done on shore. Hood, how- 
 ever, seems to have felt some difficulty in awarding the 
 praise. It was clearly impossible for him in an official 
 letter to speak his mind of the General's refusal to co- 
 operate, or of his having himself yielded to the urgency 
 of a subordinate ; and of the work on shore he formed 
 an estimate somewhat different from that of Nelson, 
 who, in his familiar letters, described himself as having 
 done the whole. He certainly did not command Villettea 
 and the soldiers, who were to the seamen landed in thg 
 
58 NELSON 
 
 ratio of four to one ; and his own letters during the 
 siege show that there was some doubt whether he 
 commanded the batteries. On April 25th he wrote to 
 Hood, specifically stating that this doubt did exist, and 
 asking him for " an order to command the seamen with- 
 out any distinction as to any particular services." It 
 does not, however, appear that he got such an order; and 
 the wording of Hood's despatch, ** Captain Nelson, who 
 had the command and direction of the seamen in landing 
 the guns, mortars, and stores, and Captain Hunt, who 
 commanded at the batteries . . .," as well as of the 
 official note accompanying it, " Captain Hunt, who was 
 on shore in the command of the batteries," clearly im- 
 plies that he did not. According to Sou they, "Nelson's 
 signal merits were not so mentioned in the despatches 
 as to make them sufficiently known to the nation. . . . 
 This could only have arisen from the haste with which 
 the despatches were written." But the despatch was 
 dated May 24th, five days after the negotiations began, 
 and shows no signs of undue haste, either in these 
 sentences or in any other. That Nelson's services had 
 exceeded the strict limits of liis command^.that Hood 
 knew this and regulated his conduct thereby, is quite 
 another thing, which he did not think it fitting to 
 speak of in his public letters. 
 
 What gave Nelson almost as much gratification as the 
 fall of Bastia was the capture there of La Fleche, the 
 smallest of the frigate-squadron of the preceding October. 
 Two of the larger frigates had been sunk at San 
 Fiorenzo ; but one, the Minerve^ had been weighed, and 
 under the name of San Fiorenzo continued in the English 
 service during the war. The third frigate, the Mel'pomkne^ 
 
Ill HOOD AT GOLFE JOUAN 59 
 
 with which the Agamemnon had been engaged, and the 
 corvette, the Mignonne^ were at Calvi, which Hood was 
 now bent on reducing. But as he was getting ready for 
 this new undertaking, he received intelligence that the 
 French fleet, of nine sail of the line, had put to sea on 
 June 5th, and that Vice -Admiral Hotham, who with 
 seven sail was watching off Toulon, had fallen back to 
 San Fiorenzo, considering the disparity of numbers too 
 great. The disparity did not in fact exist, for the 
 French fleet numbered only seven ; but Hotham had not 
 troubled to ascertain this, and Hood of course accepted the 
 report. With six ships he sailed at once, joined Hotham 
 on the 9th, and on the 10th sighted the enemy near St. 
 Tropez. He could not prevent them going into the 
 Golfe Jouan (which our older writers persistently miscall 
 Gourjean Bay) ; but with a vastly superior force he 
 resolved to go in and destroy them there, anchoring two 
 ships against each one of the enemy. 
 
 Secure in his numbers, he had previously sent the 
 Agamemnon back to carry on the arrangements for the 
 siege of Calvi, meaning to follow so soon as the work 
 immediately before him was finished. Unfortunately 
 the wind for several days rendered it impossible for him 
 to go into Golfe Jouan ; and when at last it permitted 
 him, the enemy had made such use of the delay, by 
 mounting guns on the islands which protected the 
 anchorage, that he considered it unadvisable to make 
 the attempt. 
 
 There were by this time nearly two thousand soldiers 
 at Bastia, under the command of General Stuart, a 
 man of a more enterprising character than his pre- 
 decessors. Of these soldiers, fifteen hundred were now 
 
6o NELSON 
 
 embarked, escorted to the west side of the island, and 
 landed near Calvi on the 19th. About two hundred sea- 
 men from the Agamemnon and the transports were 
 also landed, and, as at Bastia, undertook the heavy 
 work of getting the guns into position. When Hood 
 with a part of the fleet arrived a few days later, more 
 seamen were landed, and with them Captains Hallowell 
 and Walter Serocold, the latter of whom had served 
 with Hunt in the batteries at Bastia, and was here 
 killed by a grapeshot on July 7th. After three weeks 
 of severe toil, the batteries opened fire upon the 
 town. For several days this was continued with little 
 intermission. Nelson and Hallowell, with whom he was 
 now for the first time intimately associated, taking 
 alternate twenty -four hours of duty at the advanced 
 battery. Many guns were broken or dismounted by 
 the enemy's fire ; others were brought up in their place ; 
 casualties were not infrequent. At 7 o'clock on the 
 morning of July 12th, a shot, striking the parapet of 
 the battery, dashed some sand and gravel against 
 ' .0 Nelson's face, bruising his head and cutting the right 
 ^ \ eye. The wound did not confine him, and the surgeons 
 A gave him hopes that it would have no serious conse- 
 
 / 
 
 (^ quences. These hopes, however, were not realised, and 
 the sight of the damaged eye gradually faded away till 
 \ : it was entirely lost. But meantime the siege continued, 
 .>*?* and.^ August 1st the garrison agreed to surrender, if 
 '^not effectively relieved within ten days. 
 
 The negotiation was entirely in the hands of the 
 General. Nelson by no means approved of it ; he would 
 have run under the bastion and blown it into the air in 
 less time. "I own," he wrote, "I had rather take a 
 
Ill CAPTURE OF CALVl 6l 
 
 place by our own fire and efforts than by the enemy 
 being starved and sickly." On the 10th the garrison 
 marched out with the honours of war, laid do^vn their 
 arms, and were embarked for a passage to France. The 
 merchant-ships, the gunboats, and the frigates Melpomkne 
 and Mignonne also fell into the hands of the English. 
 The two frigates were both added to the British Navy. 
 The Mignonne proved unserviceable and was destroyed ; 
 but the Melpomene continued effective during the war, 
 and has transmitted her name through later ships to the 
 present time. 
 
 Hood had already felt anxious about the French fleet 
 at Toulon. He knew that several of the ships sunk or 
 burned on December 18th had sustained little injury, and 
 were being rapidly got ready for service in addition to 
 the seven already blockaded in Golfe Jouan. Now that 
 Calvi had fallen and the conquest of Corsica was com- 
 plete, he rejoined the fleet. The Agamemnon was sent to 
 Leghorn to refit, as well as to refresh her men, on whom 
 the work of the siege had fallen heavil}^, and whose 
 health now suffered. By the middle of September she 
 again joined the Admiral ofi" Toulon, and was imme- 
 diately-sent . to - GLenQa^ t o protec t and ^ insist .a a -%he 
 neutrality of the Republic. But Eer men continued 
 very sickly; in the middle of October she had still 
 seventy-seven on the sick list, "almost all objects for 
 the hospital." 
 
 It was by this time settled that Hood was to return 
 to England, leaving the command temporarily to Vice- 
 Admiral Hotham. The cause of this has never been 
 shown, and it is imcertain whether it was for Hood's 
 own convenience, or to enable him to confer with the 
 
62 NELSON 
 
 Government more freely than was then possible by letter. 
 
 Vlt was, however, clearly understood that he was to resume 
 the command after a short absence. That he did not do 
 ^ "^^-^^ so was in consequence of a difference between him and 
 . V ^ the Admiralty as to the necessity of reinforcing the fleet, 
 , ^ on which, and the neglect of the Admiralty, he ex- 
 
 J^ pressed himself with what was considered undue vigour. 
 
 When he resigned the command no other admiral was 
 available ; and it was thought that it might very well 
 ; > remain in the hands of Hotham, a man who had distin- 
 
 ^ guished himself on several occasions during the American 
 
 \ War, and was recognised as a brave man and a good 
 
 officer. In chief command, however, he was nervous, 
 timid and undecided; "He is careful of us," wrote 
 Nelson, " and will not sufTer a line-of-battle ship to get 
 out of his sight." 
 
 X" 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE GULF OF GENOA 
 
 BY-fcha.end of January the French, having succeeded in 
 bringing bac¥ their squadron from Golfe Jouan, had 
 fifteen ships in the outer road of Toulon. To oppose 
 these the English Admiral had thirteen under "his'com- 
 mand. In February a fourteenth joined him, as also 
 the Neapolitan Tancredi, thus bringing the numerical 
 number of the two fleets to a very close equality. " I 
 wish Lord Hood would make haste out," wrote Nelson 
 on March 2nd. On March 8th Hotham, then lying at 
 Leghorn, received intelligence of the French being at 
 sea. At daybreak the next morning he weighed with 
 the fleet, thirteen sail of the line and the Tancredi. 
 The Berwick^ which had been at San Fiorenzo, in 
 attempting to join the fleet at Leghorn had fallen in 
 among the enemy on the 7th and been captured. During 
 the 9th, 10th, and 11th the French fleet was repeatedly 
 seen to the westward and reported by our frigates ; but 
 Hotham, whether with the intention of cutting them oflf 
 from Toulon or not, stood to the northward and did not 
 sight the enemy till the morning of the 12th. The 
 fleet was then very much scattered, and in the light, 
 fitful breeze was not able to get together. Admiral 
 
64 NELSON 
 
 Goodall formed the ships near him in a line of battle : 
 Hotham did the same ; but apparently nothing but the 
 incapacity of the enemy saved the English from a grave 
 disaster. " Our ships endeavouring to form a junction," 
 was Nelson's description of the situation, "the enemy 
 pointing to separate us. They did not appear to me to 
 act like officers who knew anything of their profession." 
 Though they were bringing up a fresh southerly breeze, 
 they could neither form line of battle nor collect their 
 own fleet. 
 
 Late in the afternoon a fresh wind from the eastward 
 sprang up, and Hotham succeeded in forming his line of 
 battle towards the south, standing for the enemy's fleet. 
 The enemy were still in straggling disorder, and Nelson 
 thought that if the breeze held, our fleet would pass 
 through them, cutting off the van from the centre. But 
 the wind, which in these seas is very capricious, suddenly 
 flew round to the westward, and together with the dark- 
 ness prevented immediate action. The next morning, 
 March 13th, the enemy's fleet was still in sight, a fresh 
 wind was blowing, and the signal was made for a general 
 chase. The French 84-gun ship Ca Ira carried away her 
 topmasts and fell astern. The Inconstant frigate, com- 
 manded by Captain Fremantle, attempted to cut her off, 
 but was unable to stand against the Ca Ira^s heavy guns. 
 Two French ships then joined the ^a Ira, and a frigate 
 took her in tow. The Agamemnon was at this time well 
 up with them, and Nelson saw that, had he been 
 supported, it would have been possible to take the whole 
 four ; but no ship was near, and all he could do was to 
 attempt the destruction of the ^a Ira by keeping under 
 her stern, avoiding her very superior broadsides, and 
 
IV HO THAMES FIRST ACTION 65 
 
 yawing from time to time to pour in a raking and 
 destructive fire. This went on for a couple of hours, at 
 the end of which time the Qa Ira was a perfect wreck ; 
 but the enemy then came down in force to her rescue, 
 Hotham made the signal for the van ships to join him, 
 and for that day the Ca Ira was saved. 
 
 But the next morning the wind, continuing fresh, had 
 shifted to the north-west, and given the weather -gage 
 to the English, who were thus able to bring on a 
 desultory action, and to cut off the Qa Ira in tow of the 
 74-gun ship Censeur. These two were speedily over- 
 powered, and were taken possession of by a party from 
 the Agamemnon. They had suffered most severely. The 
 Ca Ira was completely dismasted, and was supposed to 
 have three hundred and fifty killed and wounded ; 
 the Censev/r, which had lost her mainmast, had lost 
 about two hundred and fifty. The loss of men in 
 the whole English fleet was less than that on board the 
 Qa Ira alone; and though some of the English ships 
 had their rigging cut and their masts wounded or shot 
 away, the damage was relatively unimportant. The 
 Agamemnon had been the most closely engaged, and of 
 her Nelson wrote, " Our sails were ribbons, and all our 
 ropes were ends "; but she had only six men wounded 
 on the 14th, and seven on the 13th. 
 
 As to the action itself, it was Nelson's first experience. \ 
 He hai seen -ihat- the enemy with superior numbers \ 
 would not push the fighting; he had judged that their 
 officers were ignorant of their profession ; he saw that 
 they were unable to take advantage of the opportunity 
 which had been given them. On the other hand, he 
 had seenthe^angerto which the English were exposed 
 
66 NELSON 
 
 bxiaving allowed themselves to drift asunder, and the 
 loss which the country had sustained from their not 
 being in a position to compel the enemy to abide their 
 attack. At the time, he wrote to his uncle that, " Had 
 the breeze continued so as to have allowed us to close with 
 the enemy, we should have destroyed the whole fleet "; 
 but to his wife, with greater freedom : *' Had I com- 
 manded our fleet on the 14th, either the whole French 
 fleet would have graced my triumph, or I should have 
 been in a confounded scrape. I went on board Admiral 
 Hotham as soon as our firing grew slack in the van and 
 the Qa Ira and Censeur struck, to propose to him leaving 
 our two crippled ships, the two prizes, and four frigates to 
 themselves, and to pursue the enemy ; but he, much cooler 
 than myself, said, * We must be contented, we have done 
 very well.' Now had we taken ten sail, and had allowed 
 the eleventh to escape, when it had been possible to have 
 got at her, I could never have called it well done. 
 Goodall backed me ; I got him to write to the Admiral, 
 but it would not do. We should have had such a day 
 as, I believe, the annals of England never produced." 
 
 If this was his opinion at the time, we may be quite 
 sure that further reflection but confirmed his judgment, 
 and that during the months which followed he often 
 asked himself how Locker's old chief would have con- 
 ducted the business ; what Hood would have done ; or x 
 what he himself would have done, had he been indeed 
 in command. The questions, too, had the added weight 
 of his continually-growing conviction of Hotham's weak- 
 ness. For a month after the battle the fleet lay at San 
 Fiorenzo, leisurely refitting, while six French ships of 
 the line, sent round from Brest under the command of 
 
NELSON'S REMARKS ON TT 
 
 M. Renaudin, the captain of the Vengeur on the First of 
 June, passed up and arrived at Toulon on April 4th. 
 Nelson wrote of it to his father : " What the Admiralty 
 are after to allow such a reinforcement to get out here, 
 surprises us all " ; but in every letter at this time his 
 cry was : " We are anxious to hear of Lord Hood's sailing 
 from England " ; " We hope soon to see Lord Hood " ; 
 " We have lost much by Lord Hood's going to England." 
 And to his old captain, Locker, on May 4th he wrote : 
 •i" Admiral Hotham is very well, but I believe heartily 
 tired oniis^tempefary comm and-f^Knr'^iol think he is 
 intended by nature for a. commander-in-^ief, which 
 requires a man of more active turn of mind/^ That the 
 six ships were allowed to leave Brest may have been the 
 fault of the Admiralty, or of the strain on the resources 
 at their disposal ; but that they passed into Toulon 
 unopposed was very clearly Hotham's fault; and of 
 that Nelson had no doubt, though he did not say it 
 in so many words. 
 
 The Admiralty, having allowed six French ships to 
 come~inlo~~tiTTr"Mediterraneaft;'^-seirt 
 under Kear- Admiral Man to reinforce Hothamy--^ht5se 
 fleet then consisted of twenty English ships and two-- 
 Neapolitan. But on June 22nd Nelson wrote from off 
 Minorca : " We have this day accounts of the French 
 fleet's being at sea with twenty-two sail of the line and 
 innumerable frigates, etc. We are waiting for our 
 valuable convoy from Gibraltar, expected every moment ; 
 are totally ignorant which way the enemy's fleet are 
 gone ; hope sincerely they will not fall in with our con- 
 voy, but our Admiral takes things easy. Lord Hood's 
 absence is a great national loss." 
 
68 NELSON 
 
 Meanwhile he was speculating on the probability of 
 his getting his flag, of which he was much afraid, as 
 likely to send him home and put him on half-pay : he 
 hoped that instead of his flag he might get a colonelcy 
 of marines, the pay of which would make a substantial 
 addition to his income, and not interfere with his 
 employment afloat. '' It would suit me much better at 
 present," he wrote. But his heart was sad, for each day 
 his opinion grew stronger that under such a commander 
 as Hotham no success was to be hoped for. On July 1st 
 he wrote : " The French fleet of seventeen sail of the line 
 are out, but only to exercise their men, — at least our good 
 Admiral says so " ; and referring to the capture of the 
 French frigate Minerve, and the defeat of the Artemise by 
 two very much smaller ships, the Dido and Lowestoft, 
 "Thank God," he seemed to cry, ''the superiority of the 
 British Navy remains. I feel quite delighted at the event. 
 Had our present fleet but one good chance at the enemy, 
 on my conscience, without exaggeration, I believe that 
 if the Admiral would let us pursue, we should take 
 them all." 
 
 Three days later Nelson in the Agamemnon, with 
 four or five frigates and small craft, was directed to go 
 to Genoa, and to co-operate with the Austrian General 
 in the Kiviera. Off Cape delle Melle he fell in with the 
 French fleet of seventeen sail, which chased him back 
 to San Fiorenzo, where Hotham was lying, " having 
 reason," he wrote, " to suppose that the enemy were 
 certainly in Toulon," but having taken.no pains to find 
 out. When it was too late he wished to put to sea, but 
 the wind prevented him, and it was not till the next 
 day that he succeeded in getting out with twenty-three 
 
iV . HOTHAM'S SECOND ACTION 69 
 
 ships of the line. The French, who had believed the 
 English to be still off Minorca, were disagreeably sur- 
 prised to find them in their immediate neighbourhood, 
 and took advantage of the delay to make for their own 
 coast. They were thus not sighted till the 1 3th, being then 
 some six leagues south of the Hy^res Islands. Hotham 
 made the signal for a general chase, but some six or 
 seven ships only got within range and engaged, till the 
 Admiral " judged it proper to call them off by signal," 
 being apprehensive that they were too near the shore. 
 The wind was at the time blowing directly into the 
 Gulf of Frejus, where the enemy anchored after dark. 
 We may be perfectly sure that if Nelson had been in 
 command the English would have anchored with them. 
 That the opportunity of a complete victory, an annihila- 
 tion of the French fleet, was offered them, he never 
 doubted : "To say how much we wanted Lord Hood at 
 that time is to say. Will you have all the French fleet or 
 no action 1 for the scrambling distant fire was a farce. 
 Hotham has no head for enterprise, perfectly satisfied 
 that eacLmonth passes without any losses on our side." 
 So soon as the action was over and there was no 
 longer any possibility of his being interfered with by 
 the French fleet, Nelson. wa& again sent on his former 
 mission to Genoa and the Riviera, a detached service on 
 which he continued with little intermission for more 
 than a year. And peculiarly active service it was, 
 though of a nature which it would be tedious to relate in 
 detail. It was. difficult moreover in its political relations ; 
 for Genoa, nominally neutral, was overawed by the 
 French, who used the country for their own purposes 
 and forbade any favour to their enemies. The Genoese 
 
70 NELSON 
 
 had no doubt that severe punishment would follow 
 their disobedience ; they believed that the English would 
 be a more generous enemy, and made their choice 
 accordingly. What Nelson had before him was to 
 thwart the designs of the French ; to stop their coasting 
 trade, on which the south of France was largely depend- 
 ent for its supplies, corn, vegetables, and such like ; 
 to prevent their troops or provisions of war being 
 transported by sea, or so far as possible by land ; and to 
 do all this without giving the Genoese just cause to com- 
 plain of a violation of their neutrality. In this he was 
 guided by the advice of Mr. Trevor and Mr. Drake, the 
 Ministers at Turin and Genoa, but from Hotham he seems 
 to have received neither counsel nor assistance. " How- 
 ever," he wrote, " political courage in an officer abroad is 
 as highly necessary as military courage " ; and acting on 
 that maxim, constituted himself virtually independent 
 and Commander-in-Chief of the inshore squadron. 
 Within a month he wrote : " The French army is now 
 supplied with almost daily bread from Marseilles ; not 
 a single boat has passed with corn. The Genoese are 
 angry, but that does not matter." 
 
 The jule which he laid down was that any part of the 
 Riviera occupied by the French army should be con- 
 sidered enemy's country and be treated as such ; that, in 
 fact, the pretence of neutrality should not shelter the 
 French army or its operations ; and acting on this, on 
 August 26th he seized a 10 -gun corvette, with some 
 armed boats and eight store-ships, at Alassio. On the 
 31st he wrote : "The Genoese are going, it is said, to 
 carry a convoy with provisions to their towns in the 
 Riviera of Genoa, in possession of the French army 
 
IV IN THE GULF OF GENOA 71 
 
 However cruel it may appear to deprive poor innocent 
 people of provisions, yet policy will not allow it [not] to 
 be done ; for if the inhabitants have plenty, so will the 
 enemy, and therefore I have directed them to be brought 
 into Yado. . . . Our Admiral, entre noiiSj has no political 
 courage whatever, and is alarmed at the mention of any 
 strong measure ; but, in other respects, he is as good a 
 man as can possibly be." Many of his most interesting 
 letters at this time are written to Sir Gilbert Elliot, 
 the English Viceroy of Corsica, afterwards Earl of 
 Minto and Governor-General of India, with whom he had 
 contracted a friendship which lasted through life. It 
 seems, in fact, that, in want of a Commander-in-Chief on 
 whom he could depend, he turned to Elliot for advice or 
 suggestions as to the diplomatic entanglements which 
 strewed his path. Not indeed that he allowed these to 
 trouble him too much ; but it was no doubt comforting 
 to him to find the chief representative of the Foreign 
 Office in the neighbourhood taking his view of the 
 question. He would gladly have done more than he 
 did, but his force was insufficient, and Hotham would 
 not increase it. "I only want transports," he wrote to 
 Elliot on September 24tti, "and if he gave me one 74, 
 I verily believe we should yet possess Nice." But 
 Hotham made no sign ; and the Austrians_naturally 
 complained that tKey had been brought to the coast at 
 the express desire of the English, to co-operate with the 
 fleet which they never saw, while the detached squad- 
 ron was so miserably insufficient or ineffective that it 
 had not been able to prevent the French gunboats from 
 harassing their left wing in the Bay of Loano, where no 
 gunboats should have been allowed. 
 
72 NELSON 
 
 Nelson had no difficulty in showing that the loss they 
 complained of was none of his doing ; that one 64-gun 
 ship, whose presence at Genoa was clearly wanted and 
 was emphatically demanded by the imperial Minister, 
 could not be also at Pietra ; that the frigates which he 
 had left for that service had been taken away without 
 his knowledge ; and that though the gunboats annoyed 
 their retreat, they had nothing to do with their defeat 
 which began with the right wing twelve miles inland. 
 He was anxious to justify himself to the Austrian 
 General, and sent a letter for him to Mr. Drake ; which, 
 however, Drake did not forward, submitting to Nelson 
 whether it was proper to offer any justification of his 
 conduct to a foreign general. Besides, he continued, 
 " anxious as the Austrian Generals are to transfer the 
 blame of the misfortunes of November 23rd from them- 
 selves to us, they have always done ample justice to 
 your zealous and able conduct ; their complaints turn 
 upon the insufficiency of the force under your com- 
 mand, and not upon the mode in which that force was 
 employed." 
 
 This insufficiency of his force was exactly what 
 Nelson had striven against ; nor had he forgotten it five 
 years later, when he wrote to Lord Keith, then preparing 
 for the siege of Genoa : " You will now bear me out in 
 my assertion, when I say that the British fleet could 
 have prevented the invasion of Italy ; and at that time 
 we had nothing to do. If our friend Hotham had kept 
 his fleet on that coast, I assert, and you will agree with 
 me, no army from France could have been furnished 
 with stores or provisions ; even men could not have 
 marched." That the fleet was doing nothing, and 
 
IV A LOST OPPORTUNITY 73 
 
 might have been commanding the Eiviera, is certain ; 
 but the presence of a large French fleet at Toulon gave 
 Hotham the excuse of having to keep watch on it, and 
 so not being able to spare Nelson any reinforcements ; as 
 to which Captain Mahan has aptly remarked : "Hotham 
 could better have spared ships to Nelson if he had not 
 thrown away his two opportunities of beating the 
 Toulon fleet." 
 
 It is indeed difficult to realise the enormous difference 
 which would have been made in the history of the war 
 if the French fleet had been destroyed on July 13th, as 
 Nelson at the time thought it might and should have 
 been destroyed, and as we, reading the story of the 
 battle by the light of what Nelson did three years later, 
 now see was a perfectly feasiblp operation for any com- 
 mander of strong resolution. (With that fleet destroyed, 
 the Eiviera would have been effectively guarded :/ men 
 cx)uld not have marched ;J stores could not have passed ; 
 Qtaly could not have been invaded.) Neither Loano nor 
 Montenotte would have been fought, and Bonaparte's 
 patent of nobility would have had to be sought else- 
 where ; the history of Italy for the next twenty years, 
 and for all time, would have been cast in a different 
 mould ; Spain would have remained true to the English 
 alliance, and the French expedition to Egypt would have^^ 
 remained undreamed of. That the rise and grandeur of ^ 
 Bonaparte's career are thus bound^up with JHotham's 
 irresolution on July 13th, has perhaps not been so gener- 
 ally noticed or understood as the interest of the fact 
 deserves; but in th is sense that "misenible action," 
 as Nelson called it, appears more worthy tliaii Valmy ^ 
 of being styled a dec isive ba ttle. 
 
74 NELSON 
 
 ^/\ Hotham had meantime written to be recalled, on the 
 
 plea of ill -health, and Sir John Jervis was at onc^ 
 named as the fitting successor. As captain of the 
 Fovdroyant in the War of American Independence, Jervis 
 had distinguished himself by the perfection of the disci- 
 pline and order of his ship, the beauty and value of 
 which had shone forth with redoubled splendour in the 
 easy capture of the French Fdgase, He had afterwards 
 taken a leading part in the opposition to Pitt's fancy for 
 resting the defence of the south coast on fortifications, 
 maintaining that, though these fortifications might be 
 advisable or even necessary if the fleet was absent from 
 England, the assumption that it would be absent, leaving 
 the enemy to operate freely in the Channel, was practi- 
 cally absurd. On the outbreak of the present war, he 
 had been sent as Commander-in-Chief on the Leeward 
 Islands station, where he had reduced Martinique, Saint 
 Lucia, and Guadeloupe, and had shown a marvellous 
 force of character and power of command. He was now, 
 at the ripe age of sixty, sent out to command the Medi- 
 terranean fleet at a time when, by Hotham's mismanage- 
 ment, the situation was every day becoming more 
 / critical. 1 The Spanish Government, unable to resist the 
 i • pressure of the French arms in the north of Spain, and 
 not improbably influenced by money paid to Godoy, had 
 \made peace with France, and would, it was believed, 
 shortly form a defensive and offensive alliance ; while 
 \ the French fleet by itself was numerically superior to 
 the English, which the requirements of the Channel, the 
 West Indies, and other stations rendered it impossible 
 to reinforce. 
 
 On November 12th, 1795, Jervis in the Lively frigate 
 
IV SIR JOHN JERVIS 75 
 
 sailed from Spithead, and arrived at Gibraltar on the 
 23rd. He was there met by Eear- Admiral Man, who 
 had been sent with a detached squadron to cruise off 
 Cadiz, where seven French ships of the line and three 
 frigates were lying in friendly association with the 
 Spanish fleet. Jervis now confirmed Man's orders, and 
 went on to join the fleet in San Fiorenzo Bay on the 
 29th. He had not improbably already formed the 
 opinion that the fleet had seen too much of San Fiorenzo 
 Bay, and before the smoke of the salute to his flag had 
 blown away, made the signal to unmoor. It was the signal^ 
 of a new order of things; /of a strictness "oniscipline 
 in all departments, jbf an activity on service and a rest- 
 less energy, such as had never been equalled, and which 
 brought the fleet to a point of unparalleled efiiciency. 
 And it was oiBF an enemy's port that this reformation 
 was carried on. In January the fleet took up its station 
 ofi" Toulon, the inshore squadron being seldom more 
 than three miles from the entrance to the harbour, 
 while the force under Jervis's personal command was, 
 as a rule, smaller than that inside the harbour, which 
 consisted of fifteen sail of the line. Jervis had indeed 
 under his command twenty-five ships of the line ; but 
 seven of these were with Man oflf Cadiz, and others were 
 employed on different and constantly varying services 
 in diff'erent parts of the station. Troubridge, for in- 
 stance, with the Culloden and some frigates, was sent to 
 the Archipelago in December to look after Ganteaume, 
 who had been allowed to escape from Toulon ; and in 
 March Vice- Admiral Waldegrave with five sail was at 
 Tunis, bringing out the Nemesis frigate, which Gan- 
 teaume had captured and sent there. 
 
76 NELSON 
 
 Byjhej^cjcupation of the Eiviera after the battle of 
 Loano, Nelson's immediate work was brought to an 
 abrupt concUision, and he went to Leghorn to refit his 
 ship. On January 19th, 1796, he joined the Admiral, 
 whom he now saw for the first time, and was received, as 
 he wrote, "not only with the greatest attention but with 
 much apparent friendship." As the Agamemnon^ after 
 being three years almost always under way, was getting 
 very crazy, Jervis offered him either the 90-gun ship 8t. 
 George or the Zealous^ a 74. Nelson preferred to remain 
 in his old ship, being unwilling to leave the officers and 
 men wlio had shared with him this long and arduous 
 service. The very next day he was sent again into the 
 Gulf of Genoa to prevent the passage of the enemy's 
 troops by sea; and during the following months was 
 almost constantly on the move, ranging the coast from 
 Toulon to Leghorn. It was at this time his fixed idea 
 that the French, having an apparent superiority, would 
 try to force a passage by sea, and land their army to- 
 wards Leghorn, when there would be nothing to stop 
 their progress to Kome and Naples. They had in Toulon 
 thirteen ships actually ready for sea, and four or five 
 more in great forwardness. Nelson thought that they 
 would endeavour to bring back the ships from Cadiz, and 
 probably also others from L'Orient or Brest. " We may 
 fight their fleet," he wrote, "but unless we can destroy 
 them, their transports will push on and effbct their 
 landing. What will the French care for the loss of a 
 few men-of-war *? It is nothing, if they can get into 
 Italy. This [is] the gold mine, and what, depend on it, 
 they will push for." 
 
 We know now, what neither Jervis nor Nelson knew 
 
fv NELSON HOISTS A BROAD PENNANT 77 
 
 then, that the appearance of the French fleet was a 
 delusion, that the best ships had gone with Bichery, and 
 that those which remained were in bad condition, badly 
 manned, and in no state to engage a fleet such as that 
 under Jervis's command. The French officers were quite 
 conscious of their absolute inferiority, and it does not 
 appear that the idea which filled Nelson's mind was 
 entertained by them ; if they discussed it, it was at 
 once given up as impracticable, and the advance by land 
 determined on. Montenotte was fought on April 12th, 
 and a few days later peace was concluded by the 
 Sardinians. Everything seemed to show that Spain 
 was going to join France, and in that case, Nelson 
 thought, Naples would do the same. " Should all the 
 powers in this country make peace," Nelson wrote to 
 Sir Gilbert Elliot on May 16th, " and the French possess 
 themselves of Leghorn and other places to cut off" our 
 supplies, Corsica will be the only tie to keep our great 
 fleet in the Mediterranean ; how far the conduct of those 
 islanders, taken in a general scale, deserves that a fleet 
 and army should be kept for their security, is well 
 deserving of serious consideration." 
 
 In the end of March the Admiral ordered Nelson 
 to weaFa distinguishing pennant, constituting him, as it 
 would be now calledl a commodore of the second class ; ) 
 he actually hoisted it on April 4th. It did not, however, 
 make any change in his duties : that was produced by 
 the march of events; and on May 15th he wrote to 
 Jervis : "Do you really think we are of any use here? 
 If not, we may serve our country much more by being 
 in other places. The Levant and coast of Spain call 
 aloud for ships, and they are, I fancy, employed to no 
 
78 NELSON 
 
 purpose here ; for unless the Austrians get possession of a 
 point of land, we cannot stop the coasting trade." On the 
 18th he wrote again : " Money, provisions, and clothes the 
 enemy have in abundance ; and they command arsenals 
 to supply their wants in arms and ammunition." Still, 
 though he could not control the enemy, he could annoy. 
 " I have got," he wrote on June 2nd, " the charts of 
 Italy sent by the Directory to Bonaparte ; also Maille- 
 bois' Wars in Italy, Vauban's Attach and Defence of Places, 
 and Prince Eugene's History ; all sent for the General. 
 If Bonaparte is ignorant, the Directory, it would appear, 
 wish to instruct him ; pray God he may remain ignor- 
 ant." And so the peculiar service on which he had been 
 so long engaged came to an end. 
 
 The state of the Agamemnon rendered it necessary 
 that she should go to England before the winter ; and 
 Nelson was almost daily expecting his promotion to flag 
 rankjjwhich he feared might put him on half -pay. Jervis 
 virtually undertook that, if he was promoted, he should 
 hoist his flag in the Mediterranean fleet, and meantime 
 appointed him to the 74-gun ship Cajptairij her former 
 captain, who was in bad health and anxious to go home, 
 moving into the Agamemnon. Nelson joined the Captain 
 on June 11th, and after two or three days at Genoa 
 was sent to Leghorn, then threatened by the French. 
 Captain Fremantle, in the Inconstant, was already there, 
 and by great exertions had got all the English residents 
 and their property safe on board ship and out of the port 
 before the French entered. Nelson-jyas . JLOw^rdered to 
 blockade it ; for the better performance of which service, 
 and at the request of Sir Gilbert Elliot, he took possession 
 of the island of Elba. A few days later he was able 
 
IV SPANISH POLICY 79 
 
 to write : " The blockade of Leghorn is complete ; not a 
 vessel can go in or come out without my permission." 
 This, he thought, would soon make the Grand Duke 
 repent his admission of the French; and in fact the 
 total stoppage of the trade, the great number of men 
 thrown out of employment, and the absolute want of 
 food, raised such a feeling that the French would 
 probably have been driven out, had not the defeat of 
 the Austrians at Lonato and Castiglione altered the 
 position. 
 
 The interestjth^iLtumed_.^^ti^ For 
 
 months Nelson's letters repeat that war is spoken of as 
 probable. "I have my doubts as to it," he wrote to 
 the Admiral, "but if it is, with your management I 
 have no fears as to any fatal consequences. The Spanish 
 fleet is ill manned, and worse officered, I fancy." And 
 to his father, on August 18th: "The only consequence 
 it can be to us may be the necessary evacuation of 
 Corsica, and that our fleet will draw down the Mediter- 
 ranean. The Dons will suffer in every way for their 
 folly if they are really so foolhardy as to go to war to 
 please the French." Corsica, he thought, must go in 
 any case, for the French had a strong party in the 
 island ; many Corsicans were officers in the French 
 army, and it was impossible to hinder French troops 
 getting over by twenty or thirty at a time. As to the 
 fleet, nobody, he thought, could have any fear under an 
 admiral such as Jervis. The English had twenty-two 
 ships of the line; France and Spain joined would not 
 have more than thirty-five. " I will venture my life," 
 he said, " that Sir John Jervis defeats them." But on 
 August 27th he wrote to Elliot : " I own I cannot even 
 
So NELSON 
 
 yet bring myself to believe that the Spaniards will go 
 to war with us." 
 
 War was not, in fact, declared till October 5th, but 
 for some weeks it was practically certain that it was 
 going to be declared. It was known that Spain had 
 concluded an ojffensive and defensive alliance with France, 
 and that English ships had been stopped in Spanish 
 ports. On September 25th Jervis received an order 
 "to co-operate with the Viceroy in the evacuation of 
 Corsica, and with the fleet to retreat down the Mediter- 
 ranean." He lost no time in directing Nelson, whom 
 on August 11th he had appointed a commodore of 
 the first class, to take charge of the evacuation, 
 which was carried out by October 19th. But al- 
 though Nelson had anticipated the measure, as well 
 as the possibility of leaving the Mediterranean, now, 
 when the time came, the appearance of being driven 
 out was very bitter to him. "I lament our present 
 orders," he wrote, "in sackcloth and ashes, so dis- 
 honourable to the dignity of England, whose fleets 
 are equal to meet the world in arms." Neither he nor 
 the Admiral, however, considered Corsica tenable ; and 
 when, towards the beginning of November, Jervis re- 
 ceived counter -orders to hold Corsica if not already 
 evacuated, he replied that it was "a great blessing" 
 that the evacuation had already taken place; for it 
 would have been impossible to hold it for any length of 
 time against the feeling of the Corsicans, and without a 
 tenable post in the island. 
 
 The fleet was a different thing, and with that it was 
 his intention to remain. With Elba as a base, and with 
 his full numbers collected together, he felt himself quite 
 
IV MAN'S BLUNDER 8l 
 
 equal to the task of making head against the combined 
 fleet, even if they had combined ; or of defeating either 
 singly, if he could meet it on its way to combine. He 
 had accordingly sent orders to Man, then at Gibraltar, 
 to join him at once with his whole force ; nor had he 
 doubted that these orders would be obeyed, till, on 
 November 11th, he learned that, on receiving them, 
 Man had judged them impracticable and had taken .his 
 squadron to England. This serious defection left Jervis 
 no alternative. With no interests to protect, no allies 
 to defend, only fourteen ships of the line with which to 
 meet thirty-eight, and no secure port to fall back on in 
 case of reverse, his only available course was to retire on 
 Gibraltar. And thisp^rcCiSfdingly, hedid. 
 
CHAPTEK V 
 
 ST. VALENTINE S DAY 
 
 On December 1st, 1796, the fleet under Sir John Jervis 
 anchored in Gibraltar Bay. A week later he received 
 instructions to provide specially for the protection of 
 Portugal, and to complete the evacuation of the Mediter-' 
 ranean by withdrawing the garrison from the island of 
 Elba. This duty was entrusted to Nelson, who shifted 
 his broad pennant to the Minerve frigate, and with the 
 Blanche in company, sailed from Gibraltar on December 
 15th. Off Cartagena, on the evening of the 19th, they 
 fell in with two Spanish frigates, which they engaged 
 and captured. The one which struck to Jbhe Minerve 
 was the Santa Sabina, commanded by Don Jacobo Stuart, 
 a descendant of the Duke of Berwick. Scarcely was she 
 taken possession of, when another frigate came towards 
 them ; it was then half-past three in the morning, and 
 in the dark she was mistaken for the Blanche^ till she 
 hailed the Sahina in Spanish and, finding her in the 
 possession of the English, fired a broadside into her. 
 The Minerve had the Sabina in tow, but at once cast her 
 off" and engaged the stranger, which attempted to make 
 off, followed by the Minerve, At daylight, however, the 
 relation was changed. Two Spanish ships of the line 
 
CHAP. V A NARROW ESCAPE 83 
 
 and another frigate came on the scene; and the four 
 now chased the Minerve, whose capture appeared im- 
 minent. She was saved by the presence of mind of 
 Lieutenants Culverhouse and Hardy on board the Sabina^ 
 who reminded the Spaniards of their loss by hoisting 
 the English colours with the Spanish below them. This 
 was more than the Spaniards could stand, and the largest 
 of the line-of-battle ships turned aside to recapture the 
 frigate. But it was a couple of hours before she could 
 do this; and though the others continued the chase, 
 they were gradually left astern by the Minerve. The 
 Blanche had not had time to take possession of her prize, 
 and escaped unpursued. 
 
 On the 26th Nelson anchored at Porto Ferrajo, but 
 found that General de Burgh, in command of the troops, 
 did not think himself authorised to abandon the place 
 without positive orders, though he was clear that no 
 good was to be gained by staying, now that Naples had 
 made peace with France and the English fleet had 
 quitted the Mediterranean. Nelson accordingly collected 
 the ships which had remained behind, embarked the 
 naval stores, and, on receiving a final refusal from General 
 de Burgh, left with him a few small craft under the 
 command of Captain Fremantle in the Inconstant, and 
 sailed on January 29th, 1797, Sir Gilbert Elliot and 
 his staff taking a passage in the Minerve or other vessels 
 of the squadron. After looking into Toulon where the 
 French fleet still lay, and into Cartagena from which 
 the Spanish fleet was absent, Nelson was in feverish 
 haste to rejoin the Admiral, and on February 9th 
 anchored at Gibraltar. 
 
 Three Spanish ships were lying at Algcziras, and 
 
84 NELSON 
 
 from these he received the two lieutenants Culverhouse 
 and Hardy, who had been taken in the Sahina, in ex- 
 change for Don Jacobo Stuart, previously sent into 
 Cartagena with a flag of truce. The Minerve sailed on 
 the forenoon of the 11th, and was immediately followed 
 by two of the Spanish ships, which hoped to make an 
 easy capture of the frigate. By an accident they had 
 success within their reach. Eunning through the Straits 
 with a fair wind, the Minerve lost a man overboard. 
 The jolly-boat was lowered, with Lieutenant Hardy and 
 her crew on board, but the man had sunk, and was never 
 seen again. The jolly-boat was now found to be in great 
 danger, for the ship still held her way, and the easterly 
 current was setting the boat fast astern, while the lead- 
 ing Spanish ship was coming up under a full spread of 
 canvas. With an anxious eye Nelson took in the situa- 
 tion. " By God," he cried, " I'll not lose Hardy ; back 
 the mizen topsail ! " As the ship came to, the Spaniards, 
 astounded at the manoeuvre, could only interpret it as 
 meaning that she saw the English fleet coming in from 
 the westward; and not choosing to incur the risk of 
 meeting with them, hauled their wind and stood back 
 to the eastward, while the Minerve, having picked up 
 the jolly-boat, resumed her course, passed through the 
 Spanish fleet during the night of the 12th, and on the 
 13th joined the Admiral off Cape St. Vincent, giving 
 him the news of the near approach of the Spaniards. 
 The same afternoon Nelson shifted his broad pennant 
 back to the Captain ; and at daj^break the next morning 
 the Spanish fleet was seen some fifteen or twenty miles to 
 the southward. The weather was extremely hazy, and 
 it was nearly eleven before the look-out vessel could 
 
y BATTLE OF CAPE ST. VINCENT 85 
 
 signal that there were twenty-five ships of the line ; two 
 were presumably shrouded in the fog, for there were 
 really twenty-seven. 
 
 Since coming to Gibraltar the English fleet had re- 
 ceived several important reinforcements to make up for 
 the deficiency caused by Man's absence ; but a succession 
 of untoward losses had prevented its numbers being in- 
 creased. Two ships had been totally lost ; one, with a 
 great lump of rock driven through her bottom, had been 
 sent to England ; two others had been docked at Lisbon. 
 It was thus that, on the morning of St. Valentine's Day, 
 February 14th, 1797, when Jervis met the Spanish fleet 
 on its way northwards, with the intention of join- 
 ing the French at Brest, he had with him only fifteen 
 sail of the line ; and though nine of them had been sub- 
 ject for the past year to his iron discipline, the odds 
 against him still appeared excessive. But he knew that 
 the state of afl'airs at home rendered it necessary at all 
 hazards to prevent the Spaniards from going to Brest. 
 " A victory is very essential to England at this moment," 
 he was heard to mutter as he paced the Fidory^s quarter- 
 deck ; then, as he drew near and saw the enemy's fleet, 
 with the wind at west by south, straggling across the line 
 of his advance, he formed his fleet in line of battle towards 
 the south, and steered for a gap between two of the 
 enemy's divisions, so as to cut off seven of their ships 
 to leeward. The western division was running down to 
 join them, and two three-decked ships succeeded in doing 
 so. The rest, seeing that they were too late, wore all 
 together and stood to the north, firing some distant 
 shots at the English line as they passed on opposite 
 tacks. But as the leading ship, the CullodeUy commanded 
 
86 NELSON 
 
 by Troubridge, Nelson's old companion in the Seahorse^ 
 came into the wake of the Spaniards, Jervis made the 
 signal to tack in succession ; and the Culloden, fully pre- 
 pared for the order, came round at once and fell among 
 the rear of the retreating Spaniards. 
 
 It has often been pointed out that the particular 
 manoeuvre which Jervis had ordered was a tactical 
 blunder ; for, according to the signal, each of his ships 
 was bound to stand on till she reached the spot where 
 the Culloden had tacked before she could follow. This 
 gave the enemy time to get some considerable distance 
 ahead, so that, to all appearance, the action would end 
 in a desultory interchange of firing, without any decisive 
 result. There are many who think that what Jervis 
 should have signalled in the circumstances was to 
 tack all together, that is, each ship where she actually 
 was when the signal was made ; and had this been done, 
 there can be little doubt that the battle would have 
 been much sharper and more decisive than it was. That 
 it was so in any degree was due not to Jervis but to 
 Nelson, whose ship, the Captain, was in the rear of the 
 fleet, the last but two ; and seeing that by the man- 
 oeuvre ordered, not only could the Captain not get into 
 action, but also that the Spaniards, as they passed clear 
 of the sternmost ships, were bearing up to run down 
 to leeward and join the other division, he took on him- 
 self, not for the first time, to disobey the order, wore 
 out of the line, and stood on the other tack to meet 
 the Spanish Admiral in the Santisima Trinidad, the 
 largest ship then afloat, which, as well as the other ships 
 with him, he compelled to haul to the wind again*. The 
 delay enabled the Culloden and the other leading ships 
 
V CAPTURE OF THE SAN NICOLAS 87 
 
 to come up ; and Jervis, partly recognising his mistake, 
 signalled the Excellent^ the rearmost ship, also to tack. 
 The action thus became more general. Two of the 
 Spanish ships struck their colours and were taken posses- 
 sion of. The rest fled. 
 
 After engaging the Santisima Trinidad and several 
 others, the Captain was then in close action with the 
 San Nicolas of 84 guns. She had suffered much in her 
 rigging, and was apparently hard pressed by her huge 
 antagonist, when Collingwood in the Excellent, passing 
 between the two, poured a tremendous broadside into 
 the Spaniard at a distance of only a few feet. The San 
 Nicolas luff'ed up, possibly to prevent the Excellent foul- 
 ing her ; and in so doing fell on board the three-decker 
 San Josef, which apparently bore up at the same moment 
 to avoid the fire of the Prince George; and the two, 
 having already suffered severely, lay practically helpless. 
 The Captain also was almost unmanageable, "her fore- 
 mast gone, not a sail, shroud, or rope left, her wheel 
 shot away " ; and Nelson, seeing her unable to follow the 
 flying Spaniards, ordered the helm to be put a-starboard 
 and called for the boarders.. As the Captain^ s spritsail 
 yard hooked in the mizen rigging of the San Nicolas, 
 Berry, who had been first lieutenant of the Agamemnon 
 and the Captain, and having been promoted shortly before, 
 was now serving as a volunteer, sprang into her mizen 
 chains and scrambled on board, closely followed by 
 Lieutenant Pierson of the Sixty-Ninth Regiment and his 
 soldiers. The upper quarter gallery window was dashed 
 in, and Nelson himself with others jumped through. A 
 few pistol-shots were fired, but the resistance was little 
 more than nominal ; and while Berry on the poop hauled 
 
88 NELSON 
 
 down the Spanish flag, Nelson with Pierson and some 
 of his men went forward, where the officers, already 
 prisoners to some of the CaiptawHs seamen, delivered 
 up their swords. 
 
 At this moment some muskets were fired from the 
 stern-walk of the Ban Josefs and Nelson, directing the 
 soldiers to fire into her stern, called for more men and 
 proceeded to board the three-decker. Berry assisted 
 him into her mizen chains, when a Spanish officer 
 looked over the side and said they surrendered. Nelson 
 was quickly on the quarter-deck, where the captain 
 presented his sword, saying that the admiral was below, 
 dying. But the other Spanish officers were called up 
 and delivered their swords, which, wrote Nelson, " as I 
 received, I gave to William Fearney, one of my barge- 
 men, who put them under his arm with the greatest 
 sang-froid.'^ The Victory and the other ships, as they 
 passed the Captain, cheered her ; and when Nelson, after 
 shifting his broad pennant to the Irresistible, went on 
 board the Victory, the Admiral, according to Nelson's 
 own account, "received me on the quarter-deck, and 
 having embraced me, said he could not sufficiently thank 
 me, and used every kind expression, which could not fail 
 to make me happy." 
 
 After four years' service in the Agamemnon and the 
 Captain, Nelson's reputation as a man of courage and 
 ability was very well established ; but this day had 
 shown him in a still more favourable light, and had 
 presented him as a man no less quick to discern than 
 prompt to act. It was thus that Collingwood, who had 
 long been on terms of intimate friendship with him, 
 wrote the next day : "It added very much to the satis- 
 
V NELSON'S " PATENT BRIDGE " 89 
 
 faction which I felt in thumping the Spaniards, that 1 
 released you a little. The highest rewards are due to 
 you and Culloden ; you formed the plan of attack, we 
 were only accessories to the dons' ruin ; for had they 
 got on the other tack, they would have been sooner 
 joined, and the business would have been less complete. " 
 (But more than this, the battle brought his name promi- 
 nently before the country.) The news of the victory 
 reached London on the afternoon of March 3rd, and the 
 same evening a vote of thanks to Jervis and all under 
 his command was carried by acclamation in the House 
 of Commons. An intolerable weight was taken off the 
 country ; and as people began to ask about particulars 
 they learned that a captain of a 74 had carried by 
 boarding first an 80 and then a 112-gun ship, and that 
 his coxswain had collected the swords of the Spanish 
 officers under his arm " as if he was making up a faggot." 
 It was this, the apparent disproportion of the combatants 
 to the magnitude of the results, that caught the popular 
 fancy, and Nelson was at once installed as the ideal of a 
 naval herbj Even now, misled by exaggerated descrip- 
 tions and imaginative pictures, it is ver^ commonly 
 supposed that he captured the two Spaniards in a 
 desperate hand-to-hand conflict amid the clash of 
 cutlasses and dint of tomahawks : people do not stop now, 
 any more than they did then, to reflect that what Nelson 
 did was, with great resolution and vigour, but without 
 any serious fighting, to take forcible possession of two 
 beaten ships, which but for his prompt action would very 
 probably have got away, as the Santisima Trinidad and 
 other beaten ships actually did. Nelson himself, who 
 was by no means given to minimise his exploits, did not 
 
90 NELSON 
 
 claim to have done anything more, and though he wrote*: 
 " There is a saying in the fleet too flattering for me to 
 omit telling, — ' Nelson's patent bridge for boarding first- 
 rates,' alluding to my passing over an enemj^'s 80-gun 
 ship," he wrote also more modestly : "I pretend not 
 to say that these two ships might not have fell had I not 
 boarded them; but truly it was far from certain but 
 they might have forged into the Spanish fleet as the 
 other two ships did." 
 
 There is no question that the capture of the San 
 Nicolas and San Josef did illustrate Nelson's genius, 
 though not in the way that fancy has represented. 
 Undaunted courage of course he had, but so also had 
 scores of officers and men in the fleet ; the quick per- 
 ception that the ships were beaten, that the Captain was 
 useless in the chase, the determination not to lie idle 
 when anything could be done, — all this was Nelson's own. 
 But a higher and finer display of the same quickness of 
 perception, the same prompt resolution, with the utter 
 fearlessness of responsibility! was given in the wearing 
 out of the line without orderk ^nd throwing himself, all 
 unsupported, in the way of tne Santisima Trinidad and 
 the whole of the Spanish fleet. The Captain might be 
 crushed or sunk, — taken, he knew, she could not be ; 
 but whatever happened to her, he ensured sufficient 
 delay to permit the Culloden, Blenheim, Prince George, 
 Orion, and others to come up. To see and understand 
 this, however, required some knowledge of ships and 
 fleets and naval tactics ; while the most ignorant could 
 see and understand the grandeur of one ship capturing 
 two others, each bigger than herself, and were pleased 
 to represent Nelson as a man whose one idea of a battle 
 
▼ HONOURS AND REWARDS 91 
 
 was to plunge blindfold into the thickest of it, trusting 
 to the fortune of war to bring him well out of it. 
 
 Much has been written of the very inadequate 
 account of the battle and of Nelson's share in it which 
 was given in Jervis's despatch. It may be that, as has 
 been said, there was some jealousy on the part of Sir 
 Eobert Calder, the Captain of the Fleet ; but Jervis was 
 not the man to be guided by a Calder, or by any one 
 else, in a way that his own judgment did not approve ) 
 and it may very well be that he considered it unbecom- 
 ing to enter into the details of the battle in his public 
 letter. It had certainly not been usual to do so. In a 
 private letter to the First Lord he rendered full justice to 
 Nelson's gallantry, though still without entering into 
 any detail; and in all probability Lord Spencer first 
 learned what was actually done from Sir Gilbert Elliot, 
 who had witnessed the battle from the deck of the Lively 
 frigate, which after the battle carried him and Calder 
 and the Admiral's despatches to England. 
 
 Kewards and promotions were showered on the 
 victors. Jervis, who had previously been notified of the 
 King's intention to raise him to the peerage as a baron, 
 was now made an earl, the King himself suggesting the 
 title of St. Vincent. Nelson received the freedom of 
 the City of London in a gold casket and a sword of 
 honour. The city of Norwich also conferred its freedom, 
 at once as a recognition of his valour and in return for 
 the Spanish Rear-Admiral's sword, which he presented 
 to the corporation. By the King he was made a Knight 
 of the Bath, an honour then at least equal, probably 
 superior, in social prestige to the Grand Cross of the pre- 
 sent day. A baronetcy would have been conferred on 
 
92 NELSON 
 
 him, but in conversation with Elliot, Nelson had expressed 
 a very distinct objection to receiving any hereditary 
 title which his means would not allow him to keep up j 
 and had very plainly suggested that he would much 
 prefer the order of the Bath. There is a common im- 
 pression that his promotion to the rank of rear-admiral 
 was also a reward for his splendid conduct on St. Valen- 
 tine's Day. This is a mistake. Neither then nor for 
 nearly a hundred years before was promotion to flag- 
 rank a reward for conspicuous merit, but, following 
 certain more or less clearly defined rules of service, 
 was conferred according to seniority on the list of post- 
 captains. Nelson, a captain of more than seventeen 
 years' standing, had been close to the top of the list for 
 several months, and for more than a year had been 
 apprehensive that his promotion, which must come with 
 the first batch, would put him on half -pay. Now, when 
 it did come, it was dated only six days after the battle, 
 a fortnight before the news reached England. 
 
 After refitting at Lisbon, Nelson, with his broad 
 pennant still in the Irresistible, was sent with a small 
 squadron to cruise between Cape St. Vincent and the 
 African coast, on the look-out for the Viceroy of Mexico, 
 who was expected to arrive at Cadiz with three ships of 
 the line and a large treasure. Nelson, writing to his 
 wife as he put to sea, said : " The Spanish war will give 
 us a cottage and a piece of ground, which is all I want. 
 I shall come one day or other laughing back, when we 
 will retire from the busy scenes of life : I do not, 
 however, intend to be a hermit ; the dons will give us a 
 little money." His anticipations were not, however, to 
 be fulfilled this cruise, for either the report was un 
 
V NELSON MADE A REAR-ADMIRAL 93 
 
 founded, or the Viceroy, having intelligence of the war, 
 postponed his departure. On March 24th he again 
 shifted his broad pennant to the Captain, which had re- 
 fitted at Lisbon ; and on the afternoon of April 1st he 
 was joined by the Admiral and the fleet. They brought 
 him the news of his promotion to the rank of rear- 
 admiral, and the same afternoon, at three o'clock, he 
 hoisted his flag on board the Captain. 
 
 For a fortnight longer Nelson continued off Cadiz, 
 and was then again sent to bring away the troops from 
 Porto Ferrajo, if indeed they were not already on the 
 way under the escort of the Inconstant He had 
 previously suggested to the Admiral that the Viceroy 
 might have gone to Teneriffe, and that if so, those 
 soldiers with a detachment of the fleet might capture 
 the island without much difficulty. When, however, he 
 returned to Gibraltar, in company with the convoy 
 which he met near the southern end of Corsica, Jervis, 
 now Earl of St. Vincent, had apparently learnt that the 
 Viceroy had not gone to Teiieriffe ; and the troops, being 
 under orders for England, were sent on at once. As it 
 was found necessary for the Captain to go to England 
 to be docked. Nelson with Captain Miller moved into 
 the Theseus, and resumed the blockade of Cadiz, which 
 was continued for the next two months, enlivened by 
 occasional skirmishes with the Spanish gunboats or 
 launches. In one of these, on July 3rd, Nelson thought 
 that " his personal courage was more conspicuous than 
 at any other period of his life." His barge, containing 
 thirteen men all told, including himself and Fremantle, 
 was boarded by a Spanish gunboat with a crow of 
 thirty, eighteen of whom were killed after a severe 
 
94 NELSON chap. 
 
 hand-to-hand fight, several wounded, and the boat taken. 
 Perhaps the courage which was most conspicuous was 
 that of John Sykes, the coxswain of the barge, 
 who, after parrying several blows meant for Nelson, 
 stopped one with his own head, which was either harder 
 than the run of heads, or the cutlass had turned in the 
 hand; for Sykes, though severely wounded, was not 
 killed till two years later, when a fragment of a bursting 
 cannon found a mortal part. 
 
 It was during this time that the Commander-in-Chief 
 was sternly engaged in repressing the mutinous spirit 
 which had shown itself in the fleet. The Theseus was 
 supposed to be one of the most deeply infected ; it is 
 therefore notable that within three weeks of Nelson's 
 hoisting his flag on board her, a paper professing to be 
 signed by the ship's company was dropped on the 
 quarter-deck : — " Success attend Admiral Nelson ! God 
 bless Captain Miller ! We thank them for the officers 
 they have placed over us. We are happy and comfort- 
 able, and will shed every di'op of blood in our veins to 
 support them, and the name of the Theseus shall be 
 immortalised as high as the Ca;ptain^s." From that time 
 every appearance of insubordination vanished ; and the 
 TheseuSj which continued under Miller's command till 
 his lamentable death in 1799, was as well disciplined and 
 in as good order as any ship in the fleet. 
 
 With the vigorous manner in which Lord St. Vincent 
 stamped out the mutiny then threatening the most 
 dangerous consequences, we are not now concerned. 
 Nelson in the inshore squadron was clear of the trouble ; 
 but one expression of his sentiments is of importance as 
 showing how utterly false is the idea that he was a man 
 
V SUPPRESSION OF MUTINY 95 
 
 to keep things easy by letting those under his command 
 have their own way. For in fact " the iron grip under 
 the velvet glove " was never more strikingly illustrated 
 than in the character of Nelson. Two men of the St 
 George were tried for mutiny on Saturday, July 8th ; 
 were found guilty, and sentenced to death. St. Vincent 
 had determined that the sentence, if passed, should be 
 carried out without delay. The men would have been 
 hanged on the Saturday, but that the court-martial did 
 not finish till after sunset ; they were actually hanged 
 at nine o'clock on Sunday morning; whereupon Vice- 
 Admiral Thompson wrote the Admiral a very strong 
 letter "censuring him for profaning the Sabbath." 
 Nelson, on the other hand, wTote : "I congratulate you 
 on the finish, as it ought, of the St. George^s business, and 
 I (if I may be permitted to say so) very much approve 
 of its being so speedily carried into execution, even 
 although it is Sunday. The particular situation of the 
 service requires extraordinary measures. I hope this 
 will end all the disorders in our fleet : had there been 
 the same determined spirit at home, I do not believe it 
 would have been half so bad " ; and to the Captain of 
 the Fleet he added : " I am sorry that you should have 
 to differ with Vice-Admiral Thompson ; but had it been 
 Christmas Day instead of Sunday I would have executed 
 them. We know not what might have been hatched by 
 a Sunday's grog : now your discipline is safe." 
 
 More congenial work was, however, preparing for him. 
 The Admiral had received intelligence that a richly- 
 laden.ship4Feffi-Ma»i4aJiad^ and was 
 
 there waiting for an opportunity to return to Spain. 
 As Nelson had before suggested the possibility of an 
 
96 NELSON 
 
 attack on TenerifFe, St. Vincent now recurred to it and 
 proposed to Nelsqnto carry it out. . Nelson readily under- 
 took to do so, though the scheme was no longer his, 
 which had been based on his having the co-operation of 
 a large body of troops. This was now not to be had ; 
 and though a squadron of three ships of the line and 
 three frigates was detached for the service, it was found 
 that the attempt was, as Nelson had supposed, im- 
 practicable without a much stronger landing-party than 
 they could muster. They were off the Bay of Santa 
 Cruz on July 21st, and as the Governor refused to 
 capitulate, the attack was ordered for the night of 
 the 24th under cover of the darkness. Unfortunately 
 the darkness told against the assailants. Most of the 
 boats missed the mole, and were tossed on shore through 
 a raging surf which stove the boats and wet the ammuni- 
 tion. The few who landed at the mole were exposed to 
 a heavy and well-judged fire. Nelson, in the act of 
 landing, was struck on the right elbow by a grape-shot. 
 He fell back into the arms of his stepson, Josiah Nisbet, 
 at this time a lad of seventeen and lieutenant of the 
 Theseus, who took him back to tlie ship, where the 
 shattered arm was amputated. 
 
 On shore the position of the assailants was desperate ; 
 and when daylight showed the scanty force of the 
 English surrounded by some eight thousand Spaniards 
 under arms and with five field-pieces, Troubridge, on 
 whom the command devolved, felt it necessary to nego- 
 tiate. Samuel Hood, Lord Hood's namesake and cousin, a 
 good linguist and at this time captain of the Zealous, took 
 a flag of truce and proposed that the Spaniards should 
 find boats and the English should withdraw, pledging 
 
y^ 
 
 7 LOSS OF AN ARM 97 
 
 themselves to commit no further hostilities. The 
 Governor thought the English ought to surrender 
 as prisoners of war; but Hood replied that Captain 
 Troubridge had directed him to say that if the terms 
 offered were not accepted in five minutes, he would set 
 the town on fire and attack the Spaniards at the point 
 of the bayonet. The Spanish force was presumably in 
 great part a pretence, local militia without training or 
 courage, and the Governor judged it better to accept the 
 terms than force on a conflict with, desperate men. He 
 did more, and with a liberality not unprecedented in 
 our wars with Spain, "directed our wounded men to 
 be received into the hospitals, and all our people to be 
 supplied with the best provisions that could be procured, 
 and made it known that the ships were at liberty to send 
 on shore and purchase whatever refreshments they were 
 in want of during the time they might lie off the island." 
 On the 27th, the officers and men were all brought on 
 board, and the squadron, already under way, made sail 
 to rejoin the Admiral. 
 
 It was the same day, that is, within about sixty hours 
 from the time of his arm being amputated, that Nelson 
 wrote to Lord St. Vincent, — a few lines only, interesting 
 as his first attempt with his left hand — asking that his 
 stepson might be promoted in the vacancy caused by 
 the death, at Santa Cruz, of Captain Bowen of the 
 Terpsichore. As the boy was at this time barely seven- 
 teen, the practical elasticity of the rule laid down in the 
 Instructions, that no one should be made a lieutenant 
 till he was twenty, is proved by the facts that Nelson 
 did not see any impropriety in asking that this boy, 
 already a lieutenant, should be made a commander; 
 H 
 
98 NELSON 
 
 and that St. Vincent, in many ways the embodiment 
 of strict service, saw no impropriety in granting the 
 request, and promoting the boy to be commander of the 
 Dolphin hospital-ship. At the same time he ordered the 
 Seahorse^ whose captain, Fremantle, moved into her from 
 the Inconstant, had also been wounded at TenerifFe, to 
 take Nelson to England. The Theseus joined the Admiral 
 off Cadiz on August 16 th, when Nelson wrote : "A left- 
 handed admiral will never again be considered as useful, 
 therefore the sooner! get to a very humble cottage the 
 better, and make room for a better man to serve the 
 State " ; and the next day the Seahorse sailed for Spit- 
 head, where she anchored on September 1st. 
 
 Nelson went at once to Bath, where his wife already 
 was ; and for several weeks there, or afterward in London, 
 suffered intense agony from his wound. It appears that 
 in the hurry and in the murky atmosphere of the Theseus^ s 
 cockpit the surgeon had tied a nerve with the artery ; 
 as the result of which the pain was often extreme, till 
 in due time the ligature came away ; and even then the 
 suffering left a neuralgic disposition, the ill effects of 
 which were never removed. The story is told that when 
 the news of Duncan's victory at Camperdown, won on 
 October 11th, reached London, Nelson was occupying 
 apartments in Bond Street. He had been in great pain 
 all day, and had gone to bed after taking a dose of 
 laudanum, when the mob, surging through the street, 
 knocked angrily at the door to ask why the house was 
 not illuminated. The servant told them that Sir Horatio 
 Nelson was there, badly wounded and trying to sleep. 
 Already his was a name to conjure with. "You will 
 hear no more of us," replied the spokesmen of the party; 
 
AFLOAT AGAIN 99 
 
 and we are left to believe that they took measures to 
 prevent any further disturbance in that quarter. By 
 December 8th Nelson was able to send to the incumbent 
 of St. George's, Hanover Square, this notice, to be used 
 on the following Sunday : " An oJSicer desires to return 
 thanks to Almighty God for his perfect recovery from 
 a severe wound, and also for the many mercies bestowed 
 upon him." 
 
 Some weeks before this he had found out that the 
 Admiralty did not consider a left-handed admiral 
 necessarily useless, especially when he was the popular 
 hero of St. Valentine's Day. It had been already de- 
 cided that the Foudroyant, a fine 80 -gun ship, then on 
 the stocks but to be launched in January, should be 
 commissioned in February for his flag, and that her 
 captain should be Berry, the old first lieutenant of the 
 Agamemnon, who had been posted for his distinguished 
 valour off Cape St. Vincent. It was afterwards found 
 that the Foudroyant could not be ready so soon as had 
 been expected ; and, as the Admiralty were anxious that 
 Nelson should rejoin Lord St. Vincent without delay, 
 and he himself was eager to be afloat again, it was 
 arranged that for the time he should hoist his flag on 
 board the Vanguard of 74 guns. Berry going with him 
 as his flag-captain. He sailed from St. Helen's on April 
 10th, 1798, anchored in the Tagus on the 23rd, and 
 on the last day of the month joined the Commander- 
 in-Chief off* Cadiz. 
 
CHAPTEE VI 
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE NILE 
 
 It was already known that a very considerable French 
 force was being got together at Toulon, though its 
 object or destination remained a secret; and Lord St. 
 Vincent at once determined to send Nelson with a small 
 squadron up the Mediterranean, to try if he could find 
 out anything about it. The rumours were various. 
 Sicily, Corfu, Portugal, and Ireland were all mentioned 
 as its possible aims ; it was, perhaps, intended to join a 
 Spanish force at Cartagena. Nelson was instructed to 
 send off a frigate or sloop to the Admiral so soon as he 
 discovered anything ; but in any case to take care that 
 the enemy did not pass him, so as to prevent his rejoin- 1 
 ine the fleet. | 
 
 \^With two line-of -battle ships, the Orion and Alexander j 
 besides the Vanguard, three frigates and a sloop. Nelson 
 sailed from Gibraltar on May 8th. Ten days later he 
 wrote from off Cape Sicie that there were in Toulon 
 fifteen sail of the line apparently ready for sea, that 
 there were many transports, and that large bodies of 
 troops were daily arriving at the port; about twelve 
 thousand men were already embarked; the time of 
 sailing was very differently reported ; and as to further 
 
CHAP. VI SENT UP THE MEDITERRANEAN loi 
 
 particulars, — "they order their matters so well in 
 France that all is secret." 
 
 The next day, May 18th, it came on to blow; and 
 early on the morning of the 20th the Vanguard's masts, 
 — the main topmast, the mizen topmast, the foremast — 
 went over the side one after the other ; the bowsprit, 
 badly sprung, and the lower main and mizen masts 
 were all that remained. The gale blew very hard all 
 day, and the Vanguard laboured exceedingly. The 
 Alexander took her in tow, and the Orion^ finding the 
 anchorage of San Pietro at the southern end of Sardinia, 
 piloted her in. The three line-of-battle ships anchored 
 there at noon on the 23rd. The frigates and small craft, 
 by stress of weather, had parted company ; and not 
 finding their consorts, and concluding that the Vanguard 
 would be obliged to return to Gibraltar, went back to 
 the fleet; nor did Nelson see them again during the 
 anxious months that were to follow. In four days, by 
 the united exertions of the three ships, the Vanguard was 
 refitted, — a main topmast for a foremast, a top-gallant 
 mast for a topmast, and everything else reduced in pro- 
 portion — and the squadron again at sea. Four days 
 later it was back off Toulon ; but the French fleet was 
 no longer there. The same northerly gale which had 
 proved so disastrous to the Vanguard^ was, a little to 
 the eastward, a fine fresh breeze, with which the French 
 expedition had put to sea and disappeared. No further 
 information could be obtained, and for some days Nelson 
 vainly sought for it along the coast of Italy, being un- 
 willing to go south without some definite purpose. 
 
 Meanwhile the Government, having also heard of 
 this threatening armament at Toulon, had sent out a 
 
NELSON 
 
 strong reinforcement to Lord St. Vincent, with instruc- 
 tions to detach a sufficient squadron up the Mediter- 
 ranean under the command of a " discreet flag officer," 
 suggesting that the fittest for the service would be Sir 
 Horatio Nelson. The suggestion came directly from 
 the First Lord of the Admiralty, who had been prompted 
 by Sir Gilbert Elliot and by the King himself, probably 
 at the request of the Duke of Clarence. St. Vincent's 
 own opinion was quite in accord with the suggestion, 
 and the more so as Nelson was already in the Mediter- 
 ranean. A squadron of ten 74-gun ships and the 50-gun 
 ship Leander was therefore detached under the command 
 of Captain Troubridge, and joined Nelson on the evening 
 of June 7th, bringing him instructions to proceed in 
 quest of the enemy's armament, the object of which was 
 supposed to be either an attack upon Naples and Sicily, 
 the conveyance of an army to some part of the coast of 
 Spain for the purpose of marching towards Portugal, or 
 to pass through the Straits with the view of proceeding 
 to Ireland. On falling in with it, he was to use his 
 utmost endeavours to take, sink, burn, or destroy it; 
 and he was " to remain upon this service so long as the 
 provisions of his squadron would last, or as long as he 
 might be enabled to obtain supplies from any of the 
 ports of the Mediterranean." 
 
 Subsequent events give a peculiar and important sig- 
 nificance to the wording of this order. It should therefore 
 be especially noticed that he was enjoined to remain so 
 long as he could obtain supplies ; to obey this order not 
 only in the letter but in the spirit, by treating as hostile 
 any ports within the Mediterranean where provisions, 
 etc., should be refused ; and, definitely and distinctly, 
 
VI HIS INSTRUCTIONS 103 
 
 to exact supplies of whatever he might be in want of 
 from the territories of the Grand Duke of Tuscany, the 
 King of the Two Sicilies, and others. Nothing can be 
 clearer or more precise than the authority given to 
 Nelson _to_help himself in _ case ol a refusal ; and those 
 have assuredly known little of Nelson's character who 
 have supposed that he would have preferred disobeying 
 his orders and neglecting the special service entrusted to 
 him, to bringing pressure or even force to bear on a 
 doubtful ally. He, however, determined to ascertain at 
 once what he had to depend on; and on June 12th 
 wrote from off Elba to _Sir JWilliam Hami]^.oTir^ the 
 English ambassador at Naples, requesting him to assure 
 the King of his determination to support him and also 
 to obtain clear answers to these questions : Are the 
 ports of Naples and Sicily open to His Majesty's fleet? 
 Have the Governors orders for our free admission, 
 and for us to be supplied with whatever we may want ? 
 On the 14th he wrote again, to the effect that he had 
 just learned that the French fleet had been seen off 
 Trapani on the 4th ; and that if it was now in any port 
 of Sicily, he would at once attack it. He wanted pilots, 
 as well as an answer to his questions. "I send Captain 
 Troubridge to communicate with your Excellency, and, 
 as Captain Troubridge is in full possession of my con- 
 fidence, I beg that whatever he says may be considered 
 as coming from me." 
 
 In a letter to Lord Spencer, dated on the 15th off 
 Ponza, we get the first hint of what was, and no doubt 
 had already been, the dominant idea in his mind, — 
 that the French were aiming at Egypt; an idea the 
 more remarkable as entirely foreign to the instructions 
 
104 NELSON 
 
 or suggestions he had received from the Commander-in- 
 Chief. After saying that they had been seen on the 4th 
 off Trapani steering to the eastward, he went on : " If 
 they pass Sicily, I shall believe they are going on their 
 scheme of possessing Alexandria and getting troops to 
 India, a plan concerted with Tippoo Saib, by no means 
 so difficult as might at first view be imagined ; but be 
 they bound to the Antipodes, your lordship may rely 
 that I will not lose a moment in bringing them to action, 
 and endeavour to destroy their transports. I hope," 
 he continued, " the King of Naples will send me some 
 frigates; for mine parted company on May 20th, and 
 have not joined me since. ... I shall make sail and 
 pass the Faro of Messina the moment Captain Troubridge 
 returns." 
 
 Although his first letter to Sir William Hamilton was 
 dated off Elba on June 12th, and the second, introducing 
 Troubridge, off Civita Vecchia on the 14th, the Mutine 
 brig, in which Troubridge took a passage, did not part 
 company till the 16th, when she pushed on into the Bay 
 of Naples, anchoring there the next morning while the 
 fleet lay to in the offing. About eight o'clock on the 
 morning of the 17th, Troubridge, accompanied by Hardy, 
 now commander of the Mutine^ landed and called on Sir 
 William Hamilton, who took him at once to see General 
 Acton, the Neapolitan Prime Minister. Troubridge was 
 much pleased with Acton's answers to his straight- 
 forward questions; and on his expressing a desire 
 for an order to the Commanders-in-Chief of all the 
 ports in Sicily to supply the ships with provisions 
 and, in case of an action, to permit them to land the 
 sick and wounded, the General gave him such an 
 
VI SEARCHING FOR THE FRENCH FLEET 105 
 
 order in the name of His Sicilian Majesty, signed by 
 himself and addressed to all the several governors of the 
 different ports in Sicily. In addition to this order, 
 Troubridge took off a copy of a letter to Hamilton 
 from the Marquis de Gallo, the Neapolitan Foreign 
 Secretary, dated June 12th, to the effect that they 
 could not venture to take a decided part while the 
 treaty with Austria was still unsettled, and in view 
 of the possibility of the withdrawal of the English 
 fleet; but that by the King's express orders the 
 English squadron would receive every welcome, facility 
 and advantage compatible with the circumstances. 
 He was also able to give Nelson the information that 
 the French fleet had passed Sicily and was attacking 
 Malta ; with news from Pantellaria that a French ship 
 had been making inquiries there relative to the report 
 of a British squadron's being in the Mediterranean, 
 which they thought could not be true. In Sicily they 
 had asked the same, and been told that for two years 
 British colours had not been seen there, except on 
 board some Gibraltar privateers. 
 
 Hoping to catch the French fleet unawares before 
 Malta, Nelson made sail at once, and passed through the 
 Strait of Messina, writing to Hamilton on the next day, 
 June 18th, that the Cabinet was determined to keep the 
 fleet in the Mediterranean, and that he might assure 
 the King of Naples that he should not withdraw but 
 by positive orders or the impossibility of procuring 
 supplies. His letter concluded with a complimentary 
 message to Lady Hamilton, and the expression of a hope 
 to be presented to her *' crowned with laurel or cypress," 
 referring, with a strange misappropriation of language, 
 
io6 NELSON 
 
 to the speech of Opdam as he sailed to the battle of 
 June 4th, 1665. 
 
 ^fF Cape Passaro, on the 22nd, Nelson learned that 
 (Malta had tamely surrendered to the French on the 
 15th, and that on the 16th the whole fleet, consisting of 
 sixteen sail of the line, with frigates, bombs, etc., and naar 
 three hundred transports, had left the island. As Sicily 
 was not their object, and as, from the time they sailed, the 
 wind blew fresh from the west, Nelson judged that their 
 destination was eastward, and was convinced that their 
 object was to possess themselves of some port in Egypt 
 and to fix themselves at the head of the Red Sea, in 
 order to get a formidable army into India. (And thus, 
 without any direct intelligence but strong in his con- 
 viction, and assured by learning from Troubridge that 
 it was sl;ared by Hamilton and Acton, he sailed for 
 Alexandria,^yhoping to come across the French fleet on 
 the way, but beginning to think, as days passed and he 
 saw nothing of them, that they must have heard from 
 Naples of the approach of an English fleet and have 
 turned aside, perhaps to porful 
 
 When, therefore, he arrived off Alexandria, and 
 found that the French were neither there nor had been 
 heard of, he at once reverted to the other idea, and 
 imagined that they must have turned up the Adriatic or 
 the Archipelago, or had perhaps kept a more northerly 
 course and were hugging the Syrian coast. Wherever 
 they were, it was his business to find them ; and sailing 
 northwards, he searched along the coast of Syria and then 
 along the coast of Caramania ; but neither by sight nor 
 inquiry could he learn anything of the French fleet. 
 
 It was now getting towards the end of July, nearly 
 
VI WATERS AT SYRACUSE 107 
 
 three months since he had left the Admiral. The water 
 was beginning to run short, and the men to need fresh 
 provisions. Relying therefore on the order which he had 
 received from Acton, and empowered to use force if 
 necessary, he made straight for Syracuse, and on the 
 afternoon of the 19th ran into the harbour, anchored, 
 moored, and sent the boats on shore for water, — all with- 
 out paying any attention to the Governor's remonstrances 
 beyond forwarding him Acton's letter. The Governor 
 was in some doubt how far this, irregular in form and 
 wanting in precision, warranted him in permitting such 
 a flagrant breach of the treaty with France, by the terms 
 of which not more than four foreign ships of war were 
 to be admitted at one time to any Neapolitan port. He 
 realised, however, the utter impossibility of getting rid 
 of his visitors before their wants were satisfied ; as the 
 town lay exposed to their broadsides, force was clearly 
 out of the question ; and so, salving his conscience with 
 continued remonstrances, which seem to have put Nelson 
 in a very bad temper, he sanctioned an unrestrained 
 trade in fruit and vegetables, bullocks, and wine, as well 
 as, under the rose, in acqitarzente, if we may judge by 
 the number of men in the fleet who were flogged for 
 drunkenness during the short stay. 
 
 The squadron left Syracuse on July 25th ; on the 28th, 
 being ofi" the Gulf of Goron, Nelson learned that the 
 French fleet had been seen about four weeks before, 
 steering towards the south-east from Candia ; and satis- 
 fied that, after all, they had gone to Egypt, he at once 
 made sail for Alexandria. On the evening of the 31st, 
 as he was nearing that port, he sent the Alexander and 
 Smfisure ahead to reconnoitre; but at noon on August 1st, 
 
io8 NELSON 
 
 being in sight of Alexandria and seeing that, while the 
 harbour was full of transports, the men-of-war were 
 not there, he altered course to the eastward. A little 
 before three the Zealous signalled that she saw sixteen 
 sail of the line at anchor ; they were, in fact, thirteen 
 sail of the line and four large frigates lying close in- 
 shore in Aboukir Bay. 
 
 During the many weeks that he had been groping 
 for this fleet, Nelson had had frequent opportunities of 
 explaining to the several captains with him the plan on 
 which he meant to engage at sea or at anchor ; and now, 
 as they saw the enemy before them, very few signals 
 were sufficient to let them know what they had to do. 
 The wind was variable from north-west to north-north- 
 west, and the French fleet was moored in a broken line 
 following very closely the five-fathom line of soundings, 
 about three miles from the shore ; so that while the 
 general direction of their line was from north-west to 
 south-east, that of the van was really from about west- 
 north-west to east -south -east, and of the rear from 
 about north-north-west to south-south-east. It would 
 thus seem as if the van of the French fleet was in 
 a bow and quarter line rather than in line ahead, and it 
 has been so described by some writers who have not 
 noticed that, in preparing for action, the French ships 
 got into line ahead, either by putting springs on their 
 cables or letting fall another anchor. But the general 
 effect was that their line was approximately in the 
 line of the wind; and as Nelson drew near enough 
 to understand the position, he signalled that it was 
 his intention to attack the enemy's van and centre. 
 It was then nearly five o'clock. He had previously 
 
VI RELATIVE FORCE OF THE TWO FLEETS 109 
 
 made the signal to prepare to anchor by the stern with 
 springs on the cables ; and a little before six he made 
 the signal to form line of battle as most convenient, 
 ahead and astern of the Admiral. He had with him at 
 the moment only ten ships of 74 guns ; the Culloden, 
 which had been towing a small prize laden with wine, 
 was some miles astern ; and still farther astern were the 
 Alexander and Smftsure^ with the little Leander. 
 
 And now, before the battle begins, it may be well to 
 say a few words as to the relative force of the two fleets. 
 With the exception of the Leander^ the English ships 
 were all of 74 guns, of the smaller class, carrying 32- 
 pounders on the lower deck and 18-pounders on the 
 main or, as it was then called, the upper deck; the 
 Leander had 24 and 12 pounders respectively. Most of 
 them had been for upwards of a year in commission, 
 many of them for upwards of two years, and under the 
 iron rule of Jervis had been brought into a state of the 
 greatest efficiency. The following is a list of them in 
 the order they got into as they formed line of battle, 
 the order in which they went into action. The CullodeUj 
 attempting a short cut, struck on a rock at the eastern 
 end of the shoal running out from Aboukir, or, as it has 
 since been called. Nelson Island, remained fast, and had 
 no part in the fight. 
 
NELSON 
 
 
 Ships* Names. 
 
 Captains. 
 
 Men. 
 
 K. 
 
 w. 
 
 Total. 
 
 1 
 
 Goliath . . 
 
 Thomas Foley 
 
 590 
 
 21 
 
 41 
 
 62 
 
 2 
 
 Zealous . 
 
 Sam. Hood 
 
 590 
 
 1 
 
 7 
 
 8 
 
 ' 3 
 
 Orion . . 
 
 Sir J. Saumarez 
 
 590 
 
 13 
 
 29 
 
 42 
 
 ! 4 
 
 Audacious . 
 
 Davidge Gould 
 
 590 
 
 1 
 
 35 
 
 36 
 
 5 
 
 i 
 
 Theseus . . 
 
 R. W. Miller 
 ( R.-Adral. Sir ^ 
 
 590 
 
 5 
 
 30 
 
 35 
 
 6 
 
 Vanguard . 
 
 -] H. Nelson [ 
 [ Ed. Berry 
 
 595 
 
 30 
 
 75 
 
 105 
 
 7 
 
 Minotaur . 
 
 Thomas Louis 
 
 640 
 
 23 
 
 64 
 
 87 
 
 8 
 
 Defence . . 
 
 John Peyton 
 
 590 
 
 4 
 
 11 
 
 15 
 
 9 
 
 Bellerophon 
 
 H. d'E. Darby 
 
 590 
 
 49 
 
 148 
 
 197 
 
 10 
 
 Majestic . . 
 
 G. B. WestoA 
 
 590 
 
 50 
 
 143 
 
 193 
 
 11 
 
 Swiftsure . 
 
 Ben. Rallow.j, 
 
 590 
 
 7 
 
 22 
 
 29 
 
 12 
 
 Alexander . 
 
 A. J. Bali ' 
 
 '590 
 
 14 
 
 58 
 
 72 
 
 13 
 
 Leander . 
 
 T. B. Thompson 
 
 343 
 
 
 
 14 
 
 14 
 
 14 
 
 Culloden 
 
 T. Ti-oubrid^e 
 
 0" 
 
 t- 
 
 
 
 In nominal force the French were far superior, as 
 appears from the following list, in which the ships are 
 numbered from the van or north-west, to the rear or 
 south-east. 
 
 
 Ships' Names. 
 
 Guns. 
 
 Men. 
 
 Result of the Battle. 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 3 
 
 4 
 
 5 
 
 6 
 
 7 
 
 8 
 
 9 
 
 10 
 
 11 
 
 12 
 
 13 
 
 14 
 
 15 
 
 16 
 
 17 
 
 Guerrier ..... 
 Conquirant .... 
 
 Spartiatc 
 
 Aquilon 
 
 Peuple Souverain . . 
 
 Franklin 
 
 Orient 
 
 Tonnant . . . , . 
 
 Heureux 
 
 Mercure 
 
 Guillaume Tell . . 
 
 G4n4reux 
 
 Timoleon .... 
 
 Sdrieuse 
 
 Artemise 
 
 Diane ...... 
 
 Justice 
 
 74 
 74 
 74 
 74 
 74 
 80 
 120 
 80 
 74 
 74 
 80 
 74 
 74 
 36 
 36 
 40 
 40 
 
 700 
 700 
 700 
 700 
 700 
 800 
 1010 
 800 
 700 
 700 
 800 
 700 
 700 
 300 
 300 
 400 
 400 
 
 Taken 
 
 Taken 
 
 Taken 
 
 Taken 
 
 Taken 
 
 Taken 
 
 Blown up 
 
 Taken 
 
 Taken 
 
 Taken 
 
 Escaped 
 
 Escaped 
 
 Burnt 
 
 Sunk 
 
 Burnt 
 
 Escaped 
 
 Escaped 
 
VI STATE OF THE FRENCH FLEET in 
 
 When we remember that in tonnage and weight of 
 metal a French 74-gun ship was greater by one-fifth than 
 an English, that a French 80-gun ship was, in the same 
 way, greater than an English 74 by one third, and that 
 the 120-gun ship was equal to two English 74's, the 
 superiority of the French will appear very marked. It 
 was, however, more apparent than real. Notwithstanding 
 the fashion of the present day, our forefathers were 
 never convinced that 40-pounders were a more efficient 
 armament than 32's, and '^'^.liev'^d that they could not 
 be worked so quickly .vcn with a much greater 
 number of men. But independently of this, many of 
 the French ships were Id ; some were barely seaworthy, 
 and could only carry a reduced armament. The ConquSrant 
 is said to have had only 18 and 12 pounders on her lower 
 and main decks respectively. The Guerrier and Feuple 
 Souvcrain had been condemned the previous year. The 
 men, too, were newly raised. Many of them were not 
 seamen ; they had not been trained to the exercise of 
 the guns ; they were in a bad state of discipline ; and 
 their numbers are said to have been far below the 
 established complements, the deficiency while the fleet 
 was at sea being filled up with soldiers who landed with 
 the army of invasion. French writers have also laid 
 stress on the fact that when the English were first 
 sighted, their boats were on shore watering. But as 
 that was about two o'clock in the afternoon, as the 
 boats were at once recalled, and as the action did not 
 begin till near seven, it is difficult to see that the circum- 
 stance had that importance which has been attributed to 
 it. On the other hand, many men had certainly been 
 drafted from the transports and storeships at Alexandria; 
 
NELSON 
 
 and, at the last moment, the greater part of the frigates' 
 crews were distributed among the ships of the line of 
 battle ; so that, in all probability, the numbers actually 
 on board were not much short of the establishment, and 
 were beyond doubt considerably greater than those of 
 the English. 
 
 As the headmost ships of the English line drew near, 
 the French opened on them a fire which, from their | 
 position nearly end on, they were unable to return ; nor / 
 was it intended they should do so. But about twenty 
 minutes to seven, the Goliath^ passing across the bows of 
 the Guerrier, barely clearing her jib-boom, poured in a 
 terrific broadside, and rounding to, let go her stern 
 anchor abreast, but inshore of the French ship. She 
 had, however, too much way on, and only brought up 
 abreast of the Conqu4rant. Her place was immediately 
 taken by the Zealous, after she also had discharged her 
 broadside into the Guerrier's bow. The Orion, following, 
 passed inshore of the Zealous and Goliath, ran foul of the 
 Sdrieuse, which, disabled by the shock, drifted on to the 
 shore in a sinking state, and anchored abreast of the Peuple 
 Souverain. Like the others, the Theseus, — every gun 
 loaded with two, some with three, round-shot, — reserved 
 her fire till she had the Guerrier's masts in a line, with 
 the jib-boom about six feet clear of her own rigging. 
 Her broadside brought down the Guerrier's masts ; and 
 then, passing between her and the Zealous, and as close as 
 possible on the offside of the Goliath, she anchored abreast 
 of the Spartiate. The Audacious passed between the 
 Guerrier and the Conqudrant, pouring a raking broadside 
 into each, and let go her anchor close on the Congukanfs 
 inner bow. Thesefive^hipa^thu£_all passed inside ; all, ^ 
 
THE BATTLE 1 13 
 
 as thex_did_so^.Eaked. tjie enemy with t.p.rribl&_effe£t,_and 
 were_.jalL^usterM -^JiQiit-t^ ^the 
 
 French line. 
 
 The sixth ship, the Vanguard^ with Nelson's flag at 
 the mizen, anchored by the stern, outside and abreast of 
 the Spartiate. The other ships followed, the Minotaur 
 anchoring abreast of the Aquilon, the Defence abreast of 
 the Peuple Souverain. The Bellerophon let go her anchor 
 on the starboard bow of the Orient, but, having too much 
 way on, did not bring up till she had opened the three 
 decker's broadside, and became singly opposed to the 
 fire of that enormous ship before her own broadside 
 completely bore. She thus sustained very great loss, 
 and cutting her cable, drifted along the French line and 
 anchored again some distance to the eastward, where she 
 remained till the next day with her ensign flying on the 
 stump of her main-mast, her captain wounded, and three 
 of her lieutenants killed. The Majestic fared nearly as 
 badly ; whether on account of the darkness and smoke, 
 or, as in the other cases, from her anchor not bringing 
 her up, she ran her jib-boom into the main-rigging of 
 the Heureux, and remained in that position for some 
 time, sufi"ering greatly. Her main and mizen masts 
 went by the board ; her captain was killed by a musket- 
 ball through the neck. At length she disentangled her- 
 self, and bringing her broadside to bear on the starboard 
 bow of the MercurCy took a severe revenge. The Swift- 
 sure and Alexander y warned oflf from the dangerous shoal 
 by the fate of the Culloden, came into action a few 
 minutes past eight, and anchored, one on each bow of 
 the Orient. An hour later the Leander, which had 
 waited to offer assistance to the Culloden, anchored 
 I 
 
114 NELSON 
 
 in comparative safety athwart the hawse of the 
 Franldin. 
 
 By this time the five headmost ships of the French 
 line were completely subdued. A little before ten, the 
 Orient caught fire on the poop, probably, as was supposed, 
 by the ignition of some carcasses or inflammable com- 
 position she had on board. The furious cannonade from 
 the guns of the Swiftsure and Alexander directed towards 
 the spot prevented all attempts to extinguish the flames, 
 and the ship was soon in a blaze ; about half -past ten 
 she blew up, the explosion and the fall of the burning 
 wreck causing imminent danger to the English ships 
 near, especially to the Alexander which was on fire in 
 several places. The victory was now assured ; and 
 though towards morning the action was partially 
 renewed in the rear, further resistance was but slight. 
 The Guillaume Tell and the G4n4reuXy with the frigates 
 Justice and Diane, fled ; the Timoldon, endeavouring to 
 follow them, was driven on shore, where, the next day, 
 her crew set her on fire and escaped to the land. 
 
 V Never in the annals of modern war had a victory 
 een so complete. Nelson thought that it would have 
 \ been still more so, that the Guillaume Tell and the 
 \ G4n6reux would also have been taken, had he not been 
 incapacitated by a wound in the head. This was, per- 
 haps, mere fancy, and differs from his official statement 
 to Lord St. Vincent, which ran : " These two ships, 
 with two frigates, I am sorry to say, made their escape, 
 nor was it in my power to prevent them. Captain 
 Hood most handsomely endeavoured to do it, but I had 
 no ship in a condition to support the Zealous, and I was 
 obliged to call her in." Berry's narrative, written with 
 
VI THE ADMIRAL'S WOUND I15 
 
 a knowledge of the Admiral's despatch, almost repeats 
 its words ; but Captain Miller, writing to his wife inde- 
 pendently and privately, said : "The Admiral made 
 the Zealous^ Goliath, Audacious, and Leander signals to 
 chase the others ; the Zealous very gallantly pushed at 
 them alone, and exchanged broadsides as she passed 
 close on the different tacks ; but they had so much the 
 start of the other ships and now of the Zealous, who had 
 suffered much in her rigging, and knowing also they 
 were remarkably fast sailers, the Admiral made the 
 general signal of recall, and these four ships were soon 
 out of sight." It is not easy to see what more could 
 have been done, even if the Admiral had not been I 
 wounded. As it was, the wound, though severe and at I 
 first considered dangerous, did not by any means disable \ 
 him. He was struck on the forehead by a piece of 
 langridge, which cut a large flap of skin and flesh ; and 
 this, falling over his eye, and with the gush of blood, 
 completely blinded him for the moment. When, how- 
 ever, the blood was stanched and the wound dressed, 
 he was able to come on deck, watch the Orient blow up, 
 and order boats to be sent to pick up her men. Whether 
 he was actually on deck on the morning of the 2nd does 
 not appear ; most probably he was, though later in the 
 day he permitted himself to be put to bed. 
 
 The principle on which the battle was fought is so 
 clear that further explanation is needless ; and we have 
 Berry's distinct assurance that everything went exactly 
 as it had been arranged, and that Nelson's plan was 
 minutely and^ precisely ^ecuted. Unless we suppose 
 Berry to have been guilty of saying the thing that was not, 
 and that he knew was not, this completely disposes of 
 
Il6 NELSON 
 
 the attempt which has been made to attribute the design 
 of passing inside the French line to Captain Foley of the 
 Goliath It is, indeed, quite possible that the anchoring 
 inside or outside was left to the judgment of the captain 
 of the leading ship ; but independent of Berry's authori- 
 tative statement, we may be very sure that Nelson, in 
 discussing and explaining the various situations, spoke 
 of the probability of the enemy not clearing for action 
 on the offside. After being in Hood's confidence, it is 
 incredible that he did not know that the French had 
 committed this blunder when they met Eodney to 
 leeward of Dominica in April, 1782, and did not calculate 
 on their repeating it, — as, in fact, they did. 
 
 From beginning to end the plan of the attack beara^ 
 marks-oiilood's teaching, though Hood himself had never ^ 
 bee^5_ableio^ut it in practice. But, tracing the idea a little 
 farther back, it is very probable that Hood's thoughts 
 had first been directed to it by Captain John Elphinston, 
 who, while serving as an admiral in the Russian service, 
 had proposed a similar method for the attack on the 
 Turks at Chesme in 1770, although he too had been 
 prevented from carrying it out. What is of more im- 
 portance, as marking the genius of the man who now 
 worked out to a successful issue a design which had only 
 been proposed by his very able predecessors, is the fact, 
 which French writers have systematically lost sight of, 
 that throughout the century, and especially during 
 the war of American Independence, French naval com- 
 manders had, by their persistent practice, shown their 
 belief that a fleet moored in line of battle, with its 
 extremities protected by batteries on shore, was virtually 
 unassailable. Later French writers have repeatedly 
 
VI TACTICAL EXPOSITION 1 17 
 
 accused their admiral, Brueys, of fatuous ineptitude for 
 lying with his fleet in an exposed roadstead, contrary to 
 the directions of Bonaparte, and knowing that a superior 
 English fleet was in the neighbourhood. As to which 
 last, it does not appear that either Brueys or Bonaparte 
 had any knowledge whatever of an English fleet being 
 within the Mediterranean; and even if Brueys had 
 known of it, he might very well be excused for believing 
 that it was not superior; the conduct of the English 
 fleet under Hotham had not been such as to convince 
 the southern Frenchmen of their inferiority. 
 
 The point of greater interest is the blame that has 
 been assigned to Brueys for neglecting the General's 
 order to go inside the harbour of Alexandria. It is 
 unnecessary to discuss what would have happened to 
 the French fleet had Nelson found it there. As it was, 
 he wrote that, if he had had some bomb-vessels, "In 
 forty-eight hours after the victory every transport and 
 all the stores in them would have been destroyed at 
 Alexandria ; for the port is so very small and so crowded 
 that not one shell or carcass could have fell amiss." 
 That the French fleet, if in the harbour, would have 
 been kept there till bomb-vessels arrived, may be con- 
 sidered certain; and Brueys was quite able to under- 
 stand that, if Bonaparte was not. French writers, wise 
 after the event, have dwelt on the obvious insecurity of 
 the position in Aboukir Bay : they have lost sight of the 
 fact that D'Estaing, whom they delight to speak of as a 
 man of ebullient courage, did, on two separate occasions, 
 refuse to attack a very inferior English fleet at anchor ; 
 and on a third occasion, when he did attack, suffered 
 himself to be ignominiously beaten ofi". It is said, and 
 
Il8 NELSON 
 
 is probably true, that on this occasion, at St. Lucia, 
 SufFren, then captain of the Fantasque, implored him to go 
 in and anchor on the enemy's buoys, when the batteries 
 would be neutralised, and he would be able to crush 
 the squadron by superior force. As he had twelve 
 large ships, of 74 or 80 guns, against seven small 
 ones, of 50 or 64 guns, it is impossible to doubt that 
 Barrington would have been in a very awkward pre- 
 dicament if D'Estaing could have mustered sufficient 
 resolution to follow SufFren's advice. With such odds 
 in his favour, he had nothing to do but go in and win ; 
 but this was just what the unwritten law of French 
 tactics absolutely forbade. 
 
 For it was not only D'Estaing, of ebullient courage, 
 who manifested this reluctance to attack a fleet anchored 
 in line of battle. In August, 1781, when the combined 
 fleet of thirty -six sail of the line under Cordova and 
 Guichen entered the Channel, they judged it imprudent 
 to attack Darby, who with twenty ships took up a 
 position in Torbay; and in January, 1782, when Hood 
 anchored off the Basse -terre of St. Kitts, entirely un- 
 supported by batteries on shore, De Grasse, stung into 
 attacking him, did so in the same desultory manner and 
 with as little success as D'Estaing at St. Lucia. It is 
 unnecessary to mention further instances of the French 
 practice ; but it was of perhaps equal importance that, 
 o n two occasion s, Ho M had jiadjin apparent opportunity 
 of attacking a French fleet at anchoFand had not availed 
 himseli-oljt, although on one of them, in Golfe Jouan, 
 he had had an overwhelming superiority of force. 
 We kjiow-naw^hat^'botb a.t St. Kitts and in Golfe Jouan 
 Hood had intended to attack, and was.^only-pp^veat'ed 
 
VI DEATH OF BRUEYS 119 
 
 from _JLoiDg so by Q/^pifl Anf^^,] p,irpnTnsf,anp.P.s ; but the 
 
 Frencbjiid not know it, and may be excused for believing 
 that he considered it imprudent even to attempt it. 
 
 The French based their be lief on the experience of_ 
 more^than a h undred years, and Nelson had not then 
 sho:miJthem that it was altogether fallacious. In^is 
 respect modern critics have the advantage over Admiral 
 Brueys, as appears indeed, among many other indica- 
 tions, from his firm idea that if any attack was made, 
 it would be on the rear, that is, on the end out of range 
 of the guns and mortars on Aboukir Island. But he did 
 not survive to give his explanations ; he was cut in two 
 by a round-shot some time before the Orieni blew up, 
 and has ever since been the mark of false accusations 
 and fake criticism. He was not a man of brilliant 
 genius, \but seems to have been a good and brave ofiScer.J 
 So also was his chief of the staff, Casabianca, who, with 
 his young son, perished in the explosion, not exactly in 
 the way described in Mrs. Hemans's popular little poem. 
 
 On August 2nd, so soon as the action was finished by 
 the flight- of the GmUa ume T e ll and GMrenr a ndjb he 
 running a,§hore of the TimoUon^ Nelson iss ued the general 
 order : " Almig hty God having bless ed His Majesty's 
 arms with victory, the Admiral intendFreturnirig public 
 thanksg iving f or^fe sajaCIat two^o^lock 7 thls^~dayj_an^^ 
 he recommends every ship doing the same as sooa as 
 convenient," This he signed himself, as also a letter of 
 thanks and congratulations to the captains, officers, sea- 
 men, and marines of the squadron, an acting -order to 
 the first- lieutenant of the Majestic to command her in the 
 room of Captain Westcott, and an order to Berry to go 
 on board the Leander with the desjmtches to Lord St. 
 
NELSON 
 
 Vincent. Wounded as he was, he still gave his attention 
 to the many details of the service which Berry might 
 very well have done for him, or which might have 
 waited. The despatch to St. Vincent, for instance, was 
 dated on the 3rd, and the Leander did not sail till the 
 6th; so that there was no pressing necessity for the 
 order to Berry on the 2nd. But it is probable that the 
 fever induced by the wound caused an abnormal excite- 
 ment of the brain, which it was considered safer to 
 humour than to check altogether. If the man would 
 not rest, he might busy himself about trifles. On the 
 3rd he was able to write a holograph letter to Sir James 
 Saumarez and the several captains of the fleet, thanking 
 them for the sword they offered him, and promising, 
 in accordance with their request, to have his portrait 
 painted on the first opportunity, "to be hung up in the 
 room belonging to the Egyptian Club, now established 
 in commemoration of that glorious day," August 1st. 
 It seems doubtful whether the establishment of the Club 
 went any farther than the subscription for the sword ; 
 and though many portraits of Nelson were painted both 
 at Naples and in England, there is no record of any one 
 having been appropriated in the promised manner. 
 
 The Le mder^ w hich, with Berry and the despatches 
 for the Command er- in-Chief on board^ sailed for t he' 
 fleer Qiu ^gust 6 t h, fell in wi th the GMreuz on^he 
 coast of Ca ndia on the 18th, and after an obstinate 
 defence, in which Berry was severely wounded, was 
 captured. She was taken to Corfu, whence her officers 
 and men, after being very rudely treated and robbed 
 even of their clothes, were sent on to Trieste and released 
 on their parole. It was the beginning of December 
 
EXCITEMENT AT NAPLES 
 
 l5)efore -Berry --ai'rived iiL__Ejigland. But meanwhile 
 
 Nelson had sent Captain Capel (the Hon. Thomas 
 Bladen Capel, just promoted to the command of the 
 Mutine) to Naples, to carry a copy of his despatch 
 overland to the Admiralty. 
 
 The Mutine reached Naples on September 1st, when 
 the news threw the Ne apolitans i nto the wildest excite- 
 ment. Their Government had been very anxious lest 
 the French expedition, evading or defeating the English 
 fleet, should return to wreak on them its vengeance for 
 the broken treaty and the alliance with Austria. Now 
 that tfh^ T^T-An nh fleet was destr oy p.H flnd fbp, "F'rpnpli 
 army, shut np in Egypt^ they felt s afe ; and still more, 
 they felt the delight of knowing that those who had 
 terrified them were themselves crushed and humbled. 
 Everybody, from the Queen to the poorest beggar, 
 was, or pretended to be, in a frenzy of joy ; and the 
 most frenzied among them was Lady Hamilton, the wife 
 of the English ambassador, whom circumstances had 
 associated in a very intimate manner with the fortunes 
 of the Queen, and who now drove about Naples in an 
 open carriage, with a bandeau on her head bearing the 
 legend. Nelson and Victory. But .^d l^the English 
 ^'n_^p1^T w"r^ wildljr pn^>^"«i-^stL^ ; and Sir William 
 Hamilton, meeting the Cardinal of York in the street, 
 stopped his carriage to tell him the news. The Prince, 
 to whom Sir William was unknown, seemed at first to 
 resent the liberty ; but on hearing what he had to say, 
 answered that he never could forget that he was English, 
 and that he shared in the joy which all Englishmen 
 must feel at so glorious a victory. 
 
 T\!^hgn Capel brmi^t tlic nnwn to T^ gndon on Octob ei 
 
NELSON 
 
 2nd^thfi pTitlmsiasm, though not so wild, nor so theatri- 
 cal, jcas-^rhaps more-real. The veiynext day, October 
 3rd, the City of London voted two hundred guineas 
 for a sword of honour for Nelson, and to Berry 
 tlte freedom of the City in a gold box of the value 
 of one hundred guineas. On the 6th Nelson was 
 gazetted a peer by the title of Baron Nelson of the 
 Nile and Burnham Thorpe. On Sunday the 21st 
 and on the tAvo following Sundays, a special thanks- 
 giving prayer for the victory was read in all the churches, 
 including, of course, those of Burnham Thorpe and 
 Hilborough. Parliament met on November 20th, when 
 the King's speech specially referred to the "great and 
 brilliant victory " as "a blow to the power and influence 
 of France, affording an opening which, if improved by 
 suitable exertions on the part of other Powers, may lead 
 to the general deliverance of Europe." /On the 21st the 
 two Ho uses of P arliament unanimousl}\passedvmes^f 
 thanksJ^o Nelson, to^he'captains and officers, and to the 
 seamen and. marines of the fleetly on the 22nd the House 
 of Commons addressed the King, praying him to give 
 directions for a monument in St. Paul's to the memory 
 of Captain Westcott ; 4nd on the 23rd, voted a pension 
 of £20£)0 per annum to Nelson and the two next heirs 
 to the title. jA gold medal was ordered for Nelson and 
 all the captains of ships of the line. The Emperor of 
 Eussia sent the victorious Admiral a gold box set with 
 diamonds ; the Sultan of Turkey sent a diamond aigrette, 
 or "Plume of Triumph," taken from one of the imperial 
 turbans \ the Sultan's mother sent a box set with dia- 
 mondsj valued at £1000 . From the King of Naples he 
 received a sword of honour ; from the King of Sardinia 
 
VI HONOURS AND REWARDS 123 
 
 a box set with diamonds ; from the East India Com- 
 pany £10,000; from the Turkey Company a piece of 
 plate ; and £500 for a piece of plate from the Patriotic 
 Fund ; besides the freedom of very many corporations. 
 
 From his many friends and acquaintances, — the Duke 
 of Clarence, Lord Hood, Captain Locker, Lady Parker, 
 among others — Nelson received letters of warm con- 
 gratulation ; and one from Lord Howe, to whom he was 
 personally unknown, but who trusted he would " forgive 
 the additional trouble of my compliments on this singular 
 occasion, not less memorable for the skill than cool 
 judgment testified under the considerable disadvantages 
 in the superior force and situation of the enemy." In 
 acknowledging this letter in the following January, 
 Nelson expressed the high value which he placed on the 
 ''approbation of the great, the immortal Earl Howe — an 
 honour the most flattering a sea-officer could receive, as 
 it comes from the first and greatest sea-officer the world 
 has ever produced." Np.ls(;)Ti\q r^ply ^^ linwpv^.r \[[c\^t 
 Tintflhlft fnr W,^ briftf^^ xposition o f the plan on which 
 the battle was fought, an expositio n sufn cient jn~itbBlf Sxi 
 demolish the popular theorvtha t the chief c haractenstic 
 of his -^»ninp -HT-Qg liiq ^,p]|jQrro • that h e wou victories by 
 t he di rg/'t.nfips and irnrp^'"^'=^^'^y ^^ l^J^ at.tnr.k ; that his 
 ■ongK idea^ol tactics was " ^0 at ^em " ; and that fort une 
 f avoured the bra ve. 
 
 The more closely Nelson's actions and letters are 
 studied, the more clearly will it be seen that the point , 
 ^ whl^h his t >>r>nprLf^ r ^ntinually dwel t w^ not the 
 mp.re "going ^'^t V^n^/' h ut the most advan tatyeous way to 
 '*go__atJem"; and that, in every instance, the dash and 
 impetuosity which caught the popular fancy were guided . 
 
124 NELSON 
 
 by genius, and controlled by prudence and foresight. 
 On this occasion he wrote : "By attacking the enemy's 
 van and centre, the wind blowing directly along their 
 line, I was enabled to throw what force I pleased on a 
 few ships. This plan my friends readily conceived by 
 the signals, and we always kept a superior force to the 
 enemy. ... I have never before detailed the action to 
 any one, but I should have thought it wrong to have kept 
 it from one who is our great master in naval tactics and 
 bravery." 
 
 After refitting such of the prizes as were at all sea- 
 worthy, they were sent to Gibraltar with the greater 
 part of the squadron under the command of Sir James 
 Saumarez. The other prizes were burned ; the Culloden 
 and Alexander were sent to Naples to refit, and^Qelson 
 in the Vanguard followed them, leaving Hood in the 
 ^ea/ttU54e-4feep up the blockade of Alexandria. ^ 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 NAPLES AND PALERMO 
 
 The arriva]_o^ the Vanguard in Naples Bay on Sep- 
 tember 22nd was the signal for a fresh outburst of 
 public joy, Lady Hamilton again making herself con- 
 spicuous by her impassioned demonstration. As the 
 ship anchored, she, accompanied by her husband, was 
 the first to go on board, and exclaiming, " God, is it 
 possible ! " fell fainting on Nelson's arm. A burst of 
 tears relieved her, and she was quite recovered before 
 the King came on board and, taking Nelson by the hand, 
 hailed him as his " Deliverer and Preserver." 
 
 This was practically the beginning of Nelson's ac- 
 quaintance with Lady Hamilton ; for though he had met 
 her during his short visit to Naples five years before, 
 and though in his occasional letters to her husband he 
 had generally added some courteous message for her, it 
 was now for the first time that he was thrown into 
 her society in circumstances which at once established 
 an intimacy destined to have a marked influence on 
 Nelson's fortunes. 
 
 Though now the wife of the English ambassador, 
 received in the best Neapolitan Society and the confidante 
 of the Queen, Lady Hamilton was a woman of very 
 
126 NELSON 
 
 humble origin and disreputable antecedents. Amy Lyon, 
 the daughter of a village blacksmith in Cheshire, was 
 born probably in 1761, and when about seventeen came 
 up to London as a domestic servant, a respectable posi- 
 tion which she did not long retain. She was of remark- 
 able beauty and giddy disposition, and threw herself 
 into the whirl of pleasure and dissipation. After several 
 liaisons of longer or shorter duration, she became the 
 mistress of the Hon. Charles Greville, with whom she 
 remained for about four years leading a life of com- 
 parative respectability. During this time she made 
 the acquaintance of Romney, who seems to have 
 considered it his chief happiness to paint her portrait. 
 She was painted also by Reynolds, Hoppner, and 
 Lawrence, so that altogether pictures of her in the full 
 flush of her beauty are very common. In 1786 Greville's 
 afiairs fell into confusion, and he seems to have had 
 no scruple about proposing to his uncle. Sir William 
 Hamilton, to take the girl off his hands. This Hamilton 
 readily agreed to do ; and accordingly Amy Lyon, or, 
 as at this time she preferred to call herself, Emily 
 Harte, was sent to Naples, where she presently became 
 Hamilton's mistress, and five years later Hamilton's 
 wife. 
 
 While she lived with Greville, as afterwards with 
 Hamilton, every attention was paid to improving her 
 education. She sang well ; she spoke Italian fluently, 
 and without the vulgar accent which she never got rid 
 of in speaking English. Her singing, her dancing, her 
 attitudes after the antique, her readiness in conversa- 
 tion and in repartee, made her welcome everywhere, 
 and the Neapolitans did not trouble to inquire too 
 
vn LADY HAMILTON 127 
 
 closely into the truth of her hints of a secret marriage. 
 Afterwards, as Hamilton's wife, she was the recognised 
 leader of the English society. She was lively, clever, 
 unaffected, good-humoured, and withal exceedingly 
 beautiful, although as years crept on her figure lost its 
 delicate proportions. As early as 1796 Sir Gilbert 
 Elliot described her as "monstrous," and ten years later 
 the caricatures represented her as of enormous bulk. 
 
 When the atrocities of the French Kevolution and 
 the death of Marie-Antoinette rendered the/Queen of 
 Naples bitterly hostile to France, she foufiOiriiady 
 Hamil tOB-ax onvenient medium for secret correspondence 
 with the English ambassador and the English Govern- 
 ment ;\nd as Emma, the name she finally determined 
 on, w^ unque^^ti^jia jjly a clever, capable woman, she 
 
 was fTMinfn.l ^^7\^\^ nipry ^^lir^^^ ^nd rnrifir^AnfTaT^nTli^i^m-g 
 
 both by her hus^,nd anrUbe Queen. She thus began 
 to consider herself a very important person, and in after 
 years came to believe that she had been the prime motor 
 •of the Neaj)plitan policy at-4his— time. She did not, 
 perhaps, tell lies consciously and intentionally, but her 
 delusion became so complete that she did lie with a 
 very remarkable persistence and thoroughness. Of her 
 many statements as to public affairs there is not one 
 that is not absolutely and entirely untrue. It is, 
 however, only lately that this has been established 
 beyond question ; so that for nearly a century she has 
 been represented as a woman who rendered very 
 valu able service to^ thg^ State at a most critical-and 
 difficult period, and who, notwithstanding lietJaults, 
 was cruelly ^nd shamefully neglected by the government 
 when no longer able to be of use to it. 
 
128 NELSON 
 
 On Nelson's arrival at Naples, Lady Hamilton virtu- 
 ally took possession of liim. Her egregious vanity was 
 flattered by his open dependence on her, and her real 
 good-humour was gratified by ministering to his comforts. 
 The wound on his forehead was healed, but the effects of 
 the blow still remained. He was subject to violent head- 
 aches and nervous irritability. The intense strain, too, 
 of the weeks immediately preceding August 1st had told 
 on his constitution, already weakened by the suffering 
 of the previous year. It was a case in which the nurse 
 was of more use than the physician, an d Lady H amilton 
 devpted herself to the task. His wife was absent. 
 She \vas^ a good, conscientious woman; too good, too 
 conscientious, perhaps, to minister to her husband's 
 weaknesses had she been present. She had nursed him 
 during his former illness, in dreary lodgings in Bath or 
 London, and he can scarcely have helped comparing or 
 contrasting the calm, sedate, perhaps frigid excellence 
 of Lady Nelson with the vivacity, enthusiasm, and 
 glowing charms of Lady Hamilton. The difference of 
 the surr oundings, too, was very great. NeTsonVmcome 
 had always been limited ; he had seen little or nothing 
 of the grandeur and display of the wealthy. His 
 acquaintance with society scarcely^ went beyond the 
 official. No life c ould be. plainer or more frugal than 
 that which he had led at Burnham Thorpe before he 
 commissioned the Agamemnon, Now everything was 
 magnificence, splendour, and profusion; the King, the 
 Queen, the nobles of the Court, Hamilton and all the 
 English in Naples vying with each other to do him honour. 
 Festivities, banquets, balls, illuminations dazzled and 
 enchanted him ; and everywhere the_central figure 
 
VII THE EVACUATION OF NAPLES 129 
 
 appeared to be his lovely and affectionate_nurse, of whose 
 past history he knewlittie, and whom he saw on terms 
 of friendly intimacy with the Queen and the Court. The 
 rest is a story as old as the myths of Hercules or 
 Achilles, of all ages and of all climes. 
 
 But Nelson, in becoming the slave of a beautiful a nd 
 vo lup tuo us woman^ _did__not_cease-_tQ---be -^ -ffljeat, cojn- 
 mander. There is a common idea that his passions 
 detained him at Naples to the neglect of his duty. 
 This is erroneous. He made N apl es his headquarte rs 
 because he was ordered to do so, to provide for the 
 safety oT the kingdom and to take measures for the_ re- 
 duction of Malta. He captured Leghorn : he stationed 
 -such ships as were at his disposal round Malta, under 
 the immediate command of Captain Ball of the Alex- 
 ander^ whose force was strengthened by the arrival of a 
 small Portuguese squadron under the Marquis de Niza ; 
 and when the Neapolitan army was ignominiously routed 
 by the French, who advanced on the capital, he received 
 the King, with his family and retinue, on board the 
 Vanguard and the other ships with him at the time, and 
 conveyed him to Palermo. 
 
 The evacuation of Naples was a matter of s ome 
 delfca c y and d ifficulty^ for the lazzaroni were strongly 
 attached to the King, and broke out into violent and 
 sanguinary tumult /v^hen they suspected that he intended 
 to leave them. (The greatest secrecy was therefore 
 necessary in making the arrangements which were 
 planned by the Queen in concert with Nelson, Lady 
 Hamilton acting as the intermediary and confidential 
 agent. Many years afterwards it pleased Lady Hamilton 
 to fancy and assert that she was the moving spirit in the 
 
 K 
 
I30 NELSON 
 
 whole business, that she taught the Queen the necessity 
 of leaving Naples, won her consent, designed the plan 
 and settled the execution of it, that the King, the Queen, 
 her husband, and Nelson were but instruments in 
 her hands. All which, with many imaginative details, 
 is absolutely untrue. What Nelson wrote at the time, 
 and assuredly without any wish to depreciate Lady 
 Hamilton's share in the work, was that, as it would 
 have been highly imprudent for either Hamilton or 
 himself to have gone to Court, the correspondence was 
 carried^ on :^th the greatest address by Lady Hamilton 
 and the Queen, who, being in the habit of interchang- 
 ing notes, could continue to do so without exciting 
 suspicion. 
 
 For the next few months Nelson remaine d at 
 
 Palermo. The French swept over Italy and occupied 
 Nfl.p1p.Rj whftrft thft Ja.r.nhin s received the m enthusias- 
 tically and the- people at large made no opposition. 
 The squadron wa^ dispersed ; part of it was off Alex- 
 andria, part was blockading Malta, part was protecting 
 Sicily; it was not till the end of March, 1799, that 
 a sufficient force for the blockade of Naples could 
 be got together, and that Troubridge was ordered to 
 undertake the duty. It was probably about this time 
 that Nelson was formally appointed Commander-in- 
 Chief of the Neapolitan navy; The commission itself 
 cannot now be found, but it appears to be referred to 
 in a letter to Captain Troubridge of March 30th. "I 
 herewith enclose you," Nelson wrote, " the final instruc- 
 tions of his Sicilian Majesty, and request you will have 
 them copied and the originals returned to me ; and as 
 far as lies in your power, to carry them into executioix, 
 
VII TROUBRIDGE AT ISCHIA 131 
 
 always bearing in mind that speedy rewards and quick 
 punishments are the foundation of good government." 
 
 At once and without difficulty Troubridge took 
 possession of the several islands on the coast. **The 
 people," he wrote, "are perfectly mad with joy, and are 
 asking for their beloved monarch. If the nobility were 
 men of principle and respectability, how easy it would 
 be to get the Neapolitan soldiers and militia to declare 
 for their King ! . . . I beg your Lordship will particu- 
 larly recommend Captain Chianchi ; he is a fine, hardy 
 seaman, a good and loyal subject, desirous of doing 
 everything for the welfare of his country. ... I have 
 a villain, by name Francesco, on board, who commanded 
 the castle at Ischia, formerly a Neapolitan officer and of 
 property in that island. The moment we took posses- 
 sion of the castle, the mob tore this vagabond's coat, 
 with the tricoloured cape and cap of liberty button, to 
 pieces, and he had then the impudence to put on his 
 Sicilian Majesty's regimentals again ; upon which I tore 
 his epaulette off, took his cockade out, and obliged him 
 to throw them overboard. I then honoured him with 
 double irons. ... I pray your Lordship to send an 
 honest judge here to try these miscreants on the spot, 
 that some proper examples may be made. . . . The 
 \illains increase so fast on my hands, and the people 
 are calling for justice; eight or ten of them must be 
 hung." 
 
 By the end of April, Salerno, Sorrento, Castellamare, 
 were recovered for the King, and the French, leaving five 
 hundred men to garrison St. Elmo, withdrew to Capua 
 and Caserta. Everywhere the mob was noisily demon- 
 strative in favour of the King, and the great bulk of 
 
132 NELSON 
 
 the people was ready to accept whatever party was in 
 power. Cowardice rather than disaffection seemed the 
 leading factor of the revolution ; but there were many 
 who, from political or selfish motives, had taken an 
 active part in inviting and receiving the French, and 
 others, ofiicers in the King's service, who had betrayed 
 or sold their posts. For such, when they fell into his 
 hands, Troubridge had little pity, and handed them 
 over to the civil power as a matter of course. In one 
 case special orders were given by the King for a court- 
 martial, and Acton, writing of this to Nelson, added : 
 ** The King begs and hopes that Captain Troubridge 
 will direct some of his officers to attend to it with the 
 officers of his service, and order accordingly what shall 
 be thought proper at the conclusion of it." Troubridge 
 thought it would be better to leave the court-martial 
 to the Neapolitan officers, but, anticipating a capital 
 sentence, wrote : " If that should be the case, shall I 
 confirm it 1 My hand will not shake signing my name. 
 Without some examples, nothing can go well." 
 
 It was jnst at. tihift tim^j wh^n the reductio n of 
 ivjaplpQ gPATYi^f^ nartai n^ that Nelsou r eceived information 
 of th^JFrench fleet having esca ped fr om Brest, haviiig . 
 probayy_£ffected a junction with the Spanish fleet at 
 Cadiz amLcami^into the Mediterranean. He was led to 
 sup pose t hat the combined force might amount to forty- 
 seven sr iI of the line, and that their first pbjefit-would 
 be th e recovery of Mi norca. He at once called in the 
 greater part of his 'outlying ships from Naples or along 
 the coast and from Malta, with orders to join Eear- 
 Admiral Duckworth ofl" Port Mahon ;' but a few days 
 later, /•^nr fiving thnt Sidly was m^r^ h'l l cv ]y ^ o h p ^f^^^ 
 
vii THE FRENCH IN THE MEDITERRANEAN 133 
 
 aim, he sent them still more pressing orders to meet 
 h im at Marittim o. where he hoped to be ]oinecl by 
 Duckworth and, what with Eussians, Turks, and 
 Portuguese, to make up a fleet equal in number to the 
 enemy's. He would seem to have learned that the 
 Spaniards had not joined the French. 
 
 On quitting Naples, Troubridge left Captain Foote of 
 the Seahorse frigate as senior officer to carry on the 
 blockade as closely as possible with the very small 
 squadron at his disposal, and with general instructions 
 to co-operate with Cardinal EufFo, the commander of the 
 royal forces on shore. Nelson was joined by Troubridge 
 at Palermo on May 17th, but bad weather prevented 
 him sailing till the 20th. On the 23rd he was on the 
 rendezvous off Marittimo ; and having there heard from 
 Lord St. Vincent the actual state of things, he deter- 
 mined to return to Palermo, fill up with provisions, and 
 " hold the squadron in momentary readiness to act as 
 the Commander-in-Chief might order, or the circum- 
 stances might require." But he was nervously alive to 
 the possible danger of Sicily if the squadron were to 
 leave it ; so long as the squadron was there in strength, 
 he was convinced that the French would make no 
 attack. What Bruix might have done had leisure been 
 allowed him, it is impossible to say, but the closeness 
 with which he was followed up effectually deranged any 
 plans he had formed ; and eventually he was glad to 
 get out of the Mediterranean and back to Brest with- 
 out being overtaken by Lord Keith, who at this very 
 critical juncture succeeded St. Vincent as Commander- 
 in-Chief. 
 
 On June 13th Nelson had just sailed for Naples, with 
 
134 NELSON 
 
 troops and stores on board, when he was met by two 
 74-gun ships detached by Keith with a letter to warn 
 him of the probability of Bruix^pming his way. He 
 immediately returned to Palermb, disembarked the 
 troops, and proceeded to his former rendezvous off 
 Marittimo, where he hoped to be joined by the ships 
 from Malta. He would then have eighteen sail of the 
 line, not a three-decker among them, one of them a 
 64, and three Portuguese, whereas the French had four 
 first-rates and eighteen or more two-deckers. " I shall 
 wait off Marittimo," he wrote, "anxiously expecting 
 such a reinforcement as may enable me to go in search 
 of the enemy's fleet, when not one moment shall be lost 
 in bringing them to battle ; for I consider the best 
 defence for His Sicilian Majesty's dominions is to place 
 myself alongside the French." 
 
 A fe w days later his intelligence led him to sup pose 
 that^the French might be going to Naples. It was 
 understood that the forts were on the point of surrender- 
 ing, and that the arrival of the French fleet might leave 
 the whole work to be done over again. On June 21st 
 he touched at Palermo, had an interview with the 
 King, and at once_ sailed again for Naples, taking with 
 him Sir William Hamilton and his wife, whose know- 
 ledge of Italian might be of the greatest use in confiden- 
 tial communication with Ruffo. 
 
 On the~wayhe~Teceived intelligence of an armistice 
 hfttwftft n^t'h^ King's fpf ^p- ff ^^d th p r pb^k ^ He denounced 
 it as infamous. To him, as to Troubridge, the rebels 
 were mutineers and ought to be suppressed ; the idea of 
 making terms with them was bitterness to him. He 
 was sure that the arrival of the French fleet would put 
 
vn THE CAPITULATION ANNULLED 135 
 
 an end to the armistice ; he determined that the arrival 
 of the English fleet should equally do so, and as he 
 entered Naples Bay on the afternoon of the 24th, 
 signalled the Seahorse to haul down the flag of truce. 
 On anchori n g, however, he learned that the armistice 
 had ended the day before in a capitulation, by the terms 
 of which thefebels were to be sent to France in vessels 
 provided by the King. Now it is perfectly well estab- 
 lished as the usage of civilised war that terms granted 
 by a military ofiicer are conditional on the approval of 
 his superiors, unless he has distinct authority to 
 negotiate, or the capitulation has been efl"ected wholly 
 or in part. In the present instance Cardinal RufTo had 
 no t only no authority to negotiate, but he had expres s 
 orde rs from the King not to do so. Nelson therefore 
 called the negotiation and the treaty infamous ; and 
 finding that no steps had yet been taken to carry it into 
 efi'ect, that, in fact, the rebels in the forts were in 
 exactly the same situation as they were before the 
 negotiation was commenced, he had n o hesitation in 
 declaring that the treaty was invalid, and that he would 
 not permit the rebels to embark or quit the foHs . 
 With this resolution he formally acquainted them on 
 the 25th. " They must," he wrote, *^ surrender them- 
 selves to His Majesty's royal mercy." A copy of this 
 declaration was sent to the Cardinal, who came on 
 board the Fcmdroyant to see Nelson about it. A long 
 and stormy conversation followed, the Hamiltons acting 
 as interpreters; and at last Nelson wrote that on his 
 arrival he " found a treaty entered into with the rebels 
 which, in my opinion, cannot be carried into execution 
 without the approbation of His Sicilian Majesty." Thia 
 
136 NELSON 
 
 he gave to the Cardinal as closing the interview. There 
 can be no doubt that the tenor of this paper was com- 
 municated to the garrisons ; but even if it was not, the 
 formal declaration sent to them on the 25th was suffi- 
 cient ; and jt was with a full knowledge that t he treaty 
 was ^nulled that the forts surrendered to the King's 
 mercy on the evening of the 26th. 
 
 With what happened to the prisoners after they were 
 handed over to the civil power Nelson had nothing 
 whatever, to do. He knew nothing about them except 
 that they were rebels taken in arms against their sove- 
 reign ; and with such he had no sympathy. He refused 
 to interfere ; he left them to the justice of their country. 
 It may very well be that that justice was not tempered 
 with mercy. The Eoyalists had been too thoroughly 
 frightened to be in a merciful humour ; and assuredly 
 the Jacobins, whether of Italy or France, had not set 
 them an example of clemency. If they had received the 
 same measure as they meted out to others, they would 
 have had small reason for complaint ; but in truth the 
 executions, about seventy, with which the Neapolitan 
 Eoyalists took vengeance for their terror and losses, 
 fade into insignificance when compared with Jacobin 
 enormities. 
 
 With one execution only was Nelson in any way con- 
 cerned. There was a certain Francisco Caracciolo, a 
 man of good family, in the prime of life, a commodore in 
 the Neapolitan navy, who four years before had com- 
 manded the Tancredi in the fleet under Hotham, and 
 was well esteemed both by his King and the English 
 officers of his acquaintance. This man had accompanied 
 the King and Court to Palermo ; but when the Partheno- 
 
vil A TRAITOR HANGED 137 
 
 peian Republic proclaimed the estates of all absentees to 
 be forfeited, he obtained leave to go to Naples to arrange 
 his affairs. The arrangement took the form of his 
 entering the service of the Republic, of accepting the 
 post of Admiral of the Republican flotilla, and of com- 
 manding the Republican gunboats against a squadron of 
 the Royal frigates. He had afterwards thrown himself 
 into one of the Neapolitan sea-forts; but when these 
 were on the point of capitulating, fearing that he, as a 
 traitor of the deepest dye, might be exempted, he made 
 his escape in disguise into' the country, where he was 
 apprehended by some peasants, who brought him on 
 board the Foudroyant in the early morning of June 29th. 
 Nelson immediately ordered Count Thurn, captain of 
 the Neapolitan frigate Minerva, to assemble a court of 
 officers of his own service, and try him on a charge of 
 " rebellion against his lawful sovereign, and for firing at 
 his colours hoisted on board his frigate, the Minerva.^* 
 The court was summoned forthwith, and assembled at 
 nine o'clock the same morning on board the Foudroyant. 
 No objection was made on behalf of the prisoner to the 
 constitution of the court or to the authority under which 
 it was convened. His only attempt at defence was an 
 assertion that he was acting under compulsion ; but the 
 evidence of his being a free agent, and having had 
 repeated opportunities of escaping had he wished, was 
 deemed conclusive. He was found guilty, and sentenced 
 to death. It was then about noon. On receiving the 
 report. Nelson gave Thurn a detailed order to carry 
 the sentence into execution without delay ; and accord- 
 ingly Caracciolo was hanged that same evening at the 
 fore yard-arm of the Minerva. 
 
138 NELSON 
 
 The prompt trial, sentence, and execution of this 
 notorious traitor filled the Italian Jacobins with mingled 
 rage and terror. They sputtered venom and lies, which 
 found their way into print, and were introduced into 
 literature by Southey, whose story was long supposed, 
 and is by many still supposed, to be a faithful narrative 
 of facts. The garrisons, it is said, were taken out of 
 the castles under pretence of carrying the treaty into 
 effect, and were basely delivered over to the venge- 
 ance of the Sicilian court. Caracciolo, described as a 
 man of seventy, was, we are told, informally and hur- 
 riedly tried by a packed and prejudiced court, summoned 
 without legal authority; and all because the British 
 Admiral was a mere tool in the hands of a foul strumpet 
 bound by interest to a bloodthirsty queen. All of this 
 is absolutely untrue. What actually occurred has been 
 related. Caracciolo was a man of forty-seven, though 
 haggard and worn by misery, privation, and the sense 
 of guilt. With the morality of Lady Hamilton we are 
 not here concerned. With all her faults she was a 
 kindly, soft-hearted woman; but even if she had been 
 the cruel, bloody-minded monster she has been repre- 
 sented, it is sufficiently well attested that she neither 
 spoke to nor saw Nelson between the time of Caracciolo's 
 being brought on board and of his execution. That in 
 cases of mutiny Nelson considered clemency misplaced, 
 and prompt execution advisable, has already been shown ; 
 and rebellion such as Caracciolo's was to him the worst 
 form of mutiny. In hanging him the same evening he 
 was strictly following the precedent of St. Vincent's 
 determination off Cadiz only a couple of years before ; 
 and to those who carefully consider the circumstances at 
 
VII CAPTURE OP ST. ELMO 139 
 
 Naples, and the pain which this rigid execution of his 
 duty must have given a man of kindly nature, Nelson's 
 conduct at this period, far from being judged blamable, 
 disgraceful, "a stain upon his memory," will appear 
 rather most honourable and meritorious. 
 
 Notwithstanding the surrender of the Neapolitan sea- 
 forts the castles Uovo and Nuovo, St. Elmo, which was 
 garrisoned by the French, still held out. Troubridge was 
 ordered to take command of the mixed force on shore, 
 — seamen and marines, Austrians, Eussians, Turks, 
 and Neapolitans — and reduce the place without delay. 
 On July 13th Nelson was able to announce its 
 capture, making, at the same time, a particular request 
 that Troubridge's services might be rewarded; conse- 
 quent on which Troubridge was created a baronet on 
 November 30th. 
 
 Nelson's letter had gone but a few hours, when 
 he received an order from Keith to send as many 
 ships to Minorca as he could possibly spare. In a letter 
 to Lord Spencer, just despatched, he had speculated on 
 the probability of his being called on to detach ships for 
 the protection of Minorca. " Should such an order," he 
 wrote, " come at this moment, it would be a cause for 
 some consideration whether Minorca is to be risked, or 
 the two kingdoms of Naples and Sicily. I rather think 
 my decision would be to risk the former." And so it 
 was when the order had actually come. He replied to 
 Keith, in formal language, that the safety of Sicily and 
 Naples required him to stay where he was, and equally 
 prevented him detaching any of his force. To Lord 
 Spencer he wrote more fully and more positively. " I 
 will not part with a single ship," he said. *' I am fully 
 
I40 NELSON 
 
 aware of the act I have committed ; but, sensible of my 
 loyal intentions, I am prepared for any fate which may 
 await my disobedience." 
 
 On July 19th he received another and more emphatic 
 order from Keith, dated July 9th ; he was to come to 
 Minorca at once with the whole of his force, or if he 
 deemed it absolutely necessary that some part and he 
 himself should remain, he was to detach the greater part 
 under the next senior officer. Nelson again replied, in 
 so many words, that till the French scoundrels should 
 be driven out of the kingdom, " I think it right not to 
 obey your Lordship's order. ... I have no scruple in 
 deciding that it is better to save the kingdom of Naples 
 and risk Minorca." It was not till July 22nd, when he 
 received a third and still more stringent order to the 
 same effect, that he deemed it expedient to obey, to the 
 extent, at least, of detaching Duckworth with four 74- 
 gun ships ; and as Keith left the Mediterranean on the 
 29th, he heard nothing more about it at the time, though 
 he affected to consider himself ill-treated when, two 
 months later, he received a gentle censure from the 
 Admiralty, accompanied with an order to act as Com- 
 mander-in-Chief during Keith's absence. 
 
 It would thus appear that the Admiralty were willing 
 to allow him a very wide discretion ; but the incident 
 has nevertheless a very grave importance, as occurring 
 in the career of a man of such eminence, of one who so 
 constantly laid down the rule that the first duty of an 
 officer is obedience. It does not lessen the crime, — and 
 from the military point of view it was a crime — to say 
 that, after all, Keith was wrong in anticipating an attack 
 on Minorca, and Nelson was probably not wrong in fore- 
 
ini DISOBEDIENCE OF ORDERS 141 
 
 casting a fresh outbreak if the English squadron was 
 withdrawn from Naples. Of the intentions of Bruix 
 Nelson knew nothing : he believed that Keith was 
 probably right, and that an attack on Minorca was 
 pending; but he was of opinion that Naples was of 
 greater importance than Minorca, and he deliberately 
 preferred acting on his own opinion to obeying the 
 orders of the Commander-in-Chief. 
 
 It has been frequently alleged that this extraordinary 
 act of disobedience was prompted by Lady Hamilton in 
 the interests of the Queen. There is no evidence that 
 Lady Hamilton had, directly, anything to do with it ; 
 but it is extremely probable, perhaps almost certain, 
 that the anxiety which, during all this year, Nelson felt 
 for the safety of the Two Sicilies was largely due to the 
 influence of his adored mistress ; that he was unwilling 
 to leave her, unwilling to expose her and her friends to ' 
 danger, and, not impossibly, convinced by her of the) 
 vast importance of the kingdom to the allied cause. It 
 must be remembered that his health was, throughout, 
 far from robust; that he was frequently ill, spending 
 days, apparently, on the couch, feverish, uneasy, hypo- 
 chondriacal ; that the blow on the head a year before 
 had left him peevish, suspicious, irritable, opinionated. 
 But in addition to this, it must also be remembered that 
 this, though the most flagrant, was by no means the first 
 instance in which Nelson deliberately preferred his own 
 opinion or judgment to that of his commanding officer. 
 His disobedience at Naples in 1799 diff*ered from that 
 at St. Kitts in 1785, or at Antigua in 1786, only in 
 degree ; and his conduct in the battle of St. Vincent 
 might have been severely judged had any untoward 
 
NELSON 
 
 accident marred its effect. He decided rightly at Naples, 
 as he did at St. Vincent, at Antigua, at St. Kitts, though 
 the disobedience was more marked, the advantage more 
 doubtful; but it would be fatal to the Navy and the 
 country if it was once admitted that the opinion of a 
 subordinate officer could be lightly put in comparison 
 with the orders of the Commander-in-Chief. 
 
 Nelson's period of chief command was short and un- 
 eventful. The enemy had no naval force within the 
 limits of the station, and the fleet was free to operate on 
 the coast of Italy, reduce Capua and Gaeta, provide for 
 the safety of Naples and Minorca, and keep up ^ strict 
 blockade of Malta and Egypt. On August 1st the King 
 dined on board the Foudroyant, and as he drank the 
 victorious Admiral's health, all the Neapolitan ships and 
 forts fired a royal salute of twenty-one guns. Nelson, 
 describing the scene in a letter to his wife, wrote : "In 
 the evening there was a general illumination. Amongst 
 other representations, a large vessel was fitted out like 
 a Eoman galley ; on its oars were fixed lamps, and in 
 the centre was erected a rostral column with my name ; 
 at the stern were elevated two angels supporting my 
 picture. The beauty of the whole is beyond my powers 
 of description. More than 2000 variegated lamps were 
 suspended round the vessel. An orchestra was fitted 
 up, and filled with the very best musicians and singers. 
 The piece of music was in a great measure to celebrate 
 my praise, describing their previous distress, * but Nelson 
 came, the invincible Nelson, and they were preserved 
 and again made happy.' This must not make you think 
 me vain. No, very far from it j I relate it more from 
 gratitude than vanity." 
 
VII CREATED DUKE OF BRONTE 143 
 
 On August 5th, Nelson left Naples in the Fovdroyantj 
 carrying with him the King, who, within a few days 
 after his return to Palermo, created him Duke of Bronte! 
 and conferred on him the estate annexed to the title. 
 This, Nelson understood, was worth about £3000 a year, 
 but it does not appear that he ever received that mu-ch 
 from it. The letter officially informing him of the grant 
 was dated August 13th, and in replying to this on the 
 same day he first used the signature " Bronte Nelson," 
 which, after receiving his own sovereign's sanction, he 
 changed to "Nelson and Bronte." 
 
 In December Keith returned to the Mediterranean, 
 writing to Nelson from off Oporto to put himself under 
 his orders. On arriving on the station, Keith went, in 
 the first instance, to Mahon, where he had news of a 
 French squadron fitting out for the relief of Malta. At 
 Leghorn he was met by Nelson with the further news 
 of the Eussians having withdrawn their ships from the. 
 blockade. He resolved, therefore, to occupy the station 
 which these had quitted, so as the better to intercept 
 the French squadron if it should really come, which he 
 thought scarcely probable. Between Nelson and himself 
 there seems to have been a difference of opinion as to 
 placing the several ships ; and with a determination and 
 carelessness of responsibility peculiar to him. Nelson, who 
 was ordefed to look out to the south-east, found himself, 
 on the morning of February 18th, far to the north-west, 
 and there, near the western extremity of Sicily, he fell 
 in with the relieving force. It consisted of the Gdn^eax 
 (which had escaped from the Nile and had afterwards 
 captured the little Leander) with three corvettes and a 
 large store-ship. The corvettes scattered and made good 
 
144 NELSON 
 
 their escape : the store - ship was taken possession of ; 
 and the GMreux, by the gallant action of Captain Peard 
 in the Success frigate, was stayed till the line-of-battle 
 ships came up, when she struck her colours. Admiral 
 Du Perree, who commanded the squadron, was mortally 
 wounded by a shot from the Success, and died on the 
 following day. Keith naturally wrote that, "Lord 
 Nelson has on this occasion, as on all others, conducted 
 himself with skill and great address in comprehending 
 my signals " ; but Nelson more accurately wrote to his 
 brother : " I have written to Lord Spencer, and sent him 
 my journal to prove that the GMreux was taken by me 
 and owing to my plan ; that my quitting Lord Keith was 
 at my own risk, and for which, if I had not succeeded, 
 I might have been broke." 
 
 On the 24th, Keith, who was anxious to get to Genoa 
 (which, in co-operation with the Austrians, he afterwards 
 reduced), directed Nelson to take command of the 
 blockade of Malta. Nelson's reply in both a public and 
 a private letter was to the effect that his health would 
 not permit him to undertake the service, and that he 
 should be obliged to go to his friends at Palermo. This 
 has, of course, been attributed to his passion for Lady 
 Hamilton, which would not permit him to be absent 
 from her. There was, however, another reason which 
 worked strongly in the same direction. He was excess- 
 ively disgusted at having been superseded from the 
 chief command, more especially by an officer newly 
 appointed to the station ; and appears to have made up 
 his mind from the first that he would not remain under 
 Keith. It is not improbable that this feeling had at 
 least something to do with his extraordinary refusal to 
 
VII RESIGNS HIS COMMAND ^ 145 
 
 obey Keith's orders in the previous summer ; it is certain 
 that it was agitating his mind at this time. It appears 
 in all his letters ; in none perhaps more distinctly than 
 in one to Lord Minto of February 26th. "I have 
 serious thoughts," he wrote, " of giving up active service. 
 Greenwich Hospital seems a fit retreat for me after being 
 evidently thought unfit to command in the Mediterranean." 
 
 At any rate he was resolved not to stay ofi" Malta ; 
 and though Troubridge and other friends wrote strongly, 
 imploring him not to quit the command, he could not be 
 prevailed on to continue. On March 10th he resigned 
 it to Troubridge, he himself returning to Palermo, where 
 he arrived on the 16th. He was, or perhaps rather 
 fancied himself, extremely ill. On March 20th he 
 wrote to Troubridge : "As yet it is too soon to form an 
 opinion whether I ever can be cured of my complaint. 
 ... At present I see but glimmering hopes, and prob- 
 ably my career of service is at an end, unless the French 
 fleet shall come into the Mediterranean, when nothing 
 shall prevent my dying at my post. . . . We of the Nile 
 are not equal to Lord Keith in his estimation, and ought 
 to think it an honour to serve under such a clever man." 
 
 On the 24th, the Foudroyant, under the command of 
 Berry, was sent back to rejoin Troubridge, and had only 
 just come on the station when, on the night of the 29th, 
 the Guillaume Tell, blockaded in Valetta, made a gallant 
 attempt to escape. As she ran out of the harbour she 
 passed close by the Penelope frigate, commanded by 
 Captain Blackwood, who at all hazards followed her, 
 keeping up a continual fire to attract other ships, 
 l^lackwood soon found that the Penelope was sailing 
 faster than the huge Frenchman, and remaining under 
 
146 NELSON 
 
 her stern, yawing now to port, now to starboard, poured 
 in an incessant raking fire, to which the Guillaume Tell, 
 not venturing to round to and demolish her puny 
 antagonist by a broadside, could make no efi*ective reply. 
 Towards morning she had lost her main and mizen top- 
 masts, and the 64 -gun ship Lion, coming up, ranged 
 alongside and engaged her yard-arm to yard-arm, but 
 was quickly forced to drop astern. At six o'clock the 
 Foudroijant came up, and after a most gallant defence, 
 the Guillaume Tell, being totally dismasted, struck h^r 
 colours. She was crowded with men and had suffered 
 very great loss. / 
 
 The news gave Nelson the most lively satisfaction. 
 She was the last of the Nile ships, and that she should 
 be captured by Berry commanding his flagship seemed a- 
 fitting termination to his labours. On April 6th, he 
 wrote to Lord Minto . "Our dear, great Earl of St. 
 Vincent's orders to me were to follow the French Medi- 
 terranean fleet and to annihilate them. It has been 
 done, thanks to the zeal and bravery of my gallant 
 friends. My task is done, my health lost, and I have 
 wrote to Lord Keith for my retreat. May all orders be 
 as punctually obeyed, but never again an officer at the 
 close of what I must — without being thought vain — 
 call a glorious career, be so treated- I go with our dear 
 friends Sir William and Lady Hamilton ; but whether 
 by water or land depends on the will of Lord Keith." 
 All this and much more to the same effect seems to 
 prove that disgust at Lord Keith's appointment had 
 quite as much to do with his determination to go home 
 as his unwillingness to be separated from his mistress. 
 
 It was impossible for the Admiralty to tolerate this 
 
viT REMONSTRANCE FROM HOME 147 
 
 thinly -veiled conduct, even in the victor of the Nile. 
 Any officer with less claim on the national gratitude 
 would have been summarily superseded. Lord Spencer 
 felt that Nelson deserved a certain allowance, and with 
 a delicate tact, at which even Nelson's sensitive nature 
 could not be offended, pointed out to him the disadvan- 
 tage of the line he had taken. He could not, of course, 
 enter on the question of Keith's appointment as Com- 
 mander-in-Chief, although he certainly knew the force of 
 that difficulty ; he dwelt rather on the impropriety and 
 inconvenience of his continued residence at Palermo. In 
 answer to Nelson's letter of March 20th, he wrote : " I 
 must express my extreme regret that your health should 
 be such as to oblige you to quit your station off Malta 
 at a time when I should suppose there must be the finest 
 prospect of its reduction. ... If the enemy should 
 come into the Mediterranean ... I should be much 
 concerned to hear that you learnt of their arrival in that 
 sea, either on shore or in a transport at Palermo." On 
 May 9th, the Admiralty sent out to Keith a formal per- 
 mission for Nelson to return to England, if his health 
 rendered him incapable of doing his duty, and Lord 
 Spencer again wrote privately : " It is by no means my 
 wish or intention to call you away from service ; but 
 having observed that you have been under the necessity 
 of quitting your station ofl' Malta on account of the state 
 of your health . . •. it appeared to me much more ad- 
 visable for you to come home at once than to be obliged 
 to remain inactive at Palermo while active service 
 was going on in other parts of the station. ... I am 
 quite clear, and I believe I am joined in opinion by all 
 your friends here, that you will be more likely to recover 
 
148 ' NELSON 
 
 your health and strength in England than in an inactive 
 situation at a foreign court, however pleasing the respect 
 and gratitude shown to you for your services may be. . . . 
 I trust that you will take in good part what I have 
 taken the liberty to write to you as a friend." 
 
 It is unnecessary here to follow into the details of 
 this miserable scandal. It was perhaps better for the 
 service that it should be considered as altogether arising 
 out of feminine influence ; and letters from old friends 
 in England as well as from Troubridge, a friend of his 
 boyhood, leave no doubt that the woman was generally 
 believed to be the cause of the evil There can be no 
 question that she had a great deal to do with it, — a very 
 great deal ; but the irritable jealousy not altogether 
 alien to Nelson's nature at the best of times, and at this 
 period aggravated by ill-health and the severe blow on 
 the head, must bear a large share of the blame. 
 
 Towards the end of April Nelson felt obliged to 
 return to Malta. The Hamiltons accompanied him in 
 the Foudroyant, a circumstance which not unnaturally 
 gave rise to many gross comments. The cruise lasted 
 through May, and on June 1st the Foudroyant again 
 arrived at Palermo. Nelson was extremely anxious to 
 take her to England. He had arranged that the 
 Hamiltons were to go with him. Keith, however, was 
 resolute. The destruction of the Queen Charlotte^ a ship 
 of 100 guns, accidentally burnt off Leghorn on March 
 17th, was a serious loss to the fleet; and as no rein- 
 forcements were being sent from England, he deemed 
 it unadvisable to send a powerful ship, such as the 
 Foudroyant^ oft* the station. He was perhaps also un- 
 willing that the scandal, already in the air, should 
 
vn THE JOURNEY HOME 149 
 
 appear to be sanctioned by the Commander-in-Chief. 
 The Seahorse, he wrote to Nelson, would be at Mahon 
 under orders for England. If he and his friends would 
 go there, they might return in her or in any troopship 
 they preferred, but he was quite unable to send either a 
 line-of-battle ship or larger frigate. 
 
 Lady Hamilton had no particular wish to go by sea. 
 She would have consented to take a passage in the 
 Foudroyant; she refused to do so in a trooper, and 
 Nelson in this was entirely at her orders. They 
 accordingly resolved to accompany the Queen to Vienna, 
 and went, all together, to Leghorn in the Foudroyant ; 
 thence to Ancona, where they took a passage to Trieste 
 in a Kussian frigate, with a Dalmatian captain and a 
 Neapolitan first-lieutenant. The accommodation wag 
 cramped ; no preparations for distinguished visitors had 
 been made ; the ship was in bad order, and Nelson was 
 very ill. Hamilton too was seriously, it was feared 
 dangerously, ill; and the voyage was wretched in the 
 extreme. 
 
 At Vienna, where the party remained some days, 
 Nelson was received with great distinction. On Sep- 
 tember 29th they were at Prague, where a grand fete 
 in honour of his birthday was given by the Archduke 
 Charles. Thence they went on to Dresden and stayed 
 for a few days with Mr. Hugh Elliot, Lord Minto's 
 brother, and at that time ambassador to the King of 
 Saxony. There they met Mrs. St. George, a lively and 
 imaginative young widow, who filled several pages of 
 her letters and journal with exaggerated accounts of 
 Nelson and his friends. . That Lady PLimilton was 
 exceedingly stout is perfectly true ; but notwithstanding 
 
 thstan( 
 
150 NELSON CHAP, vii 
 
 her birth and want of education, she had been for 
 twenty years intimately associated with men of refined 
 manners and conversation, and must have acquired a 
 certain veneer of politeness. Nelson, too, is always 
 described, except by Mrs. St. George, as scrupulously 
 moderate at table; and though he never had, nor 
 aped, the manners of a fine gentleman, it appears certain 
 that he had a natural and kindly courtesy which was 
 very winning. At Dresden, indeed, he was in bad 
 health and very much in love ; and it may be that Mrs. 
 St. George did not easily forgive his neglect of her for 
 the sake of a fat, vulgar, immoral female. 
 
CHAPTER Vm 
 
 THE BATTLE OF THE BALTIC 
 
 Nelson with his party, having taken ship at Hamburg, 
 landed at Yarmouth on November 6th, and, as if to 
 emphasise the cause of his leaving the Mediterranean, he 
 at once wrote to the Admiralty to say that " his health 
 being perfectly re-established, it was his wish to serve 
 immediately." It was his home-coming after the battle 
 of the Nile, and, as he stepped on shore, he was received 
 by an enthusiastic crowd, the people taking the horses 
 from the carriage and dragging it up to the hotel. 
 The Mayor and Corporation waited on him with an 
 address and the freedom of the town, which had been 
 voted to him long before as a native of Norfolk. The 
 next day he, always accompanied by Sir William and 
 Lady Hamilton, and the Corporation attended a thanks- 
 giving service in the church ; and on leaving the town 
 escorted by a bodyguard of cavalry, he left £50 with 
 the Mayor for the poor. 
 
 One thing, however, was afterwards noticed, a thing 
 indeed noticeable but, under the circumstances, not to 
 be wondered at; Lady Nelson did not come to meet 
 him. She was at the time with her father-in-law in 
 London, staying at Nerot's Hotel in St. James's Street : 
 
152 NELSON 
 
 and there^ on the evening of November 8th, Nelson 
 joined them. His reception by his wife is said to have 
 been extremely cold. It naturally was so. Already 
 she had judged his conduct and condemned him, on 
 popular rumour. There is no doubt whatever that, in 
 the ordinary phrase, she was an injured woman ; but 
 it must in fairness be asked if some portion of the blame 
 did not rest with herself. Her husband had gained a 
 victory, the fame of which had resounded through 
 Europe ; it is, perhaps, not too much to say that, during 
 the last months of 1798, his personal renown overtopped 
 that of any European warrior. He had won not only 
 glory but, compared with his former limited means, 
 fortune. He was wounded, he was ill ; but Lady Nelson 
 contented herself with writing letters of extreme pro- 
 priety and remaining in England. Her partisans have 
 excused this ; she was obliged, they say, to stay and 
 nurse her father-in-law, who was old and infirm. That 
 she did stay is certain ; that there was any obligation 
 beyond her own choice is doubtful; the old man had 
 daughters and another daughter-in-law. The more 
 common opinion will be that, under the circumstances. 
 Lady Nelson's place was at her husband's side. To 
 leave him, whom she knew to be almost childishly vain 
 and sensitive, to the care of a kindly, beautiful and 
 fascinating courtesan, while she comforted him with 
 elegant epistles from a distance, surely deserves some of 
 the blame which our moral Pharisees have so freely 
 dealt out to her husband. As they now met with 
 feelings of disgust and irritation on both sides, it is 
 not to be wondered at that the breach was widened 
 by personal quarrels. There is no good reason to 
 
VIII NELSON SEPARATES FROM HIS WIFE 153 
 
 doubt that "Emma" was the main cause, of these. 
 " I am sick of hearing of * Dear Lady Hamilton/ " Lady 
 Nelson is said to have exclaimed on one occasion ; prob- 
 ably enough she did so more than once. But it is far 
 from improbable that the conduct of Lady Nelson's son 
 may have been angrily discussed \ that Lady Nelson 
 wished him to be recognised as her husband's sole heir ; 
 and that Nelson refused to have anything more to do 
 with him. 
 
 Of Josiah Nisbet very little is known, and that little 
 is not favourable. He was at this time about twenty, 
 and by his stepfather's interest had been made lieutenant, 
 commander, and captain at an age when he ought to 
 have been still in the midshipmen's berth. He seems 
 to have been of intemperate habits and boorish demean- 
 our. When drunk, he was violent and insulting. As 
 his father had died insane very shortly after his birth, 
 if not before it, it may be thought not impossible that 
 his vices were congenital. Over and over again while 
 in the Mediterranean his misconduct had been pardoned 
 by St. Vincent or reproved by Nelson. His mother was 
 naturally the one person who was blind to his faults ; 
 but if at this time she attempted to urge his interests 
 on her husband, it may well be that her representations 
 were received with peevish ill-humour or outbursts of 
 anger. " Sooner than live the unhappy life I did when 
 last I came to England,*' Nelson wrote some three or 
 four months later, "I would stay abroad for ever." 
 Nothing is really known more than that they separated 
 by mutual agreement on January 13th, 1801, and did 
 not again see each other ; but Nelson, who was at all 
 times most generous in money matters, settled on her 
 
154 NELSON 
 
 £1200 a year, which, at the time, he could very ill 
 afford. 
 
 Four days later he hoisted his flag on board the 
 Sa/n Josef at Plymouth, with orders to join the fleet in 
 Torbay under the command of Lord St. Vincent. This 
 he did in the end of January ; but St. Vincent was just 
 at that time appointed First Lord of the Admiralty \ 
 and by the middle of February Nelson was directed to 
 shift his flag to the 8t, George and put himself under the 
 orders of Sir Hyde Parker, appointed Commander-in- 
 Chief of the fleet going to the Baltic, or, as it was 
 officially described, " on a particular service." On Feb- 
 ruary 21st Nelson arrived at Spithead, on the 23rd he 
 went to London on three days' leave; was back at 
 Portsmouth on the 26th, and on March 2nd sailed with 
 a squadron of seven ships of the line to join Sir Hyde 
 at Yarmouth. The fleet sailed from Yarmouth on 
 March 12th. 
 
 The two months prior to this date have a very 
 curious interest in the story of Nelson's life. After 
 more than two years of almost unbroken intercourse, he 
 was forced to leave Lady Hamilton just as she was on 
 the point of becoming a mother. On January 29th 
 or 30th she gave birth to a female child, afterwards 
 known as Horatia. The circumstances of the birth 
 were carefully concealed, and the very fact was kept 
 a close secret which has been fully revealed only within 
 the last few years. But the discovery of Nelson's letters 
 to Lady Hamilton written during these two months 
 leaves no room for further doubt ; for in these letters 
 Nelson, addressing Lady Hamilton as *'My own dear 
 wife — for such you are in my eyes and in the face of 
 
VIII BIRTH OF HORATIA 155 
 
 Heaven," repeatedly speaks of " our dear little child," 
 the "dear pledge of love" vrhich she had given him. 
 "I firmly believe," he says in one, "that this campaign 
 will give us peace, and then we will set off for Bronte, 
 there to stay till your uncle dies," that is. Sir William 
 Hamilton, and till he himself could be " separated from 
 her," Lady Nelson. 
 
 Many of these letters are written as to Mrs. Thomson 
 or Thompson (the name is spelt indifferently) on behalf 
 of Mrs. Thomson's "dear friend," occasionally spoken of 
 as Mr. Thomson ; and it has been suggested that Mr. 
 Thomson was a real man, Mrs. Thomson a real woman, 
 and that Nelson and Emma were merely go-betweens. 
 A very slight examination of the correspondence shows 
 that this is not so. The letters are all in Nelson's auto- 
 graph, and whether written as from Nelson to Lady 
 Hamilton or from Nelson to Mrs. Thomson in the name 
 of her "dear friend," the sense is the same; he will 
 marry her as soon as her " uncle " dies and he is free. 
 But beside this, the mistakes and confusion of persons 
 in the Thomson letters are frequent. Here is one : 
 " To Mrs. Thomson. Your good and dear friend does 
 not think it proper at present to write with his own 
 hand. ... He swears before Heaven that he will marry 
 you as soon as it is possible. . . . He charges me to 
 say how dear you are to him. ... I have given Lord 
 N. £100 this morning, for which he will give Lady 
 Hamilton an order on his agents, and I beg that you 
 "will distribute it amongst those who have been useful to 
 you on the late occasion." It is almost unnecessary to 
 add that there was no Thomson a friend of Nelson's, 
 no Mrs. Thomson a friend of Lady Hamilton's. 
 
IS6 NELSON 
 
 The war now £eDding_wi th the Balt ic Powers, that is 
 to say, wit h Eussia , S weden, and Dennpiik, arose out of 
 what has been commonly called the Armed Neutrality, 
 a treaty by which these northern Powers had bound 
 themselves to resist the right of ''visit and search" 
 claimed by the belligerents, and to enforce the accept- 
 ance of certain principles of so-called international law : 
 among others, the security of a belligerent's property 
 under a neutral flag, — "a free ship makes free goods"; 
 that a blockade to be binding must be maintained by 
 an adequate force ; and that " contraband of war " must 
 be distinctly defined beforehand. As these principles, 
 if admitted by England, amounted to the import by 
 France of naval stores, — masts, hemp, tar — from the 
 Baltic, to be paid for by French exports, the English 
 Government was resolved to contest them. 
 
 Such a confederation of the northern Powers had 
 been attempted twenty years before, and had fallen to 
 pieces by its own intrinsic weakness. The renewal of 
 it in 1800 grew out of various incidents of the war, in 
 which English frigates had enforced their right of visit 
 and search of merchant-ships, even under convoy of a 
 ship of war. These had been partially, and might have 
 been wholly, arranged, when the news of the capture of 
 Malta by the English upset the balance of the Eussian 
 Emperor's mind, and prompted him, possibly under the 
 influence of French intrigue, to lay an embargo on 
 English shipping in Eussian ports, and to declare his 
 determination to maintain the principles of the former 
 armed neutrality. Sweden at once joined him, and 
 Denmark was coerced, not perhaps unwillingly. Such 
 a confederation, if allowed to mature itself under the 
 
vui INSTRUCTIONS TO THE FLEET 157 
 
 presidency of an autocratic and irresponsible maniac, 
 might evidently be a source of very great danger to 
 England, and it was resolved to break it up, — by diplo- 
 macy, if possible, but if not, by force. 
 
 When the fleet sailed from Yarmouth, the Govern- 
 ment would seem to have thought that Denmark would 
 be easily detached from the confederation; and the 
 instructions forwarded to Sir Hyde Parker, — instructions 
 which must have been framed by Lord St. Vincent — 
 were to proceed to Reval as soon as the fleet could be 
 withdrawn from before Copenhagen; to attack the 
 Eussian squadron there; to destroy the arsenal; to pass on 
 to Cronstadt ; and, in general, "to attack and endeavour 
 to capture or destroy any ships of war or others belong- 
 ing to Eussia, and to annoy that Power in every manner 
 not incompatible with the fair and acknowledged usages 
 of war." 
 
 These instructions were apparently discussed in a 
 council of war on March 23rd ; and on the 24thJ5^elson 
 wrote a long letter to Sir Hyde, urging the necessity 
 of prompt and immediate action if the negotiations 
 at Copenhagen should prove unsuccessful, as, by the 
 intelligence they had received from the ambassador, 
 seemed now most probable. This letter is a full and 
 masterly exposition of the prospects before them, and 
 should be studied in detail by every one who wishes to 
 obtain an insight into Nelson^s manner of considering 
 not merely how to get at the enemy, but, in his own 
 words, " how to get at them with the least risk to our 
 ships." It is impossible to do more here than indicate 
 his definite proposals. *' You are now," he wrote, 
 *'' about Kronborg. If the wind be fair, and you deter- 
 
158 NELSON 
 
 mine to attack the ships and Crown Islands, you must 
 expect the natural issue of such a battle — ships crippled 
 and perhaps one or two lost ; for the wind which carries 
 you in will most probably not bring out a crippled ship. 
 This mode I call taking the bull by the horns. It, how- 
 ever, will not prevent the Eeval ships, or Swedes, from 
 joining the Danes ; and to prevent this from taking 
 effect is, in my humble opinion, a measure absolutely 
 necessary — and still to attack Copenhagen. Two modes 
 are in my view : one to pass Kronborg, taking the risk 
 of damage, and to pass up the deepest and straightest 
 channel above the Middle Grounds ; and coming down 
 the Garbar or King's Channel, to attack their floating 
 batteries, etc. etc., as we find it convenient. It must 
 have the effect of preventing a junction between the 
 Russians, Swedes, and Danes, and may give us an oppor- 
 tunity of bombarding Copenhagen. . . . Should this 
 mode of attack be ineligible, the passage of the Belt, I 
 have no doubt, would be accomplished in four or five 
 days, and then the attack by Dragor could be carried 
 into effect and the junction of the Russians prevented, 
 with every probability of success against the Danish 
 floating batteries. . . . Supposing us through the Belt 
 with the wind first westerly, would it not be possible to 
 either go with the fleet, or detach ten ships of three 
 or two decks, with one bomb or two fire-ships, to Reval, 
 to destroy the Russian squadron at that place ? I do 
 not see the great risk of such a detachment, and with 
 the remainder to attempt the business at Copenhagen. 
 The measlire may be thought bold, but I am of opinion 
 the boldest measures are the safest." 
 
 It is of this last suggestion, " a suggestion worthy of 
 
vm PASSAGE OF THE SOUND 159 
 
 Napoleon himself,'' that Captain Mahan has well said : 
 "If adopted, it would have brought down the Baltic 
 Confederacy with a crash that would have resounded 
 throughout Europe." It was, however, the first pro- 
 posal which was ultimately adopted. When on the 
 30th the fleet passed Kronborg, entered the Sound, and 
 anchored a few miles to the north of CopenhageUj, it was 
 seen, as Nelson had pointed out, that to go in from the 
 north, exposing the ships to the fire of the Crown 
 batteries, would be extremely dangerous, and could 
 scarcely lead to a satisfactory result. While off Elsi- 
 nore. Nelson had shifted his flag to the Elejphant, com- 
 manded by Captain Foley who had so brilliantly led into 
 action at the Nile, and he now at once volunteered to 
 undertake the attack in the way he had proposed, from 
 the southward, if the Admiral would give him ten ships 
 of the line and all the smaller vessels. Sir Hyde readily 
 agreed to this, giving him twelve ships of the line, and 
 leaving all the details to his judgment. In the Amazon 
 frigate he had already examined the position, and 
 during the night of March 31st had the channel by 
 which he was to pass carefully sounded. On the fore- 
 noon of April 1st the whole fleet moved on to an 
 anchorage within six miles of the town, oflf the north- 
 west end of the Middle Ground, a large shoal abreast of 
 Copenhagen, dividing the channel at that part into two. 
 By the easternmost of these the squadron under Nelson 
 passed the town out of range of the batteries; and 
 having anchored for the night to the south-east of the 
 Middle Ground, examined the approach to the town 
 by the inner or King's Channel, and given detailed 
 orders to the several captains both in writing and 
 
i6o NELSON 
 
 verbally, at half-past nine on April 2nd Nelson made 
 the signal to weigh in succession. 
 
 The pilots, for the most part mates of small merchant 
 vessels engaged in the Baltic trade, were unequal to 
 the task of conducting these large ships in a channel 
 from which the accustomed buoys had been removed, 
 and Mr. Brierly, the master of the Bellona^ piloted the 
 squadron in. Captain George Murray leading in the 
 Edgar. The second ship, the Agamemnon, keeping too 
 much to the east, struck on the Middle Ground and 
 remained fast ; so also did the Bellona and Russell ; the 
 other nine ships passed up safely, and anchored abreast 
 of the Danish floating ^batteries (heavily-armed hulks) 
 ranged along the shoal water on the western side of the 
 channel. At ten o'clock the action began. By half- 
 past eleven the nine English ships had taken their posi- 
 tions, and the battle had become general. The two lines 
 were about two hundred yards apart ; the distance 
 between the English ships was about one hundred. The 
 Elephant was in the centre of the line, opposite to the 
 Danish commodore, Fischer, in the Dannebrog. 
 
 At one o'clock the battle was raging fiercely. None 
 of the Danish ships had been silenced; many of the 
 English had suffered severely, and the Bellona and Russell 
 had hoisted signals of distress. Seeing this, but unable 
 to see what was actually taking place, Parker made the 
 signal to discontinue the action. " Leave off action ! " 
 said Nelson ; " damn me, if I do. You know, Foley, I 
 have a right to be blind sometimes " ; and putting the 
 glass to his blind eye, continued, " I really do not see 
 the signal." The story, told on the unimpeachable 
 evidence of Colonel Stewart, who was by Nelson's side 
 
VIII VICTORY OF COPENHAGEN 161 
 
 at the time, and to whom part of the conversation was 
 addressed, has often been repeated as though marking 
 in a most characteristic way the man's reckless and 
 determined bravery. It is, however, very well estab- 
 lished that Parker sent his flag-captain, Otway, with a 
 verbal message that the signal was to be understood as 
 permissive, and was made in that way so that the whole 
 responsibility might rest with Parker, if Nelson judged 
 it advisable to discontinue the action. If he thought it 
 advisable to continue it, he was at liberty to do so. He 
 judged it right to continue ; and the little pantomime 
 was only a joke, which Foley probably understood as 
 well as he did. Stewart apparently had no knowledge 
 of the message Otway had brought. 
 
 By two o'clock Nelson's resolution to continue the 
 action was clearly justified. Most of "the Danish ships 
 had ceased to fire ; and as their crews were constantly 
 reinforced by men from the shore, the carnage on board 
 was very great. Some of them had their cables cut and 
 were drifting helplessly. The Dannebrog caught fire after 
 nearly every man on board had been killed or wounded, 
 and, drifting along the line, finally blew up, with the 
 loss of all that had been unable to jump overboard. 
 At ha lf-past two, Nelson, seeing that this butchery (and 
 by tEis time it was n othing more) muot go on aa long as 
 the Danes continue^^ ^?nrlin,"; ^^^^^ ^^^^ ^" '^"^^'' i-'^^^'pg, 
 wrote a letter to the Crown Princg , wb^'^^ ^'^^ Mlron cm^ 
 gfi()re bv Captain Sir Frp.dp.n V.V Tho s ig o r , serviftg-^cm 
 NelsQ ^s staff as a volunte er, who, having been in the 
 Swedish service, spoke the language sufficiently well. 
 This celebrated letter ran : " Lord Nelson has directions 
 to spare Denmark when no longer resisting ; but if the 
 M 
 
i62 NELSON 
 
 firing is continued on 4he part of Denmark, Lord Nelson 
 wiir\e obliged to set on fire all the floating batteries 
 he has taken, without having the power of saving the 
 brave Danes who have defended them. Nelson and 
 Bronte, Vice-Admiral, under the command of Admiral 
 Sir Hyde Parker. Dated on board his Britannic Majesty's 
 ship ElepMnt, Copenhagen Eoads, April 2nd, 1801." 
 The letter brought on a truce, and the truce led to 
 an armistice which effectively detached Denmark from 
 the Confederation. It was suggested at the time, and 
 has since been often asserted, that the humanity which 
 appeared in the words of Nelson's letter was a mere 
 pretext, a subterfuge not altogether honourable, and 
 that the real motive of it was the hope of extricating 
 the squadron from a position of extreme dagger; for 
 that, even if the Danish hulks were compleMy silenced 
 or destroyed, the English squadron couldraot leave the 
 V position they were in without becoming exposed to the 
 fire of the Three Crowns and other batteries, which they 
 were in no state to resist. There is no evidence in 
 support of such an allegation. Nelson himself most 
 positively denied its truth : the flag of truce, he asserted, 
 was sent for the sake of humanity, and for nothing else ; 
 and as a certain fact, patent to friends and enemies, he 
 made no attempt during the first hours of the truce to 
 get the ships out of the position they were in. A 
 message was sent to Parker, and till the answer came 
 and the truce was confirmed, it was uncertain whether 
 the action might not be renewed ; but during this time 
 none of the English ships even shifted berth ; w^here 
 they were at half-past two they still were at nightfall, 
 —when General Lindholm, who had been on board the 
 
THE ARMISTICE 163 
 
 Ijondon, Parker's flagship, returned to Copenhagen, 
 having agreed that hostilities were to be suspended 
 for twenty -four hours and that the prizes were to 
 be surrendered. 
 
 Nelson then returned to the St. George thoroughly 
 worn out, having been awake all the previous night ; 
 though even then he could not go to bed without writ- 
 ing a few lines to Lady Hamilton. And these lines took 
 the not very unusual form of verses, which Pettigrew, 
 and others following him, have supposed to be Nelson's 
 own composition. The most unlikely men, when sick 
 of love, have been known to break into verse; but as 
 these particular verses, sad rubbish though they are, 
 are correct in their grammar and rhythm, but faulty in 
 their seamanship, they cannot be Nelson's. The pre- 
 sumption is that they were Lord William Gordon's, who 
 had constituted himself the poet of the lovers. " Eecom- 
 mend to Lord William not to make songs about us, for 
 fear we should not deserve his good opinion," Nelson 
 had written to Lady Hamilton only three days before ; 
 and these particular verses seemed to him an appropriate 
 message of love as he hastily wrote them down and 
 dated them : ^^ St. George, April 2nd, 1801, at nine o'clock 
 at night, very tired after a hard-fought battle." 
 
 Early on the following morning Nelson returned to 
 the Elephant, still in the King's Channel, and was occupied 
 during the day in refitting the ships and removing the 
 prizes. The surrender of some of these was doubtful. 
 The case of one has been a fertile source of legend and 
 myth. According to Colonel Stewart's narrative, written 
 at the time, a question arose whether the Zealand had 
 struck or not, her pennant having been left flying. 
 
1 64 NELSON 
 
 Nelson went in person on board the Commodore's ship, 
 which he found commanded by a Captain Miiller whom 
 he had known in the West Indies, and in friendly con- 
 versation with him succeeded in arranging the point in 
 dispute. A similar difficulty about the surrender of the 
 Holstein, which was overcome by a ruse of Captain 
 Otway's, has been confused with this ; and Nelson's 
 meeting with Miiller has been travestied in various ways 
 into a meeting with a Lieutenant Willemoes whom he 
 never saw. 
 
 On the 4th Nelson w as instm ctg^L to vicit the C r o wn .^ 
 Prince "%ith pow er to negotialfi, an a pmi s tio e , ^diickr- 
 
 after some discussion, was concluded on the 9th. The 
 term demanded by kelson was fourteen weeks. To this 
 the Danish Commissioners objected, urging their appre- 
 hension of the Court of Kussia ; on which Nelson, with 
 most undiplomatic frankness, said that he wished to 
 have time to act against the Eussian fleet and return 
 to Copenhagen. One of the Danes, in refusing to 
 give way, spoke of a renewal of hostilities. Nelson 
 knew sufficient French to understand what was said; 
 and " Turning to one of his friends [probably 
 Colonel Stewart, who relates the story], exclaimed 
 with warmth, * Eenew hostilities ! Tell him we are 
 ready at a moment ; ready to bombard this very night.' " 
 The Commissioner apologised, but not till after long 
 
 ar^ment wqc; i ha farm ir jc^iQfAri Qj\ V>y Mnlnmn nc p^j^Prl 
 
 The news of the factory reached London on the 15th, 
 and on the 16th the two Houses of Parliament unani- 
 mously passed votes of thanks to Sir Hyde Parker, to 
 Nelson, to Eear- Admiral Graves, to Colonel Stewart, 
 and the officers, seamen, and marines of the fleet. And 
 
VIII RECALL OF PARKER ' 165 
 
 in the House of Commons an address to the King was 
 agreed to, praying that a monument might be erected 
 in St. Paul's to the memory of Captain Mosse of the 
 Monarch, and of Captain Eiou of the Amazon, who had 
 been killed in the battle. No medal, however, was 
 given, and owing, it would seem, to some hint from the 
 Government, there was no complimentary vote from the 
 City of London ; two omissions which annoyed Nelson 
 exceedingly, and led him to write several vehement 
 letters both to Lord St. Vincent and to the Lord Mayor, 
 with whom, in consequence of the neglect, he point- 
 blank refused to dine. 
 
 On the 17th instructions were sent to Parker acquaint 
 ing him with the death of the Emperor Paul on March 
 24th, and with the receipt of an amicable communication 
 from the Court of St. Petersburg. The previous orders 
 for an attack on the Kussian fleet at Keval were there- 
 fore suspended for the present. He was directed to 
 ascertain the practical intentions of the Kussian Govern- 
 ment as soon as possible by sending a flag of truce ; and 
 to take action only if the overtures were absolutely 
 and positively rejected. Four days later Parker wa s 
 recalled, and Nelson was appoint ed Commander-in-Chief. 
 Park er's delav~both betore~tRe batt le and aft^ ywarfl Rj 
 his umviUij igness to undertake an ything on ^ is nyrn 
 responsibility, had conv inced St. Vi ncfint <^f ^^a dfisira. 
 bility of having some one of a more energetic chara cter 
 in command of the fleet, and he, at least, knew that 
 Nelson, with all his energy, was not the scatter-brained 
 fire-eater which some people had supposed him. 
 
 The change took effect on May 5th, and Nelson, who 
 had already vainly urged on Parker the advisability of 
 
1 66 NELSON 
 
 taking the fleet to the Gulf of Finland, immediately 
 made the signal to prepare for sea. He was firmly cm i- 
 vinc^d that the negotiationsjvguld,be.m^^ satisfactorj^ 
 if tlie_Kussian Government realised the danger of delay; 
 and was anxious at any rate to prevent the two Eussian 
 squadrons from joining, or the Russians "mixing the 
 affairs of Denmark or • Sweden with the detention of 
 English ships." 
 
 On the 7th the fleet sailed from Kioge Bay, where 
 it had lain ever since the conclusion of the armistice ; 
 and, leaving Captain Murray as senior officer with seven 
 sail of the line and all the bombs, fire-ships, etc., at Born- 
 holm, Nelson with eleven ships of the line, a frigate 
 and two sloops, came, on May_12th^fF Reval, where, 
 much to his disappointment, he found that the Russian 
 squadron had got through the ice and gone to Cronstadt 
 only a few days , before. In his letters he repeatedly 
 asserts that the English fleet might and ought to have 
 been there on April 2nd, when the squadron would 
 have been entirely at their mercy. "Nothing," he 
 wrote, "if it had been right to make the attack, could 
 have saved one ship of them in two hours after our 
 entering the bay." It may be added that, if Parker 
 could have considered the strategy of the campaign with 
 the genius of his subordinate, the useless slaughter and 
 maiming of nine hundred and forty- three Englishmen 
 and double that number of Danes would have been 
 avoided ; for the Czar had been put to death on March 
 24th, and his son Alexander had no wish to continue the 
 hostile policy of his father. 
 
 None the less, the Russian Government was unwilling 
 now to appear to yield to pressure; and on May 16tb 
 
VIII THE FLEET OFF REVAL 167 
 
 Nelson received a letter from the Eussian Secretary, 
 Count Pahlen, stating the Emperor's surprise at the 
 appearance of such a force in Eussian waters while the 
 English Government was professing peaceful intentions, 
 and imperatively requiring him to remove it. " I do 
 not helieve he would have written such a letter if the 
 Eussian fleet had been in Eeval," was Nelson's comment 
 on it to Lord St. Vincent. He, however, at onca^sailfid 
 out of t he Gulf. fl/n<^ hp.ing; ir> ve^y feeble health, begg ed 
 St. yTncent to reh'eve h im from the command. "Since 
 the 27th of April," he wrote on May 17th, "I have not 
 been out of my cabin, except in being obliged to do the 
 civil thing at Eeval ; nor do I expect to go out until I 
 land in England, or am carried out of the ship." It was, 
 too, just at this time that he received news of the death 
 of his brother Maurice, a clerk in the Navy Office. " It 
 has naturally affected me a good deal," he wrote ; " if I 
 do not get some repose very soon, another will go. Six 
 sons are gone out of eight." That his health at this 
 time was not good, we know on the authority of Colonel 
 Stewart, who wrote : " His mind was not at ease ; with 
 him, mind and health invariably sympathised." 
 
 Nevertheless his statements should perhaps not be 
 taken quite literally. Colonel Stewart's account of his 
 mode of life does not represent him as a man at the 
 point of death or anywhere near it. After speaking of 
 the attention he paid to the health of his fleet and the 
 economical expenditure of stores, Stewart continued ; 
 " His hour of rising was four or five o'clock, and of going 
 to rest about ten ; breakfast was never later than six, 
 and generally nearer to five o'clock. A midshipman or 
 two were always of the party ; and I have known him 
 
1 68 NELSON 
 
 send during the middle watch to invite the little fellows 
 to breakfast with him when relieved. At table with 
 them, he would enter into their boyish jokes, and be the 
 most youthful of the party. At dinner he invariably 
 had every officer of the ship in their turn, and was both 
 a polite and hospitable host. The whole ordinary 
 business of the fleet was invariably despatched, as it had 
 been by Earl St. Vincent, before eight o'clock. The 
 great command of time which Lord Nelson thus gave 
 himself, and the alertness which this example imparted 
 throughout the fleet, can only be understood by those 
 who witnessed it, or who know the value of early hours." 
 
 After a week or ten days in Rostock Bay, by the 
 beginning of June he was again in Kioge Bay. On the 
 13th he received permission to return to England, and 
 at the same time instructions to invest Rear- Admiral 
 Graves with the order of the Bath, which was done with 
 much ceremony on the quarter-deck of the aS'^. George 
 on June 14th, Nelson laying the sword on the Rear- 
 Admiral's shoulder in the name of the King. A few 
 days later Sir Charles Pole arrived to relieve him, and 
 on the 19 th Nelson sailed for England in the Kite brig, 
 leaving a farewell address to the admirals, captains, 
 officers, and men, thanking them for the noble and hon- 
 ourable support they had given him, and attributing the 
 extraordinary good health of the fleet " to the regularity, 
 exact discipline, and cheerful obedience of every indi- 
 vidual in it " ; but, as if to mark that his praise was not 
 a mere complimentary form, he specially excepted the 
 officers of two of the gun-brigs and a bomb. 
 
 Nelson landed at ^^r^^^iitb ^^ -Tnly ^°^ and after 
 visiting the hospitals to which the wounded at Copen- 
 
VIII NELSON MADE A VISCOUNT 169 
 
 hn£;rn_hifj hr n n n o ntj T i T n f^ nn to London. He had 
 already, by patent of May 22nd, been raised to the 
 dignity of a viscount under the title of Viscount Nelson 
 of the Nile and Burnham Thorpe; and was now con- 
 sulted as to his wish that, in default of his issue male, 
 the barony might be continued to his father's heirs- 
 male, or failing them, to the heirs -male of his sisters, 
 Mrs. Bolton and Mrs. Matcham respectively; and this 
 was finally prescribed by the patent of August 18th. 
 
 Mea ntime he was requested both b y Mr. Addingto n 
 and Lordr-Str- Yincent to take command of a ve ry con- 
 siderab le force o UrigateSy^i^rigs, ftnd smaller vessels for 
 the defence of the coast between Orfgrdness and Beachy 
 Head, against some part of which it was understood the 
 French were preparing an attack. It was a particular * 
 service, independent of the command in the Downs, then 
 held by Nelson's old captain, now Admiral Lutwidge ; 
 but St. Vincent quite well understood the delicacy of 
 the situation, and that the appointment of a junior to an 
 independent command in the Narrow Seas could not but 
 be, in some respects, unpleasant to the older officer. St. 
 Vincent's explanations, however, seem to have been taken 
 in good part ; and by the real wish on all sides to act for 
 the good of the public service, and by forbearance and 
 tact on one side and the other, there seems to have been 
 absolutely no friction. 
 
 On preparing to assume his command, Nelson sub- 
 mitted to the Admiralty a paper stating his views on the 
 defence of the river. He conceived that the object of 
 the French would be London, and that for that they 
 must aim at getting on shore as speedily as possible j 
 "the dangers of a navigation of forty -eight hours" 
 
I70 NELSON 
 
 appeared to him "an insurmountable objection to the 
 rowing from Boulogne to the coast of Essex." Hence 
 he judged that from Boulogne, Calais, or even Havre, 
 they would try and land on the south coast of Kent or 
 Sussex; or from Dunkirk, Ostend, and other parts of 
 Flanders, on the coast of Essex or Suffolk; and he 
 pointed out the necessity of ascertaining the number 
 of small vessels in each port. He thought they might 
 mean to attempt to surprise London with forty thousand 
 men, and for that, to land twenty thousand west of 
 Dover and twenty thousand north of the Thames. For 
 this from two hundred to two hundred and fifty boats 
 must be collected at Boulogne and the neighbouring 
 ports, and as many at Dunkirk and the ports of Flanders ; 
 and on this supposition he elaborated his plan of defence. 
 Two days later, on July 27th, he hoisted his flag on 
 board the TJnxU frigate at Sheerness, but after a few 
 days shifted it to the Medusa. 
 
 As soon i\^ hft could examine the situation for himself, 
 he V>A(TQTi fn rf^pligA fV»gi. f,Ii e alarm which had been felt 
 was quitfi_iirifounded. On August 2nd he wrote that 
 fifty or sixty was the full number of boats, large and 
 small, at Boulogne ; on the 3rd, that " of the craft which 
 I have seen, I do not think it possible to row them to 
 England, and sail they cannot." On the 4th he had 
 over some bombs, which presently sank some five of the 
 enemy's largest vessels. " I think I may venture to 
 assure you," he wrote to Addington, " that the French 
 army will not embark at Boulogne for the invasion of 
 England"; and on the 6th he wrote to Lord St. 
 Vincent : " The information respecting the number of 
 troops assembled at Boulogne cannot be true ; it is 
 
nil HIS OPINION ON FRENCH INVASION 171 
 
 evidently a lie, most likely fabricated by some scoundrel 
 emigrant in London. I h ave now m ore than ever reason 
 to believe that the ports of Flushin g and Flanders are 
 much more likely places to embark men from^han 
 Calai§^Boulogne or Dieppe ; for in Flanders we cannot 
 tell by our eyes what means they have collected for 
 carrying an army." On the 7th he wrote again : "I 
 pronounce that no embarkation can take place at 
 Boulogne; whenever it comes forth, it will be from 
 Flanders ; and what a forlorn undertaking ! Consider 
 cross tides, etc. etc. As for rowing, that is impossible. 
 It is perfectly right to be prepared against a mad 
 government; but with the active force your lordship 
 has given me, I may pronounce it impracticable." 
 
 He was less successful in obtaining some intelligence 1 
 of the state of the enemy's preparations in the ports 1 
 of the Low Countries, and could only hope they might j 
 make the attempt for which he was fully prepared. " In J 
 my command," he wrote from Margate on August 12th, 
 "I find much zeal and good -humour, and should Mr. 
 Bonaparte put himself in our way, I believe he will wish 
 himself even in Corsica. I only hope, if he means to 
 come, that it will be before September 14th, for my 
 stamina is but ill suited for equinoctial gales and cold 
 weather." The next day, however, he had more definite 
 information. " The account of troops given by the French 
 scoundrels in our pay is as false as they are. I am 
 certain that in the towns of Boulogne and the surround- 
 ing hills the total number could not exceed two thousand 
 men. The Galgo arrived in the night from off Ostend. 
 Captain Hawkins assures me that the boats collected at 
 Ostend and Blankenberg may amount to sixty or seventy; 
 
172 NELSON 
 
 \ 
 
 that he is sure they could not carry more than fifty or 
 sixty men each ; he understood that the poor devils of 
 fishermen are sent ofi" for Brest. Wh ^re, my de ar lord, 
 is^our invasion to come from % " 
 
 It is well thus to trace the growth of Nelson's con- 
 viction, and to see how, starting with the belief that the 
 attempt was one likely to be made in serious earnest, he 
 became convinced, after a fortnight's careful study of the 
 problem, that success was so utterly impossible that it 
 was practically certain the attempt would not be made. 
 Having arrived at this conclusion, he wished to assume 
 the ofiensive and to punish the enemy for the insolent 
 pretence which they had put forth. His plan was care- 
 \f ully drawn up ; four divisions of boats, amounting in 
 ihe aggregate to fifty-seven, were to row silently and 
 3y night into the harbour of Boulogne, and bring out or 
 let fire to all the enemy's boats therein. 
 
 The attempt was made on the night of August 15th- 
 16th ; but though the flotilla moored in the mouth of 
 the harbour was reached, it was found that the vessels 
 
 tere fastened to the shore and to each other with chains 
 hich could not be cut, nor in the darkness unshackled, 
 "any of them were boarded and carried ; but such a 
 heavy fire of musketry was opened on them from the 
 shore, that they could not be held even long enough to 
 set them on fire. Thn-aUack ing fori^was ol ji^ed, to 
 retreat not only without success, but having sustained a 
 severe loss in killed and wbunded. 
 
 Nelson's letters on this occasion would of themselves 
 go far to explain the enthusiastic affection with which he 
 was regarded by those under his command. His force 
 had suffered a disastrous repulse ; he might well expect 
 
VIII HIS REPULSE AT BOULOGNE 173 
 
 his conduct to be harshly criticised, and the defeat must 
 have been a cruel blow to his vanity. But his vanity, 
 though prominent in success, seems to have been 
 altogether absent in the hour of misfortune. He did 
 not, as smaller men might have done, attempt to 
 defend himself by showing that the fault did not lie \ 
 with him ; that his instructions had been departed j 
 from, his orders disobeyed, the assault weakly conducted. / 
 On the contrary, he declared : " The most astonishing 
 bravery was evinced by many of our officers and men. 
 . . . No person can be blamed for sending them to the 
 attack but myself. . . . All behaved well : it was their 
 misfortune to be sent on a service which the precautions 
 of the enemy rendered impossible to succeed in"; and 
 many more sentences of the same kind he wrote to the 
 Admiralty, to Lord St. Vincent, and to Mr. Addington. 
 
 Notwithstanding the defeat of August 16th, Nelson 
 was by no means satisfied of the impossibility of getting 
 at the French boats, and several of his letters at this time 
 contain suggestions or proposals of an attack on them at 
 Flushing, or wherever they were. On October 3rd he 
 proposed to St. Vincent " to run a fire-brig into Boulogne 
 harbour the first fresh northerly wind "; or, failing that, 
 "to make an 'infernal' of one of the bombs, and to have 
 fire-boats, etc., to keep them for ever in hot water." 
 " However," he added, " if we are on the eve of peace, 
 it would be a bad reconciliation " ; and in fact the very ^ 
 next day, October 4th, he had news of the preliminaries J 
 being signed. 
 
 A week later the French ambassador arrived in Lon- 
 don with the ratification of the preliminaries, and was 
 received by the people with enthusiastic delight. " Can 
 
174 NELSON chap. 
 
 you cure madnessi " Nelson wrote to Dr. Baird," for I am 
 mad that our damned scoundrels dragged a Frenchman's 
 carriage. I am ashamed for my country." Nelson, in 
 fact, had no love for tibejlrench^ either in_ peace or war, 
 and as he had written to Louis at Gaeta in 1799, " There 
 is no way of dealing with a Frenchman but to knock 
 him down," so now; and again in 1803 he wrote: "I 
 would not upon any consideration have a Frenchman 
 in the fleet, except as a prisoner. Forgive me ; but my 
 mother hated the French." Of his mother's likes or 
 dislikes. Nelson could not possibly know much ; but 
 when we are inclined to think his frequent expressions 
 of hatred and distrust unworthy of a great mind, we 
 ought to remember that for the last ten years Nelson 
 had seen nothing but the seamy side of the French 
 character, and that to him the names of Frenchman and 
 low-bred ruffian were practically synonymous. Nor was 
 he at all singular in his dislike . it was a feature of the 
 age ; and, as is well known. Nelson's royal friend the 
 Duke of Clarence could scarcely bring himself to be 
 civil to his French guests, even when King, thirty or 
 five-and-thirty years later. 
 
 I However, now that the preliminaries were ratified, 
 iNelson was anxious to be relieved from his command, 
 Vnd grumbled bitterly because the Admiralty thought it 
 right not to relieve him immediately. With Troubridge 
 he was more especially angry. Troubridge w^as his old 
 friend and messmate : Troubridge, he thought, owed 
 him something for insisting on the recognition of his 
 services in the Mediterranean, and getting him the 
 baronetcy; but now Troubridge seemed the principal 
 hindrancg_ta--hia going gn shore. Of the many letters 
 
VIII LONGINGS FOR HOME 175 
 
 which he wrote to Lady Hamilton about this time, there 
 is scarcely one which does not contain some petulant 
 expressions regarding him. " I daresay," he wrote on 
 October 20th, " Master Troubridge is grown fat. I 
 know I am grown lean with my complaint, which, but 
 for their indifference about my health, would never have 
 happened; or at least I should have got well long 
 ago in a warm room, with a good fire and sincere 
 friends." 
 
 It is, of course, an old-established belief among 
 naval officers that the Admiralty, having neither body 
 nor soul, has no fear of punishment in either this world 
 or the next; but we may reasonably suppose that 
 Nelson's valued and tried friends St. Vincent and 
 Trpu bridige did not ke ep him afloat merely to spor t 
 with his ill-heg ^H.h^ hnt. rather becausej hey judg ed it 
 safer not to disarm in. too great a hurry ; and probably 
 they jinderstood that Nelson's chief complaint was a dis- 
 contented longing to be with his mistress. Troubridge, at 
 least, was familiarly acquainted with the truth and the 
 Bcandal of Nelson's life at Palermo ; and though neither 
 he nor his chief wished to pose as a censor of morals, 
 neither of them considered the love -sick Admiral's 
 " pleasant vices " a sufficient excuse for modifying the 
 requirements of the service. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE MEDITERRANEAN COMMAND 
 
 At length, however, Nelson obtained leave of absence. 
 On October 22nd he struck his flag and hurried to 
 Merton, a place in Surrey, some eight or nine miles from 
 Piccadilly, which he had commissioned Lady Hamilton 
 to buyTor him. Much of his correspondence during 
 the previous month refers directly or indirectly to this 
 and his wishes respecting it. The purchase was com- 
 pleted about the end of September or beginning of 
 October, Davison writing that Nelson was to draw on 
 him for any money he might want. Lady Hamilton 
 was a good woman of business when her insatiable 
 vanity or restless love of pleasure did not interfere ; 
 and she seems to have concluded this transaction with 
 quickness, economy, and good taste. "You will do 
 what is right," Nelson wrote to her, " and I should be 
 happy in leaving everything to your management. I 
 trust to your economy, for I have need of it ; but I do 
 earnestly request that all may be mine in the house, 
 even to a pair of sheets, towels, etc." 
 
 On October 16th Sir William Hamilton wrote to 
 Nelson : " We have now inhabited your Lordship's 
 premises some days, and I can now speak with some 
 
CHAP. IX LIFE AT MERTON 177 
 
 certainty. I have lived with our dear Emma several 
 years ; I know her merit, have a great opinion of the 
 head and heart that God Almighty has been pleased to 
 give her ; but a seaman alone could have given a fine 
 woman full power to choose and fit up a residence for 
 him without seeing it himself. You are in luck, for on 
 my conscience, I verily believe that a place so suitable 
 to your views could not have been found, and at so 
 cheap a rate ; for if you stay away three days longer, I 
 do not think you can have any wish but you will find it 
 completed here. And then, the bargain was fortunately 
 struck three days before an idea of peace got abroad. 
 Now every estate in the neighbourhood has increased in 
 value, and you might get a thousand pounds to-morrow 
 for your bargain." 
 
 This was the place to which Nelson now retired, and 
 at which or at Hamilton's house, No. 23 Piccadilly, with 
 but few breaks he spent the next fifteen or sixteen 
 months ; the Hamiltons and he living together and 
 sharing the household expenses, which were very large, 
 for Lady Hamilton, though no longer a young woman, 
 had an insatiable craving for gaiety, and the house was 
 seldom without visitors. The weekly payments varied 
 very much, from under £30 to over £100; but taken 
 one with another, they seem to have averaged about (^60, 
 or £3000 a year. The lowest amount is £27 ; but imme- 
 diately following it is £77, and for one week it is as 
 much as £218 ; of which, however, £103 is to the wine- 
 merchant, and £9 : 19 : 6 for maraschino ; which would 
 seem to imply that Lady Hamilton was in both respects 
 ready to do justice to the alliterative toast proposed as the 
 feminine equivalent of the masculine "Wine and Women." 
 N 
 
178 NELSON 
 
 Hamilton had formerly been fond of society ; but he 
 was now feeling the full weight of his seventy-one years 
 and of the free living in which he had indulged through 
 the greater part of them. He wanted rest ; he wanted 
 to make his own arrangements ; he objected to having 
 twelve or fourteen at table every day, and those con- 
 stantly changing. He was discontented and out of his 
 discontent came friction. So, turning the matter over in 
 his mind, he put his thoughts on paper in an extraordinary 
 memorandum to his wife, in which, stating his several 
 grievances, he resolved that a separation would be pre- 
 ferable to a continuance of " silly altercations " ; but as 
 he was not likely to trouble " any party " much longer, 
 it would be best for them to *' bear and forbear " ; more 
 especially as a separation would make Lord Nelson, " our 
 best friend, very uncomfortable," and "would be more 
 sensibly felt by him than by us." " I well know," he 
 added, "the purity of Lord Nelson's friendship for 
 Emma and me." 
 
 On April 26th, 1802, Nelson's father died at Bath. 
 He was then in his seventy-ninth year and had been fail- 
 ing for some time. His relations with his son had 
 been always affectionate ; but as Lady Nelson was much 
 with the old man, her husband had seen little or nothing 
 of him since his return from the Baltic. He certainly 
 did not attend the funeral, being at the time at Merton, 
 In July and August he, with the Hamiltons, made a 
 tour into Wales. As they passed through Oxford he 
 received an honorary degree, and on visiting Monmouth, 
 Hereford, and Worcester, was admitted to the freedom of 
 those cities. By the beginning of September he was back 
 at Merton, and there he remained till the end of the year. 
 
IX DEATH OF HAMILTON 179 
 
 The party then moved to Piccadilly, and there on 
 April 6th, 1803, Sir William Hamilton died. He had 
 been failing for some months, and during his last illness 
 was affectionately attended by both his wife and Nelson. 
 It is difficult to conceive anything more strange than the 
 relations of the three at this time. Nelson and Hamil- 
 ton were on terms of the closest friendship, each one 
 expressing the warmest affection and esteem for the 
 other. For the last six nights of Hamilton's life, 
 • Nelson sat by his bedside; and at his death, Nelson 
 held his hand while his wife supported his pillow. A 
 few hours later Nelson wrote to the Duke of Clarence : 
 " My dear friend Sir William Hamilton died this morn- 
 ing; the world never, never lost a more upright and 
 accomplished gentleman." To Davison he ^vrote on the 
 same day : " Poor Lady Hamilton is, as you may ex- 
 pect, desolate." And yet we know now, by the evidence 
 of letters in Nelson's own writing, that for at least three 
 years he had been dishonouring this dear friend, that 
 he was the father of "poor Lady Hamilton's " little girl, 
 and that the two had been calculating on, if not wishing 
 for, the " upright and accomplished gentleman's " death. 
 
 Was this all hypocrisy ? In most cases the answer 
 would be an unhesitating " Yes " ; in this particular case 
 it may be a doubting " No." There is at least room to 
 believe that Nelson had persuaded himself, or had been 
 persuaded by his mistress, that she was Hamilton's wife 
 only in name ; ^that he had married her only to have a 
 lady at the head of his table. His most intimate letters 
 to Emma always refer to Sir William as her "uncle," 
 and he addressed her as the " most virtuous of women," 
 which, if he had known or suspected her antecedents, 
 
i8o NELSON 
 
 would surely have been most bitter irony. But the 
 position is a psychological puzzle which does not admit 
 of any quite satisfactory solution. 
 
 Meantime the prospect of a renewal of hostilities hai 
 been occupying Nelson's thoughts, and before the end of 
 March it was settled that, in such an event, he should go 
 to the Mediterranean as Commander-in-Chief. After 
 some weeks of uncertainty war was declared on May 
 16th, and with a prompt despatch w^hich the English 
 Government has not always shown. Nelson's commission 
 was dated on the very same day ; on the 18th he hoisted 
 his flag on board the Victory at Portsmouth, and put to 
 sea on the 20th. His specific instructions were to pro- 
 ceed off Toulon with such part of the squadron under 
 his command as he might judge adequate to the service, 
 and take such a position as he should consider most 
 proper for enabling him to take, sink, burn, or other- 
 wise destroy any ships or vessels belonging to France 
 or French citizens ; to detain any Dutch ships which he 
 might fall in with ; to keep watch on the conduct of the 
 Court of Spain, as well as of any naval preparations that 
 might be made in Spanish ports; and to prevent any 
 squadron of Spanish ships of war from entering a French 
 port or forming a junction with a French or Dutch 
 squadron. 
 
 On May 17th Admiral Cornwallis had sailed from 
 Plymouth to institute a close blockade of Brest ; on the 
 19th he was off the port ; and as it was judged advisable 
 to strengthen his fleet as much as possible against any 
 immediate attempt at evasion, Nelson was directed to 
 communicate with him in passing, and if he wished it, to 
 leave the Victory with him and proceed to the Mediter- 
 
IX NELSON'S MEDITERRANEAN COMMAND i8i 
 
 ranean in the Amphion frigate. Off Ushant, however, 
 he did not succeed in meeting Cornwallis ; and as it 
 seemed necessary for him to get to Toulon without 
 delay, he left the Victory with orders to follow him as 
 soon as Cornwallis could spare her, and pursued his 
 voyage in the Amphion. 
 
 After touching at Malta on June 15th and passing 
 Naples on the 25th, on July 8th he joined the fleet otf 
 Toulon. The force at his disposal was curiously small, 
 considering the numerous and varied duties which he 
 was called on to perform. Nine French ships of the 
 line, with five frigates, were said to be in Toulon. Seven 
 ships of the line were clearly to be seen. The squadron 
 with Nelson at this time consisted of nine ships of the 
 line, two of which were of 64 guns ; all were foul from 
 having been long from England, were weakly manned 
 and sickly. With these Nelson undertook the military 
 blockade of the port, and carried it through with a 
 stringency that has never been paralleled. Brest was, 
 indeed, repeatedly blockaded during the war, but with 
 larger force and continual reinforcements or refresh- 
 ments from Plymouth. Off Toulon Nelson's squadron 
 was generally inferior in point of numbers to the enemy, 
 and with the absolutely small size of the squadron the 
 inferiority was large in proportion. Eeinforcements 
 seldom reached him ; refreshments there were none, 
 except what he himself ordered ; he had no dockyard, 
 no stores, no base to fall back on ; everything had to be 
 provided for by himself. It was in this more than in 
 the prolonged duration of the effort that the exceptional 
 nature of the blockade consisted. 
 
 In giving some account of this remarkable service, it 
 
1 82 NELSON 
 
 is well to explain that, while a commercial blockade 
 consists in absolutely sealing the port, so that no 
 merchant-ship can attempt to enter or leave it without 
 incurring the most serious risk of being captured and 
 the certainty of being condemned, a military blockade 
 is merely watching the port with a force sufficient to 
 bring the enemy's squadron to action should it come 
 out. To keep up such a watch effectively requires a 
 numerical strength which can spare a few ships and 
 remain adequate for the service ; but this strength 
 Nelson never had. While the French were continually 
 adding to the force of their squadron within, so that 
 they raised their numbers from seven to eleven or even 
 twelve ships of the line, Nelson seldom had off Toulon 
 more than eight or nine, in consequence of the require- 
 ments of other parts of the station. He was thus 
 generally unable to send the ships away for rest and 
 refreshment by ones or twos at a time : the provisions 
 were brought to the fleet where it was ; and when the 
 water began to run short, the whole fleet went to 
 Maddalena, where the magnificent anchorage had been 
 discovered and surveyed by Captain Eyves of the Agin- 
 court, in whose honour Nelson named it Agincourt 
 Sound. Of late years the Italians have followed 
 Nelson's lead, and have made it a fortified roadstead. 
 
 The attempt to trace the story of the blockade from 
 day to day would be as tedious in the reading as the 
 blockade itself was in the execution ; it will be sufficient 
 to indicate Nelson's method, and to notice the occasional 
 breaks in the terrible monotony, which of itself was 
 exceedingly apt to wear out both officers and men. 
 When Nelson joined the fleet, there was a good deal of 
 
IX BLOCKADE OF TOULON 183 
 
 scurvy ; onions and lemons would, he thought, eradicate 
 it, or *'a sight of the French squadron twenty leagues at 
 sea would cure all complaints." The onions and lemons, 
 however, had to do the work alone ; and in summer or 
 in winter, in fine weather or in foul, this squadron main- 
 tained a watch off Toulon for upwards of eighteen 
 months without a break, save an occasional visit to 
 Agincourt Sound ; and at the end of the time the men 
 were not only in better health than at the beginning, 
 but were in absolutely good health. 
 
 Those writers who have described Nelson as a mere 
 fighting hero have falsified both his character and his 
 history. He was not more pre-eminent in the day of 
 battle than he was in his attention to the thousand 
 details which kept his men in good health, his ships 
 in good order, and his fleet invincible. It has even 
 been said, by some who mistake the means for the end, 
 that his discipline was slack and his ships never in 
 good order. There is an old proverb which says, " The 
 proof of the pudding is in the eating"; and the best 
 test of good discipline and good order is the ability to 
 fight and to crush a superior enemy, a test which has no 
 relation to the harassing of the men with ceaseless drill, 
 or wearing them out with unmeaning work, and all the 
 " spit and polish " which towards the close of the war 
 came to be thought the thing most to be desired, till, 
 amid misfortune and disaster. Broke brought the 
 service back to understand that there really were 
 things of more importance. And so it was with Nelson. 
 The men were not wearied and disgusted with useless 
 labour or needless restrictions ; the constant exercise at 
 Bea, often in tempestuous weather, gave them suflBcient 
 
184 NELSON 
 
 occupation, while every possible care was taken of their 
 health and comfort. 
 
 By the report of the physician to the fleet in August 
 1805, it was shown that out of a force varying between 
 six and eight thousand men, the total number of deaths 
 during two years of exceptionally hard service was one 
 hundred and ten, and the average number of men on 
 the sick-list was one hundred and ninety, or twenty-five 
 per thousand ; whereas it appeared by a report of Sir 
 Gilbert Blane's that in 1781, out of a force of twelve 
 thousand men, fifteen hundred and seventy-seven had 
 died in one year ; of which number only fifty-nine had 
 been killed or died of wounds ; and that the average 
 number on the sick-list was one in fifteen, or sixty-seven 
 per thousand. Hawke and St. Vincent had already 
 shown that it was possible to keep a fleet eff'ective 
 during a long period of arduous service ; but it was for 
 Nelson to show that the period of arduous service might 
 be one of exceptionally good health with the death-rate 
 reduced to a minimum. 
 
 The causes of this extraordinary result were : the 
 attention paid to the victualling and purveying for the 
 fleet; the issue of good wholesome wine instead of 
 spirits; of fresh beef as often as it could possibly be 
 procured ; vegetables and fruit whenever they could be 
 purchased ; and an abundant supply of excellent sweet 
 water allowed to the ships' companies. The ships were 
 kept dry and well ventilated ; there was no idleness 
 intemperance, skulking, or malingering, for there were 
 no spirits and there was no hospital. The sick were 
 comfortably accommodated, placed on regular sick-diet, 
 and supplied with fresh meat, vegetables, fruit, soft 
 
IX THE HEALTH OF THE FLEET 185 
 
 bread, etc. Peruvian bark in wine or spirits was regu- 
 larly served out to the men employed in wooding or 
 watering ; and cheerfulness among the men was pro- 
 moted and encouraged by music, dancing, and theatrical 
 amusements, the example of which was given by the 
 Commander-in-Chief in the Victory, All these may seem 
 mere prosaic details ; but life is made up of details, as 
 an hour is made up of seconds. It was the unceasing 
 care and attention to these details that kept the men 
 healthy, that rendered the long blockade possible, and 
 that ensured a victory when, after long waiting, the 
 enemy was at last met. 
 
 On July 30th the Victory joined the fleet, and Nelson 
 at once hoisted his flag on board her. Hardy accompany- 
 ing him as flag-captain, and George Murray, who had 
 commanded the Edgar at Copenhagen, being with him 
 as Captain of the Fleet. The Captain of the Fleet, who is 
 either a rear-admiral or has temporary rank as such, is 
 the chief of the stafi" of the Commander-in-Chief, and is 
 mainly responsible to him for the due performance of 
 all routine ; he is supposed to keep him fully informed 
 on all points of detail, and to consult with him as to 
 the several requirements of the different ships ; but not 
 to originate plans or to issue orders, except in sub- 
 ordination to the Admiral. Attempts have, of course, 
 frequently been made to assign to the Captain of the 
 Fleet the credit of all that emanates from the Commander- 
 in-Chief, as in the celebrated discussion that was raised 
 about Rodney's great victory over De Grasse ; but it is 
 quite certain that Nelson owed nothing to Murray, 
 except that good and zealous co-operation which, indeed, 
 ho got from every officer who came under his command. 
 
i86 NELSON chap. 
 
 Nelson's letters, memorandums, and orders during the 
 whole time show that not only in name but in reality 
 he directed and provided for everything. 
 
 From the first he believed that the French meant to 
 come out as soon as they fancied themselves strong 
 enough. Of their aim he could only guess ; but in view 
 of what they afterwards actually did, his speculations 
 concerning it are extremely interesting. He took for 
 granted that they intended to invade Sardinia; but 
 that, he thought, would be done by a military expedition 
 fitted out from Marseilles. It is, however, specially 
 notable that as early as August 25th, 1803, he wrote to 
 Mr. Addington : " My station to the westward of Toulon, 
 an unusual one, has been taken upon an idea that the 
 French fleet is bound out of the Straits, and probably 
 to Ireland. It is said ten thousand men are collecting 
 at Toulon. I shall follow them to the Antipodes." 
 And the next day he wrote to Sir Eichard Strachan, 
 then senior officer at Gibraltar : "I wish to call your 
 serious attention to what I am going to mention. The 
 French fleet being perfectly ready for sea, seven of the 
 line, six frigates, and some corvettes — two sail of the 
 line are now rigging in the arsenal — I think it more than 
 probable that they are bound to the westward, out of the 
 Mediterranean. Therefore, as I am determined to follow 
 them, go where they may, I wish you, in case they escape 
 me, to send a frigate or sloop after them to find out their 
 route, giving her a station where I may find her ; and keep 
 yourself either at the mouth of the Straits or off Europa 
 Point, for I certainly shall not anchor at Gibraltar." 
 
 It does not appear that he ever considered the con- 
 templated evasion to be connected with a plan for the 
 
tx NEEDLESS RISKS TO BE A VOIDED 187 
 
 invasion of England, and we may believe that he would 
 have pronounced such a scheme altogether outside the 
 possibilities of naval war ; but we see that from the first 
 he suspected their intention of going out of the Medi- 
 terranean, and made up his mind to fc^llpw them ; what- 
 ever their aim, he was determined to be one of the party. 
 This determination, from which he nerer-wavereS, s^^Jtos 
 to explain his manner of watching the port. He wished 
 to fight the French as soon as they should be clear of 
 the harbour ; but over and over again he expressed his 
 resolve not to hazard his ships against their batteries, 
 nor even against their fleet till he had it in such a posi- 
 tion that they could not slip back into Toulon after an 
 indecisive action, leaving the English fleet crippled and 
 obliged to raise the blockade. 
 
 This care for his ships, this resolve to do nothing 
 rashly, is repeatedly expressed in language which was 
 none the less stringent for being couched in friendly or 
 even in aff'ectionate terms. Writing, for instance, to 
 Strachan and explaining his views as to the probability 
 of war with Spain and the possibility of the Spaniards 
 protecting the Aigle^ a French 74 which Strachan was 
 blockading in Cadiz, he concluded thus : *' EecoUect that 
 it would be much better to let the French ship escape 
 than to run too great a risk of losing the Donegal, your- 
 self, and ship's company." A still more marked instance 
 of this care and this resolve appears in a letter of May 
 24th, 1804. On that day Rear- Admiral Campbell in the 
 CaTwpus of 80 guns, with the Donegal of 74 and the 
 Amazon frigate, was close in with Cape Sepet, while the 
 main body of the fleet was out of sight to seaward. Five 
 French ships of the line, with three frigates and several 
 
NELSON 
 
 gunboats, came out of the harbour, in the evident 
 intention of cutting off the small reconnoitring squadron. 
 Campbell of course made sail away from them, and the 
 French, unwilling to risk even the possibility of being 
 drawn too far from the shelter of their port, gave up the 
 pursuit. It was not till six hours later that the Canopus 
 and her consorts rejoined the fleet. It was then that 
 Nelson wrote to the Kear- Admiral : " I am more obliged 
 to you than I can express for your not allowing the very 
 superior force of the enemy to bring you to action. 
 Whatever credit would have accrued to your own and 
 your gallant companions' exertions, no sound advantages 
 could have arisen to our country, for, so close to their 
 own harbour, they could always have returned, and left 
 your ships unfit, probably, to keep the sea. I again, my 
 dear Admiral, thank you for your conduct." 
 
 Many more instances might be quoted, all tending to 
 the same point, to show how, with all his resolution to 
 fight, he was no hot-brained bully to run needless or 
 useless risks, still less to have his ships beaten to pieces 
 against stone walls and solid fortifications. When in 
 1854 the country howled against Sir Charles Napier 
 because in the course of a few summer months he did 
 not take or destroy the massive fortifications of Cronstadt 
 and the enemy's fleet behind them, it would have been 
 well had it been reminded that neither Hawke nor 
 Nelson, St. Vincent nor Cornwallis, had cared to lay 
 their ships against the far inferior defences of Toulon, 
 of Brest, or even of Cadiz ; t hat so long as the enemy's^ 
 fleet remained within these defences it was practically 
 safe. When it came out, Hawke had tor all time laid" 
 down a lesson as to what to do with it. 
 
IX LA TOUCHE-TREVILLE 189 
 
 Through the summer of 1804 it was the custom of 
 the French Admiral, M. La Touche-Tr^ville (the ci-devant 
 Comte de la Touche-Tr^ville), every now and then to 
 get a few ships under way in the outer roadstead, and 
 when the wind favoured him, to come out a short 
 distance, and return. It was a very proper exercise, 
 and the only way in which he could give his men some 
 little sea-training. It happened that at different periods 
 of his career Nelson had been unfavourably impressed 
 by La Touche-Treville's conduct. It was he who in 
 1780, in command of the 36-gun frigate Hermione, sailed 
 from Boston after arrogantly pledging himself to clear 
 the coast of British frigates, and a few days later was 
 defeated and put to flight by the 32-gun frigate Iris. 
 It was he who, in December, 1792, had been sent to 
 Naples to enforce the demands of the Eepublic, and had 
 executed his mission with an insolence which, we may 
 be sure, was not softened in the narration which reached 
 Nelson's ears. And again, it was he who had com- 
 manded at Boulogne in August, 1801, and whose pre- 
 cautions had convicted Nelson of an error. It can 
 scarcely be doubted that this was, in Nelson's eyes, an 
 aggravation of what the English, at any rate, called his 
 poltroonery at Boston and his insolence at Naples. In 
 reality he seems to have been a capable officer, as officers 
 went in the French navy ; one of the few of the old 
 navy who had remained in France ; a gentleman by 
 birth, though he had early accepted service under the 
 Eepublic, and had, apparently, assumed the Republican 
 discourtesy of manner and the Napoleonic method of 
 misrepresenting facts. 
 
 Rightly or wrongly, it is certain that Nelson was 
 
igo NELSON 
 
 strongly prepossessed against him ; and his wrath was 
 extreme when he learned that, in a despatch dated June 
 15th, 1804, which was published in the Moniteur, he had 
 stated that, having got under way on the 14th and 
 stood out of the harbour, the English Admiral in the 
 ofl&ng had taken flight; that he had chased him till 
 nightfall, and that the next morning he was out of sight. 
 Nelson's description of the incident written at the time 
 was as follows : " Upon the 14th, M. La Touche came out 
 with eight sail of the line and six frigates, cut a caper of! 
 Sepet, and went in again. I was off with five ships of 
 the line, and brought to for his attack, although I did 
 not believe that anything was meant serious, but merely 
 a gasconade." He does not appear to have seen the 
 oftensive number of the Moniteur till August 8th, when 
 he wrote to his brother : " I have been expecting M. 
 La Touche to give me a meeting every day for this year 
 past, and only hope he will come out before I go 
 hence. . . . You will have seen his letter of how he 
 chased me and how I ran. I keep it, and by God, if I 
 take him he shall eat it." To the Admiralty he wrote 
 more soberly; but in his familiar letters he gave free 
 vent to his wrath, and the French Admiral's name is 
 always borne on a torrent of invective, accompanied 
 with the expression of a hope to "get a shake at him.'' 
 La Touche, however, "gave him the slip " by dying on 
 August 18th. " He is gone," Nelson wrote as a farewell 
 shot when the news reached him, "and all his lies with 
 him." The command of the French fleet devolved on 
 Rear-Admiral Dumanoir, who after a few weeks was 
 superseded by Vice- Admiral Villeneuve, an ofiicer of the 
 old navy who had served under Suftren ; the same who. 
 
IX SUCCEEDED BY VILLENEUVE 191 
 
 in the Guillavme Tell, had commanded the rear of the 
 French fleet at the Nile, and for his escape, which, in 
 the judgment of competent persons, betrayed a lament- 
 able want of decision, was considered by Napoleon as 
 born under a fortunate star. 
 
 Meantime, Nelson considered it almost certain that 
 the French were meditating a dash at the West Indies. 
 In several letters during September he wrote to the 
 same effect. The Russian force was so strong that it 
 was not likely they would venture eastward. " Suppose 
 this fleet escapes, and gets out of the Straits, I rather 
 think I should bend my course to the westward ; for if 
 they carry seven thousand men — with what they have 
 at Martinique and Guadeloupe — St. Lucia, Grenada, St. 
 Vincent, Antigua, and St. Kitts would fall, and in that 
 case England would be so clamorous for peace that we 
 should humble ourselves. . . . Whatever may be their 
 destination, I shall certainly follow, be it even to the 
 East Indies. Such a pursuit would do more, perhaps, 
 towards restoring me to health than all the doctors." 
 
 He was, indeed, by this time longing to be at home 
 again. It would seem that his health was really better 
 during this year than it had been since the repulse at 
 Teneriffe. The shock to his system by the loss of his 
 arm and the excruciating pain which he had afterwar is 
 suff'ered, followed by the severe wound he had received 
 in the Battle of the Nile, was yielding to time; his 
 position as Commander-in-Chief was all that he could 
 wish ; with Lord Melville he was on perfectly friendly 
 terms; and it may well be that, as to his domestic 
 relations, his mind was more at ease. What he considered 
 the principal obstacle in the way of his marrying Lady 
 
192 NELSON CHAP. 
 
 Hamilton was removed : he probably thought that the 
 difficulty of his being already married might be sur- 
 mounted ; and in any case, time had soothed the irrita- 
 tion of the quarrel, and left him to the happiness which 
 he found in Emma's affection, with, it may be, some- 
 thing of the repose of security and gratified passion. 
 But from time to time a longing for her society returned, 
 and with it the old feeling of ill -health; "with him," 
 as Stewart wrote in the Baltic, "mind and health 
 invariably sympathised." It was thus that in August, 
 1804, several of his letters complain of his being ill; 
 that on the 15th he wrote officially requesting leave of 
 absence for the winter; he was anxious to serve, and 
 would hope, if allowed, to resume the command in the 
 spring, but at present his " shattered carcase " required 
 rest. The fit, however, happily wore off ; and by October 
 he would seem to have forgotten it, or at any rate, to 
 have preferred his hope of meeting the French fleet 
 at sea. 
 
 In his continual quest for intelligence he had all 
 the available Italian and Spanish newspapers regularly 
 sent to him, and Dr. Scott, the chaplain of the Victory^ 
 who acted as his foreign secretary, read them to him, 
 so far as they contained anything of importance or 
 interest. One day, learning in this manner that 
 a considerable quantity of church-plate was to be sold 
 at Barcelona, he suggested to Scott to go there on 
 a week's leave, and buy some of it for him; at the 
 same time, perhaps, he might learn something of the 
 public feeling in the place. His desire to have this 
 church -plate seemed curious; but after he got it the 
 mystery was explained : he had conceived the pretty 
 
A KINDLY GIFT 193 
 
 idea of making a present to the little villages along the 
 north coast of Sardinia, where his ships and fleet had 
 been kindly received. To the church at Maddalena he 
 presented a cross and two candlesticks of silver with a 
 hologi-aph letter, addressed to " The Eevd. the Superior 
 of the Church at Maddalena," which ran thus : " Victory, 
 October 18th, 1804. Revd. Sir — I have to request 
 that I may be allowed to present to the Church at 
 Maddalena a piece of church-plate as a small token of 
 my esteem for the worthy inhabitants, and of my re- 
 membrance of the hospitable treatment His Majesty's 
 fleet under my command has ever received from them. 
 May God bless us all. — I remain, Revd. Sir, your most 
 obedient servant, Nelson and Bronte. The Rev. Dr. 
 Scott will present it to you." This letter, with an 
 Italian translation, presumably by Scott, still hangs, 
 framed and glazed, in the church. It was by such little 
 acts of kindness and consideration that he won the 
 hearts of the people, and obtained their eager and 
 zealous assistance, which might now become of the first 
 importance, as, by the violent seizure of the Spanish 
 treasure-ships off Cape St. Mary's on October 5th, war 
 with Spain was practically commenced, and was formally 
 declared on December 12th. 
 
 On January 19th, 1805, Nelson with his little fleet 
 was at Maddalena, when at three o'clock in the after- 
 noon Captain Moubray in the Active came in with the 
 news that the French had put to sea the day before ; 
 that he had parted from them at ten o'clock at night 
 abreast of Ajaccio, then steering south with a strong gale 
 at north-west. The fleet immediately prepared for sea, 
 and before six o'clock, with a slight breeze at west-north* 
 
 
194 NELSON 
 
 west, ran through the strait between Biche and Sardinia, 
 and stood to the southward, hoping to meet the enemy 
 off the south end of Sardinia. The running through this 
 strait in the dark, — a "passage so narrow that the ships 
 could only pass one at a time, each following the stern 
 lights of its leader," — has been made the subject of won- 
 dering admiration by writers ignorant of the sea and of 
 naval usage, who would seem to have fancied that a 
 fleet leaving a harbour usually goes out like a herd of 
 swine crowding through a gateway. The manoeuvre 
 was one of everyday occurrence, and to a fleet that had 
 been blockading Toulon for eighteen months was a mere 
 matter of course. 
 
 Nelson, however, had no intelligence as to where 
 the French were going ; bufc many things concurred to 
 make him believe they were not, as he had previously 
 expected, bound out of the Mediterranean. For a 
 fortnight the wind had been easterly ; they had waited 
 till it changed to the west, and then put to sea ; of that 
 he was certain. For some weeks he had information 
 from trustworthy sources that they were assembling 
 troops at Toulon, and a body of cavalry ; that they had 
 embarked seven thousand soldiers (which, crowded into 
 the few ships, eleven sail of the line and some frigates, 
 precluded the idea of a long voyage), five thousand 
 saddles, and some field-artillery. All these seemed to in- 
 dicate Egypt as their destination ; but he did not, as has 
 been supposed, hurry off to Egypt on a blind impulse. 
 The persistent westerly gales, and the position he took up 
 to the south-west of Sardinia, made him certain that, 
 although the Active and Seahorse had seen them on the 
 west of Corsica, they had not passed to the southward 
 
IX THE FRENCH FLEET PUTS BACK 195 
 
 on the west side of Sardinia. He convinced himself 
 that they had gone neither to Naples nor to Sicily ; 
 they had therefore either put back to Toulon disabled, 
 or had gone to Egypt. If they had put back disabled, 
 they were harmless for the time, and it did not matter 
 whether he was off Toulon or off Alexandria; but if 
 they had gone to Egypt, clearly they ought to be 
 followed. So to Egypt he went. As he did not find 
 them there, he at once returned. At Malta, on February 
 19th, he learned that they had put back to Toulon in 
 a very crippled state; but several weeks later, on 
 March 27th, he still wrote : " The original destination 
 of the French fleet, I am every day more and more 
 confirmed, was Egypt." 
 
CHAPTEE X 
 
 THE PURSUIT TO THE WEST INDIES 
 
 The fleet was at this time provisioning in the Gulf of 
 Palmas, whence it moved on April 1st to Pula Eoad at 
 the south end of Sardinia, and sailed on the 3rd, prob- 
 ably with the intention of returning off Toulon ; but 
 on the forenoon of the 4th the Phxhe joined with the 
 news that the French had again put to sea on March 
 30th. That Nelson should suppose they were bound 
 for Egypt was natural ; but he did not, as has been 
 said, immediately rush off in wild chase of a phantom. 
 "I have covered the channel," he wrote on the 5th, 
 " from Barbary to Toro with frigates and the fleet. The 
 French could not pass before to-day, if this be their 
 route. I must leave as little as possible to chance, and 
 I shall make sure they are to the eastward of me before 
 I risk either Sardinia, Sicily, or Naples ; for they may 
 delay their time of coming even this distance, from an 
 expectation that I shall push for Egypt, and thus leave 
 them at liberty to act against Sardinia, Sicily, or Naples." 
 And again on the 7th he wrote : "I must be guided in 
 my further movements by such information as I may be 
 able to obtain ; but I shall neither go to the eastward of 
 Sicily or to the westward of Sardinia until I know some- 
 thing positive," 
 
CHAP. X IT SAILS FOR THE WEST INDIES 197 
 
 By the 9th he had come to the conclusion that the 
 enemy had gone westward, and endeavoured to follow ; 
 but was then, met by a persistent westerly wind, against 
 which his progress was necessarily very slow. On the 
 18th he learned that with a fresh easterly wind they 
 had passed out of the Mediterranean on the 8th, and 
 had been joined by some of the Spanish ships from 
 Cadiz. For him the wind continued "foul, dead foul !" 
 and it was not till May 4th that he anchored at Tetuan, 
 where he watered. On the 6th he went into Gibraltar 
 Bay to provision \ but the wind coming easterly, he at 
 once put to sea, with the victuallers in tow, intending 
 to wait off Cape St. Vincent for certain information. 
 On the 9th he anchored in Lagos Bay, where he filled 
 up with provisions ; and having, by letters from Lisbon 
 and a personal communication from his friend Captain 
 Campbell of the Portuguese navy, convinced himself 
 that the combined fleet, now numbering eighteen sail 
 of the line, had really gone to the West Indies with 
 the probable intention of attacking Jamaica, he sailed 
 on the 11th in pursuit. 
 
 It has been many times repeated, and is very generally 
 believed, that in doing this Nelson was falling ijito a 
 cunning and deep-laid trap ; that he was being decoyed 
 to the West Indies, and was opening the way for an 
 overpowering concentration of force in the Channel, and 
 for a direct invasion of England by the army already 
 assembled at Boulogne ; and that this invasion failed 
 to take effect only through the weakness and ineptitude 
 of the French admiral. In such statements there is 
 just enough of known fact to give a plausible appear- 
 ance of truth to the whole, which is nevertheless wildly 
 
198 NELSON 
 
 erroneous. It is true that there was an army assembled 
 at Boulogne ; it is probably, and indeed, though it has 
 been doubted, almost certainly, true that an invasion 
 of England was intended; it is true that there was a 
 plan for an overpowering concentration in the Channel ; 
 it is even true that there was a trap ; but that Nelson 
 fell into it is not true ; and the assertion that he was 
 decoyed from European waters is absurd. 
 
 In the previous December Napoleon had conceived 
 a plan for accomplishing his long -threatened invasion 
 of England, which does not seem to have been generally 
 understood here, probably because no seaman could have 
 considered it as feasible. In a few words, it was for 
 the several fleets to break out of Brest, Eochefort, and 
 Toulon at nearly the same time ; to rendezvous at 
 Martinique, and returning in a fleet of some fifty sail 
 of the line, sweep the Channel, and open the way for 
 the Army of England to cross over. The Eochefort 
 squadron under Eear- Admiral Missiessy succeeded in 
 getting to sea on January 11th. Villeneuve, as we have 
 seen, made the attempt on January 17th, but falling 
 into bad weather, put back with his fleet disabled, and 
 did not succeed in getting away till March 30th, only 
 to find on his arrival at Martinique on May 14th that 
 Missiessy, having waited the prescribed forty-five days, 
 had returned to France. Vice- Admiral Ganteaume at 
 Brest was even less fortunate. The blockade main- 
 tained by Cornwallis or Gardner was so close and in 
 such strength, that he was unable to do more than make 
 a futile demonstration on April 15th, and return into 
 the harbour. 
 
 But it was not only to join his missing colleagues 
 
X NELSON FOLLOWS 199 
 
 that Villeneuve went to Martinique. He, as Missiessy 
 before him, had orders to harass, capture, or destroy 
 such of the English settlements as he could. This was 
 no doubt a feasible operation, which would have profit- 
 ably occupied the forty days he was directed to wait for 
 Ganteaume ; but it required the command of the sea, — 
 that is, the absence of any force which could meet him 
 on anything like equal terms ; and to ensure this, every 
 effort was made to conceal the destination of the fleet 
 as it sailed from Cadiz, and to mislead Nelson in some 
 other direction. Hence probably the reports which 
 reached Nelson of the embarkation of troops, of cavalry, 
 and of saddles, — all apparently groundless, though some 
 few soldiers were taken on board and landed at Martinique 
 or Guadeloupe. Hence also other reports systematically 
 set on foot by Napoleon, intended to lead Nelson and 
 other squadrons to the East Indies. That Nelson should 
 go to Egypt, and Collingwood, from before Eochefort, 
 should sail for the East Indies, was what Napoleon 
 calculated on. But Nelson's judgment in waiting for 
 definite intelligence before sailing for Egypt rendered 
 one expectation abortive; and the early knowledge which 
 the Admiralty had of Villeneuve's sailing for the West 
 Indies resulted in an order for Collingwood to follow 
 him with an efficient squadron. Collingwood, however, 
 finding that Nelson had already done so, contented him- 
 self with sending him a small reinforcement, and with 
 the rest of his squadron keeping watch on the Spanish 
 ships in Cadiz, and preventing them being joined by 
 those at Cartagena. The pursuit of Villeneuve, so far 
 from being what Napoleon had aimed at, utterly spoiled 
 the plan which on paper had looked so neat 
 
200 NELSON 
 
 Villeneuve had captured the celebrated Diamond 
 Kock, and having been joined by two more ships from 
 France, had sailed from Martinique with the intention 
 of attacking Antigua or Barbados. On June 8th, how- 
 ever, he learned that Nelson had arrived at Barbados 
 four days before with fourteen ships. Villeneuve had 
 been led to believe that Sir Alexander Cochrane was 
 also at Barbados with five ships of the line ; and not 
 doubting for a moment that with only twenty ships he 
 was no match for Nelson with nineteen, he resolved, 
 and for the only time in his life without hesitation, 
 to quit the West Indies and return, according to his 
 instructions, to Ferrol. 
 
 Nelson had indeed arrived at Barbados on June 4th, 
 after a remarkable passage, in which with foul ships, 
 some of them, especially the Superb^ scarcely seaworthy, 
 he had gained twelve days on the allies ; but he brought 
 with him only ten sail of the line, and had found there 
 only two more, the other three on the station having 
 been detained at Jamaica. Still with these twelve he 
 pushed on at once to look for the enemy. He wished 
 to go direct to Martinique ; had he done so, he would 
 in all probability have overtaken Villeneuve under the 
 lee of Dominica, in almost the very waters where Eodney 
 had annihilated De Grasse tAventy-three years before. 
 But he was misled by a letter from the Governor of St. 
 Lucia, with intelligence that the allied fleet had been 
 seen passing to the southward, and was believed to have 
 gone to Trinidad. Sir William Myers, the general at 
 Barbados, off'ered to accompany him with two thou- 
 sand soldiers, who were embarked at once, and the fleet 
 sailed early the next morning. At Trinidad, however, 
 
RETURN TO EUROPE 
 
 where he anchored on the 7th, nothing had been seen 
 of the enemy ; and vehemently cursing the false news 
 and the sender of it, Nelson made sail for Martinique, 
 where he hoped he might yet find them. But no fleet 
 was there ; and on the 1 2th, off Antigua, he learned that 
 they had passed there four days earlier standing to the 
 northward. 
 
 Concluding that Villeneuve was returning to Europe, 
 he forthwith despatched the Curieux brig with the in- 
 telligence to the Admiralty, and, putting into St. John's, 
 landed Sir William Myers and his two thousand men ; 
 then, on the 13th, having no further news of the enemy's 
 fleet, he felt confirmed in his conjecture, and followed 
 under a press of sail. It was a step which, he felt certain, 
 neither Villeneuve nor Napoleon would expect ; he was 
 convinced they would suppose him fixed in the West 
 Indies for a month at least; that he would fear an 
 attack on Jamaica, and run blindly to leeward to relieve 
 it. Napoleon certainly did think so : he took for granted 
 that Villeneuve, when he heard of Nelson's arrival, would 
 judge it necessary to leave the West Indies, and that 
 Nelson, missing him, would run down to Jamaica ; but 
 Napoleon was not a seaman, and did not understand a 
 seaman's objection to run to leeward until something 
 more definite than conjecture calls him. Nelson revolved 
 all the chances in his mind, and, impressed with the 
 conviction that Villeneuve had started on his homeward 
 voyage, lost no time in following. He believed they 
 were bound back into the Mediterranean; that they 
 would go to Toulon ; and then, fancying they had 
 it to themselves, might carry out their design on 
 Egypt. He thought that in going to the Medi- 
 
NELSON 
 
 terranean, as in going to the West Indies, they were 
 trying to evade him, but the theory of a decoy did 
 not occur to him. He was appointed to keep watch on 
 the Toulon fleet, and to do so involved following it 
 wherever it went, till he could catch and annihilate it. 
 So he now steered for the Straits of Gibraltar, knowing 
 that he would at any rate learn whether Yilleneuve had 
 passed, if indeed he did not hear of him or come up with 
 him on the way. 
 
 On July 18th he joined Collingwood off Cadiz, but 
 neither he nor Collingwood had seen or heard anything 
 of the French fleet. Nelson had already seen the possi- 
 bility of Villeneuve making for Ferrol, and four days 
 after leaving Antigua had despatched a warning note to 
 the captains of any ships cruising off the Western Islands, 
 strongly recommending them to proceed at once to- 
 wards Ferrol, to give the information to the admiral 
 commanding off that port. This seems to have escaped 
 notice ; and it has been stated that Nelson, so engrossed 
 in the idea of Egypt, could not entertain any idea of 
 the French fleet going anywhere else than to the Straits j 
 while Collingwood, with a more logical mind and a 
 keener perception, at once saw what was intended. Such 
 an opinion is altogether at variance with the fact. What 
 Collingwood wrote on July 19th, after hearing Nelson's 
 surmises and knowing that the enemy had not come to 
 Gibraltar, was that they had probably gone to Ferrol, 
 and intended to go to Ireland. In such a guess there 
 was no particular sagacity. Nelson had already sug- 
 gested to him that they had gone to Ferrol : long before 
 they escaped from Toulon he had suggested that they 
 might attempt to push for Ireland ; and if at the pre- 
 
X ON SHORE AGAIN 20J 
 
 sent time he did not mention Ireland, it may have been 
 that his information showed him that the state of affairs 
 in Ireland was not such as to encourage the attempt at 
 that time. 
 
 However that may have been, the fact remains that 
 Collingwood's guess, so far as it was his, was altogether 
 wrong ; that Nelson's was altogether right. The French 
 not only did not attempt the invasion of Ireland, 
 which Collingwood considered " the real mark and butt 
 of all their operations " ; but from first to last during 
 this campaign they had no intention of doing so. 
 Nelson's calculation that if they did not come to the 
 Straits they would go to Ferrol, was exactly what they 
 were ordered to do. Of their further operations he 
 said nothing ; it may be that after the warning he had 
 despatched on June 17th, he thought that if they got 
 to Ferrol at all they might not care to quit it again ; it 
 may be that his expression, "Gone to the northward," 
 implied an endeavour to join the Brest fleet, as to their 
 doing which he might think his old friend Cornwallis 
 would have a word to say. 
 
 On July 19th the fleet anchored at Gibraltar, and on 
 the 20th Nelson noted in his diary that he went on 
 shore for the first time since June 16th, 1803; and 
 that he had not set foot out of the Victory for two years 
 all but ten days. 
 
 Meanwhile the CurieuXj pursuing her voyage under 
 a press of sail, sighted and passed the French fleet, noting 
 that they were steering a more northerly course than 
 for Cadiz ; on arriving in England therefore on July 8th, 
 Bettesworth was able to say with some certainty that 
 they would make the land near Cape Finisterre. Acting 
 
204 NELSON 
 
 on this information, the Admiralty at once sent orders 
 for the squadrons before Rochefort and Ferrol to unite 
 and look out for them some thirty or forty leagues to 
 the westward. The fleet of fifteen sail of the line, thus 
 collected under the command of Eear- Admiral Sir Eobert 
 Calder, met Villeneuve with his twenty ships on July 
 22nd. The weather was hazy, almost foggy; and the 
 French, being to windward, were able to avoid a close 
 action. A partial encounter, however, took place, as the 
 result of which two of the Spanish ships were captured. 
 The fleets continued in sight of each other during the 
 23rd and 24th, but there was no further fighting, and 
 on the 28th Villeneuve anchored at Vigo. His fleet was 
 short of provisions and water ; a great many men were 
 sick; several of the ships had received a good deal of 
 damage on the 22nd, and three of them were not in a 
 state to keep the sea. But Nelson had no intelligence 
 of his movements until July 25th, when he learned that 
 on June 19th the Curieux had seen the combined fleet 
 standing on a more northerly course. Acting on this 
 he proceeded northward, sending on word to Cornwallis 
 that he was on his way to join him. He did actually 
 join him on August 15th with eleven sail of the line, 
 and, on an order from Cornwallis, went on in the Victory 
 to Spithead, where he anchored on the 18th. The next 
 day he struck his flag and went to Merton, where he 
 passed the next few weeks. 
 
 It would appear then that, according to the idea so 
 often formulated, it was during the three weeks im- 
 mediately preceding August 15th that England was 
 exposed to such imminent danger in consequence of 
 Nelson's having been decoyed to the West Indies. 
 
X VILLENEUVE'S MOVEMENTS 205 
 
 The dates have therefore a peculiar importance. We 
 have seen that it was July 28th before Villeneuve could 
 reach Vigo, and then in such a distressed condition that 
 for the moment he could do nothing but try, on the 
 31st, to reach Ferrol. Napoleon had, however, sent' 
 orders that on no account was he to go into Ferrol ; 
 therefore, being unable to keep the sea, he went into 
 Corunna, where he refitted as well as the resources of 
 the place allowed; and, having been joined by the 
 squadron in Ferrol, he put to sea on August 13th, 
 with instructions to proceed off Brest, where Napoleon 
 still hoped he might effect a junction with Ganteaume. 
 He had with him at this time twenty-nine sail of the 
 line. The five ships from Rochefort had also put to sea, 
 intending to join him off Ferrol. He sent the Didon, 
 a 44-gun frigate, to give them orders to join him off 
 Brest ; but the Didon was met on the way by the Eng- 
 lish 40-gun frigate Phoenix^ and was captured after a 
 sharp action ; the Rochefort squadron did not therefore 
 get the orders intended for it, and had no further share 
 in the campaign. 
 
 Whether, if Villeneuve had in accordance with his 
 instructions come off Brest, he would have been able 
 to effect a junction with Ganteaume, must seem very 
 doubtful. After being reinforced by a great part of 
 Nelson^s squadron, Cornwallis had also been joined by 
 most of Calder's, and had under his command a fleet 
 of thirty- five ships of the line, in face of which the pro- 
 posed junction might have been difficult or impossible. 
 Villeneuve had, in fact, so clearly realised this, that 
 when on August 15th he saw, in the north-eastern 
 quarter, three ships (which were afterwards known to 
 
ao6 NELSON 
 
 be the Phoenix, with her prize, in convoy of the 74-gun 
 ship Dragon) J and learned from a neutral merchant- ship 
 that they were a detachment of an English fleet of 
 twenty-five sail, he did not wait to investigate the 
 intelligence, which was entirely false, but at once de- 
 cided that the object of his voyage could not be carried 
 out; and, without attempting it further, turned south- 
 ward and went to Cadiz, his advanced ships chasing 
 away the small squadron which, under Collingwood, was 
 watching ofi" the port. He anchored in the harbour of 
 Cadiz on August 17th. 
 
 Collingwood at once sent the important news to Eng- 
 land in the Euryalus frigate. She arrived at Spithead 
 on September 1st ; and on the 2nd, at five o'clock in the 
 morning. Captain Blackwood called at Merton, where he 
 found Nelson already up and dressed. Immediately on 
 seeing him Nelson exclaimed, " I am sure you bring me 
 news of the French and Spanish fleets, and I think I 
 shall yet have to beat them." A few hours later Nelson 
 followed him to London, and in talking over the opera- 
 tions that were intended on his return to the Mediter- 
 ranean, he repeated, *' Depend upon it, Blackwood, I shall 
 yet give Mr. Villeneuve a drubbing." 
 
 The story, as afterwards told by Harrison, that Nelson 
 was unwilling to leave Merton, and yielded only to the 
 persuasions of Lady Hamilton, exclaiming, "If there 
 were more Emmas there would be more Nelsons," is 
 only one of the many lies with a purpose which Lady 
 Hamilton put in circulation in order to strengthen the 
 claims which she fancied she had on the Government. 
 Southey, ignorantly or inconsiderately, gave it a currency 
 which it could not otherwise have had, and it has thus 
 
X NELSON AND WELLINGTON 207 
 
 been very commonly received as absolute fact. It is, 
 on the contrary, absolute falsehood. It is indeed 
 possible that Nelson may have uttered some endearing 
 expressions of regret at having to quit his loved com- 
 panion, but it is quite certain that it had been already 
 arranged that he was to resume the command ; the 
 determination of the time had been left to M. Villeneuve, 
 and it was now resolved that he should go out at once in 
 the Victory. Other ships should follow as fast as they 
 could be got ready. During the fortnight immediately 
 preceding as well as subsequent to September 2nd, Nelson 
 was repeatedly at the Admiralty and the office of the 
 Secretary of State. In one of his visits to this latter 
 he met, for the only time, the Duke of Wellington, then 
 Sir Arthur Wellesley, who used in after years to give a 
 lively account of the conversation, and of the double 
 estimate of Nelson which he formed from it ; of Nelson 
 as a vapouring and vainglorious charlatan, and of Nelson 
 as a well-informed officer and statesman, " really a very 
 superior man." There is, in fact, abundant evidence that 
 Nelson not infrequently displayed the unblushing and 
 self-asserting vanity of a child, with all a child's love of 
 praise and a woman's love of flattery, and that Lady 
 Hamilton used to administer both to him in abund- 
 ance. That Nelson could, on occasion, act as an officer 
 and judge as a statesman, we knew before the Duke's 
 story was made public. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 TRAFALGAR 
 
 On September 13th Nelson finally left home. For that 
 day he noted in his diary : "At half-past ten drove 
 from dear, dear Merton, where I left all which I hold 
 dear in this world, to go and serve my King and 
 country. May the great God whom I adore enable me 
 to fulfil the expectations of my country ; and if it is His 
 good pleasure that I should return, my thanks will never 
 cease being ofiered up to the throne of His mercy. If it 
 is His good providence to cut short my days upon earth, 
 I bow with the greatest submission, relying that He will 
 protect those so dear to me that I may leave behind. 
 His will be done. Amen." 
 
 The next morning at six o'clock he arrived at 
 Portsmouth, and at two, after being followed through 
 the streets by an adoring crowd, he embarked at 
 the bathing-machines. The spot pointed out by local 
 tradition is a few yards to the west of the old Southsea 
 pier, immediately below the Assembly Rooms. Cann- 
 ing and George Rose accompanied him on board and 
 dined with him. Early the next morning, Sunday, 
 September 15 th, the Victory sailed with the Euryalics in 
 company. 
 
CHAP. XI NELSON RESUMES COMMAND 209 
 
 Meantime the squadron off Cadiz was being largely 
 reinforced. Sir Eichard Bickerton from the Mediter- 
 ranean and Calder from the Bay of Biscay had joined 
 Collingwood, bringing his numbers up to twenty-four 
 ships of the line. To the several captains the service 
 seemed merely the beginning of another interminable 
 blockade, more irksome, more dreary, than any yet 
 undertaken; for Collingwood was not a sympathetic 
 commander, and finding his sole happiness in fond 
 visions of home, he took no measures to alleviate the 
 severity of the work. No visiting was allowed except 
 on strict duty. Collingwood neither entertained him- 
 self nor permitted others to entertain. Country vessels 
 from the African coast came into the fleet almost daily 
 with fruit, vegetables, or live-stock ; but the boats could 
 not be hoisted out, and the fruit or vegetables could not 
 be bought. In the familiar letters which Captain Cod- 
 rington (then commanding the Orion^ and twenty-two 
 years later, as Sir Edward Codrington, Commander-in- 
 Chief at Navarino) wrote to his wife, we have the state 
 of things most clearly explained. "Is Lord Nelson 
 coming to us % " he wrote. " I anxiously hope he may be, 
 that I may once in my life see a Commander-in-Chief 
 endeavouring to make a hard and disagreeable service 
 as palatable to those serving under him as circum- 
 stances will admit of, and keeping up, by his example, 
 that animation so necessary for such an occasion. For 
 charity's sake send us Lord Nelson, ye men of poAver ! " 
 
 The men of i)ower had granted the prayer before it 
 
 was uttered. Nelson, in the Fidory, joined the fleet 
 
 on September 28th, having sent on the Euryalus to 
 
 announce his coming, and with an order to Collingwood 
 
 P 
 
NELSON 
 
 neither to fire a salute nor hoist the colours. " It is as 
 well," he wrote, "not to proclaim to the enemy every 
 ship which may join the fleet." But if no official com 
 pliments were allowed, he was received with heartfelt 
 rejoicing by those who had been groaning under the 
 dismal rule of his predecessor. "Lord Nelson is 
 arrived," wrote Codrington on the 29th ; "a sort of 
 general joy has been the consequence, and many good 
 efi'ects will arise from our change of system. He joined 
 us too late yesterday for communication. I had not got 
 any of your letters before I waited on Lord Nelson this 
 morning. He received me in an easy, polite manner, 
 and on giving me your letter said that, being entrusted 
 with it by a lady, he made a point of delivering it him- 
 self " ; and the next day : " The signal has been made 
 this morning for all of us who did not dine on board the 
 Victory yesterday to go there to-day. What our late 
 chief will think of this, I don't know ; but I well know 
 what the fleet will think of the diff'erence; and even 
 you, our good wives, who have some causes of disap- 
 probation, will allow the superiority of Nelson in all 
 those social arrangements which bind his captains to 
 their Admiral. The signal is made that boats may be 
 hoisted out to buy fruit, stock, or anything from vessels 
 coming into the fleet. This, I trust, will be a common 
 signal hereafter, but it is the first day I have seen it 
 made." Codrington had not been with Nelson before ; 
 he met him as a perfect stranger, and within two days 
 was his devoted servant. The delicate attention about 
 his wife's letter had captivated him ; the invitation to a 
 pleasant dinner had won him; the being treated as a 
 man, a brother, and a dear friend enthralled him. So 
 
XI CAMP AT BOULOGNE BROKEN UP 211 
 
 it was with every one who came under the fascination 
 of Nelson's genial manner ; and the service was strength- 
 ened by the duty being performed with goodwill and 
 the utmost of each man's soul, instead of grudgingly, 
 with hate in the heart and fear of a court-martial before 
 the eyes. 
 
 The retreat of Villeneuve to Cadiz put an end, for 
 the moment, to Bonaparte's hopes of obtaining the com- 
 mand of the Channel and of being able to cross over to 
 England. He had already been anxiously considering 
 the state of affairs in Germany, where the alliance of 
 Austria, Prussia, and Eussia rendered his presence 
 necessary ; and now, understanding that it was impos- 
 sible at that time to pursue his schemes for the invasion 
 of England, he determined to let them rest for the 
 present, and take them up again when he had demo- 
 lished this threatening coalition. He accordingly broke 
 up the camp at Boulogne on September 2nd, and led 
 his army intQ Germany for one of his most brilliant 
 campaigns. At the same time he sent Villeneuve orders 
 to leave Cadiz and return to Toulon after ranging along 
 the coast of Italy. Of the effective numbers of the fleet 
 with Villeneuve he knew little : of those of the English 
 fleet off Cadiz he knew less ; and by repeated insulting 
 messages to Villeneuve, and by threats to supersede him 
 from the command if he did not immediately put to sea, 
 he at last compelled him to do so. 
 
 From the day of his joining the fleet Nelson had 
 endeavoured, by keeping out of sight of land, to deceive 
 the French Admiral as to the English force. It appears, 
 however, that Villeneuve was fairly well infonned on 
 this point, that he had a correct knowledge of the 
 
NELSON 
 
 general movements of the fleet, and that when, on 
 October 3rd, Nelson detached Kear- Admiral Louis with 
 six ships to fill up with provisions and water at Gibral- 
 tar and Tetuan, he was acquainted with their absence ; 
 on the 18th he received intelligence of their being at 
 Gibraltar. Previous to parting company, Louis, whose 
 flag was flying on board the Canopus, dined with Nelson, 
 and on taking leave said, *' You are sending us away, 
 my Lord — the enemy will come out and we shall have 
 no share in the battle." Nelson replied, " My dear 
 Louis, I have no other means of keeping my fleet com- 
 plete in provisions and water but by sending them in 
 detachments to Gibraltar. The enemy will come out 
 and we shall fight them, but there will be time for you 
 to get back first. I look upon Canopus as my right 
 hand, and I send you first to ensure your being here to 
 help to beat them." He was, in fact, trusting to the 
 secrecy of the ocean, and calculated that, though the 
 stoppage of the coasting-trade and the strict prevention 
 of supplies reaching Cadiz by sea must eventually force 
 the allied fleet out, there had not yet been time for the 
 blockade to make itself seriously felt. But Villeneuve, 
 on receiving the news from Gibraltar, judged that the 
 opportunity was as favourable as any at all likely to 
 occur, and on the 19th he began to unmoor. Some of 
 his ships got outside that same evening, others not till 
 the next day; by the afternoon of the 20th he was 
 fairly at sea, with thirty -three ships of the line besides 
 frigates, and steering at first towards the west with a 
 southerly wind, but later on towards the south-east with 
 the wind very light at south-west. 
 
 The English fleet at this time consisted of twenty- 
 
« VILLENEUVE COMES OUT . 213 
 
 seven ships of the line of battle, and on the afternoon of 
 the 19th was, for the most part, with Nelson about 
 sixteen leagues west-south-west from Cadiz, but connected 
 with the shore by a line of ships and frigates, which kept 
 him constantly informed of the movements of the enemy. 
 It was thus at once signalled to him that the allied fleet 
 was coming out of harbour ; and supposing, as was the 
 case, that Villeneuve wished to enter the Mediterranean, 
 he stood towards the Straits' mouth. At daybreak on 
 the 20th the enemy was not in sight, and the fleet con- 
 tinued under easy sail, standing towards the north 
 during the day, and back again towards the south 
 during the night. At four o'clock on the morning of 
 the 21st it wore towards the north; and at daylight. 
 Cape Trafalgar then bearing east by south, distant seven 
 leagues, the enemy's fleet was seen on the same line of 
 bearing, distant about ten or twelve miles. 
 
 During the weeks of his watch on Cadiz, Nelson had 
 been urging the necessity of sending him more ships. 
 After Louis had gone to Gibraltar he had but twenty- 
 three, while the enemy had thirty-six actually in the 
 port. " Should they come out," he wrote to the First 
 Lord of the Admiralty on October 5th, " I shall imme- 
 diately bring them to battle ; but though I should not 
 doubt of. spoiling any voyage they may attempt, yet I 
 hope for the arrival of the ships from England, that as 
 an enemy's fleet they may be annihilated." And the 
 next day, in a private letter, he said ; " It is annihilation 
 that the country wants, and not merely a splendid 
 victory of twenty-three to thirty-six — honourable to the 
 parties concerned, but absolutely useless in the extended 
 scale to bring Bonaparte to his marrow-bones. Numbers 
 
214 NELSON CHAP. 
 
 can only annihilate; therefore I hope the Admiralty 
 will send the fixed force as soon as possible." 
 
 He thought it probable that, by the junction of the 
 Eochefort and Cartagena squadrons, the allies would be 
 able to put forty-six ships in their line of battle, and he 
 hoped that the return of Louis and fresh reinforcements 
 would give him not less than forty. It was in this 
 expectation that he drew up the celebrated memorandum 
 which he issued to the fleet on October 9th. In it he said 
 that, thinking it almost impossible under varying con- 
 ditions of wind and weather to form a fleet of forty 
 ships in line of battle without such loss of time as would 
 probably cause also the loss of the opportunity of bring- 
 ing the enemy to action, he had resolved to keep the 
 fleet in its order of sailing. The order of sailing was to 
 be the order of battle; and this order of sailing was 
 prescribed as in two lines of sixteen ships each, with an 
 advanced squadron of eight of the fastest two-deckers, 
 ready to " make a line of twenty-four sail on whichever 
 line he might direct." He then went on to consider the 
 possible circumstances of the battle, according as the 
 enemy should be to windward or to leeward ; but in 
 each case the dominant idea was that the lee line, 
 under Collin gwood, should concentrate its attack on 
 the twelve ships in the enemy's rear, while he him- 
 self, with the weather line and the advanced squadron, 
 should overawe the enemy's van and fall on their 
 centre; so that, when the battle was fairly joined, the 
 whole forty of the English ships should be clustered 
 on about twenty-six of the enemy. It was most dis- 
 tinctly laid down that the lee line was to begin the 
 action, and that his own first care would be to pre- 
 
XI TACTICAL MEMORANDUM t\^ 
 
 vent the enemy's van interfering with the attack on 
 their rear. 
 
 No clearer exposition of tactical principles was ever 
 penned ; and though, under the force of circumstances, 
 some of the details prescribed in the memorandum were 
 departed from, the leading idea of crushing the enemy's 
 rear with the lee line, and overawing the enemy's van 
 with the weather line, was very exactly adhered to. 
 Between October 9th and 21st, not only Collingwood, 
 but Eear-Admiral Lord Northesk, who commanded in 
 the third post, and the several captains of the fleet were 
 in frequent intercourse with the Commander-in-Chief, 
 and the meaning and spirit of the memorandum were 
 explained and discussed in a friendly manner by word 
 of mouth ; so that on the morning of the 21st, when 
 the enemy's fleet was in sight, every officer in command 
 of a ship knew precisely what to expect and what to do. 
 The necessity for many signals was thus entirely done 
 away with, and, so far as ordering the battle was con- 
 cerned, only three were made, and those within a 
 few minutes of first sighting the enemy's fleet. They 
 were: (1) "Form order of sailing in two columns." 
 (2) "Prepare for battle." (3) " Bear up (in succession) 
 and sail large on the course steered by the Admiral." 
 
 The wind was very light at about west-north-west, 
 and as the Victory led the way towards the enemy she 
 made all possible sail. The other ships did the same, 
 and the advance to the attack thus became more like 
 a trial of rates of sailing than a formation in precise 
 lines. The lines were, indeed, very irregular; and 
 some of the ships, which had been thrown forward as 
 look-outs, as the Africa^ or were at a distance from the 
 
ii6 NELSON 
 
 main body of the fleet, as the Prince^ never got into the 
 lines at all. 
 
 On the evening of the 20th Villeneuve had formed 
 his fleet in line of battle, heads to the southward, with 
 a reserve squadron to windward. The signal guns and 
 rockets of the English during the night kept him aware 
 of their immediate neighbourhood ; and at daylight on 
 the 21st, with their fleet in sight, he repeated the 
 signal for the line of battle on the starboard tack. On 
 this the reserve squadron took its station in the van, 
 the Spanish Admiral, Gravina, himself leading, with his 
 flag on board the Principe de Asturias, of 1 1 2 guns. As 
 the English advanced, and he saw that in the very light 
 breeze it was impossible to avoid fighting, Villeneuve 
 judged it prudent to lay his ships' heads in the direction 
 of Cadiz, and a little after eight made the signal to wear 
 all together and form line of battle on the port tack. The 
 extreme lightness of the wind, the unskilfulness of the 
 officers, and the want of training and seamanship in his 
 ships' companies, rendered the manoeuvre very long. It 
 was not till after ten o'clock that the fleet was formed 
 on the other tack, and then most irregularly, the ships 
 being in some places crowded together, with two or even 
 three abreast, in others separated by wide intervals, and 
 the whole line sagging away to leeward, so as to pre- 
 sent a deep crescent rather than any near approach to 
 the ideal line of battle. It is thus impossible to give 
 the exact order of the enemy's ships ; but, as nearly as 
 can be, it was the following. 
 
THE ALLIED FLEET 
 
 217 
 
 Ship. 
 
 Guns. 
 
 Result of the Battle. 
 
 1. Nejptwiw 
 
 s 
 
 80 
 
 Captured ; recaptured Oct. 23 
 
 2. Scipion 
 
 F 
 
 74 
 
 Captured Nov. 4 ; sent home 
 
 3. Intr6pide 
 
 F 
 
 74 
 
 Captui-ed ; burnt 
 
 r (Rear- Admiral Dumanoir le 
 
 4. Formidable 
 
 F 
 
 80 
 
 \ Pelley) 
 1 Captured Nov. 4 ; sent home 
 
 0. Rayo 
 
 S 
 
 100 
 
 Captured on Oct. 24 ; wrecked 
 
 6. Duguay-Trouin 
 
 F 
 
 74 
 
 Captured Nov. 4 ; sent home 
 
 7. Mmit-Blanc 
 
 F 
 
 74 
 
 Captured Nov. 4 ; sent home 
 
 8. /Sa^i Fraiwisco de As- 
 
 
 
 sisi 
 
 S 
 
 74 
 
 Wrecked on Oct. 23 
 
 9. >S'a?i Augustino 
 
 S 
 
 74 
 
 Captured ; burnt 
 
 10. ZT^os 
 
 F 
 
 74 
 
 Escaped into Cadiz 
 
 11. Saidisinia Trinidad s 
 
 130 
 
 / (Rear- Admiral Cisneros) 
 \ Captured ; foundered 
 
 12. Bucentaure 
 
 F 
 
 80 
 
 /(Vice- Admiral Yilleneuve) 
 \^Captm-ed; -wrecked 
 
 13. Neptune 
 
 F 
 
 80 
 
 Escaped into Cadiz 
 
 14. Redoutable 
 
 F 
 
 74 
 
 Captured ; foundered 
 
 15. <S'a7i Leandro 
 
 S 
 
 64 
 
 Escaped into Cadiz 
 
 16. /S'aTi c/it6'^o 
 
 S 
 
 74 
 
 Escaped into Cadiz 
 
 17. Irvdom2)tdble 
 
 F 
 
 80 
 
 Wrecked on Oct. 24 
 ( (Vice- Admiral Alava) 
 
 18. *9a?iia ^?ia 
 
 S 
 
 112 
 
 -■[ Captured; recaptured on 
 \ Oct. 23 
 
 19. Fougucux 
 
 F 
 
 74 
 
 Captured ; wrecked 
 
 20. Moiutrca 
 
 S 
 
 74 
 
 Captured ; wrecked 
 
 21. P^O^^OTl 
 
 F 
 
 74 
 
 Escaped into Cadiz 
 
 22. Alg^siras 
 
 F 
 
 74 
 
 r( Rear- Admiral ^Magon) 
 
 \ Captured ; retaken by crew 
 
 23. Bahama 
 
 S 
 
 74 
 
 Captured ; taken to Gibraltar 
 
 24. ^z^Zc 
 
 F 
 
 74 
 
 Captured ; wrecked 
 
 25. Svnftsure 
 
 F 
 
 74 
 
 Captured ; taken to Gibraltar 
 
 26. ArgojuLute 
 
 F 
 
 74 
 
 Escaped into Cadiz 
 
 27. Montanes 
 
 S 
 
 74 
 
 Escaped into Cadiz 
 
 28. ArgoTiauta 
 
 S 
 
 80 
 
 Captured ; scuttled 
 
 29. Berwick 
 
 F 
 
 74 
 
 Captured ; wrecked 
 
 30. /S'aTi /-waTi Nepmnu- 
 
 
 
 ceno 
 
 S 
 
 74 
 
 Captured ; taken to Gibraltar 
 
 31. /S'aTi Udefcmso 
 
 s 
 
 74 
 
 Captured ; taken to Gibraltar 
 
 32. ^cM^e 
 
 F 
 
 74 
 
 Caught fire and blew up 
 
 33. Principe de Asturias s 
 
 112 
 
 /( Vice- Admiral Gravina) 
 \ Escaped into Cadiz 
 
 Five frigates, Comdie, ffcrmione, ITortense, Bhin, TMmvi, and 
 the brigs Argus and Furct^ all French, were ranged on the lee side 
 of the line, at some distance, and had no i)art in' the action. 
 
2l8 
 
 NELSON 
 
 Similarly, though from a different reason, as already 
 explained, the order of the English ships cannot be 
 exactly given, though, with some exceptions, the follow- 
 ing is something like it. 
 
 Weather Line. 
 
 
 
 
 Loss 
 
 in the Battle. 
 
 Ship. 
 
 Guns. 
 
 Captain. 
 
 
 
 
 
 K. 
 
 W. 
 
 Total. 
 
 1. Victcrry 
 
 100 
 
 T. M. Hardy 
 
 (Vice - Admiral 
 Lord Nelson — 
 killed) 
 
 57 
 
 102 
 
 159 
 
 2. T^mAraire 
 
 98 
 
 E. Harvey 
 
 47 
 
 76 
 
 123 
 
 3. Neptune 
 
 98 
 
 T. F. Freraantle 
 
 10 
 
 34 
 
 44 
 
 4. Lemaihan 
 
 74 
 
 H. W. Bayntun 
 
 4 
 
 22 
 
 26 
 
 5. CoTiqueror 
 
 74 
 
 Israel Pellew 
 
 3 
 
 9 
 
 12 
 
 6. Britannia 
 
 100 
 
 C. Bull en 
 (Rear - Admiral 
 Lord Northesk) 
 
 10 
 
 42 
 
 62 
 
 7. Agamemnon 
 
 64 
 
 Sir E. Berry 
 
 2 
 
 8 
 
 10 
 
 8. Ajax 
 
 74 
 
 Lieut. J. Pilfold 
 
 2 
 
 9 
 
 11 
 
 9. Orion 
 
 74 
 
 E. Codrington 
 
 1 
 
 23 
 
 24 
 
 10. Minotaur 
 
 74 
 
 C. J. M. Mans- 
 field 
 
 3 
 
 22 
 
 25 
 
 11. Spartiate 
 
 74 
 
 Sir F. Laforey 
 
 3 
 
 20 
 
 23 
 
 12. {Africa) 
 
 64 
 
 H. Digby 
 Carried forward 
 
 18 
 
 44 
 
 62 
 
 160 
 
 411 
 
 571 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
THE ENGLISH FLEET 
 
 Lee Line. 
 
 219 
 
 
 
 
 Lbss 
 
 in the Battle. 
 
 Ship. 
 
 Guns 
 
 Captain. 
 
 
 
 
 
 K. 
 
 160 
 
 W. 
 
 Total. 
 
 
 
 Brought forward 
 
 411 
 
 571 
 
 1. Royal Sove- 
 
 100 
 
 E. Rotheram 
 
 47 
 
 94 
 
 141 
 
 reign 
 
 
 (Vice - Admiral 
 Collingwood) 
 
 
 
 
 2. Belleisle 
 
 74 
 
 W. Hargood 
 
 33 
 
 93 
 
 126 
 
 3. Mars 
 
 74 
 
 G. Duff— killed 
 
 29 
 
 69 
 
 98 
 
 4. Tonnant 
 
 80 
 
 C. Tyler 
 
 26 
 
 50 
 
 76 
 
 ■ 5. Bellerophon 
 
 74 
 
 J. Cooke-killed 
 
 27 
 
 123 
 
 150 
 
 6. Colossus 
 
 74 
 
 J. N. Morris 
 
 40 
 
 160 
 
 200 
 
 7. Achille 
 
 74 
 
 R. King 
 
 13 
 
 59 
 
 72 
 
 8. Dreadnought 
 
 98 
 
 J. Conn 
 
 7 
 
 26 
 
 33 
 
 9. Polyphemus 
 
 64 
 
 R. Redmill 
 
 2 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 10. Revenge 
 
 74 
 
 R. Moorsora 
 
 28 
 
 51 
 
 79 
 
 11. Sunftsure 
 
 74 
 
 W. G. Rutherford 
 
 9 
 
 8 
 
 17 
 
 12. DeJiaTice 
 
 74 
 
 P. C. Durham 
 
 17 
 
 53 
 
 70 
 
 13. Thunderer 
 
 74 
 
 Lieut. J. Stock - 
 ham 
 
 4 
 
 12 
 
 16 
 
 14. (PHnce) 
 
 98 
 
 R. Grindall 
 
 
 
 
 15. Defence 
 
 74 
 
 G. Hope 
 
 Total 
 
 '"7 
 
 "29 
 
 "36 
 
 449 
 
 1242 
 
 1691 
 
 The frigates Euryalus (Captain H. Blackwood), Naiad (T. 
 Dundas), Phoehe (T. B. Cai)el, and Sirius (W. Prowse), with the 
 schooner Pickle (Lieut. J. R. Lapenotiere), and cutter Entreprenanle 
 (Lieut. R. B. Young), were present to windward of the weather 
 column, but took no part in the battle. 
 
 It had been laid* down by Lord Nelson in his memo- 
 randum of October 9th, that, if the fleet should be to 
 windward of the enemy, it would be his aim to bring it, 
 in three lines, parallel to and within gunshot of the 
 enemy ; from which position the lee line would bear up 
 all together and fall on the enemy's rear, while the 
 weather line and advance squadron threatened the van, 
 
NELSON 
 
 until such time as it seemed expedient for them also to 
 bear up and fall on the enemy's centre. The extreme 
 lightness of the wind, however, rendered it quite im- 
 possible to get into the prescribed position without risk- 
 ing the loss of the whole day and of the opportunity 
 to engage at all. This contingency had no doubt been 
 discussed by Nelson in the days preceding the battle, 
 so that the modification in the Admiral's plan was at 
 once understood. Ideally, the English fleet was in two 
 lines perpendicular to the enemy's one line ; actually, 
 the lines on both sides were extremely irregular, and on 
 the part of the English were rather elongated clusters. 
 
 Having thus seen all things arranged as was best suited 
 to the circumstances, Nelson went down to his cabin 
 and entered in his diary a brief note of the occurrences 
 of the morning. Then, on his knees, he added : — " May 
 the great God whom I worship grant to my country and 
 for the benefit of Europe in general a great and glorious 
 victory ; and may no misconduct in any one tarnish it ; 
 and may humanity after victory be the predominant 
 feature in the British fleet. For myself, individually, I 
 commit my life to Him who made me, and may His 
 blessing light upon my endeavours for serving my 
 country faithfully. To Him I resign myself and the 
 just cause which is intrusted to me to defend." 
 
 He afterwards wrote, or at any rate signed, in the 
 presence of Blackwood and Hardy, that remarkable 
 document which has been called the codicil to his will, 
 in which he briefly stated the services which, as he had 
 been led to believe. Lady Hamilton had rendered to 
 the country. She had obtained, he said, in 1796 the 
 King of Spain's letter to the King of Naples acquaint- 
 
THE LAST SIGNAL 
 
 ing him of his intention to declare war against 
 England, and had thus been able to give timely 
 warning to the English Ministry; and in 1798, she had, 
 by her " influence with the Queen of Naples, caused 
 letters to be wrote to the Governor of Syracuse, that he 
 was to encourage the fleet being supplied with every- 
 thing, should they put into any port in Sicily." As it 
 had not been in his power to reward these services, " I 
 leave," he wrote, "Emma, Lady Hamilton, a legacy to 
 my King and country, that they will give her an ample 
 provision to maintain her rank in life. I also leave to 
 the beneficence of my country my adopted daughter, 
 Horatia Nelson Thompson \ and I desire she will use in 
 future the name of Nelson only. These are the only 
 favours I ask of my King and country at this moment 
 when I am going to fight their battle." 
 
 The approach towards the enemy's line was neces- 
 sarily slow ; at first it was not more than three knots an 
 hour, and as the breeze got lighter even this rate was 
 lessened. About eleven o'clock, the fleets being then 
 little more than two miles apart. Nelson, rightly inter- 
 preting the manoeuvre which the combined fleet had so 
 clumsily executed, telegraphed to Colling^vood, "I 
 intend to push through the enemy's line to prevent 
 them from getting into Cadiz " ; and half an hour later 
 he made the celebrated signal, "England expects 
 
 THAT EVERY IVIAN WILL DO HIS DUTY." It is Said 
 that, as he saw the flags going up, Collingwood 
 remarked half - peevishly to his flag - lieutenant, "I 
 wish Nelson would make no more signals \ we all under- 
 stand what we have to do." When, however, the signal 
 was reported, he was delighted, and ordered it to be 
 
NELSON 
 
 announced to the ship's company, by whom it was 
 received with the greatest enthusiasm. On board most 
 of the ships of the fleet it was similarly announced and 
 similarly received; but in some the captains thought it 
 unnecessary, and nothing was said about it. 
 
 The modification of the plan of attack, which the cir- 
 cumstances of the weather had rendered necessary, was 
 not allowed to affect the essential part of it. Colling- 
 wood, at the head of the lee line, was still to lead 
 through the enemy's rear ; Nelson, at the head of the 
 weather line, was still to take care that Collingwood was 
 not interrupted. It was thus not by accident, nor by 
 better sailing, nor by more careful trimming of sails, 
 to all of which it has been assigned, but in accordance 
 with the prearranged plan, that the Royal Sovereign was 
 considerably ahead of the Victory as, closely followed 
 by the Belleisle, Mars, Tonnant, and the rest, she steered 
 straight for the rear division of the combined fleet. It 
 was about noon when she entered between the horns of 
 the crescent, bringing the enemy's van and rear equally 
 abaft the beam. Immediately in front of her was the 
 Santa Ana, with the flag of Vice-Admiral Alava, close 
 astern of which was the Fougueux. The San Leandro, 
 San Justo, and Indomitable ought to have been ahead of 
 the Santa Ana ; but they had fallen considerably to lee- 
 ward, and their guns were thus to a great extent masked 
 by the Santa Ana herself, when the Spanish Vice- 
 Admiral opened his fire on the Royal Sovereign. 
 
 His doing so was the signal for the ships of both 
 fleets to hoist their colours, the English all flying the 
 white ensign, to avoid the confusion which Nelson 
 thought might arise from the use of difi'erent flags ; for 
 
ri THE ROYAL SOVEREIGN ENGAGED 223 
 
 while he himself was Vice- Admiral and Lord Northesk 
 Eear-Admiral of the White, Collingwood was Vice- 
 Admiral of the Blue. In addition to the ensign, each 
 ship flew two or more union -jacks in different parts 
 of the rigging. The Admirals wore their proper flags ; 
 and at the Vidori/s maintopgallant mast-head was the 
 signal, "Engage the enemy more closely." 
 
 The advance of the English ships had by this time 
 become extremely slow, and for full twenty minutes the 
 Royal Sovereign was under the direct fire of the Santa 
 Ana and Fougueux, and more partially under that of 
 four or five other ships. She ought to have been beaten 
 into matches, but so bad was the enemy's gunnery 
 practice that she sustained no loss of any importance ; 
 none at all, indeed, beyond what drew from Collingwood 
 the sorrowing cry : "Oh dear, oh dear ! I forgot to shift 
 that new foretopsail. It won't be worth anything after 
 this." But about twenty minutes after noon she passed 
 slowly under the stern of the Santa Ana across the 
 bows of the Fougueiix. The first gun she fired was a 
 68-pounder carronade on the port side of the forecastle. 
 This was loaded with one round shot and a keg of five 
 hundred musket-bullets, and was now discharged slap 
 into the stern of the Sania Ana. A second or two later 
 the starboard carronade, loaded in the same way, was 
 discharged into the bows of the Fougueux. In slow 
 succession, each gun as it bore, all loaded with two round 
 shot, some with three, was fired into the stern of the 
 Santa Ana or the bows of the Fougueux. As she drew 
 clear, the Royal Sovereign's helm was put hard a-starboard 
 and she shot up alongside of the Santa Ana^ where she 
 engaged her broadside to broadside, at the distance of 
 
224 NELSON 
 
 only a few yards. In this position, however, she was 
 exposed to the fire of the San Leandro^ San Justo, In- 
 domptdble and Fougueux ; but, whether from their fear 
 of hitting the Santa Ana or from the actual badness of 
 their gunnery, her loss, though severe, was nothing like so 
 great as might have been expected. In a few minutes 
 the Belleisle took the extreme pressure off her : hauling 
 up a little as she passed under the Santa Ana^s stern, she 
 fired her port broadside into the Spaniard's starboard 
 quarter ; a minute or two later she passed close under 
 the stern of the Indomjptahle^ raking her with terrible 
 effect, and on the Indomitable^ s hastily bearing up, she 
 engaged the Fougueux, and afterwards the Aigle, Achillea 
 and Neptune. A reference to the original positions of 
 these three ships will show how extreme was the con- 
 fusion in the allies' line of battle. Still the Belleisle 
 suffered most severely, losing all three masts and bow- 
 sprit and one hundred and twenty - six men killed 
 and wounded. 
 
 Meantime Nelson, with the weather line, was occupied 
 in providing that Collingwood should not be interrupted. 
 He thought it not improbable that, so soon as the plan 
 of the English attack was seen and understood, the allies' 
 van might wear to the assistance of the centre and rear ; 
 and accordingly, as he approached their line, he hauled 
 up a little as though intending to range along and attack 
 the van. Rear -Admiral Dumanoir, commanding the 
 head of the enemy's line, so interpreted the manoeuvre, 
 or, at least, said that he did; though, as the enemy's 
 line was by the wind, and the Victory never took in her 
 studding-sails, it is difficult to understand how he could 
 have been deceived by the very palpable feint. All that 
 
XI THE VICTORY ENGAGED 225 
 
 Nelson wished, however, was gained ; and, keeping away 
 again, he steered for the centre of the line. 
 
 Here was the huge Santisima Trinidad of 130 guns, 
 commonly spoken of as a four-decker. She was, in fact, 
 a three-decker, with guns along the gangways ; but was 
 by far the largest ship then afloat. She was, however, 
 a Spaniard, and carried only a rear-admiral's flag. 
 Nelson was anxious to match himself against Villeileuve, 
 who, he was convinced, was near the centre ; but among 
 the number of tricolours displayed Villeneuve's flag 
 could not be made out, and chance, rather than judg- 
 ment, determined the place through which the Victory 
 passed. Captain Hardy represented to Nelson that the 
 enemy's ships were so crowded at the point abreast them 
 that it was impossible to go through without fouling 
 some one or other. " It does not signify which w^ run 
 on board of," answered Nelson. " Go on board which 
 you please ; take your choice." 
 
 The Victory had all this time been sustaining the fire 
 of the Bucentaure, Santisima Trinidad, and the ships 
 ahead and astern of these. When yet nearly a mile 
 distant, the Bucentaure fired a trial shot, which fell short; 
 a few minutes later another, and then others, till at last, 
 one going through the Victory's main-topgallant sail, gave 
 the enemy a visible proof that their shot would reach. 
 Then every ship that could bring a gun to bear opened 
 fire. But though they made a great deal of noise and 
 smoke, and though the shot fell thick all around, com- 
 paratively few struck the Victory^ which on her part 
 reserved her fire, though one or two of her foremost 
 guns were discharged accidentally, or without orders. 
 For nearly half an hour she was exposed to this heavy 
 Q 
 
226 NELSON 
 
 fire. The secretary, Dr. Scott, standing by Nelson's 
 side, was killed by a round-shot \ another passed between 
 Nelson and Captain Hardy. A double-headed shot 
 swept away eight marines drawn up on the poop ; the 
 rest were immediately ordered down, and dispersed 
 round the ship. The mizen- topmast was shot away 
 about two-thirds of the way up ; the fore-sail and fore- 
 topsail were in ribbons ; the wheel was knocked to 
 pieces. But this, with some fifty men in all killed or 
 wounded, was the full amount of loss sustained by the 
 Victory from this tremendous cannonade. 
 
 At last, a little before one, she passed under the stern 
 of the Bucentaure, so close that her main yard-arm fouled 
 the Bucentaure^s vangs. Her fire was delivered in exactly 
 the same way as the Royal Sovereign/ s. The 68-pounder 
 carronade on the port side of the forecastle was the first 
 gun, and its charge of a round-shot and a keg of five 
 hundred musket-bullets was discharged into the Bucen- 
 taure's cabin windows. As she slowly moved ahead, 
 every one of the fifty guns on her broadside, all double, 
 some treble shotted, was deliberately discharged in the 
 same manner. It was said afterwards by the Bucen- 
 taure^s officers that twenty of her guns were dismounted 
 and nearly four hundred of her men killed or wounded 
 by this one terrible broadside. 
 
 On the other hand, the moment the Victory's bows 
 opened clear of the Bucentaure^s stern, she was exposed 
 to the direct fire of the Neptune and BedoutaUe. But 
 this, however well intended, was harmless in comparison 
 with the Victory^ s ; and though at such a short distance 
 it was impossible to help sometimes hitting such a huge 
 target as a three-decker, the greater number of the shot 
 
XI FALL OF NELSON 227 
 
 were scattered about through her rigging, and but few 
 struck the hull or caused any loss to the crew. It was 
 probably Hardy's intention, after drawing clear of the 
 Bucentaure^ to range up on her starboard beam, as the 
 Royal Sovereign had done to the Santa Ana. If so, how- 
 ever, he was unable to execute it ; for the Redoutable had 
 closed up to such a degree that, whether accidentally 
 or of set purpose, the two ships fell foul of each other, 
 the starboard bow of the Victory striking the port bow 
 of the Redoutable; and her foreyard catching in the 
 Redoutable^ rigging, the two ships fell alongside each 
 other and so remained. 
 
 The steady fire from the Vidory^s lower and middle 
 decks drove the Redoutable' s men from their guns ; but 
 above, the advantage was with the French. Nelson, who 
 had twice seen a French ship destroyed by fire, was 
 keenly sensible of the danger of combustibles in the 
 tops, and had strictly forbidden their use. The Victory's 
 tops were thus unarmed; those of the Redoutable, on 
 the contrary, were full of men, and their musketry and 
 coehorns cleared the Victory's forecastle and upper deck. 
 This gave the Frenchmen the idea of boarding and 
 possibly capturing the Victory, thus taken at a disad- 
 vantage ; but seeing them crowding in the gangway, 
 Mr. Wilmot, the boatswain of the Victory, fired the 
 starboard forecastle carronade into the thick of them. 
 Loaded as the other had been, it caused terrible havoc, 
 and for the moment they fell back. The musketry fire 
 from the Redoutable' s tops, however, continued; and 
 about twenty minutes past one a chance shot from 
 hei mizen-top struck Nelson on the left shoulder as 
 he stood near the hatchway, facing aft. The bullet 
 
228 • NELSON 
 
 passed down through the epaulette, through the lungs, 
 through the spine, and lodged in the muscles of the 
 back. He fell, on the very same spot where his secre- 
 tary had been killed shortly before. As Captain Hardy 
 attempted to raise him, he said, " They've done for me 
 at last. Hardy." " I hope not," answered Hardy. " Yes," 
 replied Nelson, "my backbone is shot through." He 
 was carried below; but, though from the first the 
 wound was recognised as mortal, he did not die for more 
 than three hours. His fall was speedily avenged; 
 for though it was not known who fired the fatal 
 shot, not a man came out of the RedoutaUe' s mizen-top 
 alive. 
 
 The French musketry, however, was at this time 
 very deadly. Within a few minutes after Nelson's fall, 
 several other officers of the Victory and about forty 
 men were killed or wounded, and her upper deck 
 was so far cleared that Captain Lucas of the Redout- 
 able again thought that a determined eflfort to board 
 might be successful. But both ships, and more especially 
 the Victory^ tumbled home so much, that, while at the 
 water-line they were grinding against each other, at the 
 upper deck they were many feet apart, and to pass from 
 one to the other was no easy matter. A few men did, 
 indeed, scramble on to the Victory's quarter-deck, but 
 were at once repulsed, though the doing so again exposed 
 the Victory's people to the deadly French musketry, and 
 several of them, including Captain Adair of the marines, 
 were shot down. Lucas had meantime lowered the 
 main-yard to serve as a bridge, and his men were swarm- 
 ing on the quarter-deck and forecastle, waiting for the 
 moment to cross over, when the TSmSraire, coming under 
 
XI CAPTURE OF THE REDOUTABLE 229 
 
 her starboard quarter, swept them away with a terrible 
 raking broadside, which, it is said, killed or wounded 
 upwards of two hundred men. The effect was decisive ; 
 all power of resistance was beaten out of her, and when 
 the Timiraire ran on board her on the starboard side, 
 she struck her flag and was quietly taken possession of. 
 Her loss in killed and wounded was returned as five 
 hundred and twenty-two out of a complement of six 
 hundred and forty-three. 
 
 The Redoutahle was scarcely secured, and the Victory 
 was still in the act of disengaging herself from her, 
 when the FougueuXj which had been already very roughly 
 handled by the Eoyal Sovereign and the leading ships of 
 the lee division, appeared through the smoke on the 
 T4m6raire^s starboard quarter. When within a few yards 
 distant, she received the T4mdraire^s starboard broadside 
 double-shotted. Not a gun could miss its mark. In 
 the smoke and confusion she fell on board the T6m6raire^ 
 and was immediately lashed by her fore-rigging to the 
 T6mdraire^s spare anchor. A small party of men under 
 the first -lieutenant, Mr. Kennedy, sprang on board; 
 the feeble resistance was at once overpowered, and her 
 flag was hauled down a few minutes before two o'clock ; 
 she is said to have had more than four hundred men 
 killed or wounded. 
 
 The Victory had meanwhile cleared herself from the 
 group, and was standing towards the north as well as 
 her crippled state would permit. The Tdm^raire lay for a 
 considerable time entangled between the two prizes, and 
 with the wreck of the Eedoutable's mizen-mast across her 
 quarter-deck ; but, except in firing an occasional gun at 
 long range, there was no further fighting for either Victoi'i/ 
 
230 NELSON 
 
 or T6m4raire. For, in fact, the battle was by this time 
 practically over. 
 
 It is impossible to describe the action of each ship in 
 detail. The smoke and the confusion of lines were 
 so great that even at the time individual ships had not 
 always a very clear idea of what ships they were engaged 
 with, and still less of what other ships were doing. The 
 various accounts which have come down to us are thus 
 extremely confused or even contradictory; and the 
 attempt to disentangle them can lead to no quite satis- 
 factory result. It is enough to say that, once the heads 
 of the English columns were well engaged, the other ships 
 made no pretence of keeping their line, further than they 
 were compelled by the faintness of the breeze and by 
 their rate of sailing; Each made the best of her way 
 towards the enemy's line, and fell on such of the enemy's 
 ships as she happened to meet with. But the dominat- 
 ing plan given out by Nelson, and now carried into effect 
 by Collingwood and himself, ensured the English being 
 present on the immediate scene of action in superior 
 force. The number of ships of the line in the allied 
 fleet was thirty-three; but .the ten in the van were 
 virtually excluded from the fight, and the other twenty- 
 three were brought into it only by degrees as the English 
 ships came up. 
 
 There is no doubt that, under any conditions of 
 weather, and more especially in the very light breeze 
 which actually prevailed, the advance of the English 
 columns would have been extremely dangerous had the 
 enemy had more efficient gunners. But the low state 
 of gunnery in both French and Spanish navies was 
 perfectly well known to Nelson, and was an important 
 
XI THE ENGLISH LOSSES 231 
 
 item in his calculation; otherwise he would scarcely 
 have placed the Eoyal Sovereign and Victory in positions 
 where they must be knocked to pieces without the chance 
 of firing a shot. Even as it was, it will be seen in the 
 table on pages 218-19 how severe was the loss of the two 
 headmost ships in each column in comparison with that 
 of the other ships. The number of killed and wounded 
 in these four, the Victory and T6m4raire^ Royal Sovereign 
 and Belleisle, together with that in the Bellerojphon and 
 Colossus, the fifth and sixth ships in the lee line, was 
 considerably more than the half of that in the whole 
 fleet. But, this danger once passed ^the ad vantage was 
 wholly with the English,' who could and did oppose two 
 or three or four ships to one of the enemy, sometimes 
 at once, sometimes in rapid succession, till that one and 
 the rest, one by one, yielded to overpowering numbers. 
 And thus, within two hours from the time the Boyal 
 Sovereign fired her broadside into the stern of the Santa 
 Ana, the victory was assured. 
 
 The Santa Ana, raked in succession by the Belleisle 
 and other ships as they passed in, closely engaged the 
 whole time by the Royal Sovereign, having lost all her 
 masts and with half her men killed or wounded, struck 
 her flag about a quarter-past two. Vice-Admiral Alava 
 was himself severely wounded, and was allowed to remain 
 on board the Santa Ana. Other ships, French and 
 Spanish, were similarly overpowered by numbers. The 
 Monarca, Bahama, Algisiras, Swiftsiire, Berwick, and many 
 others, were terribly beaten, and lost some three or 
 four hundred men each before they struck their 
 colours. But the odds were everywhere against them. 
 Here, out of many, are two instances. The Bucentaure, 
 
232 NELSON 
 
 after the first terrible broadside from the Victory 
 which virtually sealed her fate, was successively 
 engaged by the Neptune^ Leviathan, and Conqueror, to 
 which last she struck her colours. Captain Atcherley, 
 of the marines, with five men, was sent in a boat to take 
 possession ; and to him, on the Bucentaure^s quarter-deck, 
 the French Commander - in - Chief and his staff offered 
 their swords. Atcherley, however, considered it unbe- 
 coming for him to receive the submission of an officer 
 of Villeneuve's rank, and took him, with the first and 
 second captains, in his boat to return to the Cotiqueror. 
 But the Conqueror had made sail in search of a fresh 
 antagonist, and the illustrious prisoners were taken on 
 board the Mars, where they remained. The Neptune, 
 followed by the Leviathan and afterwards by the Conqueror, 
 had meanwhile engaged the Santisima Trinidad, which 
 had already suffered severely from the more distant port 
 broadside of the Victory. At about half-past two she 
 was completely dismasted, and took no further part in 
 the fight, but was not actually taken possession of till 
 three hours later. 
 
 All this time the ships in the allied van made no 
 movement to support their centre and rear. It was 
 not till two o'clock and after Villeneuve had repeatedly 
 signalled to them, that they began to wear. But the 
 breeze had been gradually dying away, while the swell 
 from the west was still very heavy. It took the ships 
 nearly an hour to get round on to the starboard tack. 
 Some of them were towed round by their boats ; the 
 Intr^pide fouled the Mont- Blanc, and lost her foremast. 
 And when they were at last round, Dumanoir in the 
 Formidable, with four of the others, held a close luff and 
 
XI FLIGHT OF DUMANOIR 233 
 
 stood to windward of the field of battle, while the other 
 ^yfQ kept away to leeward. Three of them passed to 
 the south-east and joined Gravina. The Ban Augustino, 
 less fortunate, was brought to close action by the 
 LeviathaUy which, after delivering one treble - shotted 
 broadside at less than fifty yards distance, fell on board 
 her and took possession without further resistance. 
 About the same time the Intr<fpide was brought to 
 action by the little Africa, and detained till the Orion 
 came up. A quarter of an hour later her main and mizen 
 masts went over the side ; she had lost two hundred men, 
 killed or wounded. The Ajax and Agamemnon were both 
 drawing near, and she struck her colours. It was then 
 some little time after five o'clock. 
 
 Meanwhile, Dumanoir with the other five ships was 
 endeavouring to pass clear to windward. If all the ten 
 ships of the van had kept with him, it is possible that he 
 might have brought them in compact order against the 
 scattered English; and though it cannot be supposed that 
 he could have retrieved the fortune of the day, he might 
 have caused the English some serious loss, and at any 
 rate have enabled some of the beaten ships to effect 
 their escape. When, however, he found himself with 
 only five, his heart failed him : he judged that to plunge 
 into the fight with these would be but to sacrifice them 
 also ; and so, interchanging a distant and desultory fire 
 with some of the English ships, he passed away towards 
 the south-west and made good his escape with the four 
 French ships. The fifth, the Spanish Neptuno, whether 
 less weatherly than her consorts, whether through the 
 unwiUingness of her captain to withdraw from the battle 
 before it was definitely lost, or through his want of 
 
234 NELSON 
 
 decision, fell considerably to leeward, and was brought 
 to action by the Minotaur and Spartiate, which, being the 
 rearmost ships of the weather line, had not got into 
 action when Dumanoir's movement gave them the chance. 
 They had hauled to the Vi^ind on the port tack, but were 
 already too far to leeward to intercept the retreat of the 
 Formidable and the other French ships. They were, 
 however, able to engage the Nejotuno, which, after a 
 gallant defence, struck her flag a little after five o'clock. 
 It seems doubtful whether she or the InMpide was the 
 last to surrender. 
 
 This was the end of the battle. Eighteen of the 
 enemy's ships had been captured and the rest had fled. 
 Gravina, whose ship, the Principe de Asturias, was terribly 
 shattered, and who was himself mortally wounded, 
 hoisted the signal to rally, and made sail to the north- 
 ward. Ten other ships gathered round, and with him 
 made good their escape for the time. They were not 
 pursued, for Nelson was no more. After three hours 
 of intense pain and partial unconsciousness, he expired 
 about half-past four, with the ejaculation, '* Thank God ! 
 I have done my duty." 
 
 One incident of the battle still remains to be told. 
 The French Achille had suffered severely in successive 
 engagements with her English namesake, the Belleisle, 
 Siviftsure, and Polyphemus. She had lost her mizen-mast, 
 main-topmast and foreyard; and when, owing, it was 
 supposed, to her swivels or musketry, she caught fire in 
 the fore-top, it was found that her fire-engine had been 
 destroyed and that she was without the means of ex- 
 tinguishing the flames. About half -past four, while 
 her crew were trying to cut away the mast so that it 
 
XI NELSON'S LAST ORDERS 235 
 
 might fall clear, a broadside from the Prince, just coming 
 into action, shot it away half-way up, so that the flam- 
 ing top fell into the waist and set fire to the boats and 
 to the ship herself. The Prince fired one or two more 
 broadsides before the helpless state of the Achille became 
 evident. She then wore round, hove to, and sent her 
 boats to endeavour to save the lives of the men. The 
 Smftsure did the same. It was a service of no little 
 danger, for the A chillers guns were loaded and went off 
 as the flames reached them. Some two hundred of her 
 men had been rescued when, about a quarter to six, the 
 fire reached her magazine and she blew up, with the loss 
 of all still surviving. It appears doubtful whether she had 
 actually struck her flag or not ; and some French writers 
 have prided themselves on the alleged fact of her going 
 down with colours flying. If she did, it was the result 
 of forgetfulness or preoccupation on both sides, and not 
 of any desperate determination on the part of either the 
 oflicers or men of the Achille. All effort at defence had 
 unquestionably ceased before the Prince sent a boat to 
 her assistance. 
 
 About noon, and before the first shot was fired, 
 Nelson had made the general signal, " Prepare to anchor 
 immediately after the close of day." He knew, of course, 
 that many of the ships would be dismasted or crippled : 
 he had no doubt whatever that many of the enemy's 
 ships, in a similar condition, would be in our hands; 
 and a falling barometer seemed to portend bad weather. 
 After he was carried below, the necessity of anchoring 
 was continually present to his mind, and he repeatedly 
 urged it on Hardy, desiring him to see that it was done. 
 When, however, immediately after the firing ceased, 
 
236 NELSON 
 
 Hardy went on board the Boyal Sovereign and acquainted 
 Collingwood with Nelson's death and last wishes, Coll- 
 ingwood exclaimed, " Anchor the fleet ! that is the last 
 thing I should have thought of " ; and, as the command 
 now devolved on him, he did not anchor. The ships 
 were by this time in thirteen fathoms water, and the 
 westerly swell was setting them slowly towards the 
 shoals of Trafalgar, now only a few miles distant. The 
 wind was gradually freshening, and at the same time 
 backing. By midnight it was blowing hard from about 
 south-south-west, and the ships' heads were laid off" shore ; 
 but the dismasted and shattered prizes, with only a hand- 
 ful of men on board to navigate them, were at the mercy of 
 the weather, or of the prisoners, who had to be released 
 in order that they might not be drowned like mice in a 
 cage. One of the prizes was thus retaken ; others, hav- 
 ing drifted near Cadiz, were retaken by a bold sortie of 
 the enemy, who, however, lost more than they gained ; 
 some were wrecked ; many were scuttled and sunk to 
 avoid greater risk ; and thus it happened that of all the 
 ships captured on the 21st, four only were taken to 
 Gibraltar as trophies of the victory, and these by a 
 cruel chance were all old and worthless. 
 
 The effective trophies were supplied by Dumanoir's 
 four ships which escaped to the south-west. After 
 making a good offing, they turned to the north, hoping 
 to reach Brest or one of the ports in the bay. They had 
 all sustained some damage, which, though not serious, 
 was more than might have been supposed, considering 
 the very partial way in which they had been engaged. 
 Their masts were more or less wounded, and they were 
 making water at such a rate as to need to keep the 
 
RESULTS OF THE BATTLE 
 
 m 
 
 pumps going. The Formidable had been obliged to throw 
 twelve of her guns overboard : three others had been 
 dismounted at Trafalgar. Off Cape Ortegal, on Novem- 
 ber 4th, they fell in with a squadron of four ships of 
 the line and four heavy frigates under the command of 
 Sir Eichard Strachan in the Ccesar, and were cap- 
 tured without much difficulty. They were all added to 
 the English navy ; one of them, the Duguay-Trouin, 
 whose name was changed to Implacable^ is still afloat 
 at Devonport, where she is used as a training-ship for 
 boys. 
 
 From the purely naval point of view, then, the result 
 of the Battle of Trafalgar may be stated thus. 
 
 Ships of the Line of Battle. 
 
 Present in the Action. 
 
 French. 
 
 18 
 
 Spanish, 
 
 15 
 
 Total. 
 
 33 
 
 How DISPOSED OF. 
 
 Captured on 21st 
 Recaptured on 22nd 
 Recaptured on 23rd 
 Leaving prizes . 
 Captured on 24th 
 Wrecked on 24th 
 Captured on Nov. 4tli 
 In Cadiz . 
 
 French. 
 
 Spanish. 
 
 9 
 
 2 
 
 
 7 
 
 15 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 1 
 
 2 
 
 • 
 
 4 
 
 6 
 
 11 
 
 33 
 
 Those in Cadiz were all much shattered, quite unfit for 
 service, and were never at sea again as ships of war. 
 
238 NELSON CHAP. 
 
 The Battle of Trafalgar thus completely broke up the 
 threatening coalition of France and Spain which Bona- 
 parte had formed against us. Any further prosecution 
 of his scheme for the invasion of England was rendered 
 impossible, and was, in fact, never again thought of. 
 The naval power of France was, for the time, completely 
 broken ; and during the rest of the war, which lasted 
 for another ten years, the command of the sea was held 
 by us in a grip which the enemy scarcely attempted to 
 dispute. That is the historical importance of the battle ; 
 but of almost greater importance are the lessons it con- 
 veys to the modern successors of those who so nobly 
 fought and conquered ninety years ago. There is a 
 widespread notion that, grand as was this masterpiece 
 of our greatest sailor, the times, and with them the 
 art of navigation and of naval war, have so changed, that 
 we may admire but cannot find anything to imitate. 
 This would seem to spring out of some idea that the 
 principles of war depend on the accidents of the age 
 rather than on the immutable laws of nature. But so 
 long as seas roll and men live, so long will skill, temper, 
 and courage control the mere accessories of ships and 
 guns, of sails or engines 
 
 The rest may be told in very few words. CoUing- 
 wood's despatches reached the Admiralty early on the 
 morning of November 6th, and the Park and Tower 
 guns announced the victory to the public ; but as the 
 story was read in the Gazette on the same day, the 
 splendour of the achievement was almost forgotten 
 in grief for the loss which England had sustained. 
 Such honours and rewards as the Crown and a grateful 
 country could bestow were freely given to the hero's 
 
XI HONOURS TO NELSON'S FAMILY 239 
 
 family. On November 9th his brother William was 
 gazetted as Earl Nelson of Trafalgar, with remainder to 
 the heirs -male successively of his sisters Mrs. Bolton 
 and Mrs. Matcham ; and in the course of the following 
 session the House of Commons liberally endowed the 
 title, gave £15,000 to each of the sisters, and £2000 a 
 year for life to Lady Nelson ; and to her, as well as to 
 the Earl as an heirloom, the Patriotic Fund voted a 
 vase of the value of £500. It was noticed at the time, 
 and has often been commented on since, that no atten- 
 tion was paid to the so-called codicil in favour of Lady 
 Hamilton. It has been maintained that it was the duty 
 of the country to provide for her, not only as the woman 
 whom he addressed as his dear wife in the sight of 
 Heaven, but also as the woman who had rendered great 
 and important services to the State. But the Govern- 
 ment knew, what has been made public only within the 
 last few years, that Nelson was entirely deceived as to 
 Lady Hamilton's alleged services, which existed, indeed, 
 only in her own imagination ; they knew also that she 
 was left well provided for both by her husband's will 
 and by Nelson's. They may reasonably have thought 
 that £2000 a year was a sufficient income for such a 
 woman. She, however, speedily ran through it, was 
 imprisoned for debt, was released by private charity, 
 and during her last years was dependent on the interest 
 of the £4000 settled on her daughter Horatia. She 
 resided in Calais, in humble cirumstances but by no 
 means in absolute want ; became a Eoman Catholic, — 
 possibly a sincere one; and dying at Calais in 1815, 
 was buried there in accordance with the rites of the 
 Catholic Church. 
 
240 NELSON 
 
 The Victory^ with Nelson's body on board, arrived at 
 Spithead on December 5th, and was sent round to the 
 Thames. The body was then taken to Greenwich 
 Hospital, where, in the Painted Hall, it lay in state 
 from January 4th to the 8th, to be visited and wept 
 over by thousands. On the 8th it was conveyed in a 
 solemn procession of boats to Whitehall Stairs ; thence 
 on foot to the Admiralty ; and the next day to St. Paul's, 
 where it was placed in the crypt, in a sarcophagus made 
 at the cost of Cardinal Wolsey for Henry the Eighth. 
 Above, in the cathedral, is a monument by Flaxman. 
 Other monuments were erected by scores through the 
 country ; scarcely a town of any size but has one. But 
 the truest, the noblest, the grandest monument is in the 
 hearts of the English people, where, purified from all 
 earthly taint, his memory lives enshrined as the ideal 
 of heroism, of self-sacrifice, and of duty. 
 
 THE END 
 
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