DRAKE, NELSON AND
NAPOLEON

STUDIES BY

Sir WALTER RUNCIMAN, Bart

ILLUSTRATED

LONDON
T. FISHER UNWIN LTD.
ADELPHI TERRACE

1919

Line of Battle Ship (Early 18th Century)

DEDICATORY LETTER TO
SIR JAMES KNOTT

MY DEAR SIR JAMES,

We have travelled far since those early days when you and I,
who are of totally different tastes and temperament, first met
and became friends. I was attracted by your wide knowledge,
versatile vigour of mind, and engaging personality, which
subsequent years have not diminished. You were strenuously
engaged at that time in breaking down the weevilly traditions of
a bygone age, and helping to create a new era in the art of
steamship management, and, at the same time, studying for the
Bar; and were I writing a biography of you, I would have to
include your interesting travels in distant lands in quest of
business and organizing it. That must be left for another
occasion, when the vast results to the commercial life of the
country to which you contributed may be fittingly told.

At the present time my vision recalls our joyous yachting
cruises on the Clyde, when poor Leadbitter added to the charm
that stays. Perhaps best of all were the golden days when we
habitually took our week-end strolls together by the edge of the
inspiriting splendour of the blue North Sea, strolls which are
hallowed by many memories, and gave me an opportunity of listening to your vehement
flashes of human sympathies, which are so widely known now. It is
my high appreciation of those tender gifts and of your personal
worth, together with the many acts of kindness and consideration
shown to me when I have been your guest, that gives me the desire
to inscribe this book to you and Lady Knott, and to the memory of
your gallant sons, Major Leadbitter Knott, D.S.O., who was killed
while leading his battalion in a terrific engagement in Flanders,
and Captain Basil Knott, who fell so tragically a few months
previously at his brother’s side.

With every sentiment of esteem,
I am, dear Sir James,
Ever yours sincerely,

WALTER RUNCIMAN.

March 1919.

PREFACE

This book has evolved from another which I had for years been
urged to write by personal friends. I had chatted occasionally
about my own voyages, related incidents concerning them and the
countries and places I had visited, the ships I had sailed in,
the men I had sailed with, and the sailors of that period. It is
one thing to tell sea-tales in a cosy room and to enjoy living
again for a brief time in the days that are gone; but it is
another matter when one is asked to put the stories into book
form. Needless to say for a long time I shrank from undertaking
the task, but was ultimately prevailed upon to do so. The book
was commenced and was well advanced, and, as I could not depict
the sailors of my own period without dealing—as I thought
at the time—briefly with the race of men called buccaneers
who were really the creators of the British mercantile marine and
Navy, who lived centuries before my generation, I was obliged to
deal with some of them, such as Hawkins, Drake, Frobisher,
Daimper, Alexander Selkirk of Robinson Crusoe fame, and others
who combined piracy with commerce and sailorism. After I had
written all I thought necessary about the three former, I
instinctively slipped on to Nelson as the greatest sea personality of the beginning of the
last century. I found the subject so engrossing that I could not
centre my thoughts on any other, so determined to continue my
narrative, which is not, and never was intended to be a life of
Nelson. Perhaps it may be properly termed fragmentary thoughts
and jottings concerning the life of an extraordinary human force,
written at intervals when I had leisure from an otherwise busy
life.

Even if I had thought it desirable, it was hardly possible to
write about Nelson without also dealing with Britain’s great
adversary and Nelson’s distracted opinion of him.

It would be futile to attempt to draw a comparison between the
two men. The one was a colossal human genius, and the other,
extraordinary in the art of his profession, was entirely without
the faculty of understanding or appreciating the distinguished
man he flippantly raged at from his quarterdeck.

But be that as it may, Nelson’s terrific aversion to and
explosions against the French and Napoleon, in whose history I
had been absorbed for many years, seem to me to be the deliberate
outpouring of a mind governed by feeling rather than by knowledge
as to the real cause of the wars and of how we came to be
involved and continue in them. Nor does he ever show that he had
any clear conception of the history of Napoleon’s advent as the
Ruler of the People with whom we were at war.

I have given this book the title of “Drake, Nelson and
Napoleon” because it seemed to me necessary to bring in Drake, the prototype, and
Napoleon, the antagonist of Nelson.

Drake’s influence bore fruit in what is known as the Fleet
Tradition, which culminated in the “Nelson touch.” No excuse is
needed, therefore, for writing a chapter which shows how little
the seaman’s character has changed in essentials since that time.
To-day, our sailors have the same simple direct force which
characterized the Elizabethan seamen and those of Nelsonian
times.

Of Napoleon I have written fully in my book “The Tragedy of
St. Helena,” and have contented myself here with pointing out how
the crass stupidity and blind prejudice of his opponents have
helped largely to bring about the world-war of our own times. I
have also endeavoured to contrast the statesmanlike attitude of
Napoleon with the short-sighted policy of England’s politicians
and their allies at that time.

Having planned the book on such lines, it inevitably follows
that Nelson must occupy a larger space in it than either Drake or
Napoleon, but for that I offer no apology.

WALTER RUNCIMAN.

March 1919.

CONTENTS

DEDICATORY
LETTER TO SIR JAMES KNOTT

PREFACE

CONTENTS

ILLUSTRATIONS

DRAKE AND THE FLEET
TRADITION

NELSON AND HIS
CIRCLE

NAPOLEON
AND HIS CONNECTION WITH THE WORLD-WAR (1914-1918)

SEA SONGS

APPENDIX

INDEX

WORKS BY THE SAME
AUTHOR

ILLUSTRATIONS

LINE OF BATTLE SHIP (EARLY
EIGHTEENTH CENTURY)

DRAKE

NELSON

LADY HAMILTON AS “A SIBYL”

CAPTAIN HARDY (OF THE
“VICTORY”)

“PRINCESS CHARLOTTE.”—FRIGATE
(EARLY NINETEENTH CENTURY)

H.M.S. “VICTORY” GOING INTO BATTLE AT
TRAFALGAR

ADMIRAL COLLINGWOOD

THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON AFTER HIS
ACCESSION

Drake

DRAKE AND THE FLEET TRADITION

I

The great sailors of the Elizabethan era—Hawkins, Drake,
Frobisher, Howard, Davis, and Sir Humphrey Gilbert—were the
prototypes of the sailors of the nineteenth century. They
discovered new lands, opened up new avenues of commerce, and
combined these legitimate forms of enterprise with others which
at this date would be regarded as rank piracy. Since, however,
they believed themselves to be the ambassadors of God, they did
everything in His name, whether it were the seizing of Spanish
treasure or the annexing of new worlds by fair means or foul,
believing quite sincerely in the sanctity of what they did with a
seriousness and faith which now appear almost comic.

For many years the authorities of the Inquisition had
plundered goods and put to death English seamen and merchants,
and Spanish Philip, when remonstrated with, shrugged his
shoulders and repudiated the responsibility by saying that he had
no power over the “Holy House.” Drake retaliated by taking
possession of and bringing to England a million and a half of
Spanish treasure while the two countries were not at war.
It is said that when Drake
laid hands on the bullion at Panama he sent a message to the
Viceroy that he must now learn not to interfere with the
properties of English subjects, and that if four English sailors
who were prisoners in Mexico were ill-treated he would execute
two thousand Spaniards and send him their heads. Drake never
wasted thought about reprisals or made frothy apologetic speeches
as to what would happen to those with whom he was at religious
war if they molested his fellow-countrymen. He met atrocity with
atrocity. He believed it to be his mission to avenge the burning
of British seamen and the Spanish and Popish attempts on the life
of his virgin sovereign. That he knew her to be an audacious
flirt, an insufferable miser, and an incurable political
intriguer whose tortuous moves had to be watched as vigilantly as
Philip’s assassins and English traitors, is apparent from
reliable records. His mind was saturated with the belief in his
own high destiny, as the chosen instrument to break the Spanish
power in Europe. He was insensible to fear, and knew how to make
other people fear and obey him. He was not only an invincible
crusader, but one of those rare personalities who have the power
of infusing into his comrades his own courage and enthusiasm. The
Spanish said he was “a magician who had sold his soul to the
devil.” The Spanish sailors, and Philip himself, together with
his nobles, were terror-stricken at the mention of his name. He
was to them an invincible dragon. Santa Cruz warned his compatriots that the heretics “had
teeth, and could use them.” Here is another instance, selected
from many, of the fanatical superstitions concerning Drake’s
irresistible power. Medina Sidonia had deserted the Andalusian
squadron. Drake came across the flagship. Her commander said he
was Don Pedro de Valdes, and could only surrender on honourable
terms. The English commander replied, “I am Drake, and have no
time to parley. Don Pedro must surrender or fight.” So Don Pedro
surrendered to the gallant captain of the Revenge, and
lavished him with praise, evidently glad to have fallen into the
hands of so famous and generous a foe. Drake is said to have
treated his captive with elaborate generosity, while his crew
commandeered all the vast treasure. He then sent the galleon into
Dartmouth Harbour, and set off with his prisoners to chase Medina
Sidonia.

In the whole range of Drake’s adventurous career there does
not appear to be any evidence of his having been possessed with
the idea of supernatural assistance, though if perchance he
missed any of Philip’s treasure-ships he complacently reported
“the reason” to those in authority as “being best known to God,”
and there the incident ended. On the other hand, the Deity was no
mystery to him. His belief in a Supreme Power was real, and that
he worked in harmony with It he never doubted. When he came
across anything on land or sea which he thought should be
appropriated for the benefit of his Queen and country, or for
himself and those who were associated with him in his piratical enterprises,
nothing was allowed to stand in his way, and, generally speaking,
he paralysed all resistance to his arms into submission by an
inexorable will and genius. The parsimonious Elizabeth was always
slyly willing to receive the proceeds of his dashing deeds, but
never unduly generous in fixing his share of them. She allowed
her ships to lie rotting when they should have been kept in sound
and efficient condition, and her sailors to starve in the streets
and seaports. Never a care was bestowed on these poor fellows to
whom she owed so much. Drake and Hawkins, on the other hand, saw
the national danger, and founded a war fund called the “Chatham
Chest”; and, after great pressure, the Queen granted
£20,000 and the loan of six battleships to the Syndicate.
Happily the commercial people gave freely, as they always do.
What trouble these matchless patriots had to overcome! Intrigue,
treason, religious fanaticism, begrudging of supplies, the
constant shortage of stores and provisions at every critical
stage of a crisis, the contradictory instructions from the
exasperating Tudor Queen: the fleet kept in port until the
chances of an easy victory over England’s bitterest foes had
passed away! But for the vacillation of the icy virgin, Drake’s
Portugal expedition would have put the triumph of the Spanish
Armada to the blush, and the great Admiral might have been saved
the anguish of misfortune that seemed to follow his future daring
adventures for Spanish treasure on land and sea until the shadows
of failure compassed him
round. His spirit broken and his body smitten with incurable
disease, the fleet under his command anchored at Puerto Bello
after a heavy passage from Escudo de Veragua, a pestilential
desert island. He was then in delirium, and on the 28th January,
1596, the big soul of our greatest seaman passed away beyond the
veil. His body was put into a lead and oak coffin and taken a few
miles out to sea, and amidst manifestations of great sorrow he
was lowered down the side and the waters covered him over. Two
useless prize ships were sunk beside him, and there they may
still lie together. The fleet, having lost their guiding spirit,
weighed anchor and shaped their course homewards.

Drake was not merely a seaman and the creator of generations
of sailors, but he was also a sea warrior of superb naval genius.
It was he who invented the magnificent plan of searching for his
country’s enemies in every creek into which he could get a craft.
He also imbued Her Gracious Majesty and Her Gracious Majesty’s
seamen with the idea that in warfare on sea or land it is a first
principle to strike first if you wish to gain the field and hold
it. Having smashed his antagonist, he regarded it as a plain duty
in the name of God to live on his beaten foes and seize their
treasures of gold, silver, diamonds, works of art, etc., wherever
these could be laid hold of. The First Lady of the Land was
abashed at the gallant sailor’s bold piratical efforts. She would
not touch the dirty, ill-gotten stuff until the noble fellow had
told her the fascinating story of his matchless adventures and slashing successes.
Doubtless the astute Admiral had learned that his blameless Queen
was only averse to sharing with him the plunder of a risky voyage
until he had assured her again and again that her cousin, Philip
of Spain, had his voracious eye on her life, her throne, and all
her British possessions, wherever they might be.

The valiant seaman appears to have played daintily and to good
effect with the diabolical acts of the Spaniards, such as the
burning of English seamen, until they roused in Elizabeth the
spirit of covetousness and retaliation. It was easy then for her
incorruptible integrity (!) to surrender to temptation. A
division of what had been taken from Philip’s subjects was
forthwith piously made. Elizabeth, being the chief of the
contracting parties, took with her accustomed grace the queenly
share. On one occasion she walked in the parks with Drake, held a
royal banquet on board the notorious Pelican, and knighted
him; while he, in return for these little attentions, lavished on
his Queen presents of diamonds, emeralds, etc. The accounts which
have been handed down to us seem, in these days, amazing in their
cold-blooded defiance of honourable dealing. But we must face the
hard facts of the necessity of retaliation against the revolting
deeds of the Inquisition and the determined, intriguing policy of
worming Popery into the hearts of a Protestant nation, and then
we realize that Drake’s methods were the “invention” of an
inevitable alternative either to fight this hideous despotism with more desperate weapons and
greater vigour than the languid, luxury-loving Spaniards had
taken the trouble to create or succumb to their tremendous power
of wealth and wickedness. Drake was the chosen instrument of an
inscrutable destiny, and we owe it to him that the divided
England of that day was saved from annihilation. He broke the
power of Spain at sea, and established England as the first naval
and mercantile Power in the world. He was the real founder of
generations of seamen, and his undying fame will inspire
generations yet unborn to maintain the supremacy of the seas.

The callous, brutal attitude of Elizabeth towards a race of
men who had given their lives and souls so freely in every form
of danger and patriotic adventure because they believed it to be
a holy duty is one of the blackest pages of human history. The
cruelties of the Spanish Inquisition and the treatment of sailors
in the galleys were only different in degree, and while there are
sound reasons for condemning the Queen and the ruling classes of
that time for conduct that would not be tolerated in these days,
it is unquestionably true that it was a difficult task to keep
under control the spirit of rebellion of that period, as it is
to-day. Doubtless those in authority were, in their judgment,
compelled to rule with a heavy hand in order to keep in check
wilful breaches of discipline.

Attempts to mutiny and acts of treason were incidents in the
wonderful career of Francis Drake which frequently caused him to
act with severity. Doughty,
the Spanish spy, who was at one time a personal friend of
Drake’s, resolved to betray his commander. Doughty was caught in
the act, tried by a court composed of men serving under Drake,
found guilty, and after dining with the Admiral, chatting
cheerfully as in their friendly days, they drank each other’s
health and had some private conversation not recorded; then
Doughty was led to the place of execution and had his head
chopped off, Drake exclaiming as it fell, “Lo, this is the end of
traitors!” Then Drake relieved Fletcher of his duties as chaplain
by telling him softly that he would “preach this day.” The ship’s
company was called together and he exhorted them to harmony,
warning them of the danger of discord. Then in his breezy
phraseology he exclaims, “By the life of God, it doth even take
my wits from me to think of it.” The crew, it appears, was
composed of gentlemen, who were obviously putting on airs, and
sailors, who resented their swank as much as did the great
captain. So Drake proceeds to lay the law down vehemently. “Let
us show ourselves,” said he, “all to be of one company, and let
us not give occasion to the enemy to rejoice at our decay and
overthrow. Show me the man that would refuse to set his hand to a
rope, but I know that there is not any such here.” Then he
proceeds to drive home his plan of discipline with vigour. “And
as gentlemen are necessary for government’s sake in the voyage,
so I have shipped them to that and to some further intent.” He
does not say quite what it is,
but they doubtless understand that it is meant to be a warning
lest he should be compelled to put them through some harsh form
of punishment. He concludes his memorable address with a few
candid words, in which he declares that he knows sailors to be
the most envious people in the world and, in his own words,
“unruly without government,” yet, says he, “May I not be without
them!” It is quite clear that Drake would have no class
distinction. His little sermon sank deep into the souls of his
crew, so that when he offered the Marigold to those who
had lost heart, to take them back to England, he had not only
made them ashamed of their refractory conduct, but imbued them
with a new spirit, which caused them to vie with each other in
professions of loyalty and eagerness to go on with him and comply
with all the conditions of the enterprise.

The great commander had no room for antics of martyrdom. He
gave human nature first place in his plan of dealing with human
affairs. He did not allow his mind to be disturbed by trifles. He
had big jobs to tackle, and he never doubted that he was the one
and only man who could carry them to a successful issue. He took
his instructions from Elizabeth and her blustering ministers,
whom he regarded as just as likely to serve Philip as the Tudor
Queen if it came to a matter of deciding between Popery and
Protestantism. He received their instructions in a courtly way,
but there are striking evidences that he was ever on the watch
for their vacillating pranks,
and he always dashed out of port as soon as he had received the
usual hesitating permission. Once out of reach, he brushed aside
imperial instructions if they stood in the way of his own
definite plan of serving the best interests of his country, and
if the course he took did not completely succeed—which was
seldom the case—he believed “the reason was best known to
God.”

John Hawkins and Francis Drake had a simple faith in the
divine object they were serving. Hawkins thought it an act of
high godliness to pretend that he had turned Papist, in order
that he might revenge and rescue the remnant of his poor comrades
of the San Juan de Ulloa catastrophe, who were now shut up in
Seville yards and made to work in chains. Sir John hoodwinked
Philip by making use of Mr. George Fitzwilliam, who in turn made
use of Rudolfe and Mary Stuart. Mary believed in the genuineness
of the conspiracy to assassinate Elizabeth and set up the Queen
of Scots in her place, to hand over Elizabeth’s ships to Spain,
confiscate property, and to kill a number of anti-Catholic
people. The Hawkins counterplot of revenge on Philip and his
guilty confederates was completely successful. The comic audacity
of it is almost beyond belief. The Pope had bestowed his blessing
on the conspiracy, and the Spanish Council of State was
enthusiastically certain of its success. So credulous were they
of the great piratical seaman’s conversion, that an agreement was
signed pardoning Hawkins for his acts of piracy in the West
Indies and other places; a Spanish peerage was given him together with
£40,000, which was to be used for equipping the privateer
fleet. The money was duly paid in London, and possibly some of it
was used for repairing the British squadron which Hawkins had
pronounced as being composed of the finest ships in the world for
him to hand over to Philip, even though they had been neglected
owing to the Queen’s meanness. The plausible way in which the
great seaman put this proposition caught the imagination of the
negotiators. They were captivated by him. He had caused them to
believe that he was a genuine seceder from heresy and from
allegiance to the Queen of England, and was anxious to avow his
penitence for the great sins he had committed against God and the
only true faith, and to make atonement for them in befitting
humility. All he asked for was forgiveness, and in the fullness
of magnanimity they were possibly moved to ask if, in addition to
forgiveness, a Spanish peerage, and £40,000, he would like
to commemorate the occasion of his conversion by a further token
of His Spanish Majesty’s favour. It is easy to picture the
apparent indifference with which he suggested that he did not ask
for favours, but if he were to ask for anything, it would be the
release from the Inquisition galleys of a few poor sailor
prisoners. The apparently modest request was granted. Hawkins had
risked his life to accomplish this, and now he writes a letter to
Cecil beginning “My very good Lord.” I do not give the whole of
the letter. Suffice it to say
that he confirms the success of the plot so far as he is
concerned, and in a last paragraph he says, “I have sent your
Lordship the copy of my pardon from the King of Spain, in the
order and manner I have it, with my great titles and honours from
the King, from which God deliver me.”

The process by which Hawkins succeeded in obtaining the object
he had in view was the conception of no ordinary man. We talk and
write of his wonderful accomplishments on sea and land, as a
skilful, brave sailor, but he was more than that. He was, in many
respects, a genius, and his courage and resolution were
unfailingly magnificent.

I dare say the prank he played on Philip and his advisers
would be regarded as unworthy cunning, and an outrage on the
rules of high honour. Good Protestant Christians disapproved
then, as now, the wickedness of thus gambling with religion to
attain any object whatsoever, and especially of swearing by the
Mother of God the renunciation of the Protestant faith and the
adoption of Roman Catholicism. The Spaniards, who had a hand in
this nefarious proceeding, were quite convinced that, though
Hawkins had been a pirate and a sea robber and murderer, now that
he had come over to their faith the predisposition to his former
evil habits would leave him. These were the high moral grounds on
which was based the resolve to execute Elizabeth and a large
number of her subjects, and take possession of the throne and
private property at their
will. It was, of course, the spirit of retaliation for the
iniquities of the British rovers which was condoned by their
monarch. In justification of our part of the game during this
period of warfare for religious and material ascendancy, we stand
by the eternal platitude that in that age we were compelled to
act differently from what we should be justified in doing now.
Civilization, for instance, so the argument goes, was at a low
ebb then. I am not so sure that it did not stand higher than it
does now. It is so easy for nations to become uncivilized, and
we, in common with other nations, have a singular aptitude for it
when we think we have a grievance. Be that as it may, Hawkins,
Drake, and the other fine sea rovers had no petty scruples about
relieving Spaniards of their treasure when they came across it on
land or on their ships at sea. Call them by what epithet you
like, they believed in the sanctity of their methods of carrying
on war, and the results for the most part confirmed the accuracy
of their judgment. At any rate, by their bold and resolute deeds
they established British freedom and her supremacy of the seas,
and handed down to us an abiding spirit that has reared the
finest seamen and established our incomparable merchant fleet,
the largest and finest in the world.

There is no shame in wishing the nation to become imbued with
the spirit of these old-time heroes, for the heritage they have
bequeathed to us is divine and lives on. We speak of the great
deeds they were guided to perform, but we rarely stop to think from whence the inspiration
came, until we are touched by a throbbing impulse that brings us
into the presence of the great mystery, at which who would dare
to mock?

It is strange that Hawkins’ and Drake’s brilliant and tragic
careers should have been brought to an end by the same disease
within a short time of each other and not many miles apart, and
that their mother, the sea, should have claimed them at last in
the vicinity of the scene of their first victorious encounter
with their lifelong enemies, the Spaniards. The death of the two
invincibles, who had long struck terror into the hearts of their
foes, was the signal for prolonged rejoicings in the Spanish Main
and the Indies, while the British squadron, battered and
disease-smitten, made its melancholy way homeward with the news
of the tragedy.

For a time the loss of these commanding figures dealt a blow
at the national spirit. There are usually long intervals between
Cæsars and Napoleons. Nations have, in obedience to some
law of Nature, to pass through periods of mediocre rule, and when
men of great genius and dominating qualities come to clear up the
mess, they are only tolerated possibly by fear, and never for
long by appreciation. A capricious public soon tires of these
living heroes. It is after they are dead that they become abiding
examples of human greatness, not so much to their contemporaries
as to those generations that follow them. The historian has a
great deal to do with the manner in which the fame of a great man
is handed down to posterity,
and it should never be forgotten that historians have to depend
on evidence which may be faulty, while their own judgment may not
always be sound. It is a most difficult task to discipline the
mind into a perfectly unbiased condition. The great point is to
state honestly what you believe, and not what you may know those
you are speaking to wish you to say. The contemporaries of
Hawkins and Drake unquestionably regarded them with high
admiration, but I question whether they were deified then as they
are now. The same thing applies to Nelson and Collingwood, of
whom I shall speak later on, as the historian has put the stamp
upon their great deeds also.

Drake and Hawkins attracted attention because of their daring
voyages and piratical enterprises on Spanish property on sea and
land. Every obstacle was brushed aside. Danger ever appealed to
them. They dashed into fortified ports filled with warships fully
equipped, silenced the forts, sank and set fire to Philip’s
vessels, and made everything and everybody fly before them in the
belief that hell had been let loose. To the superstitious Spanish
mind it seemed as though the English must be under Satanic
protection when they slashed their way undaunted into the midst
of dangers which would inevitably spell death for the mere
mortal. These corsairs of ours obviously knew and took advantage
of this superstition, for cannon were never resorted to without
good reason, and never without effect. The deliberate defiance of
any written or unwritten law
that forbade their laying hands on the treasure they sought so
diligently, and went far and near to find, merely increased
public admiration. Elizabeth pretended that they were very trying
to her Christian virtues. But leave out of count the foregoing
deeds—which no one can dispute were prodigious, and quite
equal to the part these men played in the destruction of the
Armada—what could be more dashingly brilliant in naval
warfare than Drake’s raids on San Domingo, Carthagena, Cadiz, and
other ports and cities of old and new Spain, to which I have
already briefly alluded? It was their great successes in their
great undertakings, no matter whether it was “shocking piracy” or
not, that immortalized these terrible creators of England’s
greatness all the world over!

Thomas Cobham, a member of a lordly and Protestant family,
became a sailor, and soon became fascinated with the gay life of
privateering. Once when in command of a vessel, eagerly scouring
the seas for Spanish prizes, one was sighted, bound from Antwerp
to Cadiz. Cobham gave chase, easily captured her in the Bay of
Biscay, and discovered there were forty Inquisition prisoners
aboard. After rescuing the prisoners, the captain and crew of the
Spanish vessel were then sewn up in their own mainsail and tossed
into the sea, no doubt with such sententious expressions of
godliness as was thought befitting to sacred occasions of that
period. This ceremony having been performed, the vessel was
scuttled, so that she might nevermore be used in trading with
British sailors or any one
else for Inquisition purposes. When the story became known, the
case was discreetly inquired into, and very properly the gallant
Cobham was never punished, and was soon running here and there at
his old game.

It may be taken for granted that there was no mincing matters
when an opportunity for reprisals occurred. The Spaniards had
carried barbarism to such a pitch in seizing our ships and
condemning their crews to the galleys, that Queen Elizabeth was
never averse to meeting murder and plunder by more than the
equivalent in retaliation, except when she imagined that Philip
was showing signs of overpowering strength; she then became timid
and vacillating. She was never mentally disturbed by the moral
side of the great deeds that brought her vast stores of plunder.
Moreover, she could always find an accommodating bishop to put
her qualms (if she ever had any, except those of consequence to
herself) at rest on points of conscience. One noted personage,
who held high ecclesiastical office, told her that it was a
virtue to seize treasure when she knew it would otherwise be used
for the purpose of murdering her Protestant subjects. Sir Arthur
Champernowne, a noted vice-admiral of Elizabeth’s reign, in
writing to Cecil of the vessel that had put into Plymouth through
stress of weather with the needy Philip’s half-million of ducats
on board, borrowed, it is said, from a Genoa firm of financiers,
said it should be claimed as fair booty. Sir Arthur’s view was
that anything taken from so perfidious a nation was both necessary and profitable to the
Commonwealth. No doubt a great deal of pious discussion would
centre round the Vice-Admiral’s easy moral but very logical
opinions. The main thing in his mind, and in that of everybody
else who was free from poisoned cant, was that the most shocking
crimes were being openly advocated by Philip, King of Spain,
against all European Protestants, rich or poor, who came within
the clutches of the savages that administered the cruelties of
the Inquisition. The canting crowd shrieked against the monstrous
impiety of such notions, but their efforts to prove purity of
motive were unavailing.

After considered thought by a committee of men of high
rectitude, it was decided to act without fear or favour in a
strictly impartial manner, so Philip’s half-million of bullion
was divided between the Prince of Orange and the rigid moralist,
Elizabeth, who is credited with having spent her share on the
Navy, a very admirable way of disposing of it.

This act was the cause of a deluge of reprisals on the part of
Spain. But, from all accounts, Elizabeth’s corsairs had always
the best of it in matters of material importance. The Spanish are
naturally a proud, brave race. In the middle of the sixteenth
century their power dominated two-thirds of the universe, and had
they stuck to business, and not so feverishly to the spreading of
their religious faith by violent means, they might have continued
a predominant nation.

Their civil, naval, and military position was unequalled. The commerce and wealth of
the whole world was pre-eminently in their hands, and in common
with other nations who arrive at heights of power, prosperity,
and grandeur (which last sits so easily on the Spaniard), they
gave way to pleasures and to the luxury of laziness which
invariably carries with it sensuality. Wherever they found
themselves in the ascendancy, they intrigued to impose the Roman
faith on the population, and if that method did not succeed with
felicity, whenever the agents of their governing classes,
including their king, met with opposition from prominent men or
women, their opponents were put to the rack, burnt, or their
heads sent flying. In this country no leading Protestant’s life
or property was safe. Even Elizabeth, during the reign of her
half-sister, Mary, was obliged to make believe that her religious
faith was Roman in harmony with that of the Queen. It was either
adoption, deception, or execution, and the future queen outwitted
all their traps and inventions until Mary passed on, and
Elizabeth took her place on the throne.

Meanwhile, Spain, as I have indicated, was tampering with
abiding laws. Catastrophe always follows perilous habits of life,
which were correctly attributed to the Spanish. As with
individuals, so it is with nations; pride can never successfully
run in conjunction with the decadence of wealth. It is manifestly
true that it is easier for a nation to go up than to realize that
it has come down, and during long years Spain has had to learn
this bitter lesson. It was not only imperious pride of race and extravagant
grandeur that brought the destruction of her supremacy of the
seas, and the wealth and supremacy of many lands, but their
intolerable religious despotism towards those who were not
already, and refused to become, as I have said, adherents of the
Roman Catholic creed. Poor wretches who were not strong enough to
defend themselves had the mark of heretics put on them; and for
nearly thirty years Spaniards carried on a system of burning
British seamen whenever they could lay hands on them. They kept
up a constant system of spying and plotting against the British
Protestant Queen and her subjects of every position in life. The
policy of the Spanish King and government was to make the British
and other races vassals of the Pope. Philip, like all powerful
monarchs and individuals who are put into power without any of
the qualities of fitness to fill a high post, always believed
that his presence on earth was an act of supreme Providence.
Philip, in proclaiming his glorious advent for the good of
mankind, explained it with a decorum that had a fascinating
flavour. Unlike some imitators of great personalities, he was
never vulgarly boastful in giving expression to the belief that
his power came from above and would be sustained by the mystery
that gave him it in such abundance, but, in fact, he never
doubted what was known as the doctrine of the divine right of
kings.

The human support which kept him in authority did not enter
into his calculations. The popular notions of the democracies then was that no
physical force could sever the alliance which existed between God
and monarchs; and there is no evidence that Philip was ever
disillusioned. He regarded his adversaries, especially Hawkins
and Drake, in the light of magicians possessed of devilish
spirits that were in conflict with the wishes of the Deity. His
highly placed and best naval officer, Santa Cruz, took a more
realistic view than his master, though he might have had doubts
as to whether the people who were at war with Spain were not a
species of devil. But he expressed the view which even at this
distance of time shows him to have been a man of sane, practical
thought. Philip imagined he could agree with the acts of
assassins (and also support the Holy Office) in their policy of
burning English sailors as heretics. Santa Cruz reflected more
deeply, and advised the King that such acts were positively
courting disaster, because “the British corsairs had teeth, and
could use them.”

Spain looked upon her naval position as impregnable, but
Elizabeth’s pirates contemptuously termed it “a Colossus stuffed
with clouts.” Priests, crucifixes, and reliance on supernatural
assistance had no meaning for them. If any suggestion to impose
on them by such means had been made, they would have cast the
culprits over the side into the sea. They were peculiarly
religious, but would tolerate no saintly humbugs who lived on
superstition. When they had serious work in hand, they relied on
their own mental and physical
powers, and if they failed in their objective, they reverently
remarked, “The reason is best known to God”—a simple,
unadorned final phrase.

Some of the sayings and doings, reliable or unreliable, that
have been handed down to us, are extremely comical, looking at
them from our religious standpoint in these days; for instance,
Drake’s method of dealing with insubordination, his idea of how
treason was to be stamped out, and the trial of Doughty, the
traitor.

People who sit in cosy houses, which these early sailors made
it possible for them in other days and now to acquire, may regard
many of the disciplinary methods of Drake and his sea
contemporaries as sheer savage murder, but these critics are not
quite qualified to judge as to the justice or injustice of the
actions of one man who is responsible for the safe and proper
navigation of a vessel, no matter whether on an enterprising
voyage of piracy, fair trade, or invasion. If a nautical project
is to be carried out with complete success, the first element in
the venture is discipline, and the early seafarers believed this,
as their successors have always done, especially during the
different periods of the sailing-ship era. A commander, if he
wishes to be successful in keeping the spirit of rebellion under,
must imbue those under him with a kind of awe. This only succeeds
if the commander has a magnetic and powerful will, combined with
quick action and sound, unhesitating judgment. All the greatest
naval and military chiefs have had and must have now these essential gifts of nature if
they are to be successful in their art. The man of dashing
expediency without judgment or knowledge is a great peril in any
responsible position. When either a ship or nation or anything
else is in trouble, it is the cool, calculating, orderly
administrator, who never makes chaos or destructive fuss, that
succeeds. That is essential, and it is only this type of person
that so often saves both ships, armies, and nations from
inevitable destruction. The Duke of Wellington used to say that
“In every case, the winning of a battle was always a damned near
thing.” One of the most important characteristics of Drake’s and
Hawkins’ genius was their fearless accurate methods of putting
the fear of God into the Spaniards, both at sea and ashore. The
mention of their names made Philip’s flesh creep. Even Admiral
Santa Cruz, in common with his compatriots, thought Drake was
“The Serpent”—”The Devil.” And the Spanish opinion of him
helped Drake to win many a tough battle. Amongst the thrilling
examples are his dashes into Corunna and Cadiz. Drake never took
the risk before calculating the cost and making certain of where
the vulnerable weak spot of the enemy lay, and when and where to
strike it. The complete vanquishing of the Armada is another
instance of Drake’s great qualities of slashing yet sound
judgment put accurately into effect.

Of course, the honours of the defeat of the Armada must always
be shared with other naval experts who had acquired their
knowledge of sea warfare in
what is called the piratical line. But the spirit that inflamed
the whole British fleet was that of Drake, Hawkins, Frobisher,
Seymour, and Howard, and the inspiration came mainly from the two
former. On the Spanish side, as a naval battle, it was a fiasco,
a mere colossal clerical burlesque. Neither naval strategy nor
ordinary seamanship was in evidence on the part of the chief
commander or his admirals. The men fought with rough-and-tumble
heroism. The sailors were only second in quality to our own, but
there was no plan of battle, and the poor Duke of Medina Sidonia
had neither knowledge of naval affairs nor courage. Philip’s
theory seems to have been that any lack of efficiency in the art
of war by his commanders would be made up by the spiritual
encouragement of the priests dangling their crucifixes about the
decks amongst the sailors and soldiers, who had been put through
a course of instruction on spiritual efficacy before sailing on
their doomed expedition. They were made to believe that the
Spanish cause was so just that assistance would be given from God
to defeat the “infernal devils” and to invade their country.

This great battle transferred the sea supremacy from the
Spanish to the British, who have held it, with one interval, ever
since, and will continue to hold it, provided that Philip’s
theories of relying merely on the help that comes from above be
supplemented by, first, the appointment of a proper head at the
Admiralty with some nautical instinct and knowledge of affairs;
and secondly, the keeping up
of an efficient fleet, manned with efficient officers and men.
Heaven helps those who help themselves. No department of
government can be properly managed by novices. The reckless,
experimental appointment of untried men to positions of grave
responsibility on which the happiness, comfort, and life of the
whole public may depend, and the very existence of the country be
put in jeopardy, is a gamble, and may be a crime.

It is always risky to assume that any person holding authority
in the bigger affairs of life is in consequence an instrument of
Providence. Had the conception of the Armada and the organization
of every detail been put into the hands of experienced and
trained experts with sound judgment in naval matters, such as
Admiral Santa Cruz, and had it not been for Philip and his
landsman ideas of the efficacy of priests and crucifixes, and
greenhorns such as the Duke of Medina Sidonia and his landlubber
colleagues, Spain might never have been involved in the Armada
fight, and if she had, it is scarcely likely that so appalling a
disaster could have come to her. Apart from any fighting, the
fact of having no better sea knowledge or judgment than to anchor
the Spanish ships in an open roadstead like Calais was courting
the loss of the whole Spanish fleet. One of the fundamental
precautions of seamanship is never to anchor on a lee shore or in
an open roadstead, without a means of escape. The dunderheaded
Spanish commanders made their extermination much more easy for
the highly trained British seamen of all grades, none of whom had any reason to hide their
heads in shame for any part they individually took in the
complete ruin of the Spanish Navy.

One cannot read the sordid story without feeling a pang of
pity for the proud men, such as Recaldo, who died on landing at
Bilbao; or Oquendo, whose home was at Santander. He refused to
see his wife and children, turned his face to the wall, and died
of a broken heart begotten of shame. The soldiers and sailors
were so weak they could not help themselves, and died in hundreds
on the ships that crawled back to Spain. The tragic fate of these
vessels and their crews that were dashed to pieces on the rocks
of the Hebrides and Ireland added greatly to the tale of horror.
Philip was crushed, but was a man of tender sympathies, and free
from vindictive resentment against those who were placed in
charge of his terrific and ill-fated navy. He worked and exhorted
others to relieve the sufferers in every possible way. He
obviously regarded the disaster as a divine rebuke, and
submissively acquiesced with true Spanish indolence, saying that
he believed it to be the “great purpose of Heaven.”

On the authority of the Duke of Parma, “The English regarded
their victory with modesty, and were languidly indifferent to
their valour.” They looked upon the defeat of the Spanish Navy as
a token of the Ruler of all things being decidedly partial to the
Protestant faith. The Spaniards, as a whole, would not allow that
Heaven was against them or that the verdict was that of
Providence. They declared that it was entirely the result of the superior management of
the English ships and the fighting quality of their crews. With
this chivalrous testimonial no one could then or will now
disagree. It was very sporting of them to admit the superiority
of the British ships and seamanship.

Drake and his compeers had reason to be proud of their efforts
in the great naval contest. Their reputations were enhanced by it
all over the world, though never a sign or word came from
themselves about their gallantry. They looked upon these matters
as mere incidents of their enterprising lives.

II

But it is really in the lesser sea encounters, though they
probably had just as great results, that we become enthralled by
Drake’s adventurous voyages. The Armada affair was more like the
battle of Trafalgar, one of the differences being that in the
latter engagement the Spanish ships did not risk going far into
the open sea, but wisely kept Cadiz open for retreat, which they
availed themselves of after receiving a dreadful pounding.
Drake’s voyage in the Pelican excelled anything that had
ever been accomplished by previous sea rovers, and his expedition
to the West Indies was a great feat. He always had trouble with
Queen Elizabeth about money when organizing his voyages. Her
Spanish brother-in-law’s power was always in her thoughts. He
never allowed her to forget that if he were provoked he would invade England,
and notwithstanding her retort that England had a long arm which
he would do well to fear, her courage alternated with some
nervousness at times. Elizabeth was not so much concerned about
his threat of excommunication of her as the sly tricks in
conjunction with the Pope in spreading the spirit of rebellion in
Ireland, and in other ways conspiring against her. Her mood was
at one time to defy him, and at another conciliatory and fearful
lest her pirate chiefs should do anything to provoke Spanish
susceptibilities. Drake was much hampered by her moods when he
wanted to get quickly to business, and never lost an opportunity
of slipping out of her reach when his eloquence on the
acquisition of untold wealth and the capture of some of Philip’s
distant colonies had appealed to her boundless avarice and made
her conscience easy. His expedition to the West Indies might
never have been undertaken had he not been a dare-devil fellow,
to whom Burleigh’s wink was as good as a nod to be off. He
slipped out of port unknown to her, and his first prize was a
large Spanish ship loaded with salt fish. He pounced upon her
after passing Ushant, and the excellent cargo was suitably
distributed amongst the fleet.

There were 25 privateers, and a company of 2,500 men on this
expedition. All were volunteers, and represented every grade of
society, high and low. There was never any difficulty in getting
a supply of men. On this occasion the applications largely
outnumbered the posts available. Drake could always depend upon volunteers, and,
like all men of superb action, he had no liking for conscription.
He knew that in the performance and carrying out of great deeds
(and nearly all of his were terrific) it is men aflame with
courage and enthusiasm that carry the day, and take them as a
whole, conscripts are never wholehearted. The two great
characteristics of the British race—initiative and
endurance—are due to this burning flame of voluntarism.

The West India expedition was organized and all expenses
guaranteed by private individuals. The capital was £60,000,
and its allocation was £40,000 for expenses and
£20,000 to be distributed amongst those who had volunteered
to serve. Both men and officers had signed on without any
stipulation for wages. They knew they were out for a piratical
cruise, and welcomed any danger, great or small, that would give
them a chance of making it not only a monetary success, but one
that would give Spanish autocracy another shattering blow. These
ancient mariners never trifled with life, and no sombre views or
fatal shadows disturbed their spirited ambition or caused them to
shrink from their strenuous and stupendous work. They went forth
in their cockleshell fleet as full of hope and confidence as
those who are accustomed to sail and man a transatlantic liner of
the present day. Some of their vessels were but little larger
than a present-day battleship’s tender. Neither roaring forties
nor Cape Horn hurricanes intimidated them. It is only when we
stop to think, that we realize how great these adventurers were, and how much we
owe to their sacred memories.

In addition to being ridiculously small and shabby in point of
efficiency in rigging, sails, and general outfit, it will always
be a mystery how it was that so few were lost by stress of
weather or even ordinary navigable risks. They were veritable
boxes in design, and their rig alone made it impossible for them
to make rapid passages, even if they had wished to do so. As I
write these lines, and think of my own Western Ocean experiences
in well-designed, perfectly equipped, large and small sailing
vessels during the winter hurricane months, when the passages
were made literally under water and every liquid mountain seemed
to forebode immediate destruction, it taxes my nautical knowledge
to understand how these inferior and smaller craft which Drake
commanded did not succumb to the same elements that have carried
superior vessels in later years to their doom. One reason that
occurs to me is that they were never deeply laden, and they were
accustomed to ride hurricanes out when they had plenty of sea
room at their sea anchors.

But nothing can detract from what our generation may describe
as their eccentric genius in combining navigation with piracy and
naval and military art. Talk about “human vision”! What is the
good of it if it turns out nothing but unrestrained confusion?
The men of the period I am writing about had real “vision,” and
applied it with accuracy without disorganizing the machinery of
life and making the world a miserable place to live in. They were all for
country and none for self.

After the capture of the Spanish ship and the appropriation of
her cargo of fish, Drake’s fleet went lounging along towards
Vigo. In due course he brought his ships to anchor in the
harbour, and lost no time in coming in contact with Don Pedro
Bendero, the Spanish governor, who was annoyed at the British
Admiral’s unceremonious appearance. Don Pedro said that he was
not aware that his country was at war with Britain. Drake quickly
disillusioned him, and demanded, “If we are not at war, why have
English merchants been arrested?” Don Pedro said an order had
come for their release. Drake landed forthwith a portion of his
force, and seeing that he meant business that foreboded trouble,
the governor sent him wine, fruit, and other luxurious articles
of food in abundance. The ships were anchored in a somewhat open
roadstead, so Drake resolved to take them farther up the waterway
where they would lie comfortably, no matter from what direction
the threatening storm might break. But he had another shrewd
object in view, which was to make a beginning in acquiring any of
the valuable and treasured possessions adorning the churches. A
trusted officer who was in his confidence, and a great admirer of
his wisdom and other personal qualities, was sent to survey the
passage and to find a suitable anchorage. He was a man of
enterprise, with a strong dislike to the Roman Catholic faith,
and never doubted that he was perfectly justified in relieving
the churches of plate and
other valuables. These were, in his eyes, articles of idolatry
that no man of puritanic and Protestant principles could refrain
from removing and placing under the safe keeping of his revered
chief, who was no more averse to robbing a church than he was to
robbing a ship carrying gold or fish.

As the vessel in charge of this intrepid officer, whose name
was Carlile, approached the town where it was proposed to anchor
the fleet the inhabitants fled, taking with them much of the
church plate and other things which the British had covetously
thought an appropriate prize of theirs. Carlile, being a man of
resource, soon laid hold of other church treasure, which amply
compensated for the loss of that which was carried off by the
fleeing inhabitants at the mouth of the harbour. The day
following Christopher Carlile’s satisfactory survey the fleet was
anchored off the town. The sight of it threw the whole district
into panic. A pompous governor of Galicia hastened to Vigo, and
on his arrival there he took fright at the number of ships and
the dreaded name of the pirate chief who was in command. It would
be futile to show fight, so he determined to accommodate himself
to the Admiral’s terms, which were that he should have a free
hand to replenish the fleet with water and provisions, or any
other odds and ends, without interference. This being
accomplished, he agreed to sail, and no doubt the governor
thought he had made a judicious bargain in getting rid of him so
easily. But Drake all the time had the Spanish gold fleet in his mind. Sacrifices must be
made in order that it may be captured, so off he went for the
Cape de Verde islands, and found when he got there that the
treasure-ships had arrived and sailed only a few hours before.
The disappointment was, according to custom, taken with Christian
composure. He had the aptitude of switching his mind from one
form of warfare to another. As I have said, he would just as soon
attack and plunder a city as a church or a ship. Drake had missed
the gold fleet, so he turned his attention to the treasures of
Santiago. When the governor and population were made aware that
the distinguished visitor to their island was the terrible “El
Draque,” they and their spiritual advisers as usual flew to the
mountains, without neglecting to take their money and priceless
possessions with them. Drake looted as much as was left in the
city of wine and other valuables, but he got neither gold nor
silver, and would probably have left Santiago unharmed but for
the horrible murder of one of his sailor-boys, whose body was
found hacked to pieces. This settled the doom of the finest built
city in the Old World. “El Draque” at once set fire to it and
burnt it to ashes, with that thoroughness which characterized all
such dealings in an age when barbaric acts justified more than
equivalent reprisals.

It would have been a wiser course for the governor to have
treated for the ransom of the town than to have murdered a poor
sailor lad who was innocently having a stroll. It is balderdash to talk of the Spaniards as
being too proud to treat with a person whom they believed to be
nothing better than a pirate. The Spaniards, like other
nationalities, were never too proud to do anything that would
strengthen or maintain their supremacy. Their apparent pride in
not treating with Drake at Santiago and on other rare occasions
was really the acme of terror at hearing his name; there was
neither high honour nor grandee dignity connected with it. As to
Philip’s kingly pride, it consisted in offering a special reward
of £40,000 to have Elizabeth’s great sailor assassinated or
kidnapped. There were many to whom the thought of the bribe was
fascinating. Numerous attempts were made, but whenever the
assassins came within sound of his name or sight of him or his
ships they became possessed of involuntary twitchy sensations,
and fled in a delirium of fear, which was attributed to his being
a magician.

As soon as Drake had avenged the sailor-boy’s murder he sailed
for the West Indies. When he got into the hot latitudes the
plague of yellow fever appeared, and nearly three hundred of his
men died in a few days. Arriving at Dominica, they found the
Caribs had a deadly hatred of the Spanish, and when they learned
that the British were at war with Spain they offered to prescribe
a certain cure for yellow jack which was eminently effectual.
After disinfecting the ships, and getting supplied with their
requirements, the fleet left for San Domingo, via St. Kitts,
which was uninhabited at that time. Domingo was one of the
most beautiful and most
wealthy islands in the world. Columbus and his brother, Diego,
are buried in the cathedral there. The population believed
themselves to be immune from harm or invasion on this distant
island home, but Drake soon disillusioned them. His devoted
lieutenant, Christopher Carlile, was selected as usual to find a
suitable channel and landing, a hazardous and almost unattainable
quest, but in his and Drake’s skilful hands their object was
accomplished. The ships were brought into port, and in his usual
direct way Drake demanded that the garrison of the castle should
surrender without parley, and it was done. Drake was not finished
with them yet; he wished to know from the governor what terms he
was prepared to offer in order that the city should be saved from
pillage. A negro boy was sent with this dispatch, and raging with
the disgrace of surrendering to the British Admiral, an officer
ran a lance through the boy’s body. The poor boy was just able to
get back, and died immediately, close to where Drake was. The
Spaniards had allowed their vicious pride to incite them to
commit murder and to insult the British Admiral, who promptly
avenged both deeds by having two friars taken to the place where
the boy had been stabbed, and there hanged. “El Draque” sent a
further note to the governor informing him that unless the
officer who murdered his messenger was executed at once by the
Spanish authorities he would hang two friars for every day that
it was put off. Needless to say, no more friars were hung, as the
officer paid the penalty of
his crime without further delay. The lacerated dignity of the
Spaniards was still further tried by the demand for the ransom of
the city, and their procrastination cost them dear.

Drake’s theology was at variance with that of the Founder of
our faith. His method was rigid self-assertion, and the power of
the strong. The affront he conceived to have been laid upon him
and upon the country he represented could only be wiped out by
martial law. Theoretic babbling about equality had no place in
his ethics of the universe. He proceeded to raid and burn both
private dwellings, palaces, and magazines; and the Government
House, which was reputed to be the finest building in the world,
was operated upon for a month, until it was reduced to dust.
These are some of the penalties that would have gladdened the
heart of the gallant Beresford and his Albert Hall comrades of
our time had they been carried out against the Germans, who have
excelled the Spaniards of Philip’s reign in cultured murder and
other brutalities in a war that has cost William II his throne
and brought the period of civilization perilously near its end.
It may be that the instability of petty statesmanship is to
disappear, and that Providence may have in unseen reserve a group
of men with mental and physical powers capable of subduing human
virulence and re-creating out of the chaos the Germans have made
a new and enduring civilization; and when they shall appear their
advent will be applauded by the stricken world.

Incidentally, it may be
added that the German nation, which has endangered the existence
of civilization, would never have been despised or thought ill of
on account of its defeat by the Allies. It is their unjustifiable
method of beginning the war, and the dirty brutal tricks by which
they sought to win it, which have created enduring mistrust and
animosity against them. The law of human fairness is no more
exacting to small communities or individuals than it is to
nations.

Drake continued his relentless reprisals against San Domingo.
The burning of British sailors as heretics possessed his mind.
The distracted governor would have given his soul to get rid of
him, but Drake demanded money, and this the governor pleaded was
not available, but he was ultimately forced to provide 25,000
ducats, equalling £50,000. This was accepted after the town
had been shattered to pieces and the shipping destroyed. The
cathedral was the only important building left intact, the
probable reason being that the remains of the great navigator,
Columbus, were entombed there. Already the mortality amongst
Drake’s crew had been alarmingly heavy, and he was too wise a man
to gamble with their lives until the bad season came on, so he
settled up and hurried away into the fresh sea breezes,
determined to give many more Spanish possessions a thorough
shaking up. The news that the freebooters were near at hand, and
that they were committing shocking deeds of theft and destruction
on the way, had filtered to
the Carribean Sea, and struck the somnolent population with
terror. Carthagena, a magnificent city and the capital of the
Spanish Main, was Drake’s next objective. He had large hopes of
doing well there. The health of most of his crew had improved and
was now robust, and their fighting spirits had been kindled to a
high pitch by their gallant chief, whose eye of genius was
centred on a big haul of material things. On arrival off the
port, Carlile, whose resource and courage were always in demand,
was put in charge of a strong force. He led the attack, mounted
the parapets, drove the Spanish garrison away in confusion,
killed the commander, and subsequently destroyed a large number
of ships which were lazily lying in the port. Many English
prisoners were released, which was a godsend in filling the
places of those who had died.

The combative pretensions of the governor had received a
severe shock. He was beaten, and Drake, like a true sportsman,
asked him and his suite to dine with him, and with an air of
Spanish dignity he accepted. The occasion was memorable for the
royal way the distinguished guests were treated. The governor was
studiously cordial, and obviously wished to win the favour of his
remorseless visitors, so asked Drake and his officers to do him
the honour of accepting his hospitality in return, which they
did. What form the interchange of civilities took is not quite
clear, but the governor’s apparent amiableness did not in any way
move Drake to exercise generosity. His object was ransom, and if
this was agreed to
good-naturedly, all the better for the Spaniards, but he was
neither to be bought nor sold by wily tactics, nor won over by
golden-tongued rhetoric. The price of the rugged Devonshire
sailor’s alternative of wild wrath and ruin was the modest sum of
100,000 ducats in hard cash. Mutual convivialities and flowing
courtesies were at an end; these were one thing and reparation
for the incarceration and burning of unoffending British sailors
as heretics was another.

“Deeds of blood and torture can never be atoned for in money
or destruction of property. I am Drake, ‘El Draque’ if you like,
and if you don’t comply with my terms, you shall be
destroyed.”

It was his habit openly to express himself in this way to
Philip’s subjects, whether hostile or not, and we can imagine
that similar views were uttered in the Carthagena negotiations.
The Spaniards regarded his terms as monstrous impiety; they were
aghast, pleaded poverty, and protested and swore by the Holy
Office that the total amount they could find in the whole city
was only 30,000 ducats. Drake, with commendable prudence, seeing
that he wished to get away from the fever zone without delay,
appears to have accepted this amount, though authorities are at
variance on this point. Some say that he held out for his first
claim and got it. I have not been able to verify which is the
correct amount, but in all probability he got the 100,000 ducats.
In any case, he piously charged them with deception in their plea
of poverty, but came to terms,
declaring, no doubt, that his own magnanimity astonished him.

But for the sudden outbreak of sickness amongst his crew, the
Carthagenians would not have fared nearly so well. The city might
have been, not only pillaged, but laid in ruins. As it was, he
had emptied a monastery and blown the harbour forts to
pieces.

Drake’s intention was to visit Panama, but the fever had laid
heavy hands on his men. Only a third of those who commenced the
voyage with him were well enough to do work at all,
notwithstanding the replenishment by released prisoners, so he
was forced to abandon further enterprises and shape his course
homewards as quickly as skilful navigation and the vagaries of
wind and weather would allow. Great deeds, even on this trip,
stood to the credit of himself and crew. The accomplishments were
far below what was expected at the outset in point of money
value, but the priceless feature of the voyage was the enhanced
respect for Drake’s name which had taken possession of the
Spanish race in every part of the world and subsequently made the
defeat of the Armada an easier task.

This eager soul, who was really the pioneer of a new
civilization, had still to face hard fate after the reluctant
abandonment of his intention to visit Panama. The sufferings of
the adventurers from bad weather and shortness of water was
severely felt on the passage to Florida. But the rough leader
never lost heart or spared himself in any way. He was obliged to
heave-to at Cape Antonio
(Cuba), and here with indomitable courage went to work, putting
heart into his men by digging with pick and shovel in a way that
would have put a navvy to the blush, and when their efforts were
rewarded he took his ships through the Bahama Channel, and as he
passed a fort which the Spaniards had constructed and used as a
base for a force which had murdered many French Protestant
colonists in the vicinity, Drake landed, found out the murderous
purpose of the fort, and blew it to pieces. But that was not all.
He also had the satisfaction of saving the remainder of an
unsuccessful English settlement founded by Sir Walter Raleigh,
and of taking possession of everything that he could lay hands on
from the Spanish settlement of St. Augustine. This was the last
episode of plunder connected with an expedition that was ripe
with thrilling incidents, and added to the fame of the most
enterprising figure of the Elizabethan reign.

In point of profit to those who had financed the voyage it was
not a success; but its political and ultimate commercial
advantages were enormous. These early seamen of the seventeenth
century, many of them amateurs, laid the foundation of the
greatest navy and mercantile marine of the world. It is to these
fascinating adventurers, too, that the generations which followed
are indebted for the initiative in human comforts and progress.
The superficial self-righteous critic may find it an agreeable
pursuit to search out their blemishes; but these men cannot be
airily dismissed in that manner. They towered above their fellows, the supreme product of
the spirit of their day in adventure and daring; they fulfilled
their great destiny, and left their indelible mark upon the life
of their nation and of the world. Their great emancipating
heroism and reckless self-abnegation more than counterbalanced
the faults with which the modern mind, judging their day by ours,
is too prone to credit them, and whatever their deeds of perfidy
may have been, they were imbued more with the idea of patriotism
than with that of avarice. They were remarkable men, nor did they
come into the life of the nation by chance, but for a purpose,
and their memories are enshrined in human history.

Drake sailed for home as soon as he had embarked what was left
of Raleigh’s colonists at Roanoke River, Virginia, and after a
protracted and monotonous passage, arrived at Plymouth on the
28th July, 1586. The population received the news with
acclamation. Drake wrote to Lord Burleigh, bemoaning his fate in
having missed the gold fleet by a few hours, and again placing
his services at the disposal of his Queen and country.

The most momentous of all his commissions, especially to his
own country, was in 1587, when he destroyed a hundred ships in
Cadiz Harbour. It was a fine piece of work, this “singeing of the
King of Spain’s beard” as he called it, and by far excelled
anything he had previously done. He captured the San
Philip, the King of Spain’s ship, which was the largest
afloat. Her cargo was valued at over one million sterling, in
addition to which papers were found on board revealing the wealth of the East India trade.
The knowledge of this soon found a company of capitalists, who
formed the East India Company, out of which our great Indian
Empire was established. When the San Philip was towed into
Dartmouth Harbour, and when it became known generally, the whole
country was ablaze with excitement, and people travelled from far
and near to see the leviathan.

Drake bore himself on this occasion with that sober modesty
that characterized him always under any circumstances. His
reputation stood higher now than ever, and it was no detriment to
him that Philip should shudder, and when he became virtuously
agitated speak of him as “that fearful man Drake.” Everywhere he
was a formidable reality, strong, forbidding and terrible; his
penetrating spirit saw through the plans of the enemies of his
country and his vigorous counter-measures were invariably
successful. The exalted part he took in the defeat of the Armada
has been briefly referred to in another part of this book. He was
then at the height of his imposing magnificence and fame, but
owing to the caprice of his royal mistress, who had an insatiable
habit of venting her Tudor temper indiscriminately, he fell under
her displeasure, and for a time was in disgrace; but she soon
discovered that his services, whatever his lack of success on
apparently rash enterprises may have been, were indispensable at
so critical a moment. He was recalled, and soon after sent on his
melancholy last voyage. He had worn himself out in the service of his country. Born at
Tavistock in 1539, his eager spirit passed into the shadows off
Puerto Bello on the 28th January, 1596, and, as previously
stated, he was buried three miles out at sea, and two of his
prizes were sunk and laid beside him.

The following beautiful lines of Sir Henry Newbolt not only
describe his patriotic and heroic end, but breathe the very
spirit of the man who was one of the most striking figures of the
Elizabethan age:—

DRAKE’S DRUM.

Nelson

NELSON AND
HIS CIRCLE

I

The tradition created by Drake and Hawkins was carried on by
Nelson and Collingwood in a different age and under different
conditions, and the same heroic spirit animated them all. Nelson
must certainly have been familiar with the enthralling tales of
these men and of their gallant colleagues, but without all the
essential qualities born in him he could not have been the victor
of Trafalgar. Men have to do something distinctive, that sets the
human brain on fire, before they are really recognized as being
great; then all others are put in the shade, no matter how
necessary their great gifts may be to fill up the gaps in the man
of initiative and of action. Drake could not have done what he
did had he not had the aid of Frobisher, and Jervis would not
have become Earl St. Vincent had he not been supported by Nelson
at the battle of that name; and we should never have seen the
imposing monument erected in Trafalgar Square had Nelson been
without his Collingwood. Victorious and valiant performances do
not come by chance, and so it comes to pass in the natural
course of human law that if
our Jervises, Nelsons, and Collingwoods, who are the prototypes
of our present-day heroes, had not lived, we should not have had
our Fishers, Jellicoes, and Beattys.

Nelson was always an attractive personality and by no means
the type of man to allow himself to be forgotten. He believed he
was a personage with a mission on earth, and never an opportunity
was given him that did not confirm this belief in himself.

Horatio Nelson was the son of the Rev. Edmund Nelson, and was
born at Burnham Thorpe on the 29th September, 1758. His mother
died in 1767, and left eight children. Her brother, Captain
Maurice Suckling, was appointed to the Raisonable three
years after her death, and agreed, at the request of Horatio
himself and the instigation of his father, after some doubtful
comments as to the boy’s physical suitableness for the rough life
of a sailor, to take him; so on the 1st January, 1771, he became
a midshipman on the Raisonable. On the 22nd May he either
shipped of his own accord or was put as cabin-boy on a merchant
vessel which went to the West Indies, and ended his career in the
merchant service at the end of an eventful voyage. In July 1772
he became midshipman on board the Triumph. This was the
real starting-point of his naval career and of the development of
those great gifts that made him the renowned Admiral of the
world. Twenty-two years after joining his uncle’s ship he was
made captain of the Agamemnon. At the siege of Calvi in
1794 he was wounded in the right eye and lost the sight of it. Three years
afterwards he lost his right arm while commanding an attack on
Santa Cruz, and although he had put so many sensational events
into his life up to that time, it was not until the battle of St.
Vincent that he began to attract attention. He had been promoted
Rear-Admiral before the news of the battle was known, and when
the news reached England the public enthusiasm was irrepressible.
Jervis was made an Earl, with £3,000 a year pension, and
the King requested that he should take his title from the name of
the battle. Nelson refused a baronetcy, and was made, at his own
request, a Knight of the Bath, receiving the thanks of the City
of London and a sword. All those who were in prominent positions
or came to the front in this conflict received something. It was
not by a freak of chance that the authorities began to see in
Nelson the elements of an extraordinary man. Nor was it mere
chance that they so far neglected him that he was obliged to
force himself upon the Admiralty in order to get them to employ
him. The nation was in need of a great spirit, and Providence had
been preparing one for many years before the ruling authorities
discovered that Nelson was their man of the future.

For several months he was tearing about the seas in search of
the French fleet. He popped into Naples on the 17th June, 1798,
ostensibly to know if anything had been heard of it, and no doubt
he took the opportunity of having a word with Sir William and
Lady Hamilton, who were to
come so romantically into his life. He found the French fleet at
anchor in Aboukir Bay and sailed upon it with such amazing
audacity that the heart was knocked out of them at the very
outset. Neither the French Admiral nor anybody else would have
expected the British fleet to run their ships between them and
the shore at the risk of grounding. The Culloden
did ground. The French had 11 out of 13 ships put out of
action, but the British fleet suffered severely also, and the
loss of men was serious.[1] Out of a total of 7,401 men, 218 were killed
and 678 wounded. Nelson himself was badly wounded on the
forehead, and as the skin fell down on his good eye and the blood
streamed into it, he was both dazed and blinded. He shouted to
Captain Berry as he was staggering to a fall, “I am killed;
remember me to my wife.” But there was a lot more work for him to
do before the fatal day. He was carried below, believing the
injury would prove fatal, in spite of the assurances to the
contrary of the surgeon who was in attendance.

Although Nelson’s courage
can never be doubted, there is something very curious in his
constant, eccentric foreboding of death and the way in which he
scattered his messages about to one and another. This habit
increased amazingly after his conflict with the French at the
Nile. He seems to have had intermittent attacks of hypochondria.
The wound incident at Aboukir must have given great amusement as
well as anxiety to those about him. Unquestionably the wound had
the appearance at first of being mortal, but the surgeon soon
gave a reassuring opinion, and after binding up the ugly cut he
requested his patient to remain below. But Nelson, as soon as he
knew he was not going to die, became bored with the inactivity
and insisted on writing a dispatch to the Admiralty. His
secretary was too excited to carry out his wishes, so he tackled
it himself. But his suffering being great and his mind in a
condition of whirling confusion, he did not get far beyond the
beginning, which intimated that “Almighty God had blessed His
Majesty’s arms.” The battle raged on. The Orient was set
on fire and her destruction assured. When Nelson was informed of
the terrible catastrophe to the great French line-of-battle ship,
he demanded to be assisted to the deck, whereupon he gave
instructions that his only boat not destroyed was to be sent with
the Vanguard’s first lieutenant to render assistance to
the crew. He remained on deck until the Orient blew up,
and was then urged to go to bed.

But sleep under the circumstances and in view of his own condition would not come.
All night long he was sending messages directing the plan of
battle the news of which was to enthral the civilized world.
Nelson himself was not satisfied. “Not one of the French vessels
would have escaped,” he said, “if it had pleased God that he had
not been wounded.” This was rather a slur on those who had given
their best blood and really won the battle. Notwithstanding the
apparent egotism of this outburst, there are sound reasons for
believing that the Admiral’s inspiring influence was much
discounted by his not being able to remain on deck. The sight of
his guiding, magnetic figure had an amazing effect on his men,
but I think it must be admitted that Nelson’s head was not in a
condition at that time to be entirely relied upon, and those in
charge of the different ships put the finishing touches to the
victory that was won by the force of his courage and commanding
genius in the initial stages of the struggle.

II

Nelson was a true descendant of a race of men who had never
faltered in the traditional belief that the world should be
governed and dominated by the British. His King, his country, and
particularly the profession to which he belonged, were to him the
supreme authorities whose destiny it was to direct the affairs of
the universe. With unfailing comic seriousness, intermixed with
occasional explosions of
bitter violence, he placed the French low down in the scale of
the human family. There was scarcely a sailor adjective that was
not applied to them. Carlyle, in later years, designated the
voice of France as “a confused babblement from the gutters” and
“scarcely human”; “A country indeed with its head cut off”; but
this quotation does not reach some of the picturesque heights of
nautical language that was invented by Nelson to describe his
view of them. Both he and many of his fellow-countrymen regarded
the chosen chief on whom the French nation had democratically
placed an imperial crown as the embodiment of a wild beast.

The great Admiral was always whole-hearted in his declamation
against the French people and their leaders who are our present
allies fighting against that country which now is, and which
Napoleon predicted to his dying day would become, one of the most
imperious, inhuman foes to civilization. Nelson and his
government at that time thought it a merciful high policy of
brotherhood to protect and re-create Prussia out of the wreck to
which Napoleon had reduced it; the result being that the military
spirit of Prussia has been a growing, determined menace to the
peace of the world and to the cause of human liberty in every
form since the downfall of the man who warned us at the time from
his exiled home on the rock of St. Helena that our policy would
ultimately reflect with a vengeance upon ourselves, and involve
the whole world in a great effort to save itself from
destruction. He foresaw that
Prussia would inveigle and bully the smaller German states into
unification with herself, and, having cunningly accomplished
this, that her perfidy would proceed to consolidate the united
fabric into a formidable power which would crush all others by
its military superiority; this dream of universal control of
human life and affairs was at one time nearly realized.

The German Empire has bankrupted herself in men, necessaries
of life, and money. But that in no degree minimizes the disaster
she has wrought on those who have had to bleed at every pore to
avoid annihilation. The Allies, as well as the Central Powers,
are no longer going concerns. It will take generations to get
back to the point at which we started in 1914. But the tragic
thought of all is the enormous sacrifice of life, and the mental
and physical wrecks that have survived the savage, brutal
struggle brought on a world that was, and wished to remain, at
peace, when in 1914 the Central Powers arrogantly forced the pace
which caused an alliance to be formed quickly by their enemies to
save them from the doom which Napoleon, with his clear vision,
had predicted would come.

It was fitting that Nelson should by every conceivable means
adopt methods of declamation against the French, if by doing so
he thought it would inspire the men whom he commanded with the
same conquering spirit he himself possessed. His country was at
war with the French, and he was merely one of the instruments
appointed to defeat them, and this may account for his ebullitions of hatred from time to
time. I have found, however, no record that would in any way show
that it was intended as surface policy, so it may be concluded
that his dislike was as deep-seated as it appeared. Nelson never
seems to have shown evidences of being a humbug by saying things
which he did not believe. He had a wholesome dislike of the
French people and of Bonaparte, who was their idol at that time.
But neither he nor his government can be credited with the
faculty of being students of human life. He and they believed
that Paris was the centre of all that was corrupt and brutal.
Napoleon, on the other hand, had no real hatred of the British
people, but during his wars with their government his avowed
opinion was that “all the ills, and all the scourges that afflict
mankind, came from London.” Both were wrong in their conclusions.
They simply did not understand each other’s point of view in the
great upheaval that was disturbing the world. The British were
not only jealous and afraid of Napoleon’s genius and amazing rise
to eminence—which they attributed to his inordinate
ambition to establish himself as the dominating factor in the
affairs of the universe—but they determined that his power
should not only not be acknowledged, but destroyed, and their
policy after twenty years of bitter war was completely
accomplished.

The merits or demerits of British policy must always remain a
matter of controversy. It is too big a question to deal with
here. Napoleon said himself that “Everything in the life of man
is subject to calculation; the
good and evil must be equally balanced.” Other true sayings of
his indicate that he, at any rate, was a student of human
life, and knew how fickle fortune is under certain conditions.
“Reprisals,” he declared, “are but a sad resource”; and again, no
doubt dwelling on his own misfortunes, but with vivid truth all
the same, he declares that “The allies gained by victory will
turn against you upon the bare whisper of our defeat.”

Lady Hamilton as “A Sibyl”

III

After his victory on the Nile, Nelson fully expected to be
created a Viscount, and his claim was well supported by Hood, his
old Admiral. He was made Baron Nelson of the Nile, and given a
pension of £2,000 per annum—a poor recompense for the
great service he had rendered to his country. But that was by no
means the measure of the public gratitude. He was acclaimed from
every corner of Great Britain as the national hero. The City of
London presented him with a two hundred guinea sword, and a vote
of thanks to himself, officers and men. There was much prayer and
thanksgiving, and several women went as daft as brushes over him.
One said her heart was absolutely bursting with all sorts of
sensations. “I am half mad,” says she, and any one who reads the
letter will conclude that she understated her mental condition.
But of all the many letters received by Nelson none surpasses in extravagance of adulation
that written by Amy Lyon, the daughter of a village blacksmith,
born at Great Neston in Cheshire, in 1761, who had come to London
in the early part of 1780, fallen into evil ways and given birth
to a little girl. She was then left destitute and sank as low as
it is possible for a woman to do. She rose out of the depths into
which she had fallen by appearing as the Goddess of Health in the
exhibition of a James Graham. Sir Henry Featherstonehaugh took
her under his protection for close on twelve months, but owing to
her extravagance and faithlessness he turned her out when within
a few months of a second child, which was stillborn. The first
was handed over to her grandmother to take care of. Charles
Greville, the second son of the Earl of Warwick, then took her to
live with him. She had intimate relations with him while she was
still Featherstonehaugh’s mistress, and he believed the child
about to be born was his. At this time Amy Lyon changed her name
to Emily Hart. Greville went to work on business lines. He struck
a bargain that all her previous lovers were to be dropped, and
under this compact she lived with him in a respectable manner for
nearly four years. He gave her some education, but she seems to
have had natural genius, and her beauty was undisputed.

Emily Hart sat to Romney,[2] the artist, and it is said that twenty-three
portraits were painted, though
some writers have placed the number at over forty. “Marinda,”
“Sibyl,” and the “Spinstress” were amongst them. The pictures
bring high prices; one, I think called “Sensibility,” brought, in
1890, over £3,000. Notwithstanding her lowly birth (which
has no right to stop any one’s path to greatness) and lack of
chastity, she had something uncommon about her that was
irresistibly attractive. Sir William Hamilton, Greville’s uncle,
returned to England some time in 1784 from Naples, where he was
the British Minister. It was said that he was in quest of a
second wife, the first having died some two years before.
Greville did not take kindly to the idea of Sir William marrying
again, because he was his heir. He thought instead that, being in
financial trouble himself, he would try to plant Emma on his
uncle, not with the object of marriage, but of her becoming his
mistress. Sir William was captivated with the girl, which made it
easy for the shameless nephew to persuade his uncle to take her
off his hands. Emma, however, was in love with Greville, and
there were indications of revolt when the astute lady discovered
that serious negotiations were proceeding for her transference
from nephew to uncle. It took twelve months to arrive at a
settlement.

There does not appear to have been a signed agreement, but
there certainly was a tacit understanding that Sir William was to
assist Greville out of his difficulties, in return for which Emma
was to join him at Naples, ostensibly as a visitor. She writes imploringly to Greville to
answer her letters, but never an answer came, and in utter
despair she tells him at last that she will not become his
uncle’s concubine, and threatens to make Hamilton marry her. This
poor wretched woman was human, after all, and indeed she gave
convincing proofs of many high qualities in after-years, but in
the passion of her love for the dissolute scamp who bartered her
away she pleaded for that touch of human compassion that never
came. She knew that her reprobate lover was fearful lest she
should induce his uncle to marry her, and she may have had an
instinctive feeling that it was part of the contract that she was
to be warded off if any attempt of the kind were made likely to
endanger his prospects of becoming Hamilton’s heir. His
indifference made her venomously malignant, and she sent him a
last stab that would at least give him a troubled mind, even
though it should not cause him to recall her; she would then
pursue her revenge by ignoring him.

It is a sordid story which smears the pages of British
History.

Emma lived with the British Ambassador at Naples as his
mistress. He was popular in this city of questionable morals at
that time. She was beautiful and developed remarkable talents as
a singer, and was a bright, witty, fascinating conversationalist.
She worked hard at her studies, and became a fluent speaker of
the Italian language. Hamilton had great consideration for her,
and never risked having her affronted because of the liaison. Her
singing was a triumph. It is said she was offered £6,000 to go to Madrid
for three years and £2,000 for a season in London. She
invented classic attitudes. Goethe said that “Sir William
Hamilton, after long love and study of art, has at last
discovered the most perfect of the wonders of nature and art in a
beautiful young woman. She lives with him, and is about twenty
years old. She is very handsome, and of a beautiful figure. What
the greatest artists have aimed at is shown in perfection, in
movement, in ravishing variety. Standing, kneeling, sitting,
lying down, grave or sad, playful, exulting, repentant, wanton,
menacing, anxious, all mental states follow rapidly one after
another. With wonderful taste she suits the folding of her veil
to each expression, and with the same handkerchief makes every
kind of head-dress. The Old Knight holds the Light for her, and
enters into the exhibition with his whole soul.” Sir William had
twelve of the “Representations” done by a German artist named
Frederick Rehberg, entitled “Drawings faithfully copied from
Nature at Naples.”

Hamilton married Emma in 1791 in England, and when they
returned to Naples she was presented to the Queen, and ultimately
became on intimate terms with Her Majesty of Naples, whose
questionable morals were freely spoken of. Emma quickly attained
a high social standing, but it is doubtful whether she exercised
that influence over the Queen of which she liked to boast.

In September, 1793, Nelson was at Naples by orders, and was
the guest of the Hamiltons for a few days. He had not been there for five years,
yet the precious Emma, without decorum or ceremony, sent him a
written whirlwind of congratulations on the occasion of his
victory at the Nile. Every line of the letter sends forth
crackling sparks of fiery passion. She begins, “My dear, dear
Sir,” tells him she is delirious, that she fainted and fell on
her side, “and am hurt,” when she heard the joyful news. She
“would feel it a glory to die in such a cause,” but she cannot
die until she has embraced “the Victor of the Nile.” Then she
proceeds to describe the transports of Maria Carolina. “She
fainted too, cried, kissed her husband, her children, walked,
frantic with pleasure, about the room, cried, kissed and embraced
everybody near her.” Then she continues, “Oh! brave Nelson! Oh!
God bless and protect our brave deliverer! Oh! Nelson, Nelson!
Oh! Victor! Oh! that my swollen heart could now tell him
personally what we owe to him. My dress from head to foot is
Allah Nelson. My earrings are Nelson’s anchors.” She sends him
some sonnets, and avers that she must have taken a ship to “send
all what is written on you.” And so she goes on, throwing herself
into his arms, metaphorically speaking, at every sentence.

When the Vanguard arrived at Naples, Nelson invited
Lady Hamilton on board and she was no sooner on the deck than she
made one dramatic plunge at him, and proceeded to faint on the
poor shattered man’s breast. Nelson, whose besetting weakness was
love of approbation, became intoxicated with the lady’s method of making love.
Poor gallant fellow! He was, like many another, the victim of
human weakness. He immediately believed that he and Emma had
“found each other,” and allowed himself to be flattered with
refined delicacy into a liaison which became a fierce passion,
and tested the loyalty of his closest friends to breaking-point.
How infinitely pathetic is this piteous story from beginning to
end!

Like most sailors, Nelson had a fervent, religious belief in
the Eternal, and never went to battle without casting himself on
the mercy of the Infinite Pity which alone can give solace. He
was fearless and strong in the affairs of his profession, and it
may be safely assumed that, even if it went no deeper, he had a
mystic fear of God, and was lost to all other fear.

I think it was Carlyle who said, “God save us from the madness
of popularity. It invariably injures those who get it.” There
never was a truer thing said, and it is sadly true of our great
national hero. Not many months had passed before the dispenser of
his praises had become his proprietor. It is doubtful whether
Emma ever loved him, but that does not concern any one. What does
concern us is the imperious domination she exercised over him. No
flighty absurdities of fiction can equal the extravagance of his
devotion to her, and his unchecked desire to let every one know
it. He even informs Lady Nelson that Lady Hamilton is the very
best woman in the world and an honour to her sex, and that he had a pride in having her as a
friend. He writes to Lord St. Vincent that she is “an angel,” and
has honoured him in being his Ambassadress to the Queen and is
worthy of his confidence. Again he writes, “Our dear Lady
Hamilton, whom to see is to admire, but to know are to be added
honour and respect; her head and heart surpass her beauty, which
cannot be equalled by anything I have seen.”

It is impossible to suppose that a man could fall so violently
in love with this extraordinary creature and permit her to come
so intimately into his life without injury to his judgment and to
those keen mental qualities which were needed at that time in the
service of his country. Such loss of control must surely have
been followed by mental and intellectual deterioration. This lady
of varied antecedents was the intermediary between the Court of
Naples and himself, and it is now an authentic fact that it was
on the advice of the Queen and Emma that Naples entered into a
war, the result of which was the complete defeat of the
Neapolitans; the Court and the Hamiltons had to fly to Palermo
and Nelson again lived with the Minister and his wife. He again
pours out the virtues and charms of Lady Hamilton, to whom he
gives the credit of engineering the embarkation of the Royal
Family and two and a half million sterling aboard the
Vanguard. After giving St. Vincent another dose of Emma,
he goes on to say, “It is my duty to tell your Lordship the
obligations which the whole Royal Family, as well as myself, are under on this trying
occasion to her Ladyship.” Her Ladyship, still hankering after
her old friend Greville, writes him, “My dear adorable queen and
I weep together, and now that is our only comfort.” It is no
concern of ours, but it looks uncommonly as though Greville still
held the field, and the opinion of many that Nelson would not
have had much chance against her former lover is borne out by
many facts.

Amongst the saddest stories that raged about the Hamiltons,
their friends, and Nelson was the scandal of gambling for large
stakes. Some are persistent in the assertion that the report was
well founded, and others that it was not so bad as it was made
out to be. Lady Hamilton asserted that the stories were all
falsehoods invented by the Jacobinical party, but her Ladyship’s
veracity was never to be relied upon. Perhaps a foundation of
truth and a large amount of exaggeration sums up the reports, so
we must let it go at that. Troubridge seems to have been
convinced that his Admiral was in the midst of a fast set, for he
sends a most imploring remonstrance to him to get out of it and
have no more incense puffed in his face. This was fine advice,
but the victor of the Nile made no response.

IV

Nelson was little known to his countrymen before the St.
Vincent battle. But after the victory of the Nile his name became immortal, and
he could take any liberty he liked with our national
conventionalisms. Even his love affairs were regarded as heroics.
He refused occasionally to carry out instructions when he thought
his own plans were better, and it was winked at; but had any of
them miscarried, the memory of St. Vincent and the Nile would not
have lived long.

When he arrived with the Hamiltons in London after his long
absence and victorious record, the mob, as usual, took the horses
from the carriage and dragged him along Cheapside amid tumultuous
cheers. Whenever he appeared in public the same thing happened.
At Court, things were different. His reception was offensively
cold, and George III ran some risk when he affronted his most
popular subject by turning his back on him. Whatever private
indiscretions Nelson may have been guilty of, nothing could
justify so ungrateful an act of ill-mannered snobbery. The King
should have known how to distinguish between private weakness,
however unconventional, and matchless public service. But for the
fine genius and patriotism of this noble fellow, he might have
lost his crown. The temper of a capricious public in an era of
revolution should not be tested by freaks of royal
self-righteousness, while its imagination is being stirred by the
deeds of a national hero. His action might have brought the
dignity of George’s kingliness into the gutter of ridicule, which
would have been a public misfortune.

The King’s treatment of Nelson was worse than tactless; it was an impertinence. King Edward
VII, whose wisdom and tact could always be trusted, might have
disapproved, as strongly as did George III, Nelson’s disregard of
social conventions, but he would have received him on grounds of
high public service, and have let his private faults, if he knew
of them, pass unnoticed, instead of giving him an inarticulate
snub. Still, a genius of naval distinction, or any other, has no
right to claim exemption from a law that governs a large section
of society, or to suppose that he may not be criticized or even
ostracized if he defiantly offends the susceptibilities of our
moral national life. And it is rather a big tax on one’s patience
for a man, because of his exalted position and distinguished
deeds of valour and high services rendered to the State, to
expect that he may be granted licence to parade his gallantries
with women in boastful indifference to the moral law that governs
the lives of a large section of the community. There are
undoubtedly cases of ill-assorted unions, but it does not lie
within our province to judge such cases. They may be victims of a
hard fate far beyond the knowledge of the serene critics, whose
habit of life is to sneak into the sacred affairs of others,
while their own may be in need of vigilant enquiry and
adjustment.

It would hardly be possible, with the facts before us, to say
a word in mitigation of Nelson’s ostentatious infatuation for
Lady Hamilton, were it not that he can never be judged from the
same standpoint as ordinary mortals. That is not to say that a
man, mentally constituted as he was, should not be amenable to established social
laws.

Nelson was a compound of peculiarities, like most men who are
put into the world to do something great. He was amusingly vain,
while his dainty vanity so obscured his judgment that he could
not see through the most fulsome flattery, especially that of
women. At the same time he was professionally keen, with a
clear-seeing intellect, dashing, flawless courage, and a mind
that quickly grasped the weak points of the enemy’s position or
formation. He fought the old form of sea warfare by methods that
were exclusively his, and sent his opponents staggering into
confusion. Once a plan of battle had been arranged, he never
faltered in his judgment, and only manoeuvred as circumstances
arose, but always with that unexpected rush and resource which
carried with it certain victory.

Nelson’s great talents and his victories caused society
outwardly to overlook his connection with the notorious Lady
Hamilton. But the gossips were always at work. On this point he
does not seem to have realized that he was playing pranks with
society, though there were abundant evidences of it. He was
offended because at Dresden, on their way to England, the
Electress refused to receive his mistress on account of her
antecedents, and no Court was held during their stay. Of course
Emma was given the cold shoulder in England by the Court and by
society. Nelson told his friend Collingwood of his own treatment,
and added that, either as a
public or private man, he wished nothing undone which he had
done. He told Collingwood of his cold reception by the King, but
it seems quite obvious that he maintained his belief that his
connection with Emma had no right to be questioned by His Majesty
or any of his subjects, and he held this view to the last. He
would have none of the moralists’ cant lavished on him, and by
his consistent attitude seemed to say, “Hands off my private
life! If I did introduce Lady Hamilton to my wife at her
apartments on my arrival in England after two and a half years’
absence, when she was on the point of becoming the mother of
Horatia, what business is that of yours? I will have none of your
abstract morality. Get away, and clean up your own morals before
you talk to me of mine.” The above is what I think a man of
Nelson’s temperament might say to the people who wished to warn
him against the dangerous course he was pursuing. Lady Nelson
does not seem to have been a woman who could appeal to a man like
Nelson. The fact is she may have been one of those unamiable,
sexless females who was either coldly ignoring her husband or
storing up in her heart any excuse for hurling at him the most
bitter invective with which she might humiliate him. She does not
appear to have been a vulgar shrieker, but she may have been a
silent stabber, which is worse. In any case, Nelson seems to have
made a bad choice, as by his actions he openly avowed that he
preferred to live with the former mistress of Featherstonehaugh,
Greville, and Hamilton, rather
than with his lawful wife; and he, without a doubt, was the best
judge as to which of them suited him best. The truth remains that
Emma was attractive and talented, and although lowly born, she
became the bosom companion of kings, queens, princesses, princes,
and of many men and women of distinction.

Nelson must have been extraordinarily simple to imagine that
his wife, knowing, as all the world knew, that Lady Hamilton was
his mistress and a bold, unscrupulous rival, would receive her
with rapturous friendliness. The amazing puzzle to most people,
then and now, is why she received her at all, unless she wished
to worm out of her the precise nature of the intimacy. That may
have been her definite purpose in allowing the visits for two or
three months; then one day she flew into a rage, which conjures
up a vision of hooks and eyes bursting like crackers from her
person, and after a theatrical display of temper she disappears
like a whirling tempest from the presence of her faithless
husband, never again to meet him. This manner of showing
resentment to the gallant sailor’s fondness for the wife of Sir
William Hamilton was the last straw. There was nothing dignified
in Lady Nelson’s tornado farewell to her husband; rather, if the
records may be relied on, it was accompanied by a flow of abuse
which could only emanate from an enraged termagant.

Nelson now had a free hand. His wife was to have a generous
allowance on condition that she left him alone freely to bestow
his affections on the seductive Emma, whose story, retold by Mr.
Harrison, shows Lady Nelson to
have been an impossible woman to live with. She made home hell to
him, so he said. And making liberal allowance for Emma’s fibbing
propensities, there are positive evidences that her story of
Nelson’s home life was crammed with pathetic truths of domestic
misery. Nelson corroborates this by a letter to Emma almost
immediately after his wife’s ludicrous exit. The letter is the
outpouring of an embittered soul that had been freed from
purgatory and was entering into a new joy. It is a sickening
effusion of unrestrained love-making that would put any personage
of penny-novel fame to the blush. I may as well give the full
dose. Here it is:—

The Prince of Wales had dined with and paid suspicious
attentions to Emma, and her fond lover, knowing this, advised her
to warn him off. He probably had an instinct that his “beloved
Emma,” who is “the dearest object of his fond heart,” was not
quite strong enough to resist temptation. Especially would she be
likely to fall under the fascinating influence of this little
princely scamp. Nelson’s mind turned to his wife, and he
emphasized the desire that he might never see his aversion again.
Nor did he.

Some of his contemporaries doubted the paternity of Horatia;
Nelson never did, and it would be hard to find a more beautiful
outpouring of love than that which he unfailingly gave to his
little daughter. Every thought of his soul was divided between
her and the audacious flirt of a mother whom Nelson, always
lavish, calls “his love”; “his darling angel”; “his
heaven-given wife”; “the
dearest, only true wife of his own till death.” The “till death”
finish is quite sailorly!

No one will doubt his amazing faculty for love-making and
love-writing, and it must always be a puzzle how he managed to
mix it so successfully with war. His guilty love-making was an
occasional embarrassment to him, and though he was the greatest
naval tactician of his time, his domestic methods were hopelessly
clumsy and transparent. For instance, in pouring out his
grievances to his mistress he refers to himself by the name of
Thompson, and to Lady Nelson as Aunt. Here are a few
examples:—”Thompson desires me to say he has never wrote
his Aunt since he sailed.” “In twelve hours we shall be across
the water, and freed from all the nonsense of his friends, or
rather, pretended ones.” “His” means Hamilton, and “friends”
means the Prince of Wales, whom he looked upon as a rival for
Emma’s accommodating affections. Again, he says, “If I separated
from her, which I would do with pleasure the moment we can be
united.” “Her” is Lady Nelson, but in discussing delicate matters
of domestic policy he thinks it desirable to conceal that he
would not weep were he to hear of Sir William’s death, or be
broken with grief to separate entirely from Lady Nelson, so that
he might become “united to his heaven-given wife,” “our darling
angel, Emma.”

V

The Admiralty did a great injustice to the victor of the Nile
by appointing Sir Hyde Parker commander-in-chief, instead of one
who was known to be the most brilliant officer in the Navy. It
must have cut deeply into Nelson’s proud soul to have to serve
under a man who had not a particle of initiative; and, but for
the splendid bravery and matchless talents of his second, the
wooden walls of old England would have been sent to Davy Jones by
the forts of Copenhagen and the Danish fleet. Sir Hyde did not
relish having Nelson with him at all. He sulked, and treated him
in a way that was observed and resented by those who served under
him. The commander-in-chief acted like a jealous maiden, his
intention being to freeze and humiliate the man who was destined
to win the victory and save the British fleet from entire
destruction. There always has been tremendous jealousy in the
Navy. But Sir Hyde Parker should have known that he was dealing
with an officer (who was the genius of the Navy) who would stand
no nonsense from any Lord High Admiral or other fussy dignitary
whom he could put in his pocket whenever he liked to exercise his
personality. Nelson never shirked responsibility when his
country’s interests were being endangered by a dignified snob.
Discipline, so far as he was concerned until his object was
gained, was pushed aside, and the great spirit swept into the
vortex of the danger and
extinguished all opposition. He said on one occasion, “I hate
your pen-and-ink men. A fleet of British warships are the best
negotiators in Europe.”

I have said that Parker was in the “sulks,” so Nelson adopted
a humorous plan of thawing the ice by catching a turbot on the
Dogger Bank on the passage out to the Baltic. A sly seaman had
told him that this kind of fish was easily caught, so when they
arrived on the Bank the fishing commenced, and the turbot was
caught. Nelson knew his commander-in-chief was never averse to
eating, so he gave orders to have it sent to Sir Hyde, and
although the sea was dangerous for a small boat, the fish was in
due course presented to Parker, who sent back a cordial note of
thanks. This ingenious stratagem eased the strained relations
between the two men, but there still remained a feeling on the
part of the commander-in-chief that the electric and resourceful
spirit of Nelson would, in any engagement, be the dominating
factor, with or without official sanction. He knew how
irresistibly Nelson’s influence permeated the fleet, for no man
knew better than this much-envied Vice-Admiral how to enthuse his
comrades (high and low) in battle, and also what confidence the
nation as a whole had in what he called the “Nelson touch.” Sir
Hyde Parker, knowing Nelson’s superb qualities, should have
paused and considered the consequences before he slyly sought to
put such a man in the shade. There was not a man in the whole
squadron who would not have
gone to his doom under Nelson’s lead rather than live under any
other’s. Nelson inspired men with the same love of glory which he
craved for himself. No real sailor ever did like to sail under a
hesitating, nervous commander. Parker, at the battle of
Copenhagen, gives one (from all accounts) the impression of
unsureness, afraid to take any risk lest it be the wrong one.
Nelson was always sure, and never hesitated to put into practice
his considered views.

Parker, at a critical moment in the battle of Copenhagen,
hoisted No. 39, which meant “Leave off action.” Nelson shrugged
his shoulders, and Said, “No, I’m damned if I do,” and kept his
own “Engage the enemy more closely” flying. He then added to
Captain Foley, “I have only one eye, and have a right to be blind
sometimes.” He then put the telescope to his blind eye, and said,
“I really do not see the signal.” Unfortunately, some of the
ships retired, and one able fellow, Captain Riou, who knew it was
a wrong move, was so distressed that he called out in despair to
one of his officers beside him, “What will Nelson think of us?”
The poor captain was subsequently killed. There can be no doubt
now that the signal 39 was not permissive or optional, nor that
Nelson, having the enemy by the throat, refused to let go until
he had strangled him, nor that he did dramatically act the
blind-eye trick. He deliberately disobeyed orders, and saved
England’s honour and fleet by doing so. It was one of his
splendid performances, and the story of it will live on into
distant ages.

Who can calculate the loss
of national prestige or the lives that have been thrown away by
putting severely decorous senior officers over the heads of men
who knew their business better and had the courage and capacity
to carry through big naval or military tasks? And how tempting it
must be to many a gallant fellow to take the business into his
own hands! Nelson knew well enough that he had laid himself open
to the full penalty of naval law, but he knew also that if any of
the moth-eaten crew at Whitehall even hinted it there would be
“wigs on the green.” No man knew the pulse of the nation better,
and no commander played up to it less. One can imagine hearing
him say to some of his officers (perhaps Captain Hardy of
Trafalgar fame), after he had wrecked the Danish fleet and
battered the forts into a dilapidated condition, “Well, I have
fought contrary to orders, and they will perhaps hang me; never
mind, let them.” A significant “let them” this, which means more
than he cares to express. The Danes frankly admitted that they
had been beaten, and that even their defence was destroyed, as
the Crown batteries could not be held. Instead of any talk of
“hanging” him because of his “disobedience,” he was made a
Viscount and his Rear-Admiral (Graves) a Knight of the Bath.
These were the only two significant honours conferred. When he
landed at Copenhagen, it is said that the people viewed him with
a mixture of admiration and hostility. He thought they were
extremely amiable. They cheered and shouted “God bless Lord
Nelson!” There can be no
reason for their doing this, except gratitude to him for not
blowing the city down about their ears.

Whatever the cause, it is quite certain that the Crown Prince
and some of the Danish statesmen treated him with studied
cordiality. Sir Hyde Parker was a drag, and indeed, an
intolerable nuisance to him. When the armistice was sealed and
settled for fourteen weeks, he wished to get of to Reval and
hammer the Russian squadron there, but the commander-in-chief
shirked all responsibility, and his victim was made to say in a
letter to Lord St. Vincent “that he would have been in Reval
fourteen days before, and that no one could tell what he had
suffered,” and asks my dear Lord “if he has deserved well, to let
him retire, and if ill, for heaven’s sake to supersede him, for
he cannot exist in this state.” Lord Nelson conducted the British
case with the Danes with consummate statesmanship, but
notwithstanding this, the fine sensitive nature of the noble
fellow could not fail to be hurt when His Majesty (the same who
lost us America) stated that, “under all the
circumstances, he had thought well to approve.” Nelson replied
that he was sorry the armistice was only approved under
all the circumstances, and then gives His Majesty a slap
in the eye by informing him that every part of the all was
to the advantage of the King and Country. St. Vincent, the First
Lord of the Admiralty, subsequently made amends for His Majesty’s
error by writing to say that his “whole conduct was approved and
admired, and that he does not
care to draw comparisons, but that everybody agrees there is only
one Nelson.” This strong and valiant sailor was never at any time
unconscious of his power. What troubled him was other people’s
lack of appreciation of it, though he accepted with a whimsical
humour the grudging spirit in which credit was given to his
unerring judgment and unequalled bravery. Nor can we examine the
great deeds of his career without feeling a thrill of pride in
the knowledge that he belonged to us.

The spirit which animated Nelson was the same as that which
lived in those heroes of old who were used by Providence as
instruments in their country’s destiny, and we may believe that
this same spirit will live in those God-sent men of the future
who will be necessary for the carrying out of some special task
or for the destruction of evil. Apparently, long intervals elapse
between the appearance of men such as Napoleon or Nelson.
Napoleon’s name still stirs the blood, and now, more than a
century after his death, any one of the Powers who had a share in
his tragic end would give worlds to get back some of his force
and genius. Nelson in a much less degree and in a different way
was another of those sent by Providence to take part in his
country’s struggles and, like many another great man, was
subjected to cruel indignities at the hands of his inferiors. He
often complained about his treatment, but this never prevented
him from doing his work. But as his instructions were not always
in accordance with his view of success, he occasionally disobeyed them for the country’s good.
It might be a gain to borrow his spirit for a while at the
present time to electrify the British Admiralty. Nelson was more
successful in his conflicts with the enemy than with the chiefs
of his calling afloat and ashore. He was not really strong and
audacious enough in his dealings with them. “Jacky Fisher” (as he
is fondly called) who lives in our disturbed time, would have had
similar sandbags jettisoned in quick time. The modern Nelson has
had his troubles with inferior superiors too, but he flattened
out some of them. The modern man is all business, and does not
show vanity if he has any. The “Only Nelson” was strong, weak,
and vain. If no one else gratuitously sounded his praises, he
would do so himself in the most comical way, not altogether in
public, but to “Santa Emma,” whose function it was to spread them
abroad.

After the battle of Copenhagen, Sir Hyde Parker sailed for
Carlscrona, and left Nelson to hoist his flag as
commander-in-chief on the St. George, which was not ready,
and was possibly being refitted after rough handling. He tells
Emma of Parker’s departure, and adds, “if there is any work to
do,” i.e. any fighting, “he is pretty certain they will wait for
him” before commencing it. And then he adds, “Nelson will be
first. Who can stop him?” On the eve of the battle of
Copenhagen he wrote to her, “Before you receive this, all will be
over with Denmark. Either your Nelson will be safe, and Sir Hyde
Parker victor, or your own
Nelson will be laid low.” What deep and genuine love-lunacy to be
found in a terrific warrior, whose very name terrified those who
had the honour to fight against him! The incongruity of it
baffles one’s belief, and seems to reverse the very order of
human construction. In matters concerning his profession and
highly technical State affairs there was no more astute man, but
as soon as his thoughts centre on this female nightmare, he loses
control of his wonderful gifts, and his mind becomes deranged
with the idea of her being an object on which he should bestow
reverence and infinite adulation. If ever there was a creature of
lamentable contradictions, surely it was this genius, who
immortalized our national glory at the Nile, Copenhagen, and
Trafalgar! That a man of his calibre, surrounded with eternal
fame, should be inflamed with a passion for a woman of negative
morals who was refused admittance to the same circle that, but
for this attachment would receive him as their triumphant hero,
is an example of human eccentricity that never has and never can
be accounted for. It may be taken for granted that at the very
time he was writing to her about “her own Nelson” she would be
carrying on a love intrigue with some old or new acquaintance,
possibly the Prince of Wales, whom as I have said, her gallant
lover wished her to avoid. He was known to be a cheat, a liar,
and a faithless friend to men and to women, while in accordance
with the splendid ethic of this type of person, he believed
himself to be possessed of every saintly virtue. But any one who
is curious to have a
fascinating description of the “little dapper” should consult
Thackeray.

Well, there was no fighting to be done when the fleet under
Nelson arrived at Reval, and the Emperor Paul’s death and the
dilatoriness of Parker saved the Russian fleet from
extermination. They had sailed into safer anchorage and the
British Admiral had to content himself by paying an official
visit to the authorities at Reval, and receiving another ovation
from the populace, which appealed to his whimsical love of
approbation. As is his custom, he sends Emma an account of his
Reval experiences. He says he would not mention so personal an
incident to any one else, as it would appear so uncommonly like
vanity, but between her and himself, hundreds had come to have a
look at Nelson, and he heard them say, “That is him! That
is him!” It touches his vanity so keenly that he follows
on by intimating that he “feels a good name is better than
riches, and that it has a fine feeling to an honest heart.” “All
the Russians,” says he, “are of opinion that I am like Suwaroff,
le Jeune Suwaroff.” As may be imagined, Nelson was bitterly
disappointed at so sudden a collapse of his hopes, but, always
master of the situation, he wrote a most courteous letter to
Count Pahlen, the Russian Minister, who had complained that his
presence was calculated to make a breach of the good feeling
between the two countries. The Admiral’s reply was tactful and
unconsciously humorous. The tone was that of a person who had
never been so unjustly hurt in his life. “He had come to pay his respects to His Imperial
Majesty, and as his motives had been so entirely misunderstood,
he would put to sea at once.”

VI

His health was beginning to feel the enormous strain that had
been imposed upon him for many months. This, together with his
longing to be in the congenial society of Lady Hamilton, caused
him to ask to be relieved of his command, and he was delighted to
receive a letter from his old chief, Lord St. Vincent, stating
that it was almost an impossible task to find a suitable
successor, as in all his experience he never knew any one, except
Troubridge, who had the art of enthusing others with his own
unequalled spirit as he had. The command was handed over to Sir
Charles Pole, and Nelson, almost wild with joy, sailed from the
Baltic in the brig Kite on the 19th June, and arrived at
Yarmouth on the 1st July, 1801. Nelson always claimed that if the
command had been given to him in February many lives would have
been saved, and our prestige would not have suffered.

We cannot describe all the fascinating pleasure we get when we
read and think of the wonders this strange mortal performed in
the ordinary course of his profession; when, however, he departs
from that and begins to make stagey love to Lady Hamilton, it
tries one’s Christian patience. What business had he, as the
first sailor in the world, to
enter into such a compact with another man’s wife? However, he
must not be judged by this liaison alone, but by the
circumstances that led to it.

We know that his domestic life had been made irritating and
unbearable to his sensitive and highly strung nature, but he
found in Emma Hamilton one who played upon his vanity, and made
him feel that he was regarded as an idol as well as an idolatrous
lover. He thirsted for reverence and the love of soul for soul,
and she, in her own way, gave both with lavish profusion, whereas
his wife’s austere indifference to his amazing accomplishments
fell upon his large heart like ice, and who can estimate his
sufferings before he decided to defy society? He believed and
hoped that he would be exonerated, and became in the sight of
Heaven (as he avowed) the husband of a woman who, there can be
little doubt, did not keep her honour unstained, but who, to him,
was the guiding spirit of his remaining days: and whatever
impressions we may have forced upon us of the liaisons of this
noxious creature, there is nothing on record that suggests that
he was ever unfaithful to her after the bond of union was made.
Nor does he appear to have been openly charged with illicit
intimacy with other women after his marriage to Mrs. Nisbet,
other than with Lady Hamilton.

We may talk of his wonderful career being morally blunted, but
his own belief in the sanctity of the verbal arrangement was
sound to the core, and he hazarded the opprobrium of our stern
conventional system. To him,
Lady Hamilton had an enduring charm which influenced his wild,
weak, generous soul, and was in fact an inspiration to him. It is
a truism that the life-story of all men has its tragedy and
romance, and in this, Nelson’s was only similar to others; and
who can help loving his memory?

The Hamiltons lived with him at Merton when he was on leave.
They shared the cost of the home, which Lady Hamilton had, with
elaborate, artistic taste, prepared for him. A document written
by Sir William makes it clear that the relations of man and wife
were strained at times to breaking-point, for, as he states, “I
am old and she in the beauty and vigour of youth”; and then he
proceeds: “I have no complaint to make, but I feel that the whole
attention of my wife is given to Lord Nelson and his interest at
Merton.” Obviously, this is the old gentleman’s dull way of
expressing his idea that there was a gamble going on with the
marriage vow, and then, with delightful simplicity, he nullifies
his suspicious thoughts by stating that he well knows the purity
of Lord Nelson’s friendship for Emma and himself and that he
knows how uncomfortable it would make his Lordship, our best
friend, if a separation should take place; therefore he was
determined to do all in his power to prevent such an extremity,
which would be essentially detrimental to all parties, but would
be more sensibly felt by “our dear friend than by
us.”[3] He is willing to go on
provided the expenses do not go on increasing, but as he cannot expect to live
many years, every moment is precious to him, and hopes that he
may be allowed to be his own master and pass his time in his
own way.[4] He continues: “I am
fully determined not to have any more silly altercations that too
often arise between us, and embitter his present moments
exceedingly. If we cannot live comfortably together,” he
continues, “a wise and well-concerted separation would be
preferable.” He says he knows and admires her talents and many
excellent qualities, but he is not blind to her
defects,[5] and confesses to having many himself, and pleads
“for God’s sake to bear and forbear.”

Throughout this pathetic document we find evidences that his
heart was torn with the consciousness of the mean advantage being
taken of his friendship. There is a droll, vacillating belief in
the virtue of his wife and the purity of Nelson’s motives, but
every sentence indicates that his instinct led him to believe
that another had taken his place. It may have been that he saw it
dimly, and that he shrank from making any direct accusation, not
wishing to break with the man with whom he had long been on close
terms of friendship. It is highly improbable that either his own
or Emma’s past histories escaped his memory when he was penning
his grievances. Indeed, there are evidences gleaming through his
memorandum that his reflections were harassed by the remembrance
of his own conduct, which had plunged to epic depths of
wrongdoing in other days.
These and other considerations would doubtless have a restraining
effect on the action that might have been taken under different
circumstances. Sir William Hamilton must have pondered over the
parentage of Horatia, who was born on the 29th January, 1801. Is
it possible that he knew that Nelson was her father, and believed
in the purity of his friendship for Emma and himself? I think
everything goes to prove that he knew of his friend’s relations
with his wife and condoned it. Nelson, in his clumsy, transparent
way, tried to conceal the origin of the child, so he proceeds to
write a letter to Lady Hamilton, which I shall quote later on. To
say that Sir William Hamilton, a man of the world with vast
experience of human deceptions and intrigues, could have been put
off the scent, in view of all the circumstances, is too great a
tax on credulity, but it is wholly characteristic of Nelson’s
ideas of mystification. But even if there were any further proof
needed, Lady Hamilton has settled the matter by preserving the
correspondence Nelson urged her to destroy. This will be referred
to later on.

Meanwhile, it is hardly thinkable that Nelson, who had such a
high sense of honour in other affairs of life, and who had
accepted the hospitality and been the honoured guest of Sir
William Hamilton at Naples, should have made the occasion an
opportunity of establishing illicit relations with his wife. The
whole matter must ever remain a blot on the great Admiral’s fame,
even though his host appeared to, or really did, connive at it.
The price was too high to pay for both of them.

The following extract
from a letter from Lord Minto to his wife indicates the mode of
life of the family party. He says:

This letter was written on the 22nd March, 1802, and Nelson
writes that Sir William Hamilton died in his arms and in Lady
Hamilton’s on the 6th April, 1803, passing on “without a
struggle, and that the world had never lost a more upright and
accomplished gentleman”;[5] which, be it said, is rather a stagey
performance of his wife’s lover. But the mistress excels her lover in the record of
the death-bed drama. “Unhappy day,” says she in profusion of
tears, “for the forlorn Emma. Ten minutes past ten dear beloved
Sir William left me.” Emma was poorly provided for; only
£700 a year jointure and £100 a year for her mother
for life. She and Nelson appealed to Lord Minto to urge on Mr.
Addington her claim for a pension, and she vowed to Minto that
her connection with Nelson was pure, and he says he can believe
it, which is hardly consistent with the description he gives his
wife as to “their open and disgusting proceedings,” or with his
comments on a visit paid to the Duke of Marlborough at Blenheim,
where the Duke had treated the gallant naval chief and his party
as though they were mere ordinary trippers who had come to see
the wonders of his possessions. He condescendingly ordered
refreshments to be given to them, which sent Nelson into a fury
of indignation, and Minto excuses the Duke by stating that Nelson
persuaded himself that all the world should be blind because he
chose to extol Emma’s “virtues.” Obviously, Minto was not firmly
convinced of her chastity.

Nelson, with his heart full of blind adoration, had quite a
simple, sailorly conviction that no one ought to question the
innocence of his attachment to Emma, since he called Hamilton her
“Uncle”; and, because he wished the public to believe in his
innocence, he took it for granted that they would believe it. The
Duke of Marlborough evidently had heard and believed in the
impure tale, but that did
not justify him in treating his noble guest and his friends in
the snobbish and ill-mannered way he did. It is hardly likely
that Nelson would have paid the visit without being asked, and in
ordinary decency he should have been received or not asked at
all. He was a greater figure and public servant than the Duke,
and His Grace would not have suffered in dignity had he met
Nelson on terms of equality. He could not have done less, at all
events. On the other hand, the great Admiral showed a peevishness
at the treatment which was unworthy of his fame and position; he
could well afford to ignore the affront, more especially as he
prided himself that the lady the Duke took exception to was “in
the sight of Heaven his wife,” and no one had any right to
question his choice.

The views held by Hamilton and recorded in various conflicting
versions give the impression that he was puzzled, and could not
determine whether to believe in the fidelity of Nelson or not.
Some writers think that he winked at the liaison because of the
difference between his own age and that of his wife; others, that
he thought the relations were innocent, and a token of
high-spirited friendship for himself; but all delicately indicate
their conviction that he knew what was going on. Meanwhile,
Nelson steadfastly avows his unyielding fidelity to his friends,
and, with this exception, I think we may conclude that his
devotion to them could always be relied upon; indeed, his
attachment to Hamilton was of an affectionate character, even
when many people believed he
was betraying him. Whether Sir William knew and believed that the
association between his wife and Nelson was pure or not,[6] he evidently desired that no one else
should believe it, for in a codicil to his will he bequeaths “The
copy of Madam Le Brun’s picture of his wife in enamel, and gives
to his dearest friend, Nelson, a very small token of the great
regard he has for his Lordship, the most virtuous, loyal, and
truly brave character I ever met with.” Then he finishes up with
God’s blessing to him and shame to those who do not say “Amen.”
This is a wonderful testimony of friendship from a man who had
been wronged, and might well have shaken the belief of those who
founded their opinions on the startling improprieties they had
beheld between the man whom he designated “the most virtuous,
loyal, and truly brave character he had ever met with” and his
wife. That Sir William connived at what looked uncommonly like
infidelity may or may not be doubtful, but that he saw more than
would have impressed an ordinary man or woman with suspicion is
unquestionable, and the best that can be said for his attitude is
that he was so mentally constituted that he could only see or
preferred to see in Nelson’s extravagant attentions to his wife a
guileless symbol of high friendship for her, which he took as a
compliment to himself. On
the other hand, if he not only suspected but knew that he was
being betrayed, and bitterly resented the passion which no
remonstrances from him could have controlled, he at any rate
determined to let the world see “how a Christian could die,” and
refrained from uttering the unutterable. Napoleon on the rock at
St. Helena acted in the same magnanimous way towards the
adulterous Marie Louise, of whose faithlessness he also
unguardedly let slip his opinion.

It is an odious habit, but we are apt to believe, without any
reserve, disparaging stories, that may or may not be true,
concerning men of distinction, and the more prominent the man or
woman, the more viciously the scandal-mongers pursue their
contemptible occupation. These vermin invariably belong to a
class of industrious mediocrities who have been born with a
mental kink, and their treachery, falsehood, and cowardice are
incurable. They are merely hurtful creatures who spoil the earth,
and are to be found dolefully chattering about what they conceive
to be other men’s and women’s lapses from the paths of stern
virtue. Their plan of life is to defame other people, and by this
means proclaim their own superiority over other weak mortals.
Give the unsexed woman a chance, and she will let fly with
unrestrained industry. How many innocent people have had their
names dragged into the public gaze by this vice! The report may
arise from professional or political jealousy, and may grow into
incredible accusations of immorality. Who can estimate the
suffering caused to Lord Melbourne, the then Prime Minister, and
to his relatives and
friends, and even to some of his political opponents, and to the
Hon. Mrs. Norton, one of Sheridan’s beautiful daughters (who was
the wife of as unscrupulous a scamp as was ever permitted to
live), by the engineering of an accusation of infidelity that
forced the Prime Minister and Mrs. Norton into the Courts to
defend themselves against what was proved to be a malicious and
unfounded story? The plaintiff’s case, resting as it did upon a
tissue of fabricated evidence, takes a fine place in history
because of the judge’s impartiality and sagacious charge, and the
verdict of the jury for the defendants which was received with
tumultuous cheers, characterized by the judge as “disgraceful in
a court of justice.” His Lordship’s remonstrance was futile, and
again and again the cheers were given, both in the court and
outside, where the wildest enthusiasm prevailed. No one who took
part in this disgraceful action came out of it with a higher
reputation than Sir John Campbell, who acted for Melbourne. His
entrance to the House of Commons that night was the occasion of
an outburst of delirious cheering, the like of which had never
been witnessed in the House. “The Tories” are said to have
“affected to cheer.” I give this as a notable case whereby two
innocent people were threatened with ruin and disgrace by the
poisonous slander circulated for both private and political ends
and fostered by the worthless husband of a virtuous and amiable
woman.

It is common knowledge that Nelson and Sir William Hamilton
were assailed by the same stinging wasps as Melbourne and Mrs. Norton (if it
be proper to make a comparison), but they were different types of
men living in a different atmosphere and under different
circumstances. It is true that Nelson had scruples about the
unwisdom of his unconventional connection with Lady Hamilton,
and, big-hearted fellow that he was, he would have struggled hard
to avoid giving pain to his relations and friends; and who knows
that he did not? For though his actions may belie that
impression, his whole attitude was reckless, silly, and
whimsical. To whatever extent he may have had scruples, he
certainly did not possess the faculty of holding his inclinations
in check. Indeed, he made no secret of the idea that “every man
became a bachelor after passing the Rock of Gibraltar,” and in
this notion he carried out the orthodoxy of the old-time
sailor.

He disliked marriage and loved glory, and being a popular
hero, he was forgiven all his amorous sins, which were by many
looked upon as being part of his heroism. His laughable efforts
to obscure the facts might have satisfied those who wished to
rely on Hamilton’s benedictory absolution, had not Nelson and
Emma, as I have already said, left behind them incriminating
letters and documents which leave no doubt as to what they were
to each other. The great Admiral industriously destroyed much of
the massive correspondence, but had overlooked some of the hidden
treasures. Lady Hamilton promised to destroy all hers, but failed
to do so. Hence the
documentary proof written by his own hand and that of Emma’s
cancels Nelson’s childish device to throw a too critical public
off the scent.

Nelson was alternately weak, nervous, careless, and defiant in
his attitude in regard to public opinion concerning his private
life. He at one time asserted the right of living in any way he
might choose, and resented the criticism of a few cackling
busybodies, even though it was not in accordance with the views
of the late Mr. Edward Cocker. It was his affair, and if his
ideas differed from those of his critics, it was no business of
theirs. His independence in this, as well as in the practical
concerns of his profession, coincided with the opinions held by
Sandy Mackay in “Alton Locke,” who declared that he would “never
bow down to a bit of brains.” But these independent views
alternated with weaker ones. He was as indiscreetly lavish with
his love as he was with his money; at one time he would
contemptuously defy the poisoned arrows that were darted at him,
and when beset by the sullen storm-cloud of scandal, he let fly
with red-hot courage and audaciously upheld his honour: at
another time he was timid, vacillating, and ridiculous in his
attempts to avert the public eye from his love affair and its
consequence. People who knew him intimately were aware that
Horatia was his daughter, and in order to throw them off their
guard he proceeded to invent a cock-and-bull story of how he came
by the child. Here is his letter to Lady Hamilton written in the
middle of 1804: “I am now
going to state a thing to you and to request your kind assistance
which, from my dear Emma’s goodness of heart, I am sure of her
acquiescence in. Before we left Italy, I told you of the
extraordinary circumstances of a child being left to my care and
protection. On your first coming to England, I presented you the
child, dear Horatia. You became, to my comfort, attached to it,
so did Sir William, thinking her the finest child he had ever
seen. She is become of that age when it is necessary to remove
her from a mere nurse, and to think of educating her. I am now
anxious for the child’s being placed under your protecting wing”;
a clumsy, transparent piece of foolery, which at once confirms
its intention to mislead! But we are saved the trouble of
interpretation, for the father goes on to write on another piece
of note-paper, “My beloved, how I feel for your situation and
that of our dear Horatia, our dear child.” It is almost
incredible that Nelson could have written such a silly
fabrication. In the early part of 1804, Emma gave birth to
another child, of which he believed himself to be the father. He
asked the mother to call him what she pleased (evidently
he hoped and expected a boy), but if a girl, it was to be named
Emma. It was a girl, so it was called after the mother, but it
did not live long, and the father never saw it.

As though he thought the letter written about little Miss
Thompson (Horatia, be it understood) were not sufficiently
delusive, he sends an equally absurd production to his niece,
Charlotte Nelson, who lived
a good deal at Merton, in which he says that he is “truly
sensible of her attachment to that dear little orphan, Horatia,”
and although her parents are lost, yet she is not “without a
fortune; and that he will cherish her to the last moment of his
life, and curse them who curse her, and Heaven
bless them who bless her.” This solemn enthusiasm for the poor
orphan puts Nelson out of court as a cute letter-writer. The
quality of ingenious diplomacy had been left entirely out of him,
and like any one else who dallies with an art for which they have
no gift, he excites suspicions, and more often than not discloses
the very secret he is so anxious to keep. Every line of these
letters indicates a tussle between a natural tendency to frank
honesty and an unnatural and unworthy method of deception.
Obviously, the recipient of this precious document would have her
curiosity excited over the disingenuous tale of romance. She
would ask herself first of all, “Why should my kinsman be so
desirous to tell me that the orphan in whom he has so fond an
interest is not without a fortune? and why should the
responsibility of rearing and educating the child have been
entrusted to him, the most active and important Admiral in the
British Navy? And if it be true that she is an orphan, surely
there could be no object in supposing that any one would
‘curse her,’ especially as he declared that she was ‘not
without fortune,’ and that she was to be known as his adopted
child.” The niece, being a quick-witted girl, would naturally
think the problem out for herself, and decide that there was something fishy involved in the
mystery of these unnecessary phrases.

In dealing with his domestic complications, Nelson’s mind
seems to have been in a constant whirlwind, dodging from one
difficulty into another, never direct, and for ever in conflict
with his true self. He was brave and resourceful in everything
that appertained to the service he adorned, and yet a shivering
fear came over him now and again lest the truth concerning his
attachment to his friend’s wife should be revealed. When he was
seized with these remorseful thoughts, he could not be silent; he
was not possessed of the constitutional gift of reticence, and
could only find relief by constant reference to the matter he
wished kept secret in such a way as to cause people to put two
and two together and arrive at the very truth he wished to
hide.

VII

But whatever his ruling passion may have been, his belief in
the Power that rules us all never forsook him. He believed in
religious forms as of a spiritual force. He often committed
himself to it, and claimed the privilege of asking for Heaven’s
guidance. Call it eccentricity or superstition, or what you like,
but to him it was a reality. One of the many amusing instances of
his devotion to religious rites was the occasion when he and Lady
Hamilton stood as godfather and godmother at the christening of their
daughter, Horatia Nelson Thompson,[7] by which name she was baptized. To the
puritanic, orthodox mind (keeping in view all the circumstances
of parentage) this will be looked upon as an act of abominable
hypocrisy and sacrilege, but to him it was a pious duty.

Like all highly strung and overwrought mortals, he was often
moody, depressed, and, worst of all, a victim to premonitions of
his early demise. His superstitious temperament was constantly
worrying him, as did his faith in the predictions of a gipsy
fortune-teller who had correctly described his career up to the
year 1805, and then stopping had said, “I can see no further.”
This creepy ending of the gipsy’s tale was afflicting him with a
dumb pain and depression when he unexpectedly came across his
sister Catherine in London. She referred to his worn, haggard
look with a tenderness that was peculiarly her own. He replied,
“Ah! Katty! Katty! that gipsy!” and then relapsed into morbid
silence. The foreboding bore heavily on his mind, and the story
may well make one’s heart throb with pity for the noble fellow
who was so soon to fulfil his tragic destiny. Well may we exclaim
that fame seems to be the most wretched of mockeries!

The Duke of Wellington, of whom it is said no dose of flattery
was too strong for him to swallow, has left on record an interesting account of his
meeting Nelson at the Colonial Office. He gives the account of
it, thirty years after Nelson’s death, to John Wilson Croker at
Walmer, and here is what he says of Collingwood’s great
comrade:—

We must not be too critical of the Duke’s opinions of the
vanity of the Admiral, but it calls for some notice, inasmuch as
the Duke himself is reputed to have had an uncommonly good amount
of it himself, though it took a different form and created a
different impression. Wellington showed it in a cold, haughty,
unimaginative, repelling self-importance; fearful of unbending to
his inferiors lest his dignity should be offended. Nelson’s
peculiarities were the very antithesis; it was his delightful
egotism and vanity that added to his charm and made him such a
fascinating personality. His direct slap-dash, unconventional
phrases and flashes of naval brilliancy, whether in search of, or
engaged in battle with the enemy, together with a natural
kindness to his officers and men of all ranks, filled them with
confidence and pride in having him as their chief. The “Nelson
touch,” the “drubbing” he swore in his own engaging way that Mr.
Villeneuve—as he called him to Blackwood—was to have
when he caught him, the putting of the telescope to his blind eye
at Copenhagen when the signal was flying to leave off action, and
then “No, damn me if I do,” had an inspiring effect on his men
and strengthened the belief in his dauntlessness and sagacity.
“What will Nelson think of us?” remarked one of the men aboard
one of the frigates that
obeyed the signal. But Nelson went on fighting with complete
success. “Luckily,” says Wellington, “I saw enough to be
satisfied that he was really a very superior man.” Why “luckily”?
What difference would his lack of knowledge have made? The Duke
was hardly the type of man to understand the powerful personality
whose style, “so vain and silly, surprised and almost disgusted”
him. That view does not stand to his credit, and no one
else held it.

But let us see what a greater man than either Wellington or
Nelson says of both. Napoleon, at St. Helena, spoke in very high
terms of Lord Nelson,[9] and indeed attempted to palliate that one
stigma on his memory, the execution of Carraciolli, which he
attributed entirely to his having been deceived by that wicked
woman Queen Caroline, through Lady Hamilton, and to the influence
which the latter had over him. He says of the Duke: “Judging from
Wellington’s actions, from his dispatches, and, above all, from
his conduct towards Ney, I should pronounce him to be a
poor-spirited man, without generosity, and without greatness of
soul (‘Un homme de peu d’esprit, sans
générosité, et sans grandeur d’âme’).
Such I know to be the opinion of Benjamin Constant and of Madame
de Staël, who said that, except as a general, he had not two
ideas. As a general, however, to find his equal amongst your own
nation, you must go back to
the time of Marlborough, but as anything else, I think that
history will pronounce him to be a man of limited capacity (‘Un
homme borné’).”[10]

“Nelson is a brave man. If Villeneuve at Aboukir and Dumanoir
at Trafalgar had had a little of his blood, the French would have
been conquerors. I ought to have had Dumanoir’s head cut off. Do
you not think more highly of Nelson than of the best engineers
who construct fortifications? Nelson had what a mere engineer
officer can never acquire. It is a gift of nature.”

Captain Hardy (of the “Victory”)

The Emperor, in his eulogy of Nelson, is not unmindful of the
terrible crime he was led to commit at the instigation of that
human viper, Queen Caroline, and the licentious Emma Hamilton.
He, to some extent, whittles down Nelson’s share of the
responsibility by putting the whole blame on them. But who can
read the gruesome story of the trial and hanging of the aged
Prince Carraciolli without feeling ashamed that a
fellow-countryman in Nelson’s position should have stamped his
career with so dark a crime? At the capitulation of St. Elmo,
Carraciolli made his escape. He commanded a Neapolitan warship
called the Tancredi, and had fought in Admiral Hotham’s
action on the 14th March, 1795, and gained distinction,
accompanying the Royal Family to Palermo. He was given permission
by the King to return for the purpose of protecting his large
property. The French had entered Neapolitan territory and seized
his estates, on the ground
that he was a Royalist, and the only way he could recover them
was by agreeing to take command of the Neapolitan fleet. The
French were obliged to evacuate the country, and left their
friends to settle matters for themselves as best they could.
Carraciolli concealed himself, but was discovered in disguise and
put on board the Foudroyant with his hands tied behind his
back. Captain Hardy, who was a man with a heart, was indignant
when he saw the old man subjected to such gross indignity, and
immediately ordered his hands to be liberated.

Nelson committed him for trial, which commenced at ten
o’clock, and at twelve he was declared guilty. At five o’clock he
was hanged at the yardarm of the Neapolitan frigate
Minerva. This poor old man was tried solely by his enemies
without being allowed to have counsel or call witnesses. A
miscreant called Count Thurn, a worse enemy than all, presided
over the court. Carraciolli asked Lieutenant Parkinson to obtain
for him a new trial. Nelson, who had ordered the first, could not
or would not grant a second. Carraciolli asked to be shot, and
this also was refused. On the grounds of former association, he
sought the aid of Lady Hamilton, but she, being an approving
party to the execution, only came from her concealment to enjoy
the sight of the old Prince’s dead body dangling at the yardarm.
“Come, Bronte, come,” said she, “let us take the barge and have
another look at Carraciolli”; and there they feasted their eyes
on the lifeless remains of their former associate, who had assuredly cursed them both
with his last dying breath. It is the custom when sailors are
buried at sea to weight their feet so that the body may sink in
an upright position. The same course was adopted with
Carraciolli; shot was put at his feet, but not sufficient, and he
was cast into the sea. In a few days the putrified body rose to
the surface head upwards, as though the murdered man had come
again to haunt his executioners and give them a further
opportunity of gazing at the ghastly features of their
victim.[11] The sight of his old
friend emerging again terrified Ferdinand, and he became
afflicted with a feeling of abiding horror which he sought to
appease by having the body interred in a Christian burial-ground.
But the spirit of his executed friend worried him all his
remaining days, and the act of burial did not save Naples from
becoming a shambles of conflict, robbery, and revolution. Neither
did Emma Hamilton escape her just deserts for the vile part she
played in one of the most abominable crimes ever committed. Her
latter hours were made terrible by the thought of the mockery of
a trial, and the constant vision of the Prince’s ghost glowering
at her from the Minerva’s yardarm and from the surface of
his watery tomb from which he had risen again to reproach her
with the inhuman pleasure she had taken in watching the dreadful act. Nor did her
shrieking avowal of repentance give the wretched Jezebel of a
woman the assurance of forgiveness. She sought for distractions,
and found most of them in wickedness, and passed into the
presence of the Great Mystery with all her deeds of
faithlessness, deceit, and uncontrollable revenge before her
eyes.

It is sad to read of and hear the insensate rubbish that is
talked of new earths that are to evolve from war, as though it
could be divorced from wounds and death, unspeakable crime,
suffering in all its varied forms, and the destruction of
property which must always be a direct result. The spectacle of
it can never be other, except to the martially-minded, than a
shuddering horror. I would ask any one who is imbued with the
idea that out of wars spring new worlds to name a single instance
where a nation that has engaged in it has not been left bleeding
at its extremities, no matter whether it emerges as victor or
vanquished. I would further ask the writer or orator who talks in
this strain if he imagines that the sending of myriads of men to
death can contribute to the making of new earths. The
consequences are much too tragically serious to the nation, and
indeed to the world, to be played with by smug diplomatists who
seek to excite the populace into support of their calamitous
efforts at statesmanship by shallow bursts of eloquence about the
new conditions of life which are to accrue from their imitation
of Germanism.

No doubt Nelson thought,
when he had poor old Prince Carraciolli hung, that he would
create a new earth by striking terror into the hearts of the
Neapolitan race, but natural laws are not worked out by methods
of this kind, and Nelson had the mortification of seeing his plan
of regulating human affairs create a new and more ferocious
little hell on earth. His judgment at this time was very much
warped through the evil influence of the Court of Naples and more
especially by his infatuation for Lady Hamilton.

Greville, and subsequently Sir William Hamilton, had taken
great pains to educate Emma Hart. Hamilton writes to his nephew:
“I can assure you her behaviour is such as has acquired her many
sensible admirers, and we have good man society, and all the
female nobility, with the Queen at their head, show her every
mark of civility.” Hamilton writes further: “Hitherto, her
behaviour is irreproachable, but her temper, as you must know,
unequal.” Lady Malmesbury (with a decidedly sly scratch) says of
her: “She really behaves as well as possible, and quite
wonderfully, considering her origin and education.” Sir George
Elliot says: “Her manners are perfectly, unpolished, very easy,
but not with the ease of good breeding, but of a barmaid;
excessively good-humoured, wishing to please and be admired by
everybody that came in her way. She has acquired since her
marriage some knowledge of history and of the arts, and one
wonders at the application and pains she has taken to make
herself what she is. With men her language and conversation are exaggerations of anything I
ever heard anywhere; and I was wonderfully struck with these
inveterate remains of her origin, though the impression was very
much weakened by seeing the other ladies of Naples.” A naval
lieutenant at Naples stated he “thought her a very handsome,
vulgar woman.” There is no stabbing with a sneer about this
opinion. It expresses in a few words the candid opinion of the
sailor. Mrs. St. George thinks her “bold, daring, vain even to
folly, and stamped with the manners of her first situation much
more strongly than one would suppose, after having represented
Majesty and lived in good company fifteen years. Her dress is
frightful. Her waist is absolutely between her shoulders. Her
figure is colossal, but, excepting her feet, which are hideous,
well shaped. The shape of all her features is fine, as is the
form of her head, and particularly her ears; her teeth are a
little irregular, but tolerably white; her eyes light blue, with
a brown spot in one, which, though a defect, takes nothing away
from her beauty or expression. Her eyebrows and hair, which, by
the bye, is never clean, are dark and her complexion coarse. Her
expression is strongly marked, variable, and interesting; her
movements in common life ungraceful, her voice loud, yet not
disagreeable.” This female critic seems to have been overburdened
with the weight of Emma’s defects, mental and physical! Elliot
says: “Her person is nothing short of monstrous for its enormity,
and is growing every day. Her face is beautiful.” The latter view
tones down the apparent
desire not to say too much in her favour.

We are persuaded, in fact, that the foregoing views of Lady
Hamilton’s personal appearance are not correct. They give the
impression that the opinions of her critics are based on the
woman’s lowly origin, and that they assume that because she was
the offspring of poor parents she ought to be described as a fat
hoyden with the manners of the kitchen. The people who knew her
intimately do not make her out to be a stout, unwholesome,
East-End Palestiner. The sister of Marie Antoinette, be it
remembered, was her close companion, and many English ladies
living in Naples and visiting there were scarcely likely to
associate with a person who could not display better looks and
manners than those set forth. Nelson, the Prince of Wales, and
her many other men admirers, were hardly likely to tumble over
each other in competition for her smiles and favours if “her
dress was frightful,” “her waist between her shoulders,” “her
hair dirty,” “her feet hideous,” “her bones large,” “her
complexion coarse,” and “her person monstrous for its enormity,
growing every day.”

We are inclined to place little dependence on the accuracy of
people who seem to have described her according to their moods or
perhaps according to the manner of her admirers towards
themselves. That she was clever and attractive there can be no
doubt, and it is equally certain that she won for herself the
mortal enmity of many ladies who saw her powerful influence over
prominent men and women whom
they themselves bored. Some importance must be given to her
husband’s position as British representative; his influence must
have been great, especially in Neapolitan circles. This would
help her natural gifts of fascination, even though her breeding
and education did not reach the standard of her blue-blooded
critics. She had something that stood her in greater stead than
breeding and education: she had the power of enslaving gallant
hearts and holding them in thrall with many artful devices. They
liked her Bohemianism, her wit, her geniality, her audacious
slang, and her collection of droll epithets that fittingly
described her venomous critics of a self-appointed nobility. When
she could not reach the heights of such superior persons she
proceeded to ridicule them with a tongue that rattled out vivid
invective which outmatched anything they could say of her.
It probably made her more enemies, but it satisfied her temper
and pleased her admirers. She never appears to have been
conscious of any inferiority in herself. We are inclined to agree
with the opinion expressed by the naval lieutenant at Naples, who
said “She was a very handsome, vulgar woman.” All her portraits
confirm what the sailor says about her beauty, and the most
reliable records are confirmatory so far as his view of her
vulgarity is concerned.

But in any case, whatever may have been her physical
dimensions, they were not understated by the crowd who gave vent
to their aversion in this and in many other deplorable ways.
There are only a few
evidences of Nelson being aware of and resenting some of the
disparaging remarks made about his “wife in the sight of Heaven,”
and these do not seem to have diminished his infatuation for her.
He was accustomed to say in connection with his professional
duties that whenever he followed his own head he was in general
much more correct in his judgment than by following other
people’s opinions. He carried this plan into his private life so
far as Emma was concerned, but men and women who were his
intimate friends would not support the view that by following his
head in this particular case his judgment was sound. We
may term the infatuation a deteriorated state of mind, but
he was sustained by the belief that she was a spirit unto
him while he lived, and with his last gasp, as he was passing
into the shadows, he bestowed her as a legacy to his country. We
shall have something to say hereafter as to how the British
Government dealt with their great Admiral’s dying injunction.

The Neapolitan atmosphere was vile enough, and might well have
made even men and women who knew the loose side of life shrink
from it, but it can never be claimed that it had a demoralizing
influence on Emma, who at an early age became familiar with
unspeakable vices which left her little to learn at the time
Greville sold her to his uncle, who took her to a centre of
sordid uncleanness, there to become his wife after a brief
association as his mistress. We may have no misgiving as to her
aptitude in acquiring anything she chose that was left for her to learn from a
community of debauchees and parasites.

The wonder is that her brain did not succumb to the poisonous
influences by which she was surrounded, and that the poor girl
did not sink into the depths of that luxurious sensuality which
characterized Neapolitan society at that time. It was a more
distinguished and fascinating type of debauchery than that which
she had known in other days in England, and from which Greville
had rescued her. The temptation to plunge into the boisterous
merriment of a higher order of depravity than that to which she
had been accustomed must have been very great to such a
temperament as hers. But she worthily kept her wild, wayward
spirit under restraint, and, according to Sir William Hamilton,
she conducted herself in a way that caused him to be satisfied
with his reforming guidance. She adapted herself to the ways of
the more select social community of her new existence, and at the
time Nelson made her acquaintance she had really become a
creditable member of the society in which she moved. In every
respect she was congenial to him. He never lost a chance of
applauding her gifts and brazenly exempting himself from all
moral restrictions, except, as I have said before, when he was
seized with a spontaneous fit of goodness. He would then clumsily
try to conceal the passion that obsessed him. He did not brood
long over trifles of this kind, merely because he had lost, if
ever he possessed, the power of consecutive reasoning in matters
of moral convention. His Neapolitan associates were a cunning, lying, luxury-loving,
depraved lot, and however strongly his principles were fixed,
there can be but one opinion—that such an atmosphere was
harmful to him. He speaks of Naples himself as being a country of
poets, whores, and scoundrels; and Southey does not attempt to
mince words, for in vigorous terms he describes England’s
“alliances to superannuated and abominable governments of the
Continent.” These are the states that we shed British blood and
squandered British money over, and in truth Southey describes
them as they were!

The King of Naples was a great hero to stand up against the
bravest, best-trained troops the world! He shivered at the
thought of Nelson going out of his sight, and whimpered him into
staying to guard him and his rotten kingdom. It was at this
period of his gallant activity that Nelson became the victim of
fulsome flattery and the associate of the most cunning, knavish
charlatans in the world. These creatures never ceased to inveigh
against the wrongs they were suffering for the uplifting of human
rights, and because their great British ally was in need of their
disinterested and distinguished co-ordination. Nelson was well
aware of all this, but could not shake himself free. He loathed
the slavering way in which flattery was extended to him, because
it had a sickly resemblance to weeping. He declares of the
Neapolitan officers, “They are boasters of the highest order, and
when they are confronted with the duty of defending hearth and
home, their courage ends in vapour.” He avers that they “cannot lose honour, as they have
none to lose,” and yet he makes no serious effort to unshackle
himself from a detestable position. Emma, the Queen, and King of
Naples, and others, have a deep-rooted hold on him, and he cannot
give up the cheap popularity of the Neapolitans. He persuades
himself that the whole thought of his soul is “Down, down, with
the French,” and that it shall be his “constant prayer.”
Throughout the whole course of his brilliant career it was never
doubted that the French were his great aversion, because they
were his country’s enemies. But the hysterical tears of Lady
Hamilton and those of the Neapolitan Queen proved too strong for
him. The King’s beseeching fears were also added to an already
difficult situation, which, he persuaded himself, could not be
ignored without damaging the interests he was sent to protect; so
his stay in the reeking cesspool of Neapolitanism was prolonged,
but there is no reason for supposing that his “constant prayer”
for the extinction of the French was any the less ardent. The
fatal day of their catastrophe was only postponed. The praying
went on all the same, with more or less belief in the Almighty’s
preference for Englishmen.

VIII

This is a form of cant to which those whom we regard as great
men are a prey. But this pride of race is not confined to the
mighty men of valour. The
humble soldier and sailor, and poorest and richest of civilians,
have the same inherent belief in British superiority. They talk
to the Great Giver of all power in the most patronizing way, and
while they profess to believe in His ordinances they treat them
as though He were their vassal and not their Lawgiver. They call
upon Him to break His own laws and help them to smite those whom
they regard as enemies, never doubting the righteousness of their
cause. The enemy, on the other hand, believe that they
have a monopoly of God, and avow that their cause is His,
and being His, they grimly ask Him to settle the dispute
by coming down on their side; but should they win the fight, the
glory of it is seldom given to the Power whose assistance is
implored, but ascribed to their own genius.

Cromwell is a singular and distinguished exception. He always
gave all the glory to God. Take as an example the battle of
Dunbar (though there are many instances of a similar character
that could be quoted during the Civil War). The battle-cry of the
Parliament forces was “The Lord of Hosts,” and at the opportune
moment the commander of the Parliament army shouted, “Now let God
arise, and His enemies shall be scattered.” The Ironsides made a
fearless and irresistible rush at their foes, and almost
immediately Cromwell saw the Covenanters in confusion; again he
shouted, “They run! I profess they run!” The quotation from the
68th Psalm was always an inspiration to these religious warriors.
Old Leslie, the Scotch Covenanting general, with the patience of stupidity, had been
mumbling petitions for hours to the God of the Anointed to form
an alliance with him to crush the unholy rebellion against King
and Covenant. “Thou knowest, O God, how just our cause is, and
how unjust is that of those who are not Thy people.” This
moth-eaten crowd of canting hypocrites were no match for the
forces who believed that they were backed by the Lord of Hosts,
and they were completely routed.

Sir Jacob Astley, another Royalist, on one occasion during the
Civil War breathed a simple prayer with uplifted eyes. “O Lord,”
said he, “Thou knowest how busy I must be this day. If I forget
Thee, do not Thou forget me.” Then he gave the word of command to
“March.” He was nevertheless defeated at Stow, and seems to have
been offended at the Deity for His forgetfulness, as he bitterly
reproached his conquerors by telling them that they might go to
play unless they fell out amongst themselves.

Napoleon carried on warfare under a sterner and more
self-reliant code. He had confidence in and depended on his own
genius and on nature’s laws. There are shoals of instances in his
short and terrific career that indicate this belief in himself.
He said to a regiment of horse chasseurs at Lobenstein two days
before the battle of Jena, “My lads! you must not fear death;
when soldiers brave death, they drive him into the enemy’s
ranks.” On another occasion he said: “You must not fight too
often with one enemy, or you teach him all your art of war.” This
is a thrilling truth which
always tells in war, and yet behind all the apparent indifference
to the great mysterious force that holds sway over human affairs
there was a hidden belief in the power of the Deity to guide
aright and give aid in the hour of need, even to men of
unequalled talents like Napoleon himself. His spontaneous
exclamations indicate that he did not doubt who created and ruled
the universe, but how much he relied on this power he never
really disclosed, and it can only be a supposition gathered from
utterances recorded by some of his contemporaries that he had a
devout belief in the great power of Christianity. “Ah!” said he
one day, “there is but one means of getting good manners, and
that is by establishing religion.” At that time the spiritual
life of France was at a low ebb, and the subject of religion was
one of the most unpopular and risky topics to raise, but Napoleon
knew that it would have to be tackled in the open sooner or
later, and it is a matter of authentic history that he struggled
to bring and ultimately succeeded in bringing back religious
ordinances to France. He declared that no good government could
exist for long without it. His traducers proclaimed him an
atheist, and we hear the same claptrap from people now who have
not made themselves acquainted with the real history of the man
and his times. We do not say he was a saint, but he was a better
Christian, both in profession and action, than most of the kings
that ruled prior to and during his period. In every way he excels
the Louis of France, the Georges of Great Britain and Hanover,
the Fredericks of Prussia,
and the Alexanders of Russia. The latter two he puts far in the
shade, both as a statesman, a warrior, and a wise, humane ruler
who saw far into futurity, and fought against the reactionary
forces of Europe, which combined to put an end to what was called
his ambition to dominate the whole of creation. He foretold with
amazing accuracy that from his ashes there would spring up
sectional wars for a time, and ultimately the selfsame elements
of vicious mediocrity that destroyed him would bring about a
world-conflict which would destroy itself.

The laws of life are simple, but at the same time very
terrible in their consequences if ignored or disobeyed. What
folly to imagine that any great figure or great tragedy comes
into existence by chance! Napoleon was just as necessary to the
world as was Cromwell. Both had the righting of wrongs and the
clearing away of the accumulation of centuries of chaos and
misgovernment, and it was not to be expected that they could
carry out the necessary reforms without making the authors of
such an intolerable state of things angry and resentful at their
iron methods of discipline. Napoleon and Cromwell possessed the
combined arts of war and statesmanship to a higher degree than
any of their contemporaries. Cromwell excelled Napoleon in
professional Christianity. The latter never paraded his ideas of
religion, though he acted on them silently and gave occasional
expression to the thoughts of his soul. Indeed, he was too much
given to publicly disavowing the very principles he believed in
privately. This plan or
habit was said to be for the purpose of creating controversy. Be
that as it may, when the natural spirit moved him he would
declare his views in the most robust way. On one of many
occasions he startled the Council of State by reminding them that
a man did not risk being killed for a few pence a day or for a
paltry distinction. “You must speak to the soul,” he declared,
“to electrify the man.” Another very notable expression is here
worth referring to, as it instances how practical and human were
his views. “The heart,” said he, “warms the genius, but in Pitt
the genius withers the heart, which is a very different thing”;
and so it is that Cromwell and he were not dissimilar in many of
their attributes. Indeed, it is said that Napoleon never tired of
quoting or having quoted to him some striking characteristic of
Cromwell. We could hardly, with any degree of good judgment, put
Leslie the Covenanter or Sir Jacob Astley the Royalist, or Nelson
the matchless naval strategist and national hero, on a par with
either Cromwell or Napoleon. They are only here referred to in
connection with the two unequalled constructive statesmen and
military generals as representing a type of peculiarly religious
men who have occupied high military and naval positions in the
service of the State.

Hawkins, Drake, Frobisher, Blake in Cromwell’s time, Nelson in
Napoleon’s, were all fire-eating religious men, always asking
favours and guidance in their perilous undertakings from the
great mystic Power in whom
they believed. Collingwood was a great admiral and a Christian
gentleman, who never mixed religion with hysterical or dramatic
flashes of quarterdeck language. He was ostentatious in nothing,
and seemed to observe a strictly decorous attitude. Nelson, on
the other hand, resembled a restless squirrel, always swift in
his instincts, with an enthusiasm which was contagious. In many
ways he did not adhere to what is called cricket in sporting
phrase. He was accustomed to say, “Never mind the justice or the
impudence of this or that, only let me succeed.” Then he would
proceed to ask the Almighty in feverish zeal to aid him in the
object he had in view.

He would scatter a profusion of curses about in relation to
the treatment of the Admiralty towards himself, or at his
disappointment in not getting to grips with the French fleet, and
then proceed to ask Lady Hamilton if they had a nice church at
Merton, so that they may set an example of goodness to the
under-parishioners, and “admire the pigs and poultry,” etc. He
finds on several occasions that a picture of Emma is much admired
by the French Consul at Barcelona, and feels sure it would be
admired by Bonaparte, and then he continues, “I love you most
dearly, and hate the French most damnably.” Sometimes he said he
hated the French as the devil hated holy water, which at that
time was considered to be the orthodoxy of a true Briton. It was
quite a pro-British attitude to patronize the maker of kings who
had kept the world in awe for nearly a quarter of a century, by
expecting him to admire a portrait of a loose woman to whom he referred in the most
scathing manner while at St. Helena. Her reputation and Nelson’s
connection with her seems to have been known to him, as was also
her connection with the Neapolitan Court. His indictment was
terrible.

Nelson had a weary, anxious time on the Toulon station. He
called it his home, and said they were in fine fighting trim and
wished to God the ships were the same, but they were in a very
dilapidated condition, not fit to stand the bad weather they were
sure to encounter. The British Minister at Naples wished to send
a Frenchman who could be relied on with information as to the
whereabouts of the French fleet. Nelson replied that he would not
on any account have a Frenchman in the British fleet except as a
prisoner. He would be grateful to him for any information he
could give, but not a Frenchman would be allowed to come to him,
and adds that “his mother hated the French.” He was enraged at
the report spread by a fussy French Admiral named M. la
Touche-Treville, who was in command at Toulon. It was said that
he was sent to beat Nelson as he had done at Boulogne. But he was
shy about coming out and trying a tussle. Nelson said he was a
miscreant, a poltroon, and a liar. The Frenchman had boasted in a
publication that he had put the British fleet to flight. The
British Admiral took the charge so seriously to heart that he
sent a copy of the Victory’s log to the Admiralty to
disprove the statement of the lying Admiral la Touche, and in a
letter to his brother Nelson says, “You will have seen La Touche’s letter of
how he chased me, and how I ran. I keep it; and by God if I take
him, he shall eat it.” La Touche cheated Nelson of a sweet
revenge by dying like a good Christian before the outraged
British Admiral could get hold of him. The newspapers of France
said he died of fatigue caused by walking so often to the signal
post at Sepet, to watch the British fleet; and Nelson stated
“that he was always sure that would be the death of him, and that
if he had come out to fight him it would have added ten years on
to his life.” Poor Nelson was very sensitive when his
professional qualities were assailed. He thought, and thought
rightly, that the blockade at Toulon was an unparalleled feat of
human patience and physical endurance. He had only been out of
his ship three times from May 1803 to August 1805. We may write
and speak about this wonderful devotion to duty, but it is only
if we take time to think of the terrific things which the central
figure who commanded, and the crews of the fleet of rickety,
worn-out, leaky baskets—proudly spoken of as the “wooden
walls of Old England”—had to contend with and actually did,
that we comprehend the vast strain and task of it all. It was
because Nelson was ever being reminded by some clumsy act of the
Admiralty or thoughtless, ignorant criticism on the part of the
politicians and civilian public generally that the work he and
the men under him were doing was not appreciated as it should be,
that he gave way to outbursts of violent resentment. But so far
as the present writer has
been able to discover, his love of approbation was so strong that
an encouraging word of praise soon put him in love for the time
being with those whom he had lately cursed.

He never shrank from disobeying the instructions of whatever
authority was over him if his judgment led him to the conclusion
that he would serve his country better by disobedience and by
following his own judgment; whenever he was driven to do this he
was right and those above him were wrong, and in each case he was
so conclusively right that no authoritative power dare
court-martial him, or even censure his conduct, since the public
believed more in him than in them. When the spirit of
well-balanced defiance was upon him, he seemed to say to the
public, to himself, and to those who were responsible for his
instructions, “Do you imagine yourselves more capable of judging
the circumstances, and the immeasurable difficulties surrounding
them, than I am, whose business it has been to watch minutely
every changing phase? Or do you think my love of country or glory
so incomparably inferior to yours that I would risk any harm
coming to it, or to myself and the men under me, if I was not
sure of my ground? For what other reason do you think I disobeyed
orders? Do you suppose I did it in order that some disaster
should be the result? Or do you still think that your plan, right
or wrong, should have been carried out, even though it would be
accompanied with appalling consequences to life and property? If
these are your views, I wish to remind you that I am the Indomitable Nelson, who
will stand no damned nonsense from you or from the enemy when I
see that my country, or the interests that I represent, are going
to be jeopardized by your self-assertive instructions, and I wish
to intimate to you that there is only one way of dealing with a
Frenchman, and that is to knock him down when he is an enemy. You
have obviously got to learn that to be civil to a Frenchman is to
be laughed at, and this I shall never submit to.” The Admiralty
censured Nelson for disobeying Lord Keith’s orders and, as they
claimed, endangering Minorca, and also for landing seamen for the
siege of Capua, and told him “not to employ the seamen in any
such way in future.” The Admiralty were too hasty in chastising
him. He claimed that his success in freeing the whole kingdom of
Naples from the French was almost wholly due to the employment of
British sailors, whose valour carried the day.

Nelson sent the First Lord a slap between the eyes in his best
sarcastic form. He said briefly, “I cannot enter into all the
detail in explanation of my motives which led me to take the
action I did, as I have only a left hand, but I may inform you
that my object is to drive the French to the devil, and restore
peace and happiness to mankind”; and he continues, “I feel I am
fitter to do the action than to describe it.” And then he curtly
and in so many words says to his Chief, “Don’t you be troubled
about Minorca. I have secured the main thing against your wish
and that of Lord Keith, and you may be assured that I shall see that no harm comes to
the Islands, which seems to be a cause of unnecessary anxiety to
you.” Incidentally, the expulsion of the French from Naples and
seating Ferdinand on the throne was, as I have previously stated,
not an unqualified success, nor was he accurate in his statement
that he had restored happiness to millions. The success was a
mere shadow. He had emancipated a set of villains. Troubridge
says they were all thieves and vagabonds, robbing their
unfortunate countrymen, selling confiscated property for nothing,
cheating the King and Treasury by pocketing everything that their
sticky fingers touched, and that their villainies were so deeply
rooted that if some steps were not taken to dig them out, the
Government could not hold together. Out of twenty millions of
ducats collected as revenue, only thirteen millions reached the
Treasury, and the King had to pay four ducats instead of one.
Troubridge again intimates to his superior that Ferdinand is
surrounded with a nest of the most unscrupulous thieves that
could be found in all Europe. “Such damned cowards and villains,”
he declared, “he had never seen or heard of before.”

IX

The French did not mince matters when their opportunity came.
They, too, regarded them as vermin, and treated them according to
the unrestrained edicts of the Reign of Terror, organized
and administered by their
late compatriots Sardanapalus, Danton, Maximilian Robespierre,
and their literary colleague, the execrable Marat, who, by the
way, was expeditiously dispatched by the gallant Charlotte
Corday.[12]

This method of bestowing the blessings of Liberty, Equality,
and Fraternity was received by the Neapolitans with a frenzy from
which there sprang a demoniac retaliation. Societies were formed
to carry out the most atrocious crimes against the Neapolitan
revolutionists, whom the Royalists hated more than they did the
French. The fishermen and other miscreants came to a solemn
conclusion that it was clearly their duty as a Christian people
to combine, and each choose one whom they should privately
guillotine when the opportunity offered. With the idea of paying
a high compliment to Troubridge, who had so splendidly protected the Royalists, fought the
French, and subdued the revolutionists, they made him the
recipient of a decapitated head which had proudly sat on the
shoulders of a revolutionist. This trophy was actually sent to
him with his basket of breakfast grapes. In making the present
the gallant fisherman conveyed his compliments to the Admiral,
and reminded him that it was a token of his high appreciation of
the Admiral’s brilliant services to the Royalist cause.

The Court was infested with traitors who would first carry out
their vengeance against their rebellious compatriots and then
cunningly lay the blame on those under whose protection they
were. One of their judges informed Troubridge that he must have a
Bishop to excommunicate some of the traitor priests before he
could have them executed, and the fine sailor, who was sick of
the crafty devils and the task he had been allocated to carry
out, replied, “For the love of God hang the damned rascals first,
and then let the Bishop deal with them if he did not think
hanging was a sufficient degradation.” Nothing in the annals of
history can surpass the effrontery of these intriguers, which
throws a lurid light on the class of administrators who
associated with the British nation and spilt the blood of the
flower of our land in bolstering up a government that was a
disgrace and put all human perfidy in the shade.

These allies of ours, who were joyously butchering and robbing
each other, demanded a British warship to take the priests to
Palermo, so that they might
be degraded in a proper, Christian fashion and then brought to
Naples for execution. Troubridge was audaciously requested to
appoint a hangman (it may be he was asked to combine this with
his other naval duties), and knowing the fine sense of noble
dignity in the average sailor, we can easily imagine the flow of
adjectives that accompanied the refusal, and how he would relate
the outrage to which he had been subjected in quarterdeck
language, that need not be here repeated, to his superior
officer, Admiral Nelson, who must have felt the degradation of
being selected to carry out as dirty a piece of work as ever
devolved upon a public servant. To fight for his King and country
was the joy of his soul, but to be selected as wet-nurse to the
kingdom of Naples and the dignitaries that were at the head of it
would have been an unbearable insult to his sense of proportion
had it not been for the fulsome flattery, to which he was so
susceptible, which was adroitly administered by the ladies of the
Court, headed by the Queen and supplemented by the wife of Sir
William Hamilton.

There is always some fatal weakness about a great man that
lures him into littleness, and this was an overwhelming tragedy
in Nelson’s career. The approbation of men was gratefully
received and even asked for, but the adoration of women reduced
him to helplessness. He was drugged by it, and the stronger the
doses, the more efficacious they were. They nullified the vision
of the unwholesome task he was set to carry out until his
whole being revolted against
the indignity of it, when he would pour out his wrath to Lady
Hamilton as he did at the time when Troubridge would report to
him his own trials. No doubt this caused him to realize the
chaotic condition of public affairs, for he writes to the lady
that “politics are hateful to him, and that Ministers of Kings
are the greatest scoundrels that ever lived.” The King of Naples
is, he suspects, to be superseded by a prince who has married a
Russian Archduchess. This, presumably, had been arranged by the
“great political scoundrels.” He stands loyally by Ferdinand, but
soon all the work of that part of his life that gave him socially
so much pleasure and professionally so much misery is to be left
for evermore, and his great talents used in other and higher
spheres.

He had retaken Naples from the French, who had set up the
Parthenopean Republic in 1799, and placed the tyrant King on his
throne again; after a few more chequered years a treaty of
neutrality was signed between France and Naples, which was
treacherously broken by Naples. Ferdinand had to fly to Sicily,
the French troops entered the capital, and Bonaparte, who had
been marching from one victory to another, cleared out
deep-rooted abuses and introduced reforms wherever he could. He
had become the terror and the enemy of the misgoverning monarchs
of that period, and the French nation had proclaimed him Emperor
in 1804. He placed his brother Joseph on the throne of Naples in
February 1806; Joseph ruled with marked moderation and distinction, sweeping away much of
the foul canker of corruption and introducing many beneficent
reforms during his two years of kingship. He then, much against
his own wishes, became King of Spain, and was succeeded by his
brother-in-law, Prince Joachim Murat, the dashing cavalry
officer, whose decorative exterior awed friend and foe, and
helped to win many a battle. His reign lasted from 1808 until
1815, and was no less distinguished than that of Joseph’s. The
fall of the Napoleonic régime was followed by the fall of
Murat, and the despicable and treacherous Ferdinand became again
the king, and brought back with him the same tyrannical habits
that had made his previous rule so disastrous to the kingdom and
to himself. No whitewasher, however brilliant and ingenious, can
ever wipe out the fatal action of the British Government in
embarking on so ill-conceived a policy as that of supporting the
existence of a bloodsucking government, composed of a miscreant
ruling class headed by an ignoble king, all living on the misery
and blood of a semi-civilized population. It is a nauseous piece
of history, with which, under sagacious administration, we should
never have been connected.

The main idea was to humble the pride of France, that
thenceforth there might be peace in Europe. The Neapolitan
revolutionists believed that the French intention was to set up a
free government and deliver them from an unbearable despotism.
Quite naturally, the Court took an opposite view in believing
that it foreshadowed deportation, so they lost no time in
proclaiming it to be conquest and merciless plunder. Nelson urged the
vacillating King to advance against the French, to trust in God’s
blessing being bestowed upon him, his army, and his cause, and to
die like a hero, sword in hand, or lose his throne. The King,
always dauntless in the absence of danger, replied that he would
do this, trusting in God and Nelson. His Majesty, in tickling the
Admiral’s susceptible spot by associating his name with that of
the Deity, doubtless made a good shot, and had Nelson’s sense of
humour been equal to his vanity, he might not have received the
oily compliment with such delightful complacency.

We can imagine the scorn with which Troubridge would have
received the potentate’s reply had he given the same advice as
Nelson. It is highly probable that had it been given on the
quarterdeck of his ship, the King would have been treated to a
vocabulary that would have impressed him with the necessity of
scrambling quickly over the side. Nelson, it is stated, turned
the French out of Naples, and they were subsequently overpowered
by a plan put in force by Nelson and Troubridge, and carried into
effect by men from the fleet. Captain Hallowell was ordered to
proceed to Civita Vecchia and Castle St. Angelo to offer terms of
capitulation. He reported the position to Troubridge, who ordered
a squadron in command of Captain Louis to proceed and enforce the
terms. The French, on the other hand, offered terms, but
Troubridge, like Drake on another occasion, said that he had no
time to parley, that they must agree to his terms or fight. The French Ambassador at Rome
argued that the Roman territory belonged to the French by
conquest, and the British commander adroitly replied “that it was
his by reconquest.” The inevitable alternative was
impressive—capitulation. This was arranged, and the Roman
States came under the control of the victors. Captain Louis
proceeded in his cutter up the Tiber and planted the British
colours at Rome, becoming its governor for a brief time. The
naval men had carried out, by clever strategy and pluck, an
enterprise which Sir James Erskine declined to undertake because
of the insurmountable difficulties he persisted in seeing.
General Mack was at the head of about 30,000 Neapolitan troops,
said to be the finest in Europe. This, however, did not prevent
them from being annihilated by 15,000 French, when General
Championnet evacuated Rome. The King entered with all the swagger
of an Oriental potentate. The Neapolitans followed the French to
Castellana, and when the latter faced up to them they stampeded
in disordered panic. Some were wounded, but few were killed, and
the King, forgetting in his fright his pledged undertaking to go
forth trusting in “God and Nelson,” fled in advance of his
valiant soldiers to the capital, where they all arrived in
breathless confusion. General Mack had been introduced to Nelson
by the King and Queen, the latter exhorting him to be on land
what the Admiral had been on sea.

Nelson seems to have formed an adverse opinion of Mack, who
was extolled by the Court as the military genius who was to
deliver Europe from the
thraldom of the French. He had expressed the view that the King
and Queen’s incomparable general “could not move without five
carriages,” and that he “had formed his opinion” of him,
which was tantamount to saying that Mack was both a coward and a
traitor. Perhaps it was undue consideration for the feelings of
Caroline, sister to the late Marie Antoinette, that caused him to
restrain his boiling rage against this crew of reptiles, who had
sold every cause that was entrusted to their protection.

Nelson was infatuated with the charms of Caroline, and as this
astute lady knew how to handle him in the interests of the
Neapolitan Court, he reciprocated her patronage by overlooking
misdeeds that would, under different circumstances, have
justified him in blowing swarms of her noble subjects out of
existence. “I declare to God,” he writes, “my whole study is how
to best meet the approbation of the Queen.” An open door and
hearty reception was always awaiting their Majesties of Sicily on
board Nelson’s flagship when they found it necessary to fly from
the wrath of their downtrodden subjects or the aggressive
invasions of the French troops. The anxiety of Nelson in
conveying them to their Sicilian retreat was doubly increased by
the vast treasure they never neglected to take with them, and
neither the sources from which it came nor the means of spending
it gave trouble to their consciences. The British Government,
always generous with other person’s money, fed these insufferable
royal personages by bleeding the life’s blood out of the British public, though it is fair
to say that the Government did not carry out to the full the
benevolent suggestions Nelson consistently urged in their behalf.
“His heart was always breaking” at some act of parsimony on the
part of the Government in so tardily giving that which he pleaded
was an urgent necessity for them to have. He frankly avowed that
he would prefer to resign if any distinction were to be drawn
between loyalty to his rightful sovereign and that of his
Sicilian Majesty, who was the faithful ally of his King. The
solemn audacity of this statement reveals a mind so far fallen to
pieces by infatuation that it has lost the power of
discrimination.

It will be remembered that this gracious ally promised Nelson
that he would go forth at the head of his troops and conquer or
die, and then scampered off in front of his army through Rome to
Naples, and, after a few days’ concealment from the mob, secretly
bundled into boats with his retinue on a stormy night of great
peril, embarked on the Admiral’s ship, and sailed for
Palermo.

Lady Hamilton is credited with planning (with heroic skill)
means by which the Royal Family could be taken to the shore,
where Nelson was to receive and convoy them in barges to the
Vanguard. Lady Hamilton had explored a subterranean
passage which led from the palace to the beach, and pronounced it
a fairly safe and possible means of exit. The plan apparently
succeeded, and the royal party, after a few days’ precautionary stay in the Bay of
Naples, were conveyed in safety to Palermo, notwithstanding the
hurricane that was encountered and only weathered by a perfection
of seamanship that was unequalled in our naval and merchant
services at that period of our trying history. The voyage was not
made without tragedy, for the youngest of the princes became ill,
and as it is always inevitable to attach a heroine to
circumstances that are sensational (when there is one at hand),
their Majesties in their grief fixed on her who had braved the
perils of investigating the possibilities of the subterranean
tunnel which had proved a safe though hazardous passage for the
conveyance of themselves and their vast treasure. Nor do they
appear to have been unmindful of her devotion to themselves
during the storm, which was the severest that Nelson said he had
ever experienced—though this is a platitude, as sailors are
always prone to regard the last storm as the most terrific of
all! But that it was severe there can be no doubt. We may be
assured that the royal parents were not in a condition to give
succour to their stricken son, so he was vouchsafed to pass
beyond the veil in the arms of Lady Hamilton, who had bravely
defied the tempest and behaved with a compassion that must always
stand to her credit.

They arrived at Palermo the day after the young Prince’s
death, and soon settled down to their gambling and other
pleasures in which Nelson, as already stated, was involved.
Troubridge, with touching fidelity, pleads with him to shun
the temptations by which he
is beset. “I dread, my Lord,” he says, “all the feasting, etc.,
at Palermo. I am sure your health will be hurt. If so, all their
saints will be damned by the Navy”; and then he goes on to say,
“The King would be better employed digesting a good Government;
everything gives way to their pleasures. The money spent at
Palermo gives discontent here; fifty thousand people are
unemployed, trade discouraged, manufactures at a stand. It is the
interest of many here to keep the King away; they all dread
reform.”[13] Troubridge was
wellnigh driven to distraction by the terrible straits he was put
to at Naples. The people were faced with the ravages of famine.
Already there were scenes of unspeakable misery. His appeals to
the Sicilian Court to send
immediate relief was ignored. Nelson, to whom he had appealed,
was absorbed in his attentions to Lady Hamilton, and refused to
see the vicious indifference of the Court, who were hemmed round
with a set of knaves and vagabonds, if that be not too moderate a
term to use of them. Troubridge beseeches him to come to the
rescue in the following terms:—

Shortly after he writes, again pouring out fresh
woes:—

Nelson must have known the position set forth in this feverish
communication from a man whose judgment and affection he had no
reason to suspect. It is a deplorable example of infatuation that
every one who knew the Court and the rascals that surrounded it
was aware of its shameless tricks except Nelson himself. They
protested that they had withdrawn the restrictions on the
exportation of corn so far as they could, and he swallowed their
lies with the simplicity of a child. He must have been the victim
of mesmeric influence not to see through their vile knavery in
pleading poverty when they were asked to carry out an act of
common humanity. All very well for him to groan over what he had
to endure, and to complain that the burden of it had broken his
spirit! Troubridge diagnosed the malady when he implored Nelson
to relinquish the infatuation which was leading him into trouble.
Why, instead of spending his time with Lady Hamilton and fawning
over the King and Queen, did he leave the right thing to be done
by Captain Ball (who took the bull by the horns)? All very well
for him to pour out his
wrath to the Duke of Clarence, that his “constant thought was
down, down with the damned French villains”! and that his “blood
boiled at the name of a Frenchman”! But except that we were at
war with the French, were they in any degree such “damned
villains” as the Neapolitans and the whole crew of Court knaves,
with whom he was so blindly enamoured, who were, in reality,
ready to sell their own country and his to the French whenever
they saw it was to their material advantage to do so?

Captain Ball did not waste time in the use of adjectives about
the French and the daily “anxieties” that bore so heavily on
himself and others, “breaking his heart.” He gave peremptory
orders to his first lieutenant to proceed off Messina and seize
the ships that were lying there loaded with corn, and bring them
to Malta. He defied the abominable Court of Sicily and their
edicts prohibiting exportation, and his instructions were carried
out. He awaited the consequences to himself with a manly
consciousness that humanity must take precedence of orders
dictated by a sentimental fear lest the feelings of a set of
cowardly despots should be hurt. This single act of real courage
and decision saved the lives of thousands of starving people, and
prevented the siege from being removed. The Court of Naples dared
not utter a word of condemnation against Captain Ball, but the
Governor of Malta became the object of their nervous enmity,
which they dare not put into practice.

Lord Minto, many years
after the events of which I am writing, said of Nelson, for whom
he had an affectionate regard, that “he was in many points a
really great man, but in others he was a baby.” No one who has
studied his career will ever doubt his greatness, but his peevish
childishness, even when he was responsible for the carrying out
of great deeds that did not come so quickly as his eager spirit
craved, ofttimes tried the patience of those who set high value
on his matchless talents and his otherwise lovable disposition.
He was never known to take credit to himself that was due to
others, but, like most great men, he took for granted that all
those above or below him in rank and station should be
subordinate to his whims and actions. He could only accommodate
himself to being subordinate to his King, the King and Queen of
Naples, and to the exhilarating influence of Lady Hamilton.
Almost immediately after the seizure of the grain-laden ships,
Nelson sailed for Malta, and had the good fortune to sight a
French squadron, the Généreux, three
frigates, and a corvette; after an exciting and hard chase, he
came up to them, knocked their masts over the side, and captured
the Généreux and a frigate.

X

Nelson hit on a simple though ingenious plan that was
frequently adopted in subsequent years by captains in the
merchant service when racing, which always created excitement amongst the crew;
the order was given to knock the wedges out of the deck coamings,
ease the strain off the fore and aft stays, and when it was
judicious to do it the pinch on the main rigging was also eased
to give the masts more play. The windjammer seamen knew when this
order was given that they were in for a time of “cracking on,”
and really enjoyed both the sport and the risk that it involved,
even in the hands of skilful commanders. By this means the speed
was always increased, and it was quite a common practice on
tea-clippers, Australian passenger vessels, and American packets.
The commander rarely left the quarterdeck on those occasions,
unless his officers were really first-class men. The writer has
often attained successful results when racing by putting
invigorating life into his ship by these old-time methods which
were handed down to each generation of sailors. No class of
seamen knew more dainty tricks in manipulating sails and rigging
than those who manned the slave-runner, the smuggler, and the
pirate schooner. Their vessels were designed for speed, but
ofttimes when they were in a tight place they were saved from
being destroyed by the superb nautical dodges which they alone
knew so well how and when to put in use so that their pursuers
might be outwitted and outdistanced. It is more than probable
that the Généreux would have got away had
Nelson not been a past-master in all kinds of dodges to make his
ship sail faster. He knew that some of the French ships were
notoriously equal to the
British in sailing qualities, but he left nothing to chance.
Every drop of water was ordered to be pumped out of the hold; the
wedges were removed from the masts’ coaming; the stays slackened;
butts of water were hung on them; hammocks were piped down; every
available sail was crowded on to her; the most reliable
quartermasters were stationed at the wheel. The Foudroyant
is gaining—she draws ahead. The stump of the “heaven-born”
Admiral’s right arm is working with agitation as his ship takes
the lead. It is now all up with the
Généreux. She surrenders after a terrific,
devastating duel, and Nelson avows that had he acted according to
Lord Keith’s instead of his own strategy, she would never have
been taken. The Guillaume Tell had been locked up in Malta
Harbour for some time, and the commander decided to run the
gauntlet, his reason being, it is stated, to relieve the starving
garrison from having to feed his ship’s company, which consisted
of from 1,000 to 1,200 men. She was intercepted, engaged, and
ultimately taken by the Foudroyant, Lion, and
Penelope after all her masts had been shot away. The
thrilling story of this sea battle takes high rank in naval
warfare. The French ship was fought with the fury of courage and
genius that Nelson himself could not have failed to admire. The
Penelope and Lion had been mauled off when the
Foudroyant came on the scene and shot away her main and
mizzen masts, when a French sailor, like Jack Crawford of
Sunderland at the battle of Camperdown, nailed the ensign to the
stump of the mizzen mast.
The foremast was the only mast now remaining, and it was soon
sent flying over the side by the terrific firing from the British
ship. She then took her colours down, ceased firing, and became
the prize of the heroes who had fought and conquered. Nelson
might and ought to have had the glory of taking the last of the
Nile fleet, had he not allowed a perverse spirit to rule his
will. He nursed and inflamed his imagination against Lord Keith
being put over him, until that fine zeal that was so natural to
him slackened. He writes to Hamilton that his “situation is
irksome.” “Lord Keith is commander-in-chief, and he (Nelson) has
not been kindly treated.” He tells Spencer that he has written to
Lord Keith, asking for permission to come to England, when he
(the First Lord) will “see a broken-hearted man,” and that his
“spirit cannot submit to it.” The Admiralty may have been
inspired to place Lord Keith in supreme command owing to Nelson’s
association with the Court party at Palermo and the growing
scandal attached to it. But in that case they should have frankly
told him that they feared the effect his dallying at Palermo
might have on the service in many different ways.

Troubridge and Captain Ball urged him with all the sincerity
of devotion not to return to Sicily, but to remain at Malta, and
sign the capitulation which was near at hand; but they could not
alter his resolve to leave the station, which Troubridge said was
due to the passion of infatuation and not to illness, which he
had ascribed as the reason.
Nelson tried the patience of the First Lord (who was his friend)
so sorely that he wrote him a private letter which was couched in
gentle though, in parts, cutting reproaches. He obviously
believed that the plea of ill-health was groundless, or at all
events not sufficiently serious to justify him giving up. He very
fairly states that he is quite convinced that he will be more
likely to recover his health in England than by an inactive stay
at the Court of Sicily, however pleasing the gratitude shown him
for the services he has rendered may be, and that no gratitude
from that Court can be too great in view of the service he had
bestowed upon it. Lord Minto, who was Ambassador at Vienna, says
he has letters from Nelson and Lady Hamilton which do not make it
clear whether he will go home or not. He hopes he will not for
his own sake, for he wants him to take Malta first; and
continues, “He does not seem conscious of the sort of discredit
he has fallen into, or the cause of it, for he still writes, not
wisely, about Lady Hamilton and all that,” and then generously
states, “But it is hard to condemn and use ill a hero, as he is
in his own element, for being foolish about a woman who has art
enough to make fools of many wiser than an Admiral.”

It is hardly possible to doubt that Nelson felt keenly
mortified at losing the opportunity of personally taking the
Guillaume Tell; but whether he did or not, he managed to
subdue all appearance of envy and paid a high, sportsmanlike
tribute to those who had earned the honour He could not help flavouring it, however, with
some words of Nelsonian self-approbation. He said, “He gloried in
them, for they were his children, they served in his school, and
all of them, including himself, caught their professional zeal
and fire from the great and good Earl St. Vincent.” Then he goes
on to say that it is a great happiness to have the Nile fleet all
taken under his orders and regulations. He slyly claimed the
glory of training and inspiring, though he had deprived himself
of added fame by nourishing a morose feeling of jealousy against
Lord Keith, who had been sent out after a few months’ leave to
take up his position as commander-in-chief. Owing to his absence,
Nelson had acted in that capacity, and he could not bear the
thought of being superseded by his old chief. In fact, Nelson
could not tolerate being placed in a secondary position by any
one. As I have already stated, he put Keith’s authority at
defiance and took responsibilities upon himself, boasting that
had they failed he would have been “shot or broke.”

After the capture of the Généreux he
struck, and wrote to Keith that his health would not permit of
his remaining at his post, that without “rest he was done for,”
and that he could “no more stay fourteen days longer on the
station than fourteen years.” At the same time, Captain Ball
wrote to Lady Hamilton that “he had dined with him, and that he
was in good health,” that he did not think a short stay would do
his health harm, and that “he would not urge it, were it not that he and Troubridge
wished him to have the honour of the French ships and the French
garrison surrender to him.” Nelson’s vision and good judgment at
this time must have been totally at fault, and his general
attitude emphasizes the splendid forbearance of his amiable
commander-in-chief and distinguished subordinates who were the
very cream of the Navy. I wonder what would have happened to any
of the other brilliant commanders in the Royal Navy if any of
them had, like Nelson, refused to obey the orders of the
commander-in-chief and left his post off Malta, which was being
closely besieged and the garrison daily expected to capitulate!
Supposing Nelson had been the commander-in-chief and his second
in command had acted as he did towards Lord Keith, there
would have been wigs on the green! The insubordinate
officer would have been promptly court-martialled and hung at the
yardarm like the Neapolitan Admiral, Francesco Caracciolo, or
treated like the Hon. Admiral John Byng, who was tried for
neglect of duty in an engagement off Minorca in 1756, and
condemned for committing an error of judgment and shot aboard the
Monarch at Spithead in 1757. Nelson was a stern
disciplinarian, who could never brook being under discipline
himself. Nor was he ever a day without a grievance of one kind or
another. It must have been a happy deliverance to Keith when he
heard the last of him in the Mediterranean, for his mental
capacity at this particular stage of his history was quite
defective. No doubt Lady Hamilton and the Queen jabbered into his ears the injustice of the
wrongs imposed upon him.

After the battle of Marengo the whole of Northern Italy was
given up to the French by convention signed by General Milas. The
British Commander-in-Chief proceeded to Leghorn with the
fugitives, to be bored, as he fretfully declared, “by Nelson
craving permission to take the Queen to Palermo, and the prince
and princesses to all parts of the world.” The Queen was
panic-stricken at the French successes, and besought him to allow
her to sail in the Foudroyant; but Keith could not be
prevailed upon to release any of his ships for such a purpose,
notwithstanding Nelson’s supplications and her flow of tears. He
told Nelson that the royal lady should get off to Vienna as
quickly as she could and abandon the idea of Palermo,
supplementing his refusal to employ the Foudroyant in any
such way. He would only allow a frigate to escort her own
frigates to Trieste. Lady Minto wrote to her sister from Florence
that Keith told the Queen that “Lady Hamilton had had command of
the fleet long enough,” and then she adds, “The Queen is very ill
with a sort of convulsive fit, and Nelson is staying to nurse
her, and does not intend going home until he has escorted her
back to Palermo. His zeal for the public service,” she continues,
“seems entirely lost in his love and vanity, and they all sit and
flatter each other all day long.”

Nelson, steady in his attachment to the Queen declared that he
would see her through and then continue his journey home with the
Hamiltons. They all left
Leghorn together, arrived at Florence safely, were taken from
Ancona to Trieste on two Russian frigates, and landed at Trieste.
The Queen of Sicily accompanied them to Vienna, and Nelson and
the Hamiltons continued their triumphant journey through Germany
to Hamburg. His association with the Court of Naples was now at
an end, and his real friends, believing that it had corrupted and
sapped his better nature, were glad of it. His mind at this time
was filled with delusions about his future. He repeatedly
declared that he would never serve again, and from a mixture of
motives he acquired happiness in the belief that he would avenge
his keenly-felt wrongs by achieving oblivion. The idea that fate
held in store for him a higher and a sterner destiny never
occurred to him, and he little realized that he would soon be
removed from a sphere where his presence would be no longer
needed. He was, in fact, combating the very destiny he had so
often sought in which he would achieve immortal glory.

XI

The benighted policy of keeping in power a mawkish Sicilian
Court, saturated with the incurable vices of cowardice,
falsehood, dishonesty, and treachery, failed; and the Government
of the day was saddled with the crime of squandering human life,
wealth, and energy without receiving any commensurate return. If
it was in the national interest to involve the country in war with
France, it could have been carried on with greater credit and
effect by not undertaking the hopeless task of bolstering up a
Court and a people that were openly described by our own people
who were sent to fight for them as “odious damned cowards and
villains.” We had no real grounds of quarrel with France
nor with her rulers. The Revolution was their affair, and was no
concern of ours, except in so far as it might harmfully reflect
on us, and of this there was no likelihood if we left them alone.
The plea of taking the balance of power under our benevolent care
was a sickly exhibition of statesmanship, and the assumption of
electing ourselves guardians of the rights of small nations mere
cant. It was, in fact, the canker of jealousy and hatred on the
part of the reactionary forces against a man, a principle, and a
people.

Had those who governed this country then held aloof from the
imbroglio created by the French Revolution, observed a watchful,
conciliatory spirit of neutrality towards the French Government,
and allowed the Continental Powers to adjust their own
differences, the conditions of human existence and the hurtful
administration of autocratic governments would have been
reconstituted, and the world would have been the better for it;
instead of which we helped to impose on Europe twenty years of
slaughter and devastation. Our dismal, plutocratic rulers, with
solemn enthusiasm, plunged England with all her power and
influence on the side of Prussia and her continental allies, and, in conjunction
with the Holy Alliance, pledged themselves never to lay down arms
until France was mutilated and the master-mind which ruled her
beaten and dethroned. Their task was long, costly, and gruesome.
What a ghastly legacy those aggressively righteous champions of
international rights have bequeathed to the world! But for their
folly and frenzy we should not be engaged in a European war
to-day. Poor Napoleon! He foreshadowed and used his gigantic
genius to prevent it; now the recoil has come. There are always
more flies caught by treacle than by vinegar, a policy quite as
efficacious in preventing international quarrels as it is in the
smaller affairs of our existence, provided the law which governs
the fitness of things is well defined.

Had we approached Napoleon in a friendly spirit and on equal
terms, without haughty condescension, he would have reciprocated
our cordiality and put proper value on our friendship. By wisdom
and tact the duration of Napoleon’s wars would have been vastly
shortened, and both nations would have been saved from the errors
that were committed. We did not do this, and we are now reaping
the consequence. It is hardly to be expected that if hostility be
shown towards an individual or a nation either will mildly submit
to it. Who can estimate the passionate resentment of an emotional
people at Nelson’s constant declamatory outbursts against the
French national character, and the effect it had throughout
France?

An affront to a nation,
even though it is made by a person in a subordinate position, may
bring about far-reaching trouble. Reverse the position of the
traducer of a prominent man or his nation, and it will be easy to
arrive at a correct conclusion as to the temper that would be
aroused, say, in this country. We know that during a war passions
are let loose and charges made by the combatants against each
other which are usually exaggerated, but one thing is certain,
that our soldiers and sailors have always had the well-deserved
reputation of being the cleanest fighters in the world. There
have never been finer examples of this than during the present
war. But in justice to ourselves and to the French during the
Napoleonic wars, I think it was grossly impolitic to engender
vindictiveness by unjustifiable acrimony. Up to the time that
Nelson left the Mediterranean for England, except for the
brilliant successes of the Nile and the equally brilliant capture
of the balance of the French Mediterranean fleet, and
subsequently the capitulation of Malta on the 5th September,
1800, our share in the war was an exhausting and fruitless
failure.

The responsibility for this clearly lies at the door of the
Government who planned it, and in no way attaches to Nelson and
his coadjutors, whose naval and also shore exploits could not be
excelled. First, it was a blink-eyed policy that plunged us into
the war at all; and secondly, it was the height of human folly to
waste our resources in the erroneous belief that the highly
trained military men of
France could be permanently subjugated in the Mediterranean by
the cowardly, treacherous villains of which the Roman States
armies and Governments were composed. History is not altogether
faithful to the truth in its honeyed records of the ministerial
pashas who tranquilly increased the national debt, inflicted
unspeakable horrors on the population, and smirched our dignity
by entering into a costly bond of brotherhood with an inveterate
swarm of hired blood-sucking weasels. Such, forsooth! was the
mental condition of the wooden souls who managed the nation’s
affairs, that they allowed Nelson to add another blot to our
national history escutcheon by taking Ferdinand Bourbon’s throne
under his protection. It is true that Ferdinand “did not wish
that his benefactor’s name should alone descend with honour to
posterity,” or that he should “appear ungrateful.” So the Admiral
was handsomely rewarded by being presented with the Dukedom of
Bronte and a diamond-hilted sword which had been given to the
King by his father when he became Sicilian King. It would be
nonsense even to suspect Nelson of accepting either gifts or
titles as a bribe to sacrifice any interest that was British.

Nelson’s devotion to the Court did not express itself by
seeking material recompense for the services bestowed on their
Sicilian Majesties. There were various reasons for his elaborate
and silly attentions. First, his range of instructions were wide
in a naval sense; second, his personal attachment to the King and
his Consort (especially his
Consort), for reasons unnecessary to refer to again, became a
growing fascination and a ridiculous craze. His fanatical
expressions of dislike to the French are merely a Nelsonian way
of conveying to the world that the existence of so dangerous a
race should be permissive under strictly regulated conditions. He
had a solemn belief in his own superiority and that of his
fellow-countrymen. All the rest were to him mere human scrap, and
his collection of epithets for them was large and varied. His
Mogul air in the presence of aliens was traditionally seamanlike.
If they failed to shudder under his stern look and gleaming eyes,
it affected him with displeasure and contempt. The Neapolitans
were fulsomely accommodating, though Nelson, except from the
Court party and a few nobles, does not appear to have attached
much value to their servile tokens of appreciation. It cannot be
said that either Nelson, his Government, or his country were in
any way rewarded by the sacrifices made ostensibly in the
interests of human rights. Under Ferdinand Bourbon, the
Neapolitan States and Sicily had no settled government. He was a
contemptible poltroon, whose throne was supported for years by
British money, men, and ships, and even with our strong support;
he was alternately fleeing to Sicily and returning again under
the formidable protection of British frigates, and, like all
perfidious cowards, his short intervals of government were
distinguished by a despotism that soon made it necessary for him
to fly from the feelings of vengeance he had called out.

Not even the power of
Great Britain could prevent the kingdom of Naples from passing
from one vicissitude into another. The French took possession of
it in January 1799, and established what they called the
Parthenopean Republic. Nelson helped to retake it in June of the
same year, and put the itinerant King on the throne. The
Neapolitans occupied Rome on the 30th September, 1799. In October
1805 a treaty of neutrality between France and Naples was carried
into effect. Ferdinand fled to Sicily again on the 23rd January
of the next year, when the master-mind came to close quarters and
put an end, as I have previously stated, to Ferdinand’s kingship
and tyrannical rule by placing his brother Joseph on the throne;
two years later Joseph became King of Spain, and his
brother-in-law, Joachim Murat, succeeded him as ruler of Naples.
The Neapolitans were never better governed than during the reign
of these two kings. Many wise laws were made and enforced by a
just and rigid discipline. Incompetent, weak despotism had
disappeared, and any attempt at licence was promptly subdued. The
people were put through a course of transforming education, and
gradually became law-abiding citizens. Even then, methods of
carrying on commerce took a marked change for the better, and
predatory habits were relaxed into comparative honesty, not, it
may be supposed, from virtue, but from fear of the inevitable,
harsh consequences. The public, in a general way, quickly
distinguish between a strong, capable ruler and a weak,
incompetent one; and no
matter how indulgent the latter may be, they prefer the strong
wholesome-minded man to the mediocrity.

Ferdinand had none of the qualities that are essential to a
man occupying a position of authority. When the French came to
take over the government of Naples, he flew, as usual, to Sicily,
and under the continuous protection of British men-of-war was
with great difficulty kept reigning there until the end of war,
when he was again put on the throne of Naples in 1815, and
forthwith commenced again his rule of incompetency and despotism,
reversing the beneficent rule of his two able predecessors. The
old reprobate died on the 4th January, 1825, having reigned off
and on for sixty-five years, largely owing to the indulgent and
costly support of the British Government.

Caroline died on the 7th September, 1814, and to her abiding
credit she condemned the action of the Court of Vienna for
severing the bond of union between the Emperor Napoleon and her
granddaughter, Marie Louise. She declared vehemently that it was
the duty of the latter to break the prohibition by assuming
disguise and tie her bed-sheets together and lower herself out of
the window, and make her way quickly, in face of all obstacles,
to where her husband was. Marie Louise was not a lady of
unyielding morals, and at that particular time her Hapsburg,
licentious mind was not centred on the misfortunes of her
husband, but on Neipperg, who was employed to seduce her.
Caroline told Baron Claude François de Meneval, Napoleon’s private
secretary, that she had reason at one time to dislike the
Emperor, but now that adversity had come to him, she forgot the
past.

Had this same spirit of rightness and wisdom been adopted by
Marie Louise’s father and his allies, as was so nobly advocated
by the sister of Marie Antoinette, there would have been a clean
sheet in history about them, though it is obvious in many
quarters that the historians have extended all the arts of
ambiguity and delusion to make them appear flawless benefactors.
Therefore one has to take all the circumstances handed down from
many varied sources, reliable and unreliable, and after mature
thought form conclusions as one’s judgment may direct as to the
merits and demerits of every phase that is recorded. Hence
exhaustive research and long-reasoned views lead me definitely to
the conclusion that there is not much that we can put to the
credit of either their wisdom or humanity. My plain opinion is
that they acted ferociously, and although always in the name of
the Son of God, that can never absolve them from the dark deeds
that stand to their names. Nor is it altogether improbable that
all the nations that were concerned in the dreadful assassination
are now paying the natural penalty of their guilt. Natural laws
have a curious roundabout way of paying back old scores, though
the tragic retribution has to be borne more often than not by the
innocent descendants of those who have, in the name of the Deity,
violated them.

The Duke of Thunder was
proud of the Sicilian meaning of his title, and so were his
sailors, who loved the thrilling effect of anything that conveyed
the idea of being associated with a formidable power that
devastated every other force that stood in its way. For the most
part, Nelson’s sailors had great faith in his naval genius. He
had led them many times to victory, and they did not forget the
glory that attached to themselves. He planned the strategy, but
it was they that fought and won the battles. The Duke of Thunder
was a fine title to fight under. A name has frequently done more
damage to a foe than glittering bayonets. But Nelson in no degree
had the thunder element in him, so far as we are able to judge by
the descriptions given to us of him. He was a dashing,
courageous, scientific genius, gifted with natural instincts,
disciplinary wisdom, deplorable sentimentality, and an
artificial, revengeful spirit of hatred that probably became real
under the arbitrary circumstances of war, but, I should say, was
rarely prominent. His roaming attacks on the French were probably
used more for effect, and had, we hope, only a superficial
meaning. But be that as it may, it detracts from the dignity of
an officer occupying, as he did, a distinguished position to use
language and phrases such as are common in the forecastle or on
the quarterdeck of a sailing merchantman in the early days before
the introduction of steamers. Here are a few quite amusing
outbursts which do not produce the impression of coming from a
person known to fame as the
Duke of Thunder:—On the 1st October, 1801, the
preliminaries of peace with France were signed. When Nelson heard
of it he thanked God, and went on to say, “We lay down our arms,
and are ready to take them up again if the French are insolent.”
He declares there is no one in the world more desirous of peace
than he is, but that he would “burst sooner than let any damned
Frenchman know it.” But it was too much for his anti-French
sentiments when he heard that their Ambassador’s carriage had
been dragged by the London mob. He wrote to his medical man, and
asked if he could cure madness, for he had gone mad to learn
“that our damned scoundrels dragged a Frenchman’s carriage.” And
he hoped nevermore to be dragged by such a degenerate crowd;
which was exhibiting in a characteristic way his high opinion of
himself. “Would our ancestors have done it?” he asks, and then
continues: “The villains would have drawn Buonaparte if he had
been able to get to London to cut the king’s head off.” The
writer has a definite opinion that Bonaparte would have had a
boisterous reception, and that it might have cemented a
friendship that would have been a blessing to the tired world,
and especially to the two warring nations.

The ruler of the French nation, in spite of Nelson’s views,
would have made a better ally than enemy. But it often happens
that nations, as well as individuals, lose their psychological
opportunity. And we will risk a belief that if Nelson and
Bonaparte met they would have found an affinity between them that would have
made the two men friends. Southey says that the title “Duke of
Thunder” is essentially applicable to Nelson, but the writer has
failed to find anything to warrant such an opinion.

Nelson’s professional pride was for ever being needlessly hurt
by Admiralty tactlessness. He had good reason on many occasions
to take offence at their clumsiness. One of numerous grievances
was Sir Sydney Smith being, to all appearances, put over him. He
wrote to Lord St. Vincent, and reminded him that he was a man,
and that it was impossible for him to serve in the Mediterranean
under a junior officer. St. Vincent prevailed on him not to
resign, but Sir Sydney Smith wished to carry out a policy towards
the French in Egypt which Nelson hotly disapproved, and he
commands him on no account to permit a single Frenchman to leave
the country. He considered it would be madness to permit a band
of thieves to return to Europe. “To Egypt,” he says, “they went
of their own accord, and they shall remain there while he
commanded the squadron. Never will he consent to the return of
one ship or Frenchman. I wish them to perish in Egypt, and give
an awful lesson to the world of the justice of the Almighty.” It
will be observed how characteristically sailorly he is in his
leanings on Divine monopoly in punishing the “bloody Corsican”
for his wickedness in waging war against Britain. His profound
belief was that the Almighty presided over our destinies then,
just as the German Kaiser claims that He is presiding over
his national affairs now;
and, as I have pointed out before, each of the belligerents calls
upon Him in beseeching reverence as a Divine compatriot, to give
this Almighty power to aid in demolishing their common foe, who
has broken every law of God and man. This form of blasphemy is as
rampant now as it ever was. It is not a hungry belief in God that
gives the initial impulse for human slaughter. It is a craving
lust for the invention of all that is devilish in expeditiously
disposing of human life.

The international democracies who are devoting so much
attention to political ascendancy should distribute their power
in a way that would make it impossible for weak Governments,
composed of mediocrities and bellicose rulers of nations, to make
war whenever their impertinent ambitions are impressed with the
sanguinary rage of conflict.

All wars mutilate civilization, and put back by many
generations any advance that may have been made in the interval
between one butchery and another. The working people of all
nations could and should combine to stop the manufacture of every
implement of warfare, and make it a treasonable offence for any
ruler or Government again to advocate war as a means of settling
disputes. This law must of necessity be binding upon all the
Powers, big and little. What a mockery this gospel of brotherhood
has been in all ages! Is it an ideal ambition to bring it about?
Of course it is, but we cannot catch the spirit of Christ and
preach the gospel of pity, and commit hideous murder at one and
the same time! hence the
impudence of expecting a Divine benediction on warfare.

All sorts of public and private honours and testimonials were
conferred upon Nelson during his stay at Hamburg on his way home
after the mortifications caused by the elusive French fleet,
Calabrian brigands, and the alluring attractions of the Court of
Naples and Sicily. One hundred grenadiers, each six feet high,
waited at table when he was being banqueted. The owner of a
Magdeburg hotel where he stayed made money by setting up a ladder
outside Nelson’s sitting-room and charging a fee for mounting it
and peeping at the hero inside the room. An aged wine merchant at
Hamburg offered him through Lady Hamilton six dozen bottles of
Rhenish wine of the vintage of 1625. It had been in his own
possession for fifty years, and he hoped that some of it would be
allowed to flow with the blood of the immortal hero, as it would
then make the giver happy. Nelson shook hands with the old man,
and consented to receive six bottles, provided he would dine with
him next day. A dozen were sent, and Nelson put aside six, saying
that it was his hope to win half a dozen more victories, and that
one bottle would be drunk after each.

Another aged man, whose ideals were of a different and higher
order, came along. He was a German pastor who, at eighty years of
age or thereabouts, had travelled forty miles with the object of
getting Nelson to write his immortal, name in his Bible. The
venerable Lutheran prelate, with a grateful heart, asked to be
allowed to record his
blessing and admiration for the gallant British Admiral by
stating to him, amongst other modestly selected phrases, that “he
was the Saviour of the Christian world.” The pastor’s fervent
testimony of his work and his mission touched Nelson on a tender
spot. In his rough-and-ready way, he believed in the efficacy of
prayer, and he knew when the old man, bowed down by age, parted
from him that he would be steadfast in his petitions to the Giver
of all mercies that he should be held in His holy keeping, body
and soul. The story is an example of fine healthy devotion, free
from sickly cant, though the logic of successfully squandering
rich lives or even bravely sacrificing your own (as every
commander risks doing) is a mysterious reason for the person who
is successful in casting away human lives—even though they
be those of an enemy—having the title of “the Saviour of
the world” conferred upon him!

The writer’s idea of how to establish and advance the
Christian faith is to keep out of war, and the best method of
doing this is for the electorate to choose men to govern who are
highly gifted with diplomatic genius. Nearly all wars are brought
about through incompetent negotiators, and the wastage of life
and property in carrying on a war is certainly to be attributed
to men who are at the head of affairs being mere politicians,
without any faculty whatever for carrying out great undertakings.
They are simply mischievous shadows, and merely excel as
intriguers in putting good men out of office and themselves in.
It is the selection of men
for the posts they are eminently suited to fill that counts in
any department of life, but it is more manifestly important in
affairs of Government. For instance, nothing but disaster can
follow if a man is made Chancellor of the Exchequer who has no
instinct for national finance, and the same thing applies to a
Foreign Secretary who has no knowledge of or natural instinct for
international diplomacy. At the same time, an adroit commercial
expert may be utterly useless in dealing with matters of State
that are affected by trade. The two positions are wide apart, and
are a business in themselves. The writer’s view is that to fill
any department of State satisfactorily the head should have both
political and commercial training, combined with wholesome
instinct. I don’t say that trade is altogether affected by the
kind of Government that is in power, but bad trade and bad
government combined make a terrific burden for any nation to
carry.

Service men, in the main, measure and think always from a
military or naval point of view. Some of them have quite a genius
for organizing in matters concerning their different professions.
Take the late Lord Kitchener. In Army matters he was unequalled
as an organizer but abominably traduced. Then there is Lord
Fisher, who easily heads everybody connected with the Navy, as a
great Admiral who can never be deprived of the merit of being the
creator of our modern fleet. He combines with a matchless genius
for control a fine organizing brain. The politician, with his amateurish antics,
deprived the British Empire of the services of an outstanding
figure that would have saved us many lives and many ships,
without taking into account the vast quantity of merchandise and
foodstuffs that have perished. It is not by creating confusion
that the best interest of the nation is served, either in
peace-time or during war. Those robust rhetoricians who massacre
level-headed government and substitute a system of make-shift
experiments during a great national crisis do a wicked public
disservice. I have no time to deal with these superior persons in
detail, but I cannot keep my thoughts from the terrible
bitterness and anguish their haphazard experiments may have
caused. The destroying force will eat into the very entrails of
our national life if some powerful resolute personality does not
arise to put an end to the hopeless extemporizing and contempt
for sober, solid, orderly administration. The truth is that, if a
government or anything else is wrongly conceived, natural laws
will never help it to right itself, and it ends in catastrophe.
Such governments are inflicted on us from time to time as a
chastisement, it is said, for our national sins, and the process
of disintegration is deadly in its effects. The only consoling
feature of it is that history is repeating itself with strange
accuracy, as may be verified by a glance into the manuscripts of
Mr. Fortescue at Dropmore. Herein you will find many striking
resemblances between the constitution of the Government then and
the tribulation we are passing through at the present time. One important event of that
period has been avoided up to the present; none has demanded a
settlement of his differences by means of a duelling contest, as
did Castlereagh and Canning.[14] They had a coalition of all the talents then
as they presume to have now, though there has been no real
evidence of it, either in or out of Parliament.

XII

Poor Nelson had a terrible time with one and another of them,
as they had with him, if history may be relied on. His periodical
defiances and his contempt for his superiors is quite edifying.
He laid down the law like a bishop when his moods were in full
play. The great naval, commercial, and military figure to which
Nelson comes nearest is Drake, and the nearest to Nelson in
versatility is Lord Fisher, who must have had an engaging
time with those who wished
to assume control of the Navy over his level head. I question
whether any man holding a high position in the British Navy, at
any time, could combine naval, military, and administrative
genius, together with sound common sense, as Nelson did. We have
devoted so much attention to the study of his naval
accomplishments that many of his other practical gifts have been
overlooked. It is common belief, in civilian circles at any rate,
and there is good ground for it, that both the naval and military
men do not realize how much their existence depends on a
well-handled and judiciously treated mercantile marine. I have
too much regard for every phase of seafaring life to criticize it
unfairly, but, except on very rare occasions, I have found naval
and military men so profoundly absorbed in their own professions
that they do not trouble to regard anything else as being
essential.

The present war will have revealed many things that were not
thought of in other days. One of Nelson’s outstanding anxieties
was lest any harm should befall our commerce, and he protected it
and our shipping with fine vigilance and with scant support from
the then Government, which would not supply him with ships; this
at times drove him to expressions of despair. Privateering was
more rampant then than it is now, and the belligerents had great
difficulty in enforcing neutrals to observe neutrality. Indeed,
the circumstances were such that it became impossible to prevent
leakage. The British Admiral was continually protesting to the
neutrals against the system
of smuggling and privateering, but it was hardly consistent,
seeing that we were obliged to make breaches of neutrality in
order to get our supplies. Small privateers, consisting sometimes
of mere longboats, infested every swatch and corner they could
get into on the Spanish shores, the Ionian Islands, the Barbary
coast, the Balearic Islands, and Sicily. We indicted France for
enforcing subsidies from Spain, compelling the Neapolitans to
provide for her soldiers occupying Neapolitan territory. We, on
the other hand, were obliged to make use of neutral ports for
supplies required for the Gulf of Lyons fleet. It was a curious
position, and both France and England were parties to the
anomaly, and each accused the other of the impiety of it. The
British Admiral and his officers never lost an opportunity of
destroying the marauders when caught within neutral limits, and
Nelson never flinched from supporting his officers in the matter.
“The protection,” he writes, “given to the enemies’ privateers
and rowboats is extremely destructive of our commerce,” and then
he goes on to give reasons why these vermin should be shot or
captured.

He was driven frantic by the demands made for convoys by
captains and merchants, and his appeals to the Admiralty for more
cruisers were unheeded. He expresses himself strongly averse from
allowing even fast sailing vessels to make a passage unprotected.
Perhaps no human mind that has been given grave responsibilities
to safeguard was ever lacerated as was Nelson’s in seeing
that our commercial interest
did not suffer, and that on the seas he guarded a free and safe
passage should be assured to our shipping carrying food and other
merchandise to the mother-country. The responsibility of carrying
out even this special work in a satisfactory way was an amazing
task, and no evidence is on record that he left anything to
chance. Results are an eloquent answer to any doubts on that
subject. In addition to policing the seas, he had the anxiety of
watching the tricky manoeuvres of the French fleet, and planning
for their interception and defeat should they weaken in their
elusive methods. Of course, they were playing their own game, and
had a right to, and it was for their opponents, whom Nelson so
well represented, to outwit and trap them into fighting; but as
for having any grounds for complaint, it was not only silly, but
inopportune, to give expression to having a grievance against the
French admirals because they cutely slipped out of his deadly
grasp from time to time and made him weary of life! His
grievances were easier to establish against the Board of
Admiralty, who were alternately paying him compliments or
insulting him. Instructions were given that could not be obeyed
without involving the country in certain loss and complication.
Officers, his junior in rank, were given appointments that had
the appearance of placing them independent of his authority.
Seniors of inferior capacity were given control over him which,
but for his whimsical magnanimity, might have cost us the loss of
the fleet, their crews, and our high honour and superb fighting reputation. Take
for example Sir Hyde Parker’s command of the Baltic fleet, or Sir
John Orde’s clumsy appointment to a squadron in the
Mediterranean. Nothing could be so harassing to the nerves of a
man sure of his own superiority as to be burdened, not only with
Orde’s arrogance, but his mediocrity. He was obliged to resort to
subterfuge in order to get his dispatches sent home, and here
again the action of the Admiralty compelled him to break naval
discipline by ordering a nephew of Lord St. Vincent, a clever
young captain of a frigate, to whom he was devoted, to take the
dispatches to Lisbon. He told the young captain that Sir John
Orde took his frigates from him, and sent them away in a
direction contrary to his wishes. “I cannot get my dispatches
even sent home,” he said; adding, “You must try to avoid his
ships.” Nelson had not signed his orders, because Sir John Orde
was his superior officer, but should it come to a court-martial,
Hardy could swear to his handwriting, and he gave him the
assurance that he would not be broken. “Take your orders, and
goodbye,” said he, “and remember, Parker, if you cannot weather
that fellow, I shall think you have not a drop of your uncle’s
blood in your veins.” Other Nelsonian instructions were given,
and the gallant captain carried them out with a skill worthy of
his ingenious, defiant chief and of his distinguished uncle.

It was not only a slap in the face to Sir John Orde, but to
those whose patronage had placed in a senior position a man who
was not qualified to stand
on the same quarterdeck with Nelson. He smarted under the
treatment, but unhappily could not keep his chagrin under cover.
He was always pouring his soul out to some one or other. His
health is always falling to pieces after each affront, and for
this reason he asks to be relieved. Here is an example of his
moods. “I am much obliged to your Lordships’ compliance with my
requests,” he says, “which is absolutely necessary from the
present state of my health,” and almost immediately after he
tells a friend he “will never quit his post when the French fleet
are at sea as a commander-in-chief once did.” “I would sooner die
at my post than have such a stigma upon my memory.” This is a
nasty dig at Lord St. Vincent, presumably for having a hand in
the appointment of Sir John Orde. Then he writes to Elliot that
nothing has kept him at his post but the fear of the French fleet
escaping and getting to Naples or Sicily. “Nothing but gratitude
for the good sovereigns would have induced him to stay a moment
after Sir John Orde’s extraordinary command, for his general
conduct towards them is not such as he had a right to expect.” I
have heard that snobbishness prevails in the service now only in
a less triumphant degree to what it did in Nelson’s time. If that
be the case, it ought to be wrestled with until every vestige of
the ugly thing is strangled. The letters of Nelson to personal
friends, to the Admiralty, and in his reported conversations, are
all full of resentment at the viciousness of it, though he
obviously struggles to curb
the vehemence of his feelings. No one felt the dagger of the
reticent stabber more quickly and sensitively than he. Invisible
though the libeller might be, Nelson knew he was there. He could
not hear the voice, but he felt the sinister action.

“Princedss Charlotte”—Frigate (Early 19th Century)

Making full allowance for what might be put down to
imagination, there is still an abundance of material to justify
the belief that the first naval authority of his time was the
target of snobs, and that, but for his strong personality and the
fact that he was always ready to fight them in the open, he would
have been superseded, and a gallant duffer might have taken his
place, to the detriment of our imperial interests. It is a
dangerous experiment to put a man into high office if he has not
the instinct of judging the calibre of other men. This applies to
every department of life nowadays. Take the Army, the Navy,
departments of State, commercial or banking offices,
manufacturing firms, and the making of political appointments.
The latter is more carelessly dealt with than any other
department of life. The public are not sufficiently vigilant in
distinguishing between a mere entertaining rhetorician and a
wholesome-minded, natural-born statesman. What terrible
calamities have come to the State through putting men into
responsible positions they have neither training, wit, nor wisdom
to fill efficiently! Providence has been most indulgent and
forbearing when we have got ourselves into a mess by
wrong-headedness. She generally comes to our aid with an
undiscovered man or a few
men with the necessary gifts required for getting us out of the
difficulty in which the Yellow Press gang and their accomplices
may have involved the country. We know something of how the
knowledge of these anomalies in public life chafed the eager
spirit of Nelson, but we can never know the extent of the
suffering it caused except during the Neapolitan and Sicilian
days. This lonely soul lived the life of a recluse for months at
a time. The monotony of the weird song of the sea winds, the
nerve-tearing, lazy creak of the wooden timbers, the sinuous
crawling, rolling, or plunging over the most wondrous of God’s
works, invariably produces a sepulchral impression even on the
most phlegmatic mind, but to the mystically constituted brain of
Nelson, under all the varied thoughts that came into his brain
during the days and nights of watching and searching for those
people he termed “the pests of the human race,” it must have been
one long heartache. No wonder that he lets fly at the Admiralty
in some of his most passionate love-messages to the seductive
Emma. His dreary life, without any exciting incident except the
carrying away of sails or spars, and the irritation of not being
able to get what he regarded as life or death requests carried
into effect owing to the slothfulness or incompetent indifference
of the Admiralty was continual agony to him. He writes in one of
his dispatches to the Admiralty: “Were I to die this moment,
want of frigates would be found stamped on my heart. No
words of mine,” he continues, “can express what I have suffered and am suffering for
want of them.”

No person could write such an unconsciously comic lament to a
department supposed to be administered with proficiency unless he
were borne down by a deep sense of its appalling incompetency. It
is quite likely that the recipients of the burning phrases
regarded them in the light of a joke, but they were very real to
the wearied soul of the man who wrote them. I do not find any
instances of conscious humour in any of Nelson’s letters or
utterances. It is really their lack of humour that is humorous.
He always appears to be in sombre earnest about affairs that
matter, and whimsically affected by those that don’t. The
following lines, which are not my own, may be regarded as
something akin to Nelson’s conception of himself. If he had come
across them, I think he would have said to himself, “Ah! yes,
these verses describe my mission and me.”

Nelson never attempted to carry out a mere reckless and
palpably useless feat for the purpose of show. His well-balanced
genius of caution and accurate judgment was the guiding instinct
in his terrific thrusts
which mauled the enemy out of action at the Nile, St. Vincent,
Copenhagen, and Trafalgar, and enthralled the world with new
conceptions of naval warfare. He met with bitter disappointments
in his search for the illusive French fleet, which wore him, as
he says, to a skeleton, but never once was he shaken in his
vigorous belief that he would catch and annihilate them in the
end. They cleverly crept out of Toulon, with the intention, it is
said, of going to Egypt. Villeneuve was no fool at evasive
tactics. His plan was practically unerring, and threw Nelson
completely off the scent and kept him scouring the seas in search
of the bird that had flown weeks before. Once the scent is lost,
it takes a long time to pick it up. Villeneuve no doubt argued
that it was not his purpose to give the British Admiral an
opportunity of fighting just then. He had other fish to fry, and
if he wished to get away clear from Toulon and evade Nelson’s
ships, he must first of all delude him by sending a few ships out
to mislead the enemy’s watchdogs or drive them off; if that
succeeded (which it did not), he would then wait for a strong
fair wind that would assure him of a speed that would outdistance
and take him out of sight of the British squadron, and make sure
that no clue to his destination was left. The wind was strong
NNW.; the French fleet were carrying a heavy press of canvas and
steering SSW. The British ships that were following concluded
that they were out for important mischief, and returned to convey
the news to Nelson, who quickly got under weigh and followed them. Meanwhile,
Villeneuve’s squadron, after getting from under the shelter of
the land into the open sea, lost some of their spars and sails,
and one vessel, it is recorded, was dismasted, which means, in
seafaring interpretation, that all her masts were carried away;
as she succeeded, however, in getting into Ajaccio, she can only
have lost her royal topgallant, and possibly a topmast or two. If
her lower masts had been carried away, she could not have got
into refuge without assistance, and the rest of the fleet
apparently had enough to do in looking after themselves, as they
lost spars and sails too, and became somewhat scattered, but all
appear to have got safely into Toulon again to refit and repair
the damage done by the heavy gale they encountered.

Meanwhile, Nelson, in dismay at losing touch with them,
searched every nook and cranny in the Tyrrhenian Sea, and making
sure that none of them were in hiding and that the sea was clear,
he proceeded to act on his fixed opinion that their objective
must be Egypt. So to Egypt he went, and the bitter disappointment
at not finding them stunned his imagination, so sure had he been
that his well-considered judgment was a thing to which he might
pin his faith, and that his lust for conflict with the “pests of
the human race” could not escape being realized in the vicinity
of his great victory at the battle of the Nile. His grievance
against Villeneuve for cheating him out of what he believed would
result in the annihilation of the French Power for mischief
on the seas brought forth
expressions of deadly contempt for such astute, sneaking habits!
But the Emperor was as much dissatisfied with the performances of
his admirals as Nelson was, though in a different way. Napoleon,
on the authority of the French historian, M. Thiers, was
imperially displeased. He asks “what is to be done with admirals
who allow their spirits to sink into their boots (italics
are the author’s) and fly for refuge as soon as they receive
damage. All the captains ought to have had sealed orders to meet
at the Canary Islands. The damages should have been repaired
en route. A few topmasts carried away and other casualties
in a gale of wind are everyday occurrences. The great evil of our
Navy is that the men who command it are unused to all the risks
of command.” This indictment is to a large extent deserved, and
had his fleet been out in the Atlantic or outside the limits of
the vigilance of Nelson’s ships, the putting back to Toulon or
anywhere to refit the topmasts, sails, or rigging would have been
highly reprehensible. But in any case, I question whether the
British would have shown the white feather or lack of resource
under any circumstances. On a man-of-war they were supposed to
have refits of everything, and men, properly qualified, in large
numbers to carry out any prodigious feat. On the other hand, the
British have always excelled in their nautical ability to guard
against deficiency in outfit, which was not overtested unless
there were sufficient cause to demand such a risk. This applies
especially to the sailing war vessels in Nelson’s time. I think there can be
no question that the French vessels were both badly officered and
manned with incapable sailors and that the damage which led them
back to Toulon was caused by bad judgment in seamanship. What
they called a severe gale would have been regarded by an
Australian clipper or Western Ocean packet-ship in the writer’s
early days as a hard whole-sail breeze, perhaps with the kites
taken in. It was rare that these dashing commanders ever carried
away a spar, and it was not because they did not carry on, but
because they knew every trick of the vessel, the wind, and the
sea. It was a common saying in those days when vessels were being
overpowered with canvas, “The old lady was talking to us now,”
i.e. the vessel was asking to have some of the burden of sail
taken off her. I have known topmasts to be carried away, but it
generally occurred through some flaw in a bolt or unseen defect
in the rigging. So much depends on the security of little things.
But when a catastrophe of this kind occurred on board a British
merchantman or war vessel the men had both the courage, skill,
training, and, above all, the matchless instinct to clear away
the wreck and carry out the refitting in amazingly short time.
That was because we were then, and are now under new conditions,
an essentially seafaring race. And it was this superiority that
gave Nelson such great advantages over the French commanders and
their officers and seamen, though it must be admitted they were
fast drilled by the force of circumstances into foes that were not to be looked upon too
lightly.

The elusive tactics of the French admirals then were in a
lesser degree similar to those practised by the Germans now, if
it be proper to speak or think of the two services at the same
time without libelling them. The French were always clean
fighters, however much they may have been despised by Nelson.
They were never guilty of cowardly revenge. They would not then,
or now, send hospital ships to the bottom with their crews and
their human cargoes of wounded soldiers and nurses. Nor would
they indiscriminately sink merchant vessels loaded with civilian
passengers composed of men, women, and children, and leave them
to drown, as is the inhuman practice of the German submarine
crews of to-day.

The French in other days were our bitterest enemies, and we
were theirs. We charged each other with abominations only
different from what we and our Allies the French are saying about
Germany to-day, who was then our ally. We regarded Germany in the
light of a down-trodden nation who was being crushed and
mutilated under the relentless heel of the “Corsican Usurper.”
“Such is the rancorous hatred of the French towards us,” says
Collingwood in January 1798, “that I do not think they would make
peace on any terms, until they have tried this experiment (i.e.
the invasion of England) on our country; and never was a country
assailed by so formidable a force”; and he goes on to say, “Men
of property must come
forward both with purse and sword, for the contest must decide
whether they shall have anything, even a country which they can
call their own.” This is precisely what we are saying about
Germany with greater reason every day at the present time
(1918).

It has been the common practice for German submarine
commanders to sink at sight British, neutral cargo, and passenger
vessels, and hospital ships loaded with wounded troops and
nurses. They have put themselves outside the pale of civilization
since they forced the whole world into conflict against them.
Nothing has been too hideous for them to do. They have blown poor
defenceless fishermen to pieces, and bombarded defenceless
villages and towns, killing and maiming the inhabitants.

Nelson’s ardent soul must have been wearied with the
perversity of the “dead foul winds” (as he described his bitter
fate to Ball) that prevented him from piercing the Straits of
Gibraltar against the continuous easterly current that runs from
the Atlantic and spreads far into the Mediterranean with
malicious fluctuations of velocity. Many a gallant sailing-ship
commander has been driven to despair in other days by the
friendly levanter failing them just as they were wellnigh through
the Gut or had reached the foot of the majestic Rock, when the
west wind would assert its power over its feebler adversary, and
unless he was in a position to fetch an anchorage behind the Rock
or in the bay, their fate was sealed for days, and sometimes
weeks, in hard beating to prevent as little ground being lost as possible.
But ofttimes they were drifted as far back as Cape de Gata in
spite of daring feats of seamanship in pressing their vessels
with canvas until every spar, sail, and rope was overstrained. A
traditional story of sailors of that period was that only a fast
clipper schooner engaged in the fruit trade and a line-of-battle
ship which fired her lee guns on every tack was ever known to
beat through this channel, which mystified the sailors’ ideas of
God. They could not understand how He could have committed such
an error in planning the universe which so tried the spirits of
His loyal believers!

We know how catholic Nelson was in his religious views; and
his feats of expressive vocabulary, which was the envy of his
class at the time, became their heritage after he had
accomplished his splendid results and passed into the shadows.
Such things as the strength of the adverse sea winds, his
experience of the capriciousness of the official mind—a
capriciousness which might be reflected in the public imagination
were he not to be wholly successful in getting hold of the French
fleet, and the indignity of having a man like Sir John Orde put
over him, all filled his sensitive nature with resentment against
the ordinances of God and man. His complaints were always
accompanied with a devotional air and an avowal of supreme
indifference to what he regarded as the indecent treatment he
received at the hands of the amateurish bureaucrats at the
Admiralty. At times they were out of humour with the great chieftain, and perhaps at no
time did they make him feel their dissatisfaction more than when
adverse winds, a crazy fleet, and deadly current were eating deep
into his eager soul at a time when the genius of seamanship was
unavailing in the effort to get through into the Atlantic in
pursuit of the French fleet, which his instinct told him was
speeding towards the West Indies.

Sir John Orde, who was an aversion to him (as well he might
be), had seen the French fleet off Cadiz, and failed to procure
him the information as to their course. Nelson believed, and
properly believed, that an alert mind would have found a way of
spying out the enemy’s intentions, but Sir John’s resource did
not extend to anything beyond the fear of being attacked and
overpowered. He obviously was devoid of any of the arts of the
wily pirate or smuggler. A month after the French had passed
through the Gut, Nelson got his chance. A change of wind came
within five hours after a southerly slant brought his ships to
anchor in Gibraltar bay for water and provisions. He immediately
gave the signal to heave the anchors up, and proceeded with a
fair wind which lasted only forty-eight hours. He anchored his
fleet to the east of Cape St. Vincent, and took on board supplies
from the transports. He received from different sources
conflicting accounts as to the objective of the French, but the
predominating opinion was that they had gone to the West Indies.
Nelson was in a state of bewilderment, but decided to follow his
own head, and pinned his
faith on the instinct that told him to follow westward “to be
burnt in effigy if he failed, or Westminster Abbey if he
succeeded.” The adventure was daring, both in point of
destination and the unequal strength of the relative fleets.
Nelson had ten ships of the line and three frigates, against
Villeneuve’s eighteen and two new line-of-battle ships.

But the British Admiral’s genius and the superiority of his
commanders, officers, and men, should they come to battle, would
more than match Villeneuve’s superiority in ships. Nelson, always
sure of his own powers, could also depend upon the loyalty of men
of every rank under him. He knew that the terrible spirit which
shattered and scattered Spanish Philip’s armada was an
inheritance that had grown deep into every fibre of the
generations of seamen that followed Hawkins and Drake’s
invincibles. When Nelson delivered himself of death-or-glory
heroics, he did so with the consciousness that he was the
spirit that enthused masses of other spirits to carry out his
dominating will.

On the 14th May, 1805, anchors were picked up and the fleet
left Lagos Bay under full sail for the West Indies. The
trade-winds were soon picked up, and every stitch of canvas that
would catch a breath of wind was spread. The speed ranged from
six to nine knots, according to the strength of the wind, the
Admiral taking any available opportunity of conveying to the
commanders the plan of attack and action should they fall in with
the Frenchmen. The task of keeping his own ships together was not easy, as
some were faster than others, and many had foul bottoms. There
was much manipulation of yards and sails in order to keep the
line in order, and Nelson even went out of his way to have a note
of encouragement and kindness sent aboard the Superb
(seventy-four guns) for Commander Keats, whose ship had been
continuously in commission since 1801, and was in bad condition.
Her sailing qualities were vexatious. Keats implored that he
should not be disconnected from the main fleet now that the
hoped-for battle was so near at hand, and being a great favourite
of Nelson’s, he was given permission constantly to carry a press
of canvas; so the gallant captain carried his studding sails
while running before the trade-winds, but notwithstanding this
effort, the lazy, dilapidated Superb could not keep pace
with the others, even though he was granted the privilege of not
stopping when the others did. His urgency not to be dropped out
on this occasion caused him the hard luck of not being at the
battle of Trafalgar.

The British fleet arrived at Barbadoes after a twenty-four
days’ passage from Lagos Bay. The French took thirty-four from
Cadiz to Martinique, so that Nelson had a gain of ten days on
them, and although his zeal yearned for better results, he had
performed a feat that was not to be despised, and of which he and
his comrades in quest of battle were deservedly proud. The French
had been three weeks in the West Indies, but had done no further
mischief than to take the Diamond Rock, a small British possession situated off the
south end of Martinique. The whereabouts of the elusive enemy was
uncertain. General Brereton, who commanded the troops at Santa
Lucia gave information that they had passed on the 28th May,
steering south. The admirals decided that they had proceeded to
Tobago and Trinidad. Nelson was doubtful, but was obliged to pay
some regard to intelligence coming from such a quarter. Accurate
information received on the 9th June, 1805, confirmed the
Admiral’s doubts as to their objective, for they had passed
Dominica on the 6th. Brereton had unintentionally misled him.
Nelson was almost inarticulate with rage, and avowed that by this
slovenly act the General had prevented him from giving battle
north of Dominica on the 6th. “What a race I have run after these
fellows!” he exclaimed, and then, as was his custom, leaning on
the Power that governs all things, he declares, “but God is just,
and I may be repaid for all my moments of anxiety.” His belief in
the advent of Divine vengeance on those who doubted or threatened
the awful supremacy of British dominion on land or sea was
stimulating to him. Like the Domremy maiden, who saved her king
and country, he had “visions and heard voices.”

Whatever the mission of the French fleet may have been, there
was certainly no apparent lust for aggrandizement. We may be
certain that Napoleon’s orders were to carry out vigorous
bombardments on British possessions, and instead of doing so,
Villeneuve seems to have been distractedly and aimlessly sailing about, not knowing
what to do or whither to go. Apparently without any definite
object, he arrived off Antigua on the 9th June, and had the good
fortune, whether he sought for it or not, of capturing fourteen
British merchant vessels; but he would appear to have been quite
phlegmatic about making the haul. He was more concerned about the
news the crews were able to give him of Nelson’s arrival at
Barbadoes; not that he was constrained to give him the
opportunity of measuring strength with his now twenty-six of the
line, but as a guide to the best means of making his escape; this
may have been a strategical move of wearing down; or he may have
been carrying out a concerted plan for leaving Nelson in
bewilderment and proceeding with all speed to some British
European point where resistance would be less and success
assured, since there was no outstanding naval figure, bar
Collingwood, who could stand up against so powerful a combination
of ships of the line. It is questionable whether Villeneuve ever
took this man of great hidden power and foresight into account.
It was Nelson, his chief, who put terror into the fleet. In any
case, whatever his plans may have been, the intelligence he
gleaned from the seized merchant seamen caused him to make
arrangements to sail from Antigua the next day for Europe. The
present writer’s opinion is that he may have had secret orders
from Napoleon to make an attack on Ireland, as the Emperor never
faltered in his view that this was the most pregnable spot in
which to hazard an invasion
and strike a crushing blow at the main artery. He little knew the
real loyalty of the great mass of Irishmen to their own and to
the mother-land, and only realized later that his way to England
was not through Ireland.

The exit of the French was hard fate for Nelson, who had fired
his enthusiasm with the hope of a great conflict and a sure
victory. It was a creeping nightmare to him which was only
relieved by his resolute opinion that his fame and the terror of
his name had caused Villeneuve to fly from inevitable
destruction. The idea of strategy did not enter into his
calculations. A further consolation to him was that his arrival
had saved the islands and two hundred ships loaded with sugar
from being captured, so that the gain was all on his side. So far
as the West Indies were concerned, the French expedition ended
not only in a dead loss, but was a humiliating fiasco, unless, as
I have stated before, it was a preconceived decoy for some other
purpose. But whether it were strategy or decoy, it taxes one’s
intelligence to conceive why the French fleet did not proceed to
bombard the British possessions on arrival, then steal into safe
obscurity and make their way back to European waters. The evasion
of Nelson’s scouts in any case was a matter of adroit cunning.
Had a man of Nelson’s nimble wits and audacious courage commanded
the enemy’s fleet, the islands would have been attacked and left
in a dilapidated condition. Nelson’s opinion was that the Spanish
portion of the expedition had gone to Havana, and that the French would make
for Cadiz or Toulon, the latter he thought most likely, with the
ultimate object of Egypt. And with this vision floating in his
mind, he determined to make for the Straits. On the 13th June,
1805, he sailed from Antigua, and was almost merry at the thought
of getting close at their heels, and toppling them into ruin
before they had got into the Mediterranean. He regarded them in
the light of miserable naval amateurs that could be whacked, even
with the odds against him. Five days after sailing, one of his
scout ships brought the news given by a vessel they spoke that
she had sighted them steering north on the 15th, and as the
colours of each dying day faded away and brought no French fleet
in view or intelligence of them, he grew restive and filled with
apprehension. He had no delusions about the accuracy of his
perceptions, or the soundness of his judgment, nor the virtue of
his prudence. Without a disturbing thought he pursued his course
towards the Mediterranean, and unless intelligence came to him
that would justify a diversion, no wild fancies would be
permitted to take possession of him. On the 18th July he sighted
Cape Spartel, and any sailor will say that no grass had been
allowed to grow under the bottoms of the ships that made so quick
a passage. But Nelson was “sorrowful” that no results had
accrued. Like a strong man who has opinions and carries them
through to the bitter end, he did not “blame himself.” He blew
off some of the pent-up bitterness of an aching heart by writing
to a friend, “But for
General Brereton’s damned information, I would have been living
or dead, and the greatest man England ever saw, and now I am
nothing and perhaps would incur censure for misfortunes which may
happen and have. Oh! General Brereton! General Brereton!”

This explosion was indicative of bitter disappointment. It is
these outbursts of devotion to a great burning ideal that give an
impulse to the world. His anxiety when he made his landfall and
was informed by scouts sent to meet him that the allied squadrons
had not been heard of was intense. It was not until then that his
vigorous mind was smitten with the possibility of the French
having cheated him by going to Jamaica. Orde had been superseded
by Collingwood, and was stationed off Cadiz, the purpose of which
was to watch the entrance to the Mediterranean. Nelson wrote and
sent him the following letter:—

The vivid symptoms of disquietude in this communication to his
old friend are distinctly pathetic. In parts he is comically
peevish and decidedly restrained. He mixes his fierce wrath
against the hapless General
Brereton with the generalizing of essentials, and transparently
holds back the crushing thoughts of misadventure for which he may
be held responsible by the misanthropic, scurrilous,
self-assertive experts. His impassive periods were always
associated with whimsical sensitiveness of being censured if his
adventures should miscarry. No one knew better than he that a man
in his position could only be popular if he continued to succeed.
He had many critics, but always regarded them as inferior to
himself, and his record justified him. What he secretly quaked at
and openly defied was a general outburst of human capriciousness.
There are veiled indications of this in his letter to
Collingwood, who replied in well-reasoned terms, interwoven with
that charm of tender sympathy that was so natural to him.

He says: “I have always had the idea that Ireland was the
object the French had in view,” and that he still believes that
to be their destination; and then he proceeds to develop his
reasons, which are a combination of practical, human, and
technical inferences. His strongest point is one that Nelson did
not or could not know, though it may be argued that he ought to
have foreseen; even then it is one expert’s judgment against
another’s. Collingwood affirms that the Rochefort squadron, which
sailed when Villeneuve did in January, returned to Europe on the
26th May. Collingwood maintains that the West Indian trip was to
weaken the British force on the European side, and states that
the return of Rochefort’s squadron confirmed him in this. He is too generous
to his mortified comrade to detract in any degree from the view
that, having escaped from the West Indies, they would naturally
make for Cadiz or the Mediterranean. Here is one of the many wise
sayings of Napoleon: “In business the worst thing of all is an
undecided mind”; and this may be applied to any phase of human
affairs. Nelson can never be accused of indecision. His chase to
the West Indies was a masterpiece of prescience which saved the
British possessions, and, but for the clumsy intelligence he
received, the French would have been a hammered wreck and the
projected ruse to combine it with the Rochefort squadron off
Ireland blown sky-high.

The present generation of critics can only judge by the
records handed down to them, and after exhaustive study we are
forced to the opinion that Nelson was right in following
Villeneuve to the West Indies, nor was he wrong in calculating
that they were impulsively making their way back to the
Mediterranean. Consistent with his habit of never claiming the
privilege of changing his mind, he followed his settled opinion
and defended his convictions with vehement confidence. He had not
overlooked Ireland, but his decision came down on the side of
Cadiz or Toulon, and there it had to rest, and in rather
ridiculous support of his contention he imputes faulty navigation
as the cause of taking them out of their course, and finding
themselves united to the Rochefort squadron off Cape Finisterre.
The bad-reckoning idea cannot be sustained. The French were no
match for the British under
Nelson’s piercing genius as a naval strategist, or in the flashes
of dazzling enthusiasm with which he led those under his command
to fight, but it must also be admitted, and has been over and
over again, that Villeneuve was a skilled seaman who was not
likely to allow any amateur navigators in his service, and we
shall see that in the plan of defence this great French Admiral
showed that he was fertile in naval skill when the time came for
him to fight for existence against the greatest naval prodigy in
the world.

Whatever the reason was that caused Villeneuve not to make for
the Mediterranean, it certainly cannot be ascribed to lubberly
navigation, and Nelson should never have tried to sustain his
perfectly sound belief by seeking refuge in that untenable
direction. God bless him all the same.

On his arrival at Gibraltar on the 20th July, 1805, he set
foot on shore for the first time for two years less ten days.
This in itself was a great feat of hard endurance for a man who
had to carry so heavy a burden of continuous physical suffering
and terrible anxiety. Maddened and depressed often, stumbling
often, falling often, but despairing never, sorrow and sadness
briefly encompassed him when fate ordained disappointments. But
his heart was big with hope that he would accomplish complete
victory before the sentence of death came, which he never ceased
to forebode. He was a human force, not a phenomenon. On the 22nd
July, Sir Robert Calder and Villeneuve fought a drawn or
indecisive battle. Only two
Spanish ships of the line were taken. The French Admiral put into
Vigo on the 28th, and managed to slip out, and arrived at Ferrol
without being intercepted. Nelson provisioned his ships for four
months, and sailed from Tetuan on the 23rd. On the 25th he passed
through the Straits with the intention of going to Ferrol,
Ireland, or Ushant, whichever his information and judgment told
him was the best course to pursue. He experienced strong
northerly winds along the Portuguese coast, which prevented him
from joining the Channel Fleet off Ushant until August 16th, and
as no news had been received of the French being in the Bay of
Biscay or off the Irish coast, he was ordered by Cornwallis to
Portsmouth, and anchored at Spithead on the 18th August. His
reception from every quarter was most cordial, as well it might
be! But the thought of how much greater it would have been if he
had not been misguided and thereby deprived of coming to grips
with the foe that was still at large and outwitting every device
of bringing them to close quarters, had eaten like a canker into
his troubled mind. In his letters to friends (Davison and others)
his postscripts were for ever being embellished with reference to
it and the darting of an incidental “damn” to General Brereton,
who, it is contended, was himself deceived. But Nelson, generous
as, he always was to people who were encompassed by misfortune,
never would allow that Brereton had any right to allow himself to
be misled. One wonders how the immortal General Brereton worked
it out. In any case, the
great Admiral has given him a place in history by his side.

Nelson first heard of Sir Robert Calder’s scrap from the
Ushant squadron, and was strong in sympathy and defence against
the unworthy public attacks made on the Admiral for not
succeeding as he would. In writing to Fremantle about Calder, he
says, amongst other things: “I should have fought the enemy, so
did my friend Calder; I only wish to stand upon my own merits,
and not by comparison, one way or the other upon the conduct of a
brother officer,” etc. This rebuke to a public who were treating
his brother officer ungenerously may be summarized thus: “I want
none of your praises at the expense of this gallant officer, who
is serving his country surrounded with complex dangers that you
are ignorant of, and therefore it is indecent of you to judge by
comparing him with me or any one else. I want none of your
praises at his expense.”

This is only one of the noble traits in Nelson’s character,
and is the secret why he unconsciously endeared himself to
everybody. His comical vanity and apparent egotism is
overshadowed by human touches such as this worthy intervention on
behalf of Sir Robert Calder, who he had reason to know was not
professionally well disposed to him. But his defence of Calder
did not close with Fremantle, for in a letter to his brother soon
after he got home he says, “We must now talk of Sir Robert
Calder. I might not have done so much with my small force. If I
had fallen in with them, you might probably have been a lord before I wished; for I know
they meant to make a dead set at the Victory.” These lines
alone show how reverently the writer adhered to the brotherly tie
of the profession. He seems to say, “Let us have no more talk of
puerilities. I am the stronger. I have recently been frustrated
myself. I know this business better than Calder’s traducers do,
and therefore conceive it my duty to defend him. He also has
rendered great services to his country.”

When it was known that he had arrived in England, he was
overwhelmed with generous tokens of affection and gratitude from
all classes. Thousands crowded into Portsmouth to see him land,
and the cheering was long and lusty. In London the mob, drunk
with excitement, struggled to get sight of him, many crushing
their way so that they might shake him by the hand or even touch
him. Lord Minto said he met him in Piccadilly, took him by the
arm, and was mobbed also. He goes on to say: “It is really quite
affecting to see the wonder, admiration, and love for him from
gentle and simple the moment he is seen,” and concludes by
stating that it is beyond anything represented in a play or in a
poem of fame.

Commercial men everywhere passed resolutions of gratitude for
the protection he had secured in their different interests. The
West India merchants sent a deputation to express their
never-to-be-forgotten thanks, and would have loaded him with
material tokens of their goodwill had it been proper to do so. He
lost no time in getting to
Merton, which was the thought and happiness of his soul. He was
invited here, there, and everywhere, and always replied that he
could not accept, as all his family were with him. Lord Minto,
who was a devoted friend, visited him on the 15th August, and
says that he “found him in the act of sitting down to dinner with
his brother the Dean, his wife, and their children, and the
children of a sister. Lady Hamilton was at the head of the table,
and her mother, Mrs. Cadogan, at the bottom. His welcome was
hearty. Nelson looked well and was full of spirits. Lady
Hamilton,” he continues, “had improved, and had added to the
house and place extremely well, without his knowing she was doing
it. She is a clever being, after all the passion is as hot as
ever.”

These glad moments of keen rapture, which filled Nelson with a
sort of mystic joy, were soon to be cut short. Swiftly the sweet
days were passing away, and the sombre parting from “dear Merton
and loving hearts for evermore” was drawing near. In his
day-dreams he saw more fame, more professional gladness, more
triumph. He saw, too, as he pensively walked in his garden, the
grave nearly ready to receive him and the day of his glory and
brightness coming. These were his abiding premonitions, which
were jerked out to his close friends, and even during his last
sojourn at Merton, to those he loved so well. Even at this
distance of time we cannot think with composure of this
many-sided man declaring sadly that death had no terrors for him,
and that he was ready to
face the last great problem in the conflict which was to break
the power at sea of the great conqueror on land. He had not been
long in the plenitude of domestic bliss before Captain Blackwood
called one morning at five o’clock with dispatches sent by
Collingwood for the Admiralty. Nelson was already dressed, and in
his quick penetrating way told him that “he was certain he
brought news of the combined enemy’s fleet,” and, without waiting
for an answer, exclaimed, “I think I shall have to beat them,”
and subsequently added, “Depend upon it, Blackwood, I shall yet
give M. Villeneuve a drubbing.” The latter had slipped out of
Ferrol and elusively made his way to Cadiz without having been
seen by the British. Nelson’s services were again requested by
the Government, and eagerly given, though he declared that he was
in need of more rest and that he had done enough. But these were
mere transient observations, probably to impress those with whom
he talked or to whom he wrote with the importance of his position
with the Cabinet, who now regarded him as indispensable, which
was in reality quite true, though he was none the less proud of
the high confidence they had in him and the popular approval
their selection had with the public. The phrase “Let the man
trudge who has lost his budget” was mere bluff. He wanted to go
all the time, and would have felt himself grievously insulted had
the Government regarded even his health unequal to so gigantic a
task or suggested that a better man could be found.

Nelson, always hungering
for approbation, slyly hinted that it would be a risky thing for
the Government’s existence had they not placed full control of
the fleet in his hands, so popular a hold had he on all classes
of naval men and the entire public imagination. Nelson was often
exasperated by the dull ignorance of the Government as to how
naval policy should be conducted, and by their combined
irresolution and impatience at critical periods, when success
depended upon his having a free hand to act as circumstances
arose. Of course, he took a free hand and never failed to
succeed. But he frequently complained that he laid himself open
to be shot or degraded by doing so, and it is only one man in a
century that is possessed of sufficient audacity to ignore the
authority over him and with supreme skill to carry out his own
plans. In support of the views that were bound to be held by a
man of Nelson’s calibre as to the qualities of some of his
superiors in the Government who wished to impose upon him a
definite line of action, we quote a letter written to Captain
Keats, which has appeared in almost every life of Nelson that has
been published. It is pregnant with subtle contemptuous remarks
which may be applied to the naval administration of the present
time (March 1918). It is not only a danger, but a crime, in the
process of any war, but especially during the present, to gamble
with the safety of the nation by neglecting to have at the head
of a great department a man who has not only a genius for
administrative initiative in this particular sphere but an
unerring instinct to guide
and grapple with its everyday perplexities. It is colossal
aptitude, not mechanicalness, that is needed.

But here is the matchless sailor’s opinion of the situation in
this respect in his day: “The Secretary of State (Lord
Castlereagh), which is a man who has only sat one day in his
office, and, of course, knows but little of what is passed, and
indeed the Prime Minister, Pitt, were all full of the enemy’s
fleet, and as I am now set up for a conjurer, and God knows they
will very soon find out I am far from being one, I was asked my
opinion, against my inclination, for if I make one wrong guess
the charm will be broken; but this I ventured without any fear,
that if Calder got close alongside their twenty-seven or
twenty-eight sail, that by the time the enemy had beaten our
fleet soundly, they would do us no harm this year.”

Though Nelson did not and could not say all that was in his
mind, we can read between the lines that he had no use for the
theories of ministers, and would obviously have liked to have
said in brutal English, “Here I am, gentlemen, do not encumber me
with your departmental jargon of palpable nothings. You continue
to trust in Providence; give me your untrammelled instructions as
to what you wish me to do, and leave the rest to me.” Here is
another letter from Lord Radstock: “No official news have been
received from Lord Nelson since July 27th. He then hinted that he
might go to Ireland; nevertheless, we have no tidings of him on
that coast. I confess I
begin to be fearful that he has worried his mind up to that
pitch, that he cannot bear the idea of showing himself again to
the world until he shall have struck some blow, and that it is
this hope that is now making him run about, half frantic, in
quest of adventure. That such unparalleled perseverance and true
valour should thus evaporate in air is truly melancholy.”

What balderdash to write about a man ablaze with reasoning
energy and genius of the highest order! The noble Lord is
disillusioned on his arrival in Portsmouth, and writes again in
another a strain: “He (Nelson) was received in town almost as a
conqueror, and was followed round by the people with huzzas. So
much for a great and good name most nobly and deservedly
acquired”! The previous letter indicates the mind of a fireside
colossus, and shows how dangerously a big man’s reputation may be
at the mercy of a little one or a coterie of them. One can only
describe them as portentous human snipes, whose aggressive
mediocrity spreads like an attack of infectious fever, until the
awful will of Heaven, for the safety of humanity, lays hands on
their power for mischief. The popularity of a public servant is
always in danger of a tragical end if he lives long enough. One
slip of inevitable misfortune seals his doom when the pendulum
swings against him. And it is generally brought by a rhetorical
smiling Judas who can sway a capricious public. The more
distinguished a popular man may be, the greater is the danger
that the fame and reputation for which he strove may be swiftly
laid low.

The gallant and strenuous patriot whose fame will pass on to
distant ages is now summoned to fulfil his destiny. He owns that
he needs one more rest, but his “duty was to go forth.” He
“expected to lay his weary bones quiet for the winter,” but he is
“proud of the call,” and all gallant hearts were proud to own him
as their chieftain. He bargains for one of the Victory’s
anchors to be at the bows before he arrives at Portsmouth. All
his belongings are sent off on the 5th October. Lord Barham, an
aged man of eighty-two years, asks him with pride to select his
own officers. “Choose yourself, my Lord. The same spirit actuates
the whole profession; you cannot choose wrong.” He told the
Cabinet what was wanted in the “annihilation of the enemy,” and
that “only numbers could annihilate”—presumably ships and
men. The conversations he had with the authorities and the spoken
words and letters sent to his friends are ablaze with inspiring,
sharp-cut sentences. But those who had intimate knowledge of his
tender side felt he was ill at ease, and not free from heartache
at the prospect of parting. I think, in connection with
this, Lady Hamilton’s version of what passed between them
when he was walking the “quarterdeck” in his garden may be true in
substance, as he was still madly in love with her, and she knew
how to wheedle him into a conversation and to use words that
might serve a useful purpose if need be. Nor were her scruples so
delicate as to prevent suitable additions being made to suit any
emergency that might occur.

Her account is that she saw he was looking downcast, and she
told him so. He smiled, and then said, “No, I am as happy as
possible”; he was surrounded by his family, his health was better
since he had “been on shore, and he would not give sixpence to
call the King his uncle.” She replied that she did not believe
him, that she knew he was longing to get at the combined fleets,
that he considered them as his property, that he would be
miserable if any man but himself did the business, and that he
ought to have them as the price and reward of his two years’ long
watching and his hard chase. “Nelson,” said she, “however we may
lament your absence, offer your services; they will be accepted,
and you will gain a quiet heart by it; you will have a glorious
victory, and then you may return here and be happy.” He looked at
her with tears in his eyes, and said, “Brave Emma! Good Emma! If
there were more Emmas, there would be more Nelsons.”

It puts a heavy strain upon our credulity to believe that such
words were ever used by Nelson, even though we know that he was
so hopelessly enamoured of this untamed creature. That he
needed to be coaxed into
offering his services or that he ever demurred at accepting the
distinguished honours the Government had conferred upon him may
be regarded as one of Emma’s efforts at triumphant
self-glorification and easy dramatic fibbing. She was ever
striving to thrust her patriotic ardour forward in some vulgar
form or other, and this occasion gave her a chance that could not
be resisted. The day before Nelson’s departure for Portsmouth the
scalding tears flowed from her eyes continuously, she could
neither eat nor drink, and her lapses into swooning at the table
were terrible. These performances do not bear out the tale of
Nelson’s spontaneous and gushing outburst in the garden at Merton
of her bravery and goodness in urging him to “go forth.” It is
possible that her resolution and fortitude could not stand the
responsibility of pressing him to undertake a task that might be
fatal to himself and foredoomed to failure. In that case she does
not bear herself like a heroine, and strengthens the suspicion,
as we have said, that the story of pleading with Nelson to offer
his services is an impudent fabrication. Minto says that the
tears and swooning is a strange picture, and assures him as
before that nothing can be more pure and ardent than this flame;
and she might have added that they had in reality
exchanged souls.

Napoleon, in conversing on one occasion with his brother
Lucien about one of his love affairs, said “that Madame
Walewska’s soul was as beautiful as her face.” In nearly all his
letters to Lady Hamilton,
Nelson plunged into expressions of love abandonment only
different from those sent by Napoleon to Josephine when he was
commander-in-chief of the army of Italy. Neither of these
extraordinary men could do anything by halves, and we are not
left in doubt as to the seventh heaven of happiness it would have
been to the less flowery-worded sailor had he been given the
least encouragement to pour out his adoration of Emma’s goodness
and beauty. He would have excelled Napoleon’s picture of Madame
Walewska. Amidst the many cares that surrounded these last active
days, when the dockyards were humming with the work of getting
his ships refitted so that they might be put quickly into
commission, he grudged every moment of forced separation from her
while he was in consultation with the Government and attending to
his own private preparations, which were sedulously attended to.
Nothing of moment seems to have been left to chance. Not even the
coffin that Captain Hallowell had given him was overlooked, for
he called to give instructions to the people who had it in safe
keeping, and gave them instructions to have the history of it
engraved on the lid, as he might want it on his return, which is
further evidence that he was permanently impressed with the fate
that awaited him.

The story of this strange incident of the coffin is this:
After the battle of the Nile a portion of the Orient’s
mainmast was drifting about, and was picked up by order of
Captain Hallowell of the Swiftsure, who had it made into a
coffin. It was handsomely
finished, and sent to Admiral Nelson with the following
letter:—

Nelson received the weird gift in good spirits, and had it
placed in his cabin. It was hardly a pleasant piece of furniture
for his visitors to be confronted with, so he was prevailed upon
to have it put below until it was required. A few more raging
battles, and a few more years of momentous anxieties, and the
prodigious hero was to become its occupant. It seems to have been
landed and put in charge of a firm of upholsterers.

Before leaving his home he went to the bedside where his child
Horatia lay sleeping, and offered up a heart-stirring prayer that
those who loved him should be a guardian spirit to her, and that
the God he believed in should have her in His holy keeping. On
the 13th September, 1805, he writes in his private
diary:—

No more simple, fervent,
and touching appeal and resignation to the will of Him Who
governs all things has been seen in the English language. It is
quite unorthodox in its construction, and impresses us with the
idea that he is already realizing the bitterness of death, and
that he is in the presence of a great Mystery, speaking to his
own parting soul. The desire to live is there, but he does not
ignore the almost unutterable submission of “Thy will be
done.”

XIII

Nelson joined the Victory at Portsmouth on the morning
of the 14th September, and met with a great public ovation. He
tells Captain Hardy, as he was being rowed to the Victory,
that he had “their huzzas when he landed” (after his prolonged
period in commission), “but now,” he proudly remarked, “I have
their hearts.” His send-off was magnificent. The contagious flow
of tears, the shouting of blessings, and the fervent petitions
that the God of battles should give him the victory over the
enemies of human suffering and liberty were symptoms of
admiration and gratitude which went hot into his blood as he sat
in his barge, the object of reverence. And with a calm air of
conscious power he acknowledged the honour that was showered upon
him by baring his head and bowing gracefully his thanks. It was
manifestly his day of paradise, and with the plaudits still
ringing in his ears the Victory’s anchor was weighed on the
following day, and he sailed from St. Helen’s Roads to the great
conflict and victory for which he panted, and to the doom that
awaited him.

He experienced foul winds until he passed Cape Finisterre, and
on the 28th September he joined the fleet of twenty-nine of the
line. The 29th September was the anniversary of his forty-seventh
year. He says: “The reception I met with on joining the fleet
caused the sweetest sensation of my life. The officers who came
on board to welcome my return forgot my rank as
commander-in-chief in the enthusiasm with which they greeted me.
As soon as these emotions were past, I laid before them the plan
I had previously arranged for attacking the enemy; and it was not
only my pleasure to find it generally approved, but clearly
perceived and understood.” In a further communication he explains
to them the “Nelson touch,” and all agree that it must succeed,
and that he is surrounded with friends. Then he adds: “Some may
be Judas’s, but the majority are certainly pleased at the
prospect of my commanding them.”

These are joyous days for him, which are marked by the absence
of any recorded misgivings. His mind is full of making
preparations in every detail to cope with the advent of
Villeneuve from Cadiz and for the plan of attack, of which a long
memorandum was circulated to the fleet. He had planned the form
of attack at Trafalgar during his stay at home, and some time
before leaving Merton he confided it to Lord Sidmouth. He
told him “that Rodney broke
the enemy’s line in one place, and that he would break it
in two.” One of the Nelson “touches” was to “close with a
Frenchman, and to out-manoeuvre a Russian,” and this method of
terrific onslaught was to be one of the devices that he had in
store for the French at Trafalgar, and which ended fatally for
himself. But it gave the enemy a staggering blow, from which they
never recovered so long as the action lasted. In the General
Orders he says: “Captains are to look to their particular line as
a rallying point, but in case signals cannot be seen or clearly
understood, no captain can do wrong if he places his ship
alongside that of an enemy.”

The feeling against Sir Robert Calder for not having beaten or
forced another battle on the allied fleets in July did not abate.
The public were out for impeachment, and the Government did
nothing to discourage it; and when Nelson was on the point of
leaving England the First Lord instructed him to convey to Calder
the Government’s condemnation of his evident negligence or
incapacity. They gave him permission to ask for the inquiry, but
should he not do so, it would be ordered. Nelson wrote to Barham
that he had delivered the message to Sir Robert, and that it
would doubtless give his Lordship pleasure to learn that an
inquiry was just what the Vice-Admiral was anxious to have, and
that he had already sent a letter by the Nautilus to say
so, but that he (Nelson) had detained it. Nelson, in his goodness
of heart, urged Sir Robert to remain until after the action, the result of
which would inevitably change the feeling of the Government and
the public in his favour, and he could then, without any fear,
demand an inquiry. Sir Robert was so crushed with the charge
hanging over him, that he insisted on being allowed to proceed to
England at once, and Nelson, to ease the humiliation and
suffering he was passing through, sent him off in his ninety-gun
ship, instead of a frigate. The inquiry was held in due course,
and judgment given against him. The finding is, in our opinion,
based more on prejudice than on any fault he committed, and as to
“committing an error of judgment,” it is always difficult to know
what is an error of judgment in circumstances such as he was
confronted with. In any case, it is evident that the Government
were terrified of the effect that public opinion would have on
themselves if they failed to take steps to appease it. We think
the Government would have been serving their country better by
keeping this unfortunate officer in active service when its fleet
was on the verge of a life-or-death struggle for naval supremacy
than by dispensing with his services, which they had thought fit
to retain from July to October. Nelson’s attitude was the more
patriotic and noble, and under such circumstances the verdict,
however mild, was bound to be given against the man whose heart
they had broken because they were afraid of public opinion.
Nelson was a better judge than they. Discreet reprimand, combined
with a few kindly words of encouragement, was the proper course
at such a time, when every
man and ship was so essential.

On a previous occasion, when a “seventy-four” had stranded,
the officer whose skill and efforts had refloated her was told by
Nelson that he had spoken favourably of him to the Admiralty. The
officer showed in suitable terms his gratitude, but added that he
did not regard what he had done as meriting any notice or praise.
The Admiral pointed out that a battle might easily be lost by the
absence of a line-of-battle ship. When Nelson conveyed the
ill-considered and stupid instructions of the Government to Sir
Robert Calder to return home to be court-martialled, and the
latter replied that his letter “to do so cut him to the soul and
that his heart was broken,” Nelson was so overcome with sympathy
for Calder that he sacrificed his own opinions already expressed,
and also took the risk of bringing upon himself the displeasure
of the Comptroller of the Navy by giving the unfortunate man
permission to proceed home in a vessel that would have been so
valuable an asset to his fleet. This worthy act, had he lived and
the battle of Trafalgar been drawn or lost, might have laid him
open to impeachment. Nelson’s fine courage and sense of
proportion when he thought an injustice or undue severity was
being imposed was never allowed to be trifled with by any
official, no matter how high or subordinate his position might
be, and his contempt for men whom he knew were miserable
cocksparrow amateurs was openly avowed.

Whatever the
consequences, he would have sooner lost a victory than have
gained one by lending himself to an act that was to injure or
break his brother in arms. Calder left the fleet a few days
before the action, and when it began Nelson remarked to Hardy,
“What would poor Sir Robert Calder give to be with us now!” Even
on the eve of a great encounter the stress of preparation did not
dim his sympathy for the afflicted man, who, on more than one
occasion, had allowed envy to rule his conduct towards him. After
the battle of St. Vincent, for instance, Calder, in conversation
with Jervis, criticized Nelson’s action in departing from the
plan of attack laid down by the Admiral. Jervis admitted it to be
a breach, and added “if ever Calder did the same thing under
similar circumstances, he would forgive him.”

Nelson knew Calder was envious of his growing fame, but this
did not prevent him from acting as though he had always been a
loyal friend. On the morning of the 19th October, 1805, the
signal was passed from ship to ship acting as lookouts to the
main fleet that the combined fleet were putting to sea, and it
was soon discovered that their force consisted of eighteen French
line-of-battle ships, seven large frigates, and two brigs. The
Spanish numbered fifteen sail of the line. The British had
twenty-seven sail of the line and four frigates, so that Nelson
was outnumbered by five of the line, three frigates, and two
brigs. The whole of the allied fleet did not get clear of the
port until the 20th. The commander-in-chief was Villeneuve, and his obvious intention was
to get the Straits open and, by a cunning evasion of the British
fleet, make a dash through. His elusive tactics had hitherto been
skilfully performed, but the British Admiral, always on the
alert, anticipated that an effort would again be made to cheat
him of the yearning hope of his heart, and had mentally arranged
how every contingency should be coped with to prevent escape and
to get to grips with the enemy. “I will give them such a shaking
as they never before experienced,” and at least he was prepared
to lay down his life in the attempt.

It is pretty certain that, after all his ships had got into
the open sea, Villeneuve’s intention was to see how the land lay
as to the British strength, and his manoeuvring indicated that
instructions had been given to hoodwink the British and slip
through the Straits of Gibraltar; but seeing that the entrance
was cut off for the moment, he headed westward, possibly to
mislead, but always with the intention of getting into the
Mediterranean. When this information was signalled by Blackwood,
instructions were sent back to him that the Admiral relied on the
enemy being kept in sight. Here is a letter to Lady Hamilton,
dated the 19th October, 1805:—

This was found unsigned on his desk. These are the last lines
he wrote to the woman he called his “wife in the sight of God.”
There is none of the robust assurance of blazing deeds that he
has in store for the enemy which characterize some of his earlier
letters to Emma, nor is there any craving for continued existence
or for extinction. But who can read this melancholy farewell
without being impressed with the feeling that there is a subdued
restraint to avoid uttering his thoughts on inevitable fate and
eternal sleep, lest it gives anxiety and disheartens the woman he
loved so well?

On the same day he wrote an affectionate letter to his
daughter, which is clearly intended as a supplementary outpouring
of a full heart to the mother whom he knew would have to read it.
The tone and wording is what a father might have written to a
girl of fifteen instead of five. There is a complete absence of
those dainty, playful touches that would delight a child of her
age. In reality, it rather points to the idea that it was
intended not only as a further farewell to mother and child, but
as an historical epistle and a legacy to Horatia which she would
read in other days in connection with the great battle in which
he was to be engaged only a few hours after he had written
it.

The importunities of Horatia’s mother were continuously being
forced upon Nelson in one way or another, but he seems to have
stood firm, in an apologetic way, to the instructions laid down
by himself, that no women were to go to sea aboard his ship; for,
having been a party to the embargo, it would have been impossible
for him to make her an exception. He anticipates, as her other
lovers had done, that she can be very angry, like Horatia, when
she cannot have her own way, but he soothingly says that he knows
his own dear Emma, if she applies her reason, will see that he is
right. He playfully adds an addendum that “Horatia is like her
mother, she will have her own way, or kick up the devil of a
dust.” He reminds Emma that she is a “sharer of his glory,” which
settles the question of her being allowed to sail with him, and
from encountering the heavy gales and liquid hills that are
experienced off Toulon week after week. He warns the lady that it
would kill her and himself to witness it. Emma was too devoted to
all the pleasures ashore to
risk losing her life in any such uncomfortable fashion at sea, so
the project was abandoned, if it was ever seriously
contemplated.

This astute actress knew where to touch Nelson’s weak spot,
and that it would send him into a frenzy of love to think of her
yearning to be beside him. She would know that the rules of the
Service prohibited, except under special circumstances, even the
highest in rank from having their wives sail with them, and that
the rule would apply more rigidly to herself, who was not
Nelson’s wife. She knew, in fact, that her request would flatter
him, and that she would be compensated by receiving a whirlwind
of devotion in reply. After the Gulf of Lyons days, no further
request appears to have been made of that kind.

The combined fleets had been dodging each other on the 20th,
light westerly winds and calms prevailing. At daylight on the
21st the belligerent fleets were within twelve miles of each
other. Nelson was on deck early, and at 7.40 a.m. made the signal
“To form the order of sailing,” and “To prepare for battle.” Then
the signal was made to “Bear up,” the Victory and Royal
Sovereign leading the way in two lines; Nelson took the
weather line with his ships, and the other division followed, but
the wind being light, many had barely steerage way. Fourteen
vessels followed Collingwood, who was to attack the enemy’s rear,
while Nelson slashed into the van and centre. Villeneuve, seeing
by the British formation that his number was up and that he would
have to give battle, manoeuvred to keep Cadiz open, which was about twenty miles NE. of
him, but the wind, being light, made it as difficult for the
French Commander-in-Chief to carry out the disposition as it was
for the quick-witted British Commander to prevent it. Hence the
development was a lazy process, and prevented, as varying
circumstances always do, any rigid plan being adhered to. Had
there been a fresh breeze before the battle commenced, the
chances are that the French would have secured a position that
would have enabled more of the crippled ships to get into Cadiz,
but even this is doubtful, as only a fluke of wind could have
saved them from the strategy of the British Commander-in-Chief
before the fighting began. Between eleven and twelve o’clock on
the 21st October every humanly possible, detailed arrangement had
been completed. Each captain knew that, so far as it was
possible, he was to follow where his admiral and vice-admiral
led. The spirits of all those who manned the fleet were high of
hope, and the inspiring spirit said he could do no more.

Nelson then went to his cabin and on his knees wrote a prayer
that throbbed and will continue to throb through the universe. It
exhales the spirit of bravery, and triumphant assurance of the
eternal justice of the cause for which he is about to sacrifice
himself, for a sombre document it is; but the soul that is in it
is imperishable, and who can peruse it without vividly picturing
the writer kneeling before the Omnipotent, pleading for his
country’s cause, and offering himself piously as a willing
sacrifice!

Then, as though apprehension of the inevitable passing was
growing, the thought of the woman who is the mother of his child,
and for whom he had an unquenchable love, blinds him to all sense
of propriety. It puts a severe strain on our imagination to
realize how a man could composedly write such a request on the
verge of the greatest naval conflict in history. It is dated
“21st of October, 1805, in sight of the combined fleets of France
and Spain, distant ten miles”:—

It is of little importance whether this codicil was written at
the same time as the prayer or a couple of hours before; that
neither adds to nor detracts from the object of it. No definite
opinion of the time is given. Blackwood and Hardy, as witnesses,
would know. In any case it is an extraordinary document, and
indicates unusual mental control of which few human beings are
possessed. His mind must have been saturated with thoughts of the
woman when the great battle was within a few minutes of
commencing. Early in the morning, when he was walking the poop
and cabin fixings and odds and ends were being removed, he gave
stern instructions to “take care of his guardian angel,” meaning
her portrait, which he regarded in the light of a mascot to him.
He also wore a miniature of her next his heart. Unless Captain
Hardy and Captain Blackwood and others to whom he confided his
love potions were different
from the hearty, unconventional seamen of the writer’s early
sea-life, a banquet of interesting epithets could have been left
to us which might have shocked the severely decorous portion of a
public who assume a monopoly of inherent grace but do not
understand the delightful simple dialect of the old-time
sailor-men.

There can be small doubt that Nelson’s comrades had many a
joke in private about his weird and to them unnecessarily
troublesome love wailings, which would be all the more irksome
when they and he had serious business in hand. Poor Sir Thomas
Troubridge appears to have been the only one to have dealt
frankly with him about carrying his infatuation to such
lengths—especially at a time when the public service was in
need of his undivided attention—and Nelson never had a
kindly feeling towards him afterwards. This gallant officer and
loyal friend was in command of the Blenheim (seventy-four
guns) when she and the Java (twenty-three guns) foundered
with all hands near the island of Rodriguez, in the East Indies,
on the 1st February, 1807. Nelson harboured a childish bitterness
against Admiral Troubridge because of his plain speaking, and
especially after the latter was appointed a Lord of the
Admiralty. He always believed the “hidden hand” to be that of his
former friend, to whom he delighted at one time to give the term
“Nonpareil.” In a letter to a friend he says: “I have a sharp
eye, and almost think I can see it. No, poor fellow,” he
continues, “I hope I do him injustice; he surely cannot forget my kindness to him,”
He boasts of how he spoke to St. Vincent, the former “Nonpareil.”
In another eloquent passage he complains that Troubridge refuses
to endorse his recommendations of officers for promotion, that he
has been so rebuffed that his spirits are broken and the great
Troubridge has cowed him (this, of course, in derision), and if
he asked for anything more he would not get it. He would never
forget it. No wonder he was not well. The Admiralty are “beasts”
for not allowing him to come to London, which would only deprive
him of a few days’ comfort and happiness, and they have his
hearty prayers. He continues in the same ludicrous strain, “I
have a letter from Troubridge urging me to wear flannel shirts,
as though he cared for me. He hopes that I shall go and have
walks ashore, as the weather is now fine.” “I suppose he is
laughing at me, but never mind.” He suffers from sea-sickness and
toothache, and “none of them care a damn about my sufferings,”
and so on. These misdirected outbursts of feverish antipathy to
poor Troubridge were frequent, and always inconceivably comical
as well as distressingly peevish. But behind it all there was a
consciousness of unequalled power which every one who knew him
recognized, and they therefore patiently bore with his
weaknesses, trying as they sometimes were.

Lord St. Vincent believed, and stated to Nelson, that the only
other man who possessed the same power of infusing into others
the same spirit as his own was Troubridge, and no doubt this
innocent praise of a noble
and gallant sailor rankled in Nelson’s mind, and was the
beginning of the jealousy that grew into hate. He could not brook
any one being put on an equality with himself, and he clung
tenaciously, though generously, to this idea of authority and
superiority when he requested in his last dying gasp that he
should not be superseded.

After signing what is called the codicil to his will, Captains
Hardy and Blackwood joined him on the poop to receive his
instructions. He was calmly absorbed with the enemy’s plan of
defence and his own of attack. He asked Blackwood what he would
consider a victory, and the latter replied, “Considering the
disposition of both fleets, he thought fourteen captures would be
a fine result.” Nelson said he would not be satisfied with less
than twenty, and that nothing short of annihilation was his
object. Soon afterwards he gave orders to Mr. Pasco to make the
memorable signal that

ENGLAND EXPECTS EVERY MAN TO DO HIS DUTY,

which sent a thrill of fiery enthusiasm throughout the whole
fleet. Then the signal for “Close action” went up, and the
cheering was renewed, which created a remarkable effect.
Collingwood, whose attention was wholly on a Spanish three-decker
that he had selected to engage, is reported to have been
irritated, and spontaneously expressed the wish that “Nelson
would cease signalling, as they all knew what to do.”

H.M.S. “Victory” going into Battle at Trafalgar

At noon the French ship,
the Fougeux, fired the first shot of the battle. The
belligerent admirals saluted in the good old pious style, like
professional boxers shaking hands before the attempt to knock
each other out, and in a few more minutes were engaged in deadly
conflict, hurling death at each other. Nelson, in his courageous
melancholy way, confident of his own powers and trusting
reverently in the continuance of the lavish bounty of God,
resigned his fate to Him who had given him the opportunity of
doing his duty. The conspicuous splendour of the decorations
which he wore on the breast of his admiral’s frocker was
apprehensively looked upon by his comrades, who loved him with
touching loyalty. They muttered their disappointment to each
other, but shrank from hurting his feelings by warning him of the
danger of the sharpshooters, to whom he would be a target,
remembering how he had sharply replied to some anxious soul who
on a previous occasion had cautioned him with regard to his
prominent appearance, “that in honour he had gained his orders,
and in honour he would die with them.”

The battle quickly developed into a carnage. The
Bucentaure had found her range soon after twelve o’clock,
when some of the shots went over the Victory. Blackwood
was at this time ordered to rejoin his ship. He shook hands with
his chief, and in some brief parting words expressed the “hope
that he would soon return to the Victory to find him well
and in possession of twenty prizes”; and Nelson is reported to
have calmly answered, “God
bless you, Blackwood, I shall never speak to you again.” His
habit was to refer to death with eager frankness, and as though
he were in love with it, without in the least showing any lack of
alertness or detraction from the hazardous objects he had set
himself to fulfil. His faith in the powerful aid of the
Omnipotent was as unvarying in his sphere of warfare as was
Cromwell’s when he had the stern realities of human unruliness to
steady and chastise. Nelson, like the latter, had in his peculiar
way a deep-rooted awe and fear of God, which must have made him
oblivious to all other fear. The magnificent fellow never showed
greater mastery of the science of strategy, nor did he ever scan
with greater vigilance the manner of carrying out the creation of
his genius. Collingwood, who was first in the thick of the fight,
set his heart throbbing with pride and admiration when he
observed the Royal Sovereign dash through the lines of the
enemy, spreading devastation and death with unerring judgment.
“See,” said Nelson to Captain Blackwood, “how that noble fellow,
Collingwood, takes his ship into action!” Then he paused for a
moment, and continued, “How I envy him!” And as though the
spirits of the two men were in communion with each other,
Collingwood, knowing that the Commander-in-Chief’s eager eye was
fixed upon him in fond admiration, called out to the flag-captain
near him, “Rotherham, what would Nelson give to be here?”

One of those fine human touches of brotherhood which Nelson knew so well how to
handle with his faultless tact had occurred the day before.
Collingwood and some officers paid a visit to the Victory
for the purpose of receiving any instructions he might have to
give. Nelson asked Collingwood where his captain was, and when he
replied that they were not on friendly terms, Nelson sharply
answered, “Not on good terms,” and forthwith gave orders for a
boat to be sent for Rotherham; and when he came aboard he took
him to Collingwood and said, “Look! there is the enemy, shake
hands,” and they renewed their friendship by gratefully carrying
out his wishes. But for this, perhaps we should have been cheated
of knowing the charming anecdote, which denotes the veneration
the two old friends had for each other.

There is no need to make any apology for this digression, for
it is to record one more of the many acts of wisdom and
tenderness that were so natural to this man of massive
understanding. The incalculable results that he was destined to
accomplish may well be allowed to obscure any human weakness that
sadly beset him.

Nelson, with blithe courage, sailed right into the centre of
the French fleet, which in disorder surrounded their
Commander-in-Chief’s ship, his intention being to capture her and
take Villeneuve prisoner. Never a gun was fired from the
Victory, although many of her spars, sails, and her
rigging had suffered severely, until she had rounded as close as
it was possible under the stern of the Bucentaure and got
into position. Then a terrific broadside was let fly from her double-shotted
guns, which raked the Bucentaure fore and aft, and the
booming of cannon continued until her masts and hull were a
complete wreck. Many guns were dismounted and four hundred men
killed. The Victory then swung off and left the doomed
Bucentaure to be captured by the Conqueror, and
Villeneuve was taken prisoner. After clearing the
Bucentaure, the Victory fouled the
Redoubtable, and proceeded to demolish her hull with the
starboard guns, and with her port guns she battered the
Santissima Trinidad, until she was a mass of wreckage, and
the Africa and Neptune forced her to surrender.
Meanwhile, the Victory kept hammering with her starboard
guns at the Redoubtable until her lower deck cannon were
put out of action. Then she used her upper deck small guns and
muskets from aloft. Nelson was too humane a man to use this
method of warfare from the lower tops, and too practical, lest
the ropes and sails should be damaged. The writer is of opinion
that he was wrong in this view, as was clearly shown by the
deadly execution the French musketeers did from aloft before
their masts were shot away by the British big artillery. It can
never be wrong to outmatch an enemy in the methods they employ,
no matter what form they take. Although the victory was all on
the British side at Trafalgar, it would have been greater and
with less loss of life on our side had musketeers been employed
in the same way as the French and Spanish employed them. The men
on the upper deck of the Victory were shot down by these snipers without having
an equal chance of retaliating. The Redoubtable’s
mizzen-top was full of sharpshooters when the two ships fell
alongside of each other, but only two were left there when Nelson
was shot and dropped on his left side on the deck a foot or two
from Captain Hardy. The Frenchman who shot him was killed himself
by a shot fired from the Victory’s deck, which knocked his
head to pieces. His comrade was also shot dead while trying to
escape down the rigging, and fell on the Redoubtable’s
poop. The other sharpshooters had been previously killed by the
musketry from the Victory’s deck.

Nelson told Hardy, when he expressed the hope that he was not
seriously hurt, that “they had done for him at last, and that he
felt his backbone was broken.” He was hit on the left shoulder;
the ball had pierced his left lung. The snipers from the tops of
the other enemy ships killed a large number of the
Victory’s officers and men who were on deck. The French
made an attempt to board, but were thrown back in confusion and
with tremendous loss. The instinct of domination and the
unconquerable combativeness of our race is always more fiercely
courageous when pressed to a point which causes others to take to
their heels or surrender.

It was not an exaggeration on the part of the French and
Spanish to declare that the British sailors and soldiers were not
ordinary men but devils, when the real tussle for mastery began,
and when they were even believed to be beaten. The French and
Spanish conclusions were
right then, and the ruthless Germans, stained with unspeakable
crimes, should know they are right now, for they have had many
chances in recent days of realizing the power of the recuperating
spirit they are up against, just at a time when they have become
imbued with the idea that they have beaten our forces on land and
destroyed our ships and murdered their crews at sea. The Kaiser
and his advisers, military and naval, have made the German people
pay dearly for the experiment of stopping our supplies by sea,
for the loss of life by the sinking of their own submarines must
have been enormous. But only those to whom they belong will ever
know that they have not returned, and that they must have been
sent to the bottom of the sea.

We can only judge by written records and authoritative
paintings or prints of the period what the naval battles of the
beginning of the last century were like. But it is only those who
have studied minutely the naval battles of St. Vincent, the Nile,
Copenhagen, and Trafalgar who can depict the awful character and
thrilling nature of these ocean conflicts.

While the author was serving as an apprentice aboard a sailing
vessel during the Prussian-Danish war in 1864 a dense fog came
on, and continued the whole of one night. When it cleared up the
next forenoon we found that the vessel had been sailed right into
the centre of the Danish fleet, which had defeated the Prussians
and Austrians off Heligoland. There were other merchantmen there,
and the cheering as we passed each of the Danish warships was hearty and long, while they
gracefully acknowledged by saluting with their flags. I am quite
sure there were few British seamen who would not have gladly
volunteered to serve in the Danish navy against the Prussians, so
universal was their bitter dislike to the Hun bullies who had set
themselves to steal by force the possessions to which they had
not an atom of right. The sight of these fine frigates and
line-of-battle ships manoeuvring to come to grips with their
cowardly antagonists who were assailing their national rights has
been revivified during a long course of study of Nelson’s naval
warfare, and makes the awful vision of Trafalgar appear as it
really was, and makes me wish that I were gifted with the art of
words so that I might describe it in all its gruesome wreckage
and magnitude, as the recollection of the majestic sight of the
Danish ships before they even went into action makes it appear to
me.

My mind’s eye pictures one after another of the French and
Spanish ships surrendering, the hurricane of cheers that followed
their defeat, and the pathetic anxiety of the dying chieftain for
the safety of Captain Hardy, who was now in charge of the
flagship acting as commander-in-chief. Hardy is long in coming;
he fears that he may be killed, and calls out, “Will no one bring
Hardy to me?” At last the gallant captain sees an opportunity of
leaving the deck, for the Victory is shielded by two ships
from the enemy’s gunfire. “Well, Hardy,” says Nelson to him, “how
goes the battle?” “Very well, my Lord,” says Hardy; “fourteen or fifteen of the enemy’s
ships are in our possession.” “That is well,” said Nelson, “but I
bargained for twenty”; and then followed the memorable order,
“Anchor, Hardy, anchor.” “If I live,” he says, “we will anchor”;
and in answer to Hardy’s supposition that Collingwood should take
charge, he impulsively resents the suggestion and expresses the
hope that this will not happen while he lives, and urges again on
Hardy that the fleet may be anchored, and asks him to make the
signal. He hopes that none of our ships have struck, and his
devoted friend reassures him that none have and never will. He
commissions Hardy to give “dear Lady Hamilton his hair and other
belongings,” and asks that his “body shall not be thrown
overboard.” Hardy is then asked in childlike simplicity to kiss
him, and the rough, fearless captain with deep emotion kneels and
reverently kisses Nelson on the cheek. He then thanks God that he
has done his duty, and makes the solemn thoughts that are
troubling his last moments manifest in words by informing Doctor
Scott, with a vital sailorly turn of speech, that “he had
not been a great sinner,” and then bids him
remember that he leaves Lady Hamilton and his daughter Horatia as
a legacy to his country, and that Horatia is never to be
forgotten.

Even at this distance of time one cannot help regretting that
nature’s power did not sustain him to see the total debacle of
the enemy fleets. He knew that he had triumphed, and that his
task had ended fatally to himself, but his sufferings did not prevent his spirit sallying
to and fro, making him feel the joy of living and wish that he
might linger but a little longer. He was struck down at a
critical stage of the battle, though there was never any doubt as
to how it would end, thanks to the adroit skill and bravery of
Collingwood and those who served under him. It is a happy thought
to know that our hero, even when the shadows were closing round
him, had the pleasure of hearing from the lips of the faithful
Hardy that fifteen of the enemy ships had struck and not one of
ours had lowered a flag. But how much more gladsome would the
passing have been had he lived to know that the battle had ended
with the capture of nine French vessels and ten Spanish, nineteen
in all. He died at 4.30 p.m. on the 21st October, 1805, just when
the battle was flickering to an end. Villeneuve had given himself
up, and was a prisoner on board the Mars. Dumanoir had
bolted with four of the line, after committing a decidedly
cowardly act by firing into the captured Spanish ships, the
object being to put them out of the possession of the British.
They could not succeed in this without killing large numbers of
their allies, and this was all they were successful in doing. It
was a cruel, clumsy crime, which the Spanish rightly resented but
never succeeded in avenging.

Admiral Collingwood

Meanwhile the Spanish Admiral Gravina, who had lost an arm,
took command of the dilapidated combined fleets, and fled into
Cadiz with five French and five Spanish ships, and by 5 p.m. the
thundering of the guns had ceased, and the sea all round was a scene of death, dismasted
ships, and awful wreckage. The Rear-Admiral Dumanoir was sailing
gaily towards the refuge of Rochefort or Ferrol when he came into
view of, and ultimately had to fight on the 4th November, a
squadron under Sir Richard Strachan. Dumanoir and his men are
said to have fought with great fierceness, but his ships were
beaten, captured, and taken in a battered condition, and
subsequently sent to England, so that now twenty-three out of the
thirty-three that came out of Cadiz with all the swagger of
confidence and superiority to match themselves against Nelson and
his fiery coadjutors were tragically accounted for.

Collingwood was now the commander-in-chief of the British
fleet, and to him fell the task of notifying the victory. I
insert the documents in full.

LONDON GAZETTE EXTRAORDINARY.

GENERAL ORDER.

GENERAL ORDER.

Against the desire of his dead comrade, Collingwood carried
into practice his own sound and masterful judgment not to anchor
either his conquests or any of his own vessels on a lee ironbound
shore. Even had his ground tackle been sound and intact, which it
was not, and the holding ground good instead of bad, he acted in
a seamanlike manner by holding steadfastly to the sound sailor
tradition always to keep the gate open for drift, to avoid being
caught, and never to anchor on a lee shore; and if perchance you
get trapped, as hundreds have been, get out of it quickly, if you
can, before a gale comes on. But in no case is it good seamanship
to anchor. There is always a better chance of saving both the
ship and lives by driving ashore in the square effort to beat off
rather than by anchoring. The cables, more often than not, part,
and if they do, the ship is
doomed, and so may lives be. Hundreds of sailing vessels were
saved in other days by the skill of their commanders in carrying
out a plan, long since forgotten, called clubhauling off a lee
shore. Few sailors living to-day will know the phrase, or how to
apply it to advantage. It was a simple method, requiring ability,
of helping the vessel to tack when the wind and sea made it
impossible in the ordinary way. A large kedge with a warp bent on
was let go on either the port or starboard quarter at an
opportune moment to make sure the vessel would cant the right
way, and then the warp was cut with an axe. In the writer’s
opinion, it would have been just as unwise to anchor at Trafalgar
after the battle, in view of the weather and all circumstances,
as it would be to anchor on the Yorkshire or any part of the
North-East Coast when an easterly gale is blowing. But apart from
the folly of it, there were none of the ships that had ground
tackle left that was fit to hold a cat.

Without a doubt, Nelson’s mind was distracted and suffering
when he gave Hardy the order to anchor. The shadows were hovering
too thickly round him at the time for him to concentrate any
sound judgment. Some writers have condemned Collingwood for not
carrying out the dying request of his Commander-in-Chief. It
was a good thing that the command of the fleet fell into the
hands of a man who had knowledge and a mind unimpaired to carry
out his fixed opinions. When Hardy conveyed Nelson’s message, he
replied, “That is the very last thing that I would have thought of doing,” and he was
right. Had Nelson come out of the battle unscathed, he would
assuredly have acted as Collingwood did, and as any well-trained
and soundly-balanced sailor would have done. Besides, he always
made a point of consulting “Coll,” as he called him, on great
essential matters. If it had been summer-time and calm, or the
wind off the land, and the glass indicating a continuance of fine
weather, and provided the vessels’ cables had been sound, it
might have paid to risk a change of wind and weather in order to
refit with greater expedition and save the prizes, but certainly
not in the month of October in that locality, where the changes
are sudden and severe. Collingwood acted like a sound hardheaded
man of affairs in salving all he could and destroying those he
could not without risk of greater disaster.

Collingwood’s account of his difficulties after the battle was
won is contained in the following letter to his
father-in-law:—

Great efforts were made to get all the people out of the
disabled vessels before they drifted ashore. It is really
splendid to read the official account of the deeds of bravery of
our fine fellows risking their own lives to save the lives of
those they had defeated. Seven days after the battle, the
Victory arrived at Gibraltar, and although her masts had
been shot away and her hull badly damaged, she was refitted and
sailed for England on the 4th November, the same day that the
straggling Dumanoir and his ships fell into the hands of Sir
Richard Strachan in the Bay of Biscay.

XIV

On the Victory’s arrival at Spithead with Nelson’s
remains aboard, preserved in spirits, the body was taken out and
put in a leaden coffin filled with brandy and other strong
preservatives. On the arrival of the Victory at the
entrance of the Thames, the body was removed, dressed in the
Admiral’s uniform, and put into the coffin made out of the
mainmast of L’Orient and presented to Nelson some years
before by Captain Hallowell. It was then put into a third case,
and on the 9th January, 1806, after lying in state for three
days, the remains were buried in St. Paul’s.

The imposing demonstrations of sorrow could not be excelled.
Parliament voted a monument in St. Paul’s Cathedral, and others
were erected in all the principal towns in England and Scotland.
There were neither material honours nor eulogies great enough to
express the gratitude that was felt throughout the United Kingdom
for the late Admiral’s achievements. His widow, whom he had not
seen for years, and from whom he was definitely parted, was
granted £2,000 per annum for life. His brother was made an
Earl, with a perpetual income of £6,000 a year, and
£15,000 of national money was voted to each of the sisters,
while £100,000 was given for an estate to be attached to
the title. The human legacy left by Nelson of Emma Hamilton and
their daughter Horatia were not mentioned, though he seems to
have implored Heaven and earth in their behalf. Obviously, the
Government felt that they dare not be generous to everybody, even though it were
Nelson’s dying injunction. Collingwood, who had as much to do
with the triumph of Trafalgar as Nelson himself, without making
any ado about it, was treated pretty much like a provincial
mayor. The mayor, of course, may and often does adopt a luxurious
Roman style of living in order that his local deeds may not
escape observation, but such self-advertisement was entirely
foreign to Collingwood’s character. It was fitting that every
reasonable honour should have been paid to the memory of a great
Englishman, whose deeds, in co-operation with others, have never
been surpassed. But to make grants and give honours of so
generous a character to Nelson’s relatives, and especially to his
wife, who had been a torment to him, and to measure out
Collingwood’s equally great accomplishments with so mean a hand,
is an astonishing example of parsimony which, for the sake of our
national honour, it is to be hoped rarely occurs. Even the
haughty, plethoric nobles of a fourth-rate town council (if it be
not a libel to mention them in connection with so discreditable
an affair) would have judged the manifest fitness of things
better than to make any distinction between Admiral Collingwood
and his lifelong friend Nelson.

Surely this famous and eminently worthy public servant was as
deserving of an Earldom as was Nelson’s brother, and his wife and
daughters of a more generous allowance than that of his dead
chief’s widow and sisters!—this distinguished man, who helped to plan the order of
battle at Trafalgar and was the first to take his ship into
action in a way that inflamed the pride and admiration of the
Commander-in-Chief, and made him spontaneously exclaim, “See,
Blackwood, how that noble fellow Collingwood takes his ship into
battle! How I envy him!”

No one knew as well as Nelson that his comrade, next to
himself, was to play the leading part in not only assuring a
victory, but in completely annihilating the French and Spanish
fleets. Yet the British Government of that day only counted the
services he had rendered to the nation worthy of a peerage, plus
the same pension as Nelson’s widow; i.e. he was to have a pension
of £2,000 a year, and after his death Lady Collingwood was
to have the munificent sum of £1,000 per annum and each of
his two daughters £500 a year. He never drew his pension,
as they kept him in the service he had made so great until he was
a physical wreck. He died on his way home aboard the Ville de
Paris on the 7th March, 1810, and was laid to rest in St.
Paul’s Cathedral alongside of his distinguished friend Lord
Nelson.

I have already drawn attention to Nelson’s blind prejudice to
and hatred of the French. Collingwood was tainted with the same
onesided views, but tempered them with more conventional
language. In his letters to Lady Collingwood he expresses delight
at receiving a letter written to him in French by his daughter,
and exhorts the mother to see that she converses when she can in
that language, and to remember that she is never to admire anything French but the language.
On another occasion he enjoins his daughter Sarah to write every
day a translation of English into French, so that the language
may soon become familiar to her; and then, as though he regarded
these instructions as unpatriotic, he qualifies them by reminding
her “that it is the only thing French that she needs to acquire,
because there is little else in connection with that country
which he would wish her to love or imitate.” A kinsman of his,
after the battle of Trafalgar, wrote to inform him that his
family were descended from, and allied to, many great families,
Talebois amongst the rest. He brushed the intended compliment
aside, and in his quaint manner remarked that “he had never
troubled to search out his genealogy but all he could say was,
that if he got hold of the French fleet, he would either be a
Viscount or nothing.” This is one of the very rare symptoms of
vaunting that he ever gave way to; and though his dislike of the
French was as inherent as Nelson’s, he never allowed his
chivalrous nature to be overruled by passion. In a letter to Lord
Radstock in 1806 he closes it by paying a high tribute to the
unfortunate French Admiral Villeneuve by stating “that he was a
well-bred man, and a good officer, who had nothing of the
offensive vapourings and boastings in his manner which were,
perhaps, too commonly attributed to the Frenchmen.”

Collingwood was a man of high ideals with a deeply religious
fervour, never sinning and then repenting as Nelson was
habitually doing. Physical punishment of his men was abhorrent to him, and
although he enforced stern discipline on his crew, they
worshipped him. “I cannot understand,” he said, “the religion of
an officer who can pray all one day and flog his men all the
next.” His method was to create a feeling of honour amongst his
men, and he did this with unfailing success, without adopting the
harsh law of the land made by English aristocrats.

In a letter to his wife, dated September, 1806, Collingwood
informs her that the Queen of Naples expected to be put on the
throne of Naples again and had intimated the desire of showing
her gratitude to himself by creating him a Sicilian Duke and
giving him an estate. “If a Dukedom is offered to me,” he tells
her, “I shall return my thanks for the honour they wish to confer
upon me, and show my estimate of it by telling them that I am the
servant of my sovereign alone, and can receive no rewards from a
foreign prince.” Napoleon denounced Marie Caroline, Queen of
Naples, as “a wicked shameless woman, who had violated all that
men held most sacred.” She had ceased to reign, and by her crimes
she had fulfilled her destiny. Collingwood, who knew her public
and private character to be notoriously untrustworthy and loose,
looked upon the proposed honour from such a person as an affront,
and refused to accept it if offered. Nelson, on the other hand,
who had a passion for window-dressing and flattery, accepted with
a flowing heart both a Dukedom and an estate from their Sicilian
Majesties. His close intimacy with the Royal Family, and especially with the
Queen, was a perpetual anxiety to his loyal and devoted
friends.

There were no two men in the Service who had such an
affectionate regard for each other as Nelson and the amiable
Northumbrian Admiral, and certainly none equalled them in their
profession or in their devotion to their King and country. Each
was different from the other in temperament and character, but
both were alike in superb heroism—the one, egotistically
untamed, revelling at intervals in lightning flashes of eternal
vengeance on the French fleet when the good fortune of meeting
them should come; and the other, with calm reticence elaborating
his plans and waiting patiently for his chance to take part in
the challenge that was to decide the dominion of the sea. Each,
in fact, rivalled in being a spirit to the other. Nelson
believed, and frequently said, that he “wished to appear as a
godsend”; while Collingwood, in more humble and piercing phrase,
remarked that “while it is England, let me keep my place in the
forefront of the battle.” The sound of the names of these two
remarkable men is like an echo from other far-off days. Both
believed that God was on their side.

Neither of them knew the character or purpose of the exalted
man on whom their Government was making war. Like simple-minded,
brave sailors as they were, knowing nothing of the mysteries of
political jealousies and intrigue, and believing that the men
constituting the Government
must be of high mental and administrative ability, they assumed
that they were carrying out a flawless patriotic duty, never
doubting the wisdom of it; and it was well for England that they
did not. Men always fight better when they know and believe their
cause is just.

Collingwood, like most of his class, gave little thought to
money matters. He had “no ambition,” he says, “to possess
riches,” but he had to being recognized in a proper way. He
wished the succession of his title to be conferred on his
daughters, as he had no son. This was a modest and very natural
desire, considering what the nation owed to him, but it was not
granted, and the shame of it can never be redeemed. In one of his
letters to Mr. Blackett he says to him, “I was exceedingly
displeased at some of the language held in the House of Commons
on the settlement of the pension upon my daughters; it was not of
my asking, and if I had a favour to ask, money would be the last
thing I would beg from an impoverished country. I am not a Jew,
whose god is gold; nor a Swiss, whose services are to be counted
against so much money. I have motives for my conduct which I
would not give in exchange for a hundred pensions.”

These lines speak eloquently of the high order of this
illustrious man. He despises money, but claims it as his right to
have proper recognition of his services, which the Government
should have given him generously and with both hands. In so many
words he says, “Keep your money, I am not to be bought, but
confer on me if you will
some suitable token that will convince me that you do really, in
the name of the nation, appreciate what I have done for it.”
Services such as he had rendered could never have been adequately
rewarded by either money or honours, no matter how high in
degree. In the affairs of money these two great Admirals were
pretty similar, except that Collingwood knew better how to spend
it than Nelson. Both were generous, though the former had method
and money sense, while the latter does not appear to have had
either. He was accustomed to say “that the want of fortune was a
crime which he could never get over.” Both in temperament and
education Collingwood was superior to Nelson. The former knew
that he had done and was capable of doing great deeds, but he
would never condescend to seek for an honour reward; while
Nelson, who also knew when he had distinguished himself in the
national interest, expected to be rewarded, and on occasions when
it was too tardily withheld, he became peevish, whimpered a good
deal about his illtreatment, and on more than one occasion showed
unbecoming rage at being neglected.

After Copenhagen, the wigs were fairly on the green because he
was created a Viscount instead of an Earl. He talked a good deal
about the Tower, a Dukedom, or Westminster Abbey, and had ways of
demanding attention for which Collingwood had neither the
aptitude nor the inclination, though his naval qualities were
quite equal to Nelson’s. But with all their faults and virtues,
there was never any petty jealousy between the two heroes, who lie at rest side by side
in the tombs at St. Paul’s. Faithful to their naval orthodoxy
that it was incumbent for every Christian sailor-man to wash
clean his conscience when he was passing from time into eternity,
Nelson on the 21st October, 1805, and Collingwood five years
later, avowed to those who had the honour of closing their eyes
for evermore that they “had not been great sinners,” and then
slipped into eternal sleep; each of them leaving behind a name
that will live and descend into distant ages.

We left Villeneuve, the unfortunate but distinctly brave
French Commander-in-Chief of the allied fleet at Trafalgar,
aboard the Mars. He was subsequently sent a prisoner to
England, and after a short stay, he was allowed to go to France,
and broke his journey at Rennes on his way to Paris. The poor
broken-hearted fellow was found dead in his room, having
committed suicide. There is not the remotest foundation for the
unworthy report that was spread that he was put to death by
Napoleon’s orders. The Emperor was much too big a man, occupied
with human projects too vast, to waste a moment’s thought or to
stain his name over an unfortunate admiral who had brought his
fleet to grief by acting against his instructions. It is only
little men who write, not that which is founded on fact but that
which they imagine will appeal to the popular taste of the
moment; and so it was with the French Emperor; a lot of
scandalmongers were always at work hawking hither and thither
their poisonous fabrications. A great many people get their living by appealing to the lowest
passions. Napoleon, when in captivity, referred incidentally to
the misfortunes of Villeneuve, and made the following statement
to Dr. O’Meara:—

I have given this communication in full as it appears in
O’Meara’s book, because the scribes would have it that Villeneuve
was destroyed by the Emperor’s orders. There was not at the time,
nor has there ever appeared since, anything to justify such a
calumny on a man who challenged the world to make the charge and
prove that he had ever committed a crime during the whole of his
public career. No one has taken up the challenge except in
sweeping generalities of slander, which are easily made but less
easy to substantiate. If the
Emperor had really wished to take Villeneuve’s life, it would
have been more satisfactory to have him condemned to death by a
court-martial composed of his countrymen than to have the already
ruined man secretly destroyed for mere private revenge. The
common sense of the affair compels one to repudiate the idea of
the Emperor’s complicity in so stupid a crime. It is more likely
that Napoleon wished to save him from the consequences of a
court-martial, so ordered him to remain at Rennes. He rarely
punished offenders according to their offences. After the first
flush of anger was over, they were generally let down easily, and
for the most part became traitors afterwards.

We need not waste time or space in dilating on what would have
happened to Nelson had he put at defiance the authority that
controlled him and the irreparable disaster that would have
followed. Villeneuve has been belauded for his gallantry in the
fight at Trafalgar; indeed, we learn, from sources that may be
relied upon, that his bravery, dispositions in battle, and art of
enthusing his followers could not be surpassed. His signals to
the fleet were almost identical with Nelson’s. Here is one:
“Celui qui ne serait pas dans le feu ne serait pas à son
poste”; the literal translation of which is: “He who would not be
in the fire would not be at his post”; or, “The man who would
hold his post must stand fire,” which is quite an inspiring
signal. But I wonder what the eulogists of Villeneuve would have
written of him had he been the victor instead of the defeated. It
is generous to give praise to the unfortunate Admiral for whom Nelson had
such an aversion and who was constantly threatened by him with
vigorous chastisement when he caught him; but generosity was not
the motive—it was only part of the loose-lipped, unclean
policy of decrying Napoleon. It is horrible, ungrateful, and foul
brutishness of the Corsican tyrant to court-martial so amiable
and brave a man as Villeneuve because he proceeded out of Cadiz
against orders and suffered a crushing defeat! It is quite
permissible for a French admiral to put authority at defiance if
doing so complies with the sentiments of anti-Napoleon writers,
who were either ill-informed, purblind critics or eaten up with
insincerity or moral malaria! But it is the maintenance of
discipline to have men like Sir John Byng court-martialled and
shot after being tried, it is said, by a not entirely impartial
court, on the supposition that he had neglected his duty in an
engagement with the French off Minorca on the 20th May, 1756, and
committed an error of judgment. A rather remarkable method of
enforcing discipline, to shoot an admiral for an error of
judgment!

Take another case of high-ordered, solemn devotion to
discipline: Sir Robert Calder, who had gained an important
victory over the French at Finisterre, was court-martialled,
condemned and ruined, ostensibly because he did not achieve a
greater victory. The decisions of both cases were crimes, not
desire for the maintenance of discipline. It was, and ever will
be, a stain on the name of justice. I need not carry this
further, except to say that
according to the solemn logic of some writers, it was murder for
Napoleon or some of his ministers to have the Duc d’Enghien shot
for having conspired with others for the overthrow of the
established French Government, but it is the saintly enforcement
of discipline to have a British admiral shot and another ruined
for no other reason than an error of judgment on the one hand and
an insufficient victory on the other. Sir Robert Calder’s heart
was broken by cruelty. Villeneuve lost his fleet and killed
himself, not that he had anything to fear from the decision of
the court-martial—so it is said on the authority of an
English writer of note. Certainly he had nothing to fear from the
Emperor, who has indicated that he had no intention of dealing
severely with him. It was fitting that he should be reprimanded,
and no doubt he would have been, after which, as was his custom,
the Emperor would have conferred some kindly favour upon him.
Serene authors have entangled themselves a good deal over this
matter in their efforts to take up the impossible position of
making the Emperor and not Villeneuve responsible for the
disaster at Trafalgar to the Spanish and French fleet. Of course,
Napoleon was badly chagrined, and so would the King of England
have been, if it were thinkable that such a calamity could
possibly have befallen any British fleet. The head of the French
nation would have been less than human had he not felt the full
force of the terrific blow to his country, and especially to
himself.

Disposition of Fleets at
TRAFALGAR

TRAFALGAR, 21ST OCTOBER, 1805. DETAILED LIST OF SHIPS
ENGAGED.

(A) BRITISH ORDER OF BATTLE, WITH THE NAMES OF THE FLAG
OFFICERS AND CAPTAINS.

NOTE.—Lieutenants Pilfold and Stockham were acting for
Captains W. Brown and Lechmere, absent on Sir R. Calder’s trial;
the Lieutenants, W.P. Camby, of the Bellerophon, and W.
Hannah, of the Mars, having their Captains killed, the
whole of these officers, with Lieutenant Quillam, first of the
Victory, were made Post immediately.

(B) A LIST OF THE COMBINED FLEET OF FRANCE AND SPAIN,
SHOWING HOW THEY WERE DISPOSED OF.

1. Spanish ship, San Ildefonso, 74 guns, Brigadier Don
Joseph de Varga, sent to Gibraltar.

2. Spanish ship, San Juan Nepomuceno, 74 guns,
Brigadier Don Cosme Cherruca, sent to Gibraltar.

3. Spanish ship, Bahama, 74 guns. Brigadier Don A.D.
Galiano, sent to Gibraltar.

4. French ship, Swiftsure, 74 guns, Monsieur
Villemadrin, sent to Gibraltar.

5. Spanish ship, Monarca, 74 guns, Don Teodoro
Argumosa, wrecked off San Lucar.

6. French ship,
Fougeux, 74 guns, Monsieur Beaudouin, wrecked off
Trafalgar, all perished, and 30 of the
Téméraire’s men.

7. French ship, Indomitable, 84 guns, Monsieur Hubart,
wrecked off Rota, all perished, said to have had 1,500 men on
board.

8. French ship, Bucentaure, 80 guns, Admiral
Villeneuve, Commander-in-Chief, Captains Prigny and Magendie,
wrecked on the Porques, some of the crew saved.

9. Spanish ship, San Francisco de Asis, 74 guns, Don
Luis de Flores, wrecked near Rota.

10. Spanish ship, El Rayo, 100 guns, Brigadier Don
Henrique Macdonel, taken by Donegal, and wrecked near San
Lucar.

11. Spanish ship, Neptuno, 84 guns, Brigadier Don
Cayetano Valdes, wrecked between Rota and Catalina.

12. French ship, Argonaute, 74 guns, Monsieur Epron, on
shore in the port of Cadiz. (By subsequent account not lost.)

13. French ship, Berwick, 74 guns, Monsieur Camas,
wrecked to the northward of San Lucar.

14. French ship, Aigle, 74 guns, Monsieur Courage,
wrecked near Rota.

15. French ship, Achille, 74 guns, Monsieur de
Nieuport, burnt during the action.

16. French ship, Intrepide, 74 guns, Monsieur Infernet,
burnt by the Britannia.

17. Spanish ship, San Augustin, 74 guns, Brigadier Don
Felipe X. Cagigal, burnt by the Leviathan.

18. Spanish ship, Santissima Trinidad, 140 guns,
Rear-Admiral Don Baltazar H. Cisneros, Brigadier Don F. Uriate,
sunk by the Prince and Neptune.

19. French ship, Redoubtable, 74 guns, Monsieur Lucas,
sunk astern of the Swiftsure;
Téméraire lost 13, and Swiftsure 5
men, in her.

20. Spanish ship, Argonauta, 80 guns, Don Antonio
Parejo, sunk by the Ajax.

21. Spanish ship, Santa Anna, 112 guns, Vice-Admiral
Don Ignacio D’Alava, Captain Don Joseph de Guardequi, taken, but
got into Cadiz in the gale, dismasted.

22. French ship, Algeziras, 74 guns, Rear-Admiral Magon
(killed), Captain Monsieur Bruaro, taken, but got into Cadiz in
the gale, dismasted.

23. French ship,
Pluton, 74 guns. Monsieur Cosmao, returned to Cadiz in a
sinking state.

24. Spanish ship, San Juste, 74 guns, Don Miguel
Caston, returned to Cadiz, has a foremast only.

25. Spanish ship, San Leandro, 64 guns, Don Joseph de
Quevedo, returned to Cadiz, dismasted.

26. French ship, Le Neptune, 84 guns, Monsieur
Maistral, returned to Cadiz, perfect.

27. French ship, Le Heros, 74 guns, Monsieur Poulain,
returned to Cadiz, lower masts standing, hoisted Admiral
Rossily’s flag.

28. Spanish ship, Principe de Asturias, 112 guns,
Admiral Gravina, Captain Don Antonio Escano, returned to Cadiz,
dismasted.

29. Spanish ship, Montanez, Don Francisco Alcedo,
returned to Cadiz.

30. French ship. Formidable, 80 guns, Rear-Admiral
Dumanoir, escaped to the southward, with the three following.

31. French ship, Montblanc, 74 guns, Monsieur
Villegries.

32. French ship, Scipion, 74 guns. Monsieur
Berouger.

33. French ship, Du Guay Trouin, 74 guns. Monsieur
Toufflet.

ABSTRACT

The Emporer Napoleon after his Accession

NAPOLEON AND HIS CONNECTION WITH THE WORLD-WAR
(1914-1918)

I

Napoleon, when at the height of his fame, was looked upon by
the European Powers as a man whose lust of conquest was a
terrible menace to all constituted authority. The oligarchies
thought themselves bound to combine against him in order to
reseat the Bourbons on the throne of France and restore law and
order to that distracted country. What a travesty of the actual
facts!

The people of France had risen against the tyranny and
oppression of the French kings and nobles, and out of the welter
of the Revolution Napoleon rose to power and, by his magnetic
personality, welded the chaotic elements into unity, framed laws
which are still in operation, and led his country to wonderful
heights of glory.

Well may the crowned heads of Europe have feared this man,
whose genius put all their mediocre and unenlightened
achievements in the shade. Had they been blessed with the same vision as he, they
would not have opposed but co-operated with him, by introducing
into their own constitutions saner laws such as some of those in
the Code Napoleon. But instead of this, they began a campaign of
Press vilification, and Napoleon’s every act was held up as the
deed of a monster of iniquity. Plots, open and secret, to
dethrone him were continually in progress, only to be frustrated
by the genius of the man of the people.

As an instance of this, and of the one-sided view taken by all
ranks and classes of Napoleon’s opponents, let us contrast two
cases which are in some respects parallel. The many plots to
assassinate the First Consul—especially the one that very
nearly succeeded when he was on his way to the opera—and
the knowledge that an organized band of conspirators were in
red-hot activity and, headed by the Duc d’Enghien, Cadoudal,
Moreau, and Pichegru, were determined to kill the head of the
State, overthrow the Government, and re-establish the Bourbon
dynasty, caused the Duc to be arrested, tried by his
fellow-countrymen, and found guilty of the charges brought
against him, and, by the blundering of Savary, afterwards Duke of
Rovigo, and the persistence of Murat, the death penalty was
carried out and he was shot. Had he been permitted to live
another twenty-four hours, Napoleon would unquestionably have
pardoned him, though he never doubted the justice of the
sentence. Much political capital has been made in this country
against Napoleon for even sanctioning his arrest and in not
preventing the capital
sentence of the court from being carried out.[19]

Unquestionably Napoleon regretted the execution, and would
have granted a free pardon had some one not blundered or been too
zealous in what they conceived to be his and the country’s best
interests. Almost every writer on this subject is strong in his
condemnation of the execution and of Napoleon for not taking
surer steps to prevent it. But in judging him in regard to this
matter, it is only fair to take into account that he was the
ruler of a great empire. Whether he became so by force or not,
does not matter; he saved the Revolution, and had already brought
some form of order out of bloody chaos.

He had already become the popular head of the French nation,
and it devolved upon him to take the most minute precautions
against the disturbing effects of the secret and avowed
conspirators who directed their operations against his life and
the overthrow of his government from London. The precautions
taken were drastic, skilfully organized, and far-reaching, and
his agents kept him advised of the danger that continually beset
him. Even though he had no thought of reprieving the Duc, and deliberately allowed him
to be shot, the act of self-preservation, extreme though it may
appear, can hardly be termed, under the circumstances,
unwarranted. It was a period of wild, uncontrollable passion, and
the survivors of the old aristocracy hated the man of genius who
had risen to power from the ranks of the people to take the place
of the Bourbons. This was the canker that stimulated their
enmity.

Had the Duc d’Enghien kept himself aloof from conspirators,
and been willing to recognize the facts he would never have been
molested. He took the risk of co-operating with desperate men,
and paid the penalty by being shot on the 24th March, 1804, at
6.0 a.m., at Vincennes. Had the ruler of any state in Europe
carried out a death-sentence for the same reason and under the
same circumstances, it would have been regarded as well-merited
punishment, and the Press would have preached the gospel of
warning to evil doers. But with Napoleon it was different. He was
an interloper who had nothing in common with the galaxy of
monarchs who ruled Europe at that time. Subsequently they licked
his boots, not for love, but through fear. The shooting of the
Duc was a fine opportunity for his enemies. They sedulously
nursed the Press, published books and pamphlets in every
language, and employed the most poisoned pen that could be bought
to portray the future ruler of kings in terms of obloquy. The
performance of the scribes who direct the pen, which is said to
be mightier than the sword, is enough to kill any one with a real
sense of humour. Some of the
literary productions which were to send the greatest of living
men off the face of the earth are quite grotesque in their
feminine, shrill advocacy of force towards the “eater of pigs”;
the “Anti-Christ”; and the murderer of a kindly-disposed
gentleman who was on an innocent visit to the frontier of France
for the purpose of negotiating a few private matters that had no
political significance; what if he were one of the leaders of a
band of fine, desperate fellows who had combined, and sworn to
rid France of the Usurper, even at the risk of death! This being
their aim and heroic determination, they had no ground of
complaint if the iron hand which ruled the country took measures
to prevent them from carrying out their beneficent intentions. Of
course, I give the sense and not the actual words of the gallant
writers of that time who, with a glare in their lion eye (judging
from the style of their vapourings), thought that Napoleon could
never survive so vigorous a stream of invective! What loose
fabrications have been scattered over the earth about this
regrettable incident, and what abominable cant has been sent
forth extolling the virtues of men like the unfortunate Duc, who
put the law at defiance by secretly carrying out a purpose that
he knew was pregnant with danger to himself!

Let us contrast, if we can, the Duc d’Enghien’s reckless
gamble, the consequences of which have been used so consistently
to blacken the fame of the Emperor Napoleon, with Nelson’s
connection with the hanging of the rebel prince Carraciolli; of
the latter little has been said, though the shooting of the Duc seems to have been more
justifiable than the hanging of the prince, who was an old man.
Both were tried and condemned to death by men who, it is said,
were prejudiced against them. Nelson could have saved the aged
Admiral had his heart been free from revenge and his mind free
from the influence of Emma Hamilton. The guilt of the Admiral’s
death must eternally lie at his door. The outrage can never be
effaced, and must for all time be associated with the mean
executioners who, to begin with, had naught but vengeance in
their minds. Nelson was an Englishman entrusted with England’s
high sense of honour and love of compassion, and in its name he
stained its reputation for fair dealing. On entering the Bay of
Naples, a flag of truce was flying at the mast-head of the
Seahorse and at the castles of Nuovo and Uovo. The treaty
had been ratified by Captain Foote, a high-minded
officer.[20] Nelson did not
approve of the truce, nor did Lady Hamilton, who was aboard the
Foudroyant. One can almost see this brazen figure standing
on the quarterdeck of this British ship of war calling out to
Nelson, “Haul down the flag of truce, Bronte. There must be no
truce with rebels.” It almost takes one’s breath away to think
that a man in Nelson’s
position should have allowed private feelings to enter into and
influence his professional duty. Every now and again we get
glimpses of this blatant paramour of his being allowed to assert
herself in matters which involved the honour of Great Britain. We
are anxious to believe that Nelson put some limit to this lady’s
interference in matters of high naval policy, but he seems to
have been such a fool with women that almost anything ridiculous
can be believed of him where they were concerned. Both of them
figure badly in the Uovo and Nuovo and Carraciolli affair. The
garrison there was so vigorously bombarded that it was driven to
capitulate, but only on condition that the safety of the garrison
would be guaranteed. Captain Foote at once agreed to this, and to
see that it was duly carried out. One of the reasons that led
Captain Foote so readily to agree to the conditions submitted to
him was the extreme strength of the forts, which could have
pounded the city to pieces. The other was the desire to spare
human life. What need was there for Nelson to take umbrage at and
violate the treaty made by Foote in the British name? Foote had
made a good bargain by getting possession of the forts, and a
better and nobler one in making it part of his policy to save
human life. We wonder whether Nelson’s anger did not arise from
his being deprived of some of the glory himself. He was
desperately fond of it! In any case, he let down England’s name
badly over the whole transaction.

Fox made a speech on it
in the House of Commons which was, and will ever continue to be,
an awful indictment. There is nothing in the French Revolution,
or in the whole of Napoleon’s career, that can be compared with
it for ferocity. Great efforts were made to fix the
responsibility for breach of faith on Captain Foote, but they
failed, since there was not a vestige of foundation on which a
case could be made against him, as the documents conclusively
proved. He demanded a court-martial, but his friends prevailed
upon him to let his case rest on the conclusive facts which were
produced and made public and which have never been questioned.
There cannot be found a more astonishing revelation of perfidy or
inhuman violence in the archives of Europe than that related by
Mr. Fox. Here is an extract from his amazing speech:—

This appalling narrative, which was never refuted, is really
too horrible to ponder over. It puts in the shade any
responsibility Napoleon had for the death of the Duc d’Enghien.
It is needless to enlarge on the silly and altogether baseless
attacks that were not only allowed to be made, but, we have good
grounds for stating, were manufactured by members of the
Government and their agents, and circulated for the purpose of
distracting the public mind from their own iniquities, and
inflaming bitter passions and prejudices by accusing Napoleon of
deeds of blood for which he was in no greater degree responsible
than were they. The nations were all out for blood at that period
(just as they are now), and each claimed a monopoly of all the
virtues. “Down, down, with the French is my constant prayer,”
shouts our greatest hero, and by way of addendum, he announces in
Christ-like accents that he hates a Frenchman as he hates the
devil. “Down, down, with the British is our constant prayer”
shout back the French, who are at present our Allies against
another nation who were our Allies against them at that time,
showing that Fraternity is decidedly a possible consummation, though it fluctuates
from one to another with amazing eccentricity.

In the name of this fraternal spirit, we see the great
Napoleon surrounded by a hotbed of assassins demanding his life
in the name of the Founder of our faith. He was the ruler, as I
have said, of a vast Empire, sworn to protect its laws, its
dignity, and its citizen rights by defending himself and his
country against either treachery, plotters against his life, or
open enemies, no matter from what quarter they came. The Duc
d’Enghien violated the law, and was therefore as liable to suffer
the consequences as any peasant or middle-class person would have
been. But this did not meet with the approval of the
international oligarchy, so they set up a screaming factory and
blared this murderous deed into the minds of all the Western
world. These fervent professors of the Christian faith were in no
way particular as to the form or authenticity of their
declamatory ebullitions.

But what of Nelson? He was a subject of his King, employed by
the King’s Government under certain plenary powers to fight the
country’s battles, defend its right, uphold its dignity, guard
its honour, and commit no violence. That is, in plain English, he
was to play the game. But he assumed an authority that no
Government of England would have dared to have given him by
revoking the word of honour of a distinguished officer who had
pledged England’s word that the lives of the beleaguered men
would be spared. I think the writer of the gospel of “Let
brotherly love continue,”
and the rhetoricians who claim that Britons have no competitors
in the science of moral rectitude, will have a hard task to
square the unworthy declamations against Napoleon’s
responsibility in the Duc d’Enghien affair with their silence on
Nelson’s in breaking the truce already referred to, and the awful
consequences set forth in Mr. Fox’s speech, which is reminiscent
of the powerful disciplinary methods of that manly martinet Ivan
the Terrible, who was responsible for the massacre of men by the
thousand, flaying of prisoners alive, collecting pyramids of
skulls, slaughtering of innocent men, and the free use of other
ingenious forms of refined scientific torture which tires the
spirit to relate. It is hard to forgive Nelson for having
smirched his own and England’s name with atrocities so terrible.
But more humiliating still to British honour is the fact that his
part in the breaking of the treaty was dictated to him from the
quarter deck of the Foudroyant by a woman whom my
vocabulary is unable to describe in fitting terms. I shall
emphasize this masculine female’s orders to Nelson by quoting
them again. Were it not for the comic impertinence of the order,
I think it would almost make me feel the bitterness of death.
Nelson seems to have been the victim of her dominating spirit,
though the evidence in support of him swallowing the whole dose
of medicine is quite feeble. That he swallowed too much of it
will always detract from his fame. “Haul down the flag of truce,
Bronte. No truce with rebels.” Nelson lost a great opportunity of
adding romance to his naval glory by neglecting his imperative duty in not putting
Sir William Hamilton’s wife in irons or having her thrown into
the sea. A story of this kind would have sounded better, and its
effect would have electrified the world in subsequent days, and
have given scope to the talents of actors and authors who are
eager for dramatic copy.

I think Cardinal Ruffo would have been a supporter of imposing
some form of disciplinary restraint on Emma Hamilton. He did
strongly insist on the treaty being honourably adhered to, but
his view was overruled, and he retired in consequence in bitter
indignation.

So much for the vaunted fairness and impartiality of our
treatment of Napoleon!

It is only when we come to study the life of this man that we
realize how he towered above all his contemporaries in thought,
word, and deed. Napoleon’s authentic doings and sayings are
wonderful in their vast comprehensiveness and sparkling vision,
combined with flawless wisdom. When we speak or think of him, it
is generally of his military genius and achievements and of what
we term his “gigantic ambition”; and in this latter conclusion
the platitudinarians, with an air of originality, languidly
affirm that this was the cause of his ruin, the grandeur of which
we do not understand. But never a word is said or thought of our
own terrible tragedies, nor of the victories we were compelled to
buy in order to secure his downfall. His great gifts as a
lawgiver and statesman are little known or spoken of. Nelson’s
views of him were of a rigid, stereotyped character. He only varied in his wild manner of
describing him as a loathsome despot, whose sole aim was to make
war everywhere and to invade England and annihilate her
people.

II

In the light of what is happening now in the world-war
1914-1917, and the world-wide views expressed about the German
Kaiser, it may be interesting to write Pitt’s opinion of
Napoleon, though they are scarcely to be mentioned in the same
breath. The former, who is the creator of the world-tragedy, is a
mere shadow in comparison to the great genius of whom Muller, the
Swiss historian, says: “Quite impartially and truly, as before
God, I must say that the variety of his knowledge, the acuteness
of his observations, the solidity of his understanding (not
dazzling wit), his grand and comprehensive views, filled me with
astonishment, and his manner of speaking to me with love for him.
By his genius and his disinterested goodness, he has also
conquered me.” But I give another authority, Wieland, the German
author, who was disillusioned when he had the honour of a
conversation with Napoleon on the field of Jena. Amongst the many
topics they spoke of was the restoration of public worship in
France by Napoleon. In his reply to the German writer as to why
religion was not more philosophical and in harmony with the
spirit of the times, Napoleon replied, “My dear Wieland, religion
is not meant for
philosophers! They have no faith either in me or my priests. As
to those who do believe, it would be difficult to give them, or
leave them too much of the marvellous. If I had to frame a
religion for philosophers, it would be just the reverse of that
of the credulous part of mankind.” Wieland’s testimony of
Napoleon is quite as appreciative as that of Muller, and coming
from him to the great conqueror of his native land makes it an
invaluable piece of impartial history which reverses the loose
and vindictive libels that were insidiously circulated by a gang
of paid scoundrels in order to prejudice public opinion against
him. Wieland, among other eulogies of him, says: “I have never
beheld any one more calm, more simple, more mild or less
ostentatious in appearance; nothing about him indicated the
feeling of power in a great monarch.” He conversed with him for
an hour and a half, “to the great surprise of the whole
assembly.”