THE LIFE OF NELSON

THE EMBODIMENT OF THE SEA POWER OF GREAT BRITAIN

BY

CAPTAIN A. T. MAHAN, D.C.L., LL.D.
UNITED STATES NAVY

AUTHOR OF
“THE INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER UPON HISTORY, 1660-1783,”
“THE INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER UPON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND
EMPIRE,”
AND OF A “LIFE OF ADMIRAL FARRAGUT”

IN TWO VOLUMES

VOL. I.

LONDON
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, & COMPANY,
LIMITED
1897

Captain Nelson, in 1781, aged Twenty-two

PREFACE.

The Life of Nelson has been written so often, that an
explanation—almost an apology—seems due for any
renewal of the attempt; but, not to mention the attractiveness of
the theme in itself, it is essential to the completeness and
rounding off of the author’s discussion of the Influence of Sea
Power, that he present a study, from his own point of view, of
the one man who in himself summed up and embodied the greatness
of the possibilities which Sea Power comprehends,—the man
for whom genius and opportunity worked together, to make him the
personification of the Navy of Great Britain, the dominant factor
in the periods hitherto treated. In the century and a half
embraced in those periods, the tide of influence and of power has
swelled higher and higher, floating upward before the eyes of
mankind many a distinguished name; but it is not until their
close that one arises in whom all the promises of the past find
their finished realization, their perfect fulfilment.
Thenceforward the name of Nelson is enrolled among those few
presented to us by History, the simple mention of which suggests,
not merely a personality or a career, but a great force or a
great era concrete in a single man, who is its standard-bearer
before the nations.

Yet, in this process of exaltation, the man himself, even when
so very human and so very near our own time as Nelson is, suffers
from an association which merges his individuality in the
splendor of his surroundings; and it is perhaps pardonable to
hope that the subject is not so far exhausted but that a new
worker, gleaning after the reapers, may contribute something
further towards disengaging the figure of the hero from the glory
that cloaks it. The aim of the present writer, while not
neglecting other sources of knowledge, has been to make Nelson
describe himself, — tell the story of his own inner life as
well as of his external actions. To realize this object, it has
not seemed the best way to insert numerous letters, because, in
the career of a man of action, each one commonly deals with a
variety of subjects, which bear to one another little relation,
except that, at the moment of writing, they all formed part of
the multifold life the writer was then leading. It is true, life
in general is passed in that way; but it is not by such
distraction of interest among minute details that a particular
life is best understood. Few letters, therefore, have been
inserted entire; and those which have, have been chosen because
of their unity of subject, and of their value as
characteristic.

The author’s method has been to make a careful study of
Nelson’s voluminous correspondence, analyzing it, in
order to detect the leading features of temperament, traits of
thought, and motives of action; and thence to conceive within
himself, by gradual familiarity even more than by formal effort,
the character therein revealed. The impression thus produced he
has sought to convey to others, partly in the form of ordinary
narrative,—daily living with his hero,—and partly by
such grouping of incidents and utterances, not always, nor even
nearly, simultaneous, as shall serve by their joint evidence to
emphasize particular traits, or particular opinions, more
forcibly than when such testimonies are scattered far apart; as
they would be, if recounted in a strict order of time.

A like method of treatment has been pursued in regard to that
purely external part of Nelson’s career in which are embraced his
military actions, as well as his public and private life. The
same aim is kept in view of showing clearly, not only what he
did, but the principles which dominated his military thought, and
guided his military actions, throughout his life; or, it may be,
such changes as must inevitably occur in the development of a man
who truly lives. This cannot be done satisfactorily without
concentrating the evidence from time to time; and it is therefore
a duty a writer owes to his readers, if they wish such
acquaintance with his subject as he thinks he has succeeded in
acquiring for himself.

The author has received individual assistance from several
persons. To a general expression of thanks he wishes to add his special acknowledgments to
the present Earl Nelson, through whose aid he has obtained
information of interest which otherwise probably would have
escaped him; and to Lords Radstock and De Saumarez, both of whom
have been good enough to place in his hands letters contemporary
with Nelson, and touching incidentally matters that throw light
on his career. Material of the same kind has also been furnished
him by Professor John Knox Laughton, whose knowledge of Nelson
and of the Navy of that period is second to none; it is not the
least of the writer’s advantages that he has had before him, to
check possible errors in either fact or conclusions, the
admirable, though brief, Life of Nelson published by Mr. Laughton
two years since.

Illustrative anecdotes have also been supplied by Admiral Sir
William R. Mends, G.C.B., who has shown his continued interest in
the work by the trouble he has taken for it; by Mr. Stuart J.
Reid, of Blackwell Cliff, East Grinstead; and by Mr. Edgar Goble,
of Fareham, Hants. Mr. B.F. Stevens, of 4 Trafalgar Square, has
also kindly exerted himself on several occasions to obtain needed
information. To Mrs. F.H.B. Eccles, of Sherwell House, Plymouth,
granddaughter of Josiah Nisbet, Nelson’s stepson, the author is
indebted for reminiscences of Lady Nelson, and for her portrait
here published; and his thanks are also due to Lieutenant-Colonel
W. Clement D. Esdaile, of Burley Manor, Ringwood, Hants, through
whom he was brought into
communication with Mrs. Eccles, and who has in other ways helped
him.

Throughout the writing of the book constant assistance has
been received from Mr. Robert B. Marston, to whom cordial
acknowledgment is made for the untiring pains taken in
prosecuting necessary inquiries, which could not have been done
without great delay by one not living in England. Suggestions
valuable to the completeness of the work have been given also by
Mr. Marston.

For the portrait of Mrs. Philip Ward, the “Horatia” whom
Nelson called generally his adopted daughter, but at times spoke
of as his daughter simply, and whom, on the last morning of his
life, he commended to the care of his Country, the author has to
thank Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Ward, of 15 Lancaster Road, Belsize
Park, London. Mr. Nelson Ward is her son.

To the more usual sources of information already in print, it
is not necessary to refer in detail; but it is right to mention
especially the collection of Hamilton and Nelson letters,
published by Mr. Alfred Morrison, a copy of which by his polite
attention was sent the writer, and upon which must necessarily be
based such account of Nelson’s relations with Lady Hamilton as,
unfortunately, cannot be omitted wholly from a life so profoundly
affected by them.

A.T. MAHAN.

MARCH, 1897.

CONTENTS OF
VOL. I.

LIST OF
ILLUSTRATIONS.

VOLUME ONE.

MAPS AND BATTLE
PLANS.

VOLUME ONE.

CHAPTER
I.

THE FIRST TWENTY-FIVE YEARS.

1758-1783.

It is the appointed lot of some of History’s chosen few to
come upon the scene at the moment when a great tendency is
nearing its crisis and culmination. Specially gifted with
qualities needed to realize the fulness of its possibilities,
they so identify themselves with it by their deeds that they
thenceforth personify to the world the movement which brought
them forth, and of which their own achievements are at once the
climax and the most dazzling illustration. Fewer still, but
happiest of all, viewed from the standpoint of fame, are those
whose departure is as well timed as their appearance, who do not
survive the instant of perfected success, to linger on subjected
to the searching tests of common life, but pass from our ken in a
blaze of glory which thenceforth forever encircles their names.
In that evening light break away and vanish the ominous clouds
wherewith human frailties or tyrant passions had threatened to
darken their renown; and their sun goes down with a lustre which
the lapse of time is powerless to dim. Such was the privilege of
the stainless Wolfe; such, beyond all others, that of Nelson.
Rarely has a man been more favored in the hour of his appearing; never one so fortunate in the
moment of his death.

Yet, however accidental, or providential, this rarely allotted
portion, this crowning incident of an heroic career, it is after
all but an incident. It the man has not contrived; but to it he
has contributed much, without which his passing hour would have
faded to memory, undistinguished among those of the myriads,
great and small, who have died as nobly and are forever
forgotten. A sun has set; but before its setting it has run a
course, be it long or short, and has gathered a radiance which
fixes upon its parting beams the rapt attention of beholders. The
man’s self and the man’s works, what he was and what he did, the
nature which brought forth such fruits, the thoughts which issued
in such acts, hopes, fears, desires, quick intuitions, painful
struggles, lofty ambitions, happy opportunities, have blended to
form that luminous whole, known and seen of all, but not to be
understood except by a patient effort to resolve the great result
into its several rays, to separate the strands whose twisting has
made so strong a cord.

Concerning the man’s external acts, it will often happen that
their true value and significance can best be learned, not from
his own personal recital, but from an analytic study of the deeds
themselves. Yet into them, too, often enters, not only the
subtile working of their author’s natural qualities, but also a
certain previous history of well-defined opinions, of settled
principles firmly held, of trains of thought and reasoning, of
intuitions wrought into rational convictions, all of which betray
both temperament and character. Of these intellectual
antecedents, the existence and development may be gleaned from
his writings, confirming the inference reached somewhat
mechanically by the scrutiny of his actions. They play to the
latter the part of the soul to the body, and thus contribute to
the rather anatomical result of the dissecting process a spiritual element it would otherwise
lack. But if this is so even of the outward career, it is far
more deeply true of the inner history, of that underlying native
character, which masterfully moulds and colors every life, yet
evades the last analysis except when the obscure workings of
heart and mind have been laid bare by their owner’s words,
recording the feelings of the fleeting hour with no view to
future inspection. In these revelations of self, made without
thought of the world outside, is to be found, if anywhere, the
clue to that complex and often contradictory mingling of
qualities which go to form the oneness of the man’s personality.
This discordance between essential unity and superficial
diversities must be harmonized, if a true conception of his being
is to be formed. We know the faces of our friends, but we see
each as one. The features can, if we will, be separately
considered, catalogued, and valued; but who ever thus thinks
habitually of one he knows well? Yet to know well must be the aim
of biography,—so to present the traits in their totality,
without suppression of any, and in their true relative
proportions, as to produce, not the blurred or distorted outlines
seen through an imperfect lens, but the vivid apprehension which
follows long intimacy with its continual, though unconscious,
process of correction.

For such a treatment of Nelson’s character, copious, if
imperfect, material is afforded in his extensive and varied
correspondence. From it the author aims, first, to draw forth a
distinct and living image of the man himself, as sketched therein
at random and loosely by his own hand. It is sought to reach the
result by keeping the reader in constant contact, as by daily
acquaintance, with a personality of mingled weakness and
strength, of grave faults as well as of great virtues, but one
whose charm was felt in life by all who knew it. The second
object, far less ambitious, is to present a clear narrative of
the military career, of the mighty deeds of arms, of this first
of British seamen, whom the
gifts of Nature and the course of History have united to make, in
his victories and in their results, the representative figure of
the greatest sea-power that the world has known.

It will not be thought surprising that we have, of the first
thirty years of Nelson’s life, no such daily informal record as
that which illustrates the comparatively brief but teeming period
of his active fighting career, from 1793 to 1805, when he at
once, with inevitable directness and singular rapidity, rose to
prominence, and established intimate relations with numbers of
his contemporaries. A few anecdotes, more or less characteristic,
have been preserved concerning his boyhood and youth. In his
early manhood we have his own account, both explicit and implied
in many casual unpremeditated phrases, of the motives which
governed his public conduct in an episode occurring when,
scarcely yet more than a youth, he commanded a frigate in the
West Indies,—the whole singularly confirmatory, it might
better be said prophetic, of the distinguishing qualities
afterwards so brilliantly manifested in his maturity. But beyond
these, it is only by the closest attention and careful gleaning
that can be found, in the defective and discontinuous collection
of letters which remains from his first thirty years, the
indisputable tokens, in most important particulars, of the man
that was to be.

The external details of this generally uneventful period can
be rapidly summarized. He was born on the 29th of September,
1758, the fifth son and sixth child of Edmund Nelson, then rector
of the parish of Burnham Thorpe, in Norfolk, a county which lies
along the eastern coast of England, bordering the North Sea. His
mother, whose name before marriage was Catherine Suckling, was
grandniece to Sir Robert Walpole, the famous prime minister of
Great Britain during twenty years of the reigns of the first two
Georges. Sir Robert’s second brother was called Horatio; and it
was from the latter, or from his son, that the future hero took his baptismal name, which, in a
more common form, was also that of Sir Robert’s younger son, the
celebrated letter and memoir writer, Horace Walpole.

Of the eleven children borne by Nelson’s mother in her
eighteen wedded years, only two lived to grow old. She herself
died at forty-two; and her brother, Captain Maurice Suckling, of
the Royal Navy, was also cut off in the prime of his age. As the
earlier Nelsons were unusually long-lived, it seems probable that
a certain delicacy of constitution was transmitted through the
Sucklings to the generation to which the admiral belonged. He was
himself, at various periods through life, a great sufferer, and
frequently an invalid; allusions to illness, often of a most
prostrating type, and to his susceptibility to the influences of
climate or weather, occur repeatedly and at brief intervals
throughout his correspondence. This is a factor in his career
which should not be lost to mind; for on the one hand it explains
in part the fretfulness which at times appears, and on the other
brings out with increased force the general kindly sweetness of
his temper, which breathed with slight abatement through such
depressing conditions. It enhances, too, the strength of purpose
that trod bodily weakness under foot, almost unconsciously, at
the call of duty or of honor. It is notable, in his letters, that
the necessity for exertion, even when involving severe exposure,
is apt to be followed, though without apparent recognition of a
connection between the two, by the remark that he has not for a
long time been so well. He probably experienced, as have others,
that it is not the greater hardships of the profession, much less
the dangers, but its uncertainties and petty vexations, which
tell most severely on a high-strung organization like his
own.

Captain Maurice Suckling, R.N.

The immediate occasion of his going to sea was as follows. In
1770 the Falkland Islands, a desolate and then unimportant group,
lying in the South Atlantic, to the eastward of Patagonia, were
claimed as a possession by both
Spain and Great Britain. The latter had upon them a settlement
called Port Egmont, before which, in the year named, an
overwhelming Spanish squadron suddenly appeared, and compelled
the British occupants to lower their flag. The insult aroused
public indignation in England to the highest pitch; and while
peremptory demands for reparation were despatched to Spain, a
number of ships of war were ordered at once into commission.
Among these was the “Raisonnable,” of sixty-four guns, to the
command of which was appointed Nelson’s uncle, Captain Maurice
Suckling. The latter had some time before promised to provide for
one of his sister’s children, the family being very poor; and,
the custom of the day permitting naval captains, as a kind of
patronage, to take into the King’s service on board their own
ships a certain number of lads, as midshipmen or otherwise, the
opportunity of giving a nephew a start in life was now in his
hands. The story is that Horatio, though then but twelve years
old, realized the burden of pecuniary care that his father was
carrying, and himself volunteered the wish that his uncle would
take him to sea. However it happened, the suggestion staggered
Suckling, who well knew the lad’s puny frame and fragile
constitution. “What has poor little Horatio done,” cried he,
“that he, being so weak, should be sent to rough it at sea? But
let him come, and if a cannon-ball takes off his head, he will at
least be provided for.” Under such gloomy foreboding began the
most dazzling career that the sea, the mother of so many heroes,
has ever seen.[1] Spain, after
a short hesitation, yielded the British demands, so that war did
not come, and the “Raisonnable,” with other ships, was again put
out of commission. The incident of the Falkland Islands, however,
had served the purpose of introducing Nelson to his profession,
for which otherwise the opportunity might not have offered. Being
so young when thus embarked, he, in common with many of the most
successful seamen of that day, got scanty schooling; nor did he,
as some others did, by after application remedy the
eccentricities of style, and even of grammar, which are apt to
result from such early neglect. His letters, vigorous and direct
as they are, present neither the polished diction of Collingwood,
nor the usual even correctness of St. Vincent and Saumarez, but
are, on the contrary, constantly disfigured by awkward
expressions and bad English. There was rarely, however, danger of
mistaking his meaning, as was sometimes charged against Lord
Howe.

Here, before fairly parting with the humble home life, of
which the motherless boy had seen, and was throughout his career
to see so little, is a fit place to introduce two anecdotes
associated with those early days which his biographers have
transmitted to us. We of these critical times have learned to
look with incredulity, not always unmixed with derision, upon
stories relating to the childhood of distinguished men; but it
can safely be said that the two now to be given are in entire
keeping, not merely with particular traits, but with the great
ruling tenor of Nelson’s whole life. He and his elder brother
were going to school one winter
day upon their ponies. Finding the snow so deep as to delay them
seriously, they went back, and the elder reported that they could
not get on. The father very judiciously replied: “If that be so,
I have of course nothing to say; but I wish you to try again, and
I leave it to your honour not to turn back, unless necessary.” On
the second attempt, the elder was more than once for returning;
but Horatio stuck it out, repeating continually, “Remember it was
left to our honour,” and the difficult journey was
accomplished.

The children in this instance seem to have felt that there was
danger in going on. The other recorded occurrence shows in the
lad that indifference to personal benefit, as distinguished from
the sense of conspicuous achievement, which was ever a prominent
characteristic of the man. The master of his school had a very
fine pear-tree, whose fruit the boys coveted, but upon which none
dared hazard an attempt. At last Nelson, who did not share their
desires, undertook the risk, climbed the tree by night, and
carried off the pears, but refused to eat any of
them,—saying that he had taken them only because the others
were afraid.

Trivial though these incidents may seem, they are so merely
because they belong to the day of small things. To those
accustomed to watch children, they will not appear unworthy of
note. Taken together, they illustrate, as really as do his
greatest deeds, the two forms assumed at different times by the
one incentive which always most powerfully determined Nelson’s
action through life,—the motive to which an appeal was
never made in vain. No material considerations, neither danger on
the one hand, nor gain on the other, ever affected him as did
that idealized conception which presented itself, now as duty,
now as honor, according as it bore for the moment upon his
relations to the state or to his own personality. “In my mind’s
eye,” said he to his friend Captain Hardy, who afterwards bent over him as his spirit was
parting amid the tumult of his last victory, “I ever saw a
radiant orb suspended which beckoned me onward to renown.” Nelson
did not often verge upon the poetical in words, but to the poetry
of lofty aspiration his inmost being always answered true.

To the young naval officer of a century ago, especially if
without political or social influence, it was a weighty advantage
to be attached to some one commanding officer in active
employment, who by favorable opportunity or through professional
friendships could push the fortunes of those in whom he was
interested. Much of the promotion was then in the hands of the
admirals on foreign stations; and this local power to reward
distinguished service, though liable to abuse in many ways,
conduced greatly to stimulate the zeal and efforts of officers
who felt themselves immediately under the eye of one who could
make or mar their future. Each naval captain, also, could in his
degree affect more or less the prospects of those dependent upon
him. Thus Suckling, though not going to sea himself, continued
with intelligent solicitude his promised care of the young
Nelson. When the “Raisonnable” was paid off, he was transferred
to the command of the “Triumph,” of seventy-four guns, stationed
as guard-ship in the river Medway; and to her also he took with
him his nephew, who was borne upon her books for the two
following years, which were, however, far from being a period of
inactive harbor life. Having considerable professional interest,
he saw to the lad’s being kept afloat, and obtained for him from
time to time such service as seemed most desirable to his
enterprising spirit.

The distinction between the merchant seaman and the
man-of-war’s man, or even the naval officer, in those days of
sailing ships and simple weapons was much less sharply marked
than it has since become. Skill in seamanship, from the use of
the marlinespike and the sail-needle up to the full equipping of a ship and the handling
of her under canvas, was in either service the prime essential.
In both alike, cannon and small arms were carried; and the ship’s
company, in the peaceful trader as well as in the ship of war,
expected to repel force with force, when meeting upon equal
terms. With a reduced number of naval vessels in commission, and
their quarter-decks consequently over-crowded with young
officers, a youth was more likely to find on board them a life of
untasked idleness than a call to professional occupation and
improvement. Nelson therefore was sent by his careful guardian to
a merchant-ship trading to the West Indies, to learn upon her, as
a foremast hand, the elements of his profession, under conditions
which, from the comparative fewness of the crew and the activity
of the life, would tend to develop his powers most rapidly. In
this vessel he imbibed, along with nautical knowledge, the
prejudice which has usually existed, more or less, in the
merchant marine against the naval service, due probably to the
more rigorous exactions and longer terms of enlistment in the
latter, although the life in other respects is one of less
hardship; but in Nelson’s day the feeling had been intensified by
the practice of impressment, and by the severe, almost brutal
discipline that obtained on board some ships of war, through the
arbitrary use of their powers by captains, then insufficiently
controlled by law. In this cruise he seems to have spent a little
over a year; a time, however, that was not lost to him for the
accomplishment of the period of service technically required to
qualify as a lieutenant, his name continuing throughout on the
books of the “Triumph,” to which he returned in July, 1772.

Suckling’s care next insured for him a continuance of active,
semi-detached duty, in the boats of the “Triumph,”—an
employment very different from, and more responsible than, that
in which he had recently been occupied, and particularly
calculated to develop in so apt a nature the fearlessness of responsibility, both
professional and personal, that was among the most prominent
features of Nelson’s character. “The test of a man’s courage is
responsibility,” said that great admiral and shrewd judge of men,
the Earl of St. Vincent, after a long and varied experience of
naval officers; and none ever shone more brightly under this
supreme proof than the lad whose career is now opening before us.
It may be interesting, too, to note that this condition of more
or less detached service, so early begun, in which, though not in
chief command, he held an authority temporarily independent, and
was immediately answerable for all that happened on the spot, was
the singular characteristic of most of his brilliant course,
during which, until 1803, two years before Trafalgar, he was only
for brief periods commander-in-chief, yet almost always acted
apart from his superior. Many a man, gallant, fearless, and
capable, within signal distance of his admiral, has, when out of
sight of the flag, succumbed with feeble knees to the burden of
independent responsible action, though not beyond his
professional powers. This strength, like all Nature’s best gifts,
is inborn; yet, both for the happy possessor and for the merely
average man, it is susceptible of high development only by being
early exercised, which was the good fortune of Nelson.

Of these two years of somewhat irregular service, while
nominally attached to the “Triumph,” it will be well to give the
account in his own words; for, having been written a full quarter
of a century later, they record the deepest and most lasting
impressions made upon him during that susceptible period when
first becoming familiar with the calling he was to
adorn:—

It will be recognized from this brief yet suggestive and
characteristic narrative, that, however valuable and even
indispensable may have been his uncle’s assistance in forwarding
his wishes, it was his own ambition and his own impulse that even
at this early day gave direction to his course, and obtained
opportunities which would scarcely have been offered
spontaneously to one of his physical frailty. In this Arctic
expedition he underwent the experiences common to all who tempt those icebound
seas. During it occurred an incident illustrative of Nelson’s
recklessness of personal danger,—a very different thing
from official recklessness, which he never showed even in his
moments of greatest daring and highest inspiration. The story is
so hackneyed by frequent repetition as to make its relation a
weariness to the biographer, the more so that the trait of
extreme rashness in youth is one by no means so rare as to be
specially significant of Nelson’s character. It will be given in
the words of his first biographers:—

Upon his return to England from the Arctic Seas, Nelson again
by his own choice determined his immediate future. Within a
fortnight of leaving the “Carcass,” he was, through his uncle’s
influence, received on board by the captain of the “Seahorse,” of
twenty guns, one of the ships composing a squadron that was just
then fitting out for the East Indies. To quote himself, “Nothing
less than such a distant voyage could in the least satisfy my
desire of maritime knowledge.” During an absence of three years
he for much of the time, as formerly in his West India cruise,
did the duty of a seaman aloft, from which he was afterwards
rated midshipman, and placed, this time finally, upon the
quarter-deck as an officer. In the ordinary course of cruising in
peace times, he visited every part of the station from Bengal to
Bussorah; but the climate, trying even to vigorous Europeans,
proved too much for his frail health. After a couple of years he
broke down and was invalided home, reaching England in September,
1776. His escape from death was attributed by himself to the kind
care of Captain Pigot of the “Dolphin,” in which ship he came
back. At this period we are told that, when well, he was of
florid countenance, rather
stout and athletic; but, as the result of his illness, he was
reduced to a mere skeleton, and for some time entirely lost the
use of his limbs,—a distressing symptom, that returned upon
him a few years later after his Central American expedition in
1780, and confirms the impression of extreme fragility of
constitution, which is frequently indicated in other ways.

During this absence in the East Indies Captain Suckling, in
April, 1775, had been named Comptroller of the Navy,—a
civil position, but one that carried with it power and consequent
influence. This probably told for much in obtaining for Nelson,
who was but just eighteen, and had not yet passed the
examinations for his first promotion, an acting appointment as
lieutenant. With this he joined a small ship-of-the-line, the
“Worcester,” of sixty-four guns, on board which he remained for
six months, engaged in convoy duty between the Channel and
Gibraltar, seeing from her decks for the first time the waters of
the Mediterranean and its approaches, since then indissolubly
associated with his name and his glory. He took with him a letter
from his uncle to the captain of his new ship; but while such
introduction, coming from so influential a quarter, doubtless
contributed powerfully to clear from his path the obstacles
commonly encountered by young men, Nelson had gained for himself
a reputation for professional capacity, which, here as throughout
his life, quickly won him the full confidence of his superiors.
In later years, when his admiral’s flag was flying, he recorded,
with evident pride in the recollection, that while on board the
“Worcester,” notwithstanding his youth, his captain used to say,
“He felt as easy when I was upon deck as any officer of the
ship.” It is doubtful, indeed, whether Nelson ever possessed in a
high degree the delicate knack of handling a ship with the utmost
dexterity and precision. He certainly had not the reputation for
so doing. Codrington,—a thorough Nelsonian, to use his own
somewhat factious expression—used to say in later years, “Lord
Nelson was no seaman; even in the earlier stages of the
profession his genius had soared higher, and all his energies
were turned to becoming a great commander.” His apprenticeship,
before reaching command, was probably too short; and, as captain,
his generous disposition to trust others to do work for which he
knew them fitted, would naturally lead him to throw the
manipulation of the vessel upon his subordinates. But although,
absorbed by broader and deeper thoughts of the responsibilities
and opportunities of a naval commander, to which he was naturally
attracted by both his genius and his temperament, he was excelled
in technical skill by many who had no touch of his own
inspiration, he nevertheless possessed a thoroughly competent
knowledge of his profession as a simple seaman; which, joined to
his zeal, energy, and intelligence, would more than justify the
confidence expressed by his early commander. Of this knowledge he
gave full proof a year later, when, before a board of captains,
strangers to him, he successfully passed his examinations for a
lieutenancy. His uncle Suckling, as Comptroller of the Navy, was
indeed on the Board; but he concealed the fact of relationship
until the other members had expressed themselves satisfied.

His examination was held within a week of his leaving the
“Worcester,” on the 8th of April, 1777; and Suckling once more,
but for the last time in his life, was able to exert his
influence in behalf of his relative by promptly securing for him,
not only his promotion to lieutenant, which many waited for long,
but with it his commission, dated April 10, to the “Lowestoffe,”
a frigate of thirty-two guns. This class of vessel was in the old
days considered particularly desirable for young officers, being
more active than ships-of-the-line, while at the same time more
comfortable, and a better school for the forming of an officer,
than were the smaller cruisers; and his uncle probably felt that Nelson, whose service
hitherto had been mainly upon the latter, needed yet to perfect
the habits and methods distinctive of a ship of war, for he now
wrote him a letter upon the proprieties of naval conduct,
excellently conceived, yet embracing particulars that should
scarcely have been necessary to one who had served his time on
board well-ordered ships. The appointment to the “Lowestoffe” was
further fortunate, both for him and for us, as in the commander
of the vessel, Captain William Locker, he found, not only an
admirable officer and gentleman, but a friend for whom he formed
a lasting attachment, ending only with Locker’s death in 1800,
two years after the Battle of the Nile. To this friendship we owe
the fullest record, at his own hands, of his early career; for
Locker kept the numerous letters written him by Nelson while
still an unknown young man. Of sixty-seven which now remain,
covering the years from 1777 to 1783, all but thirty were to this
one correspondent.

Captain William Locker, R.N

In another respect the appointment to the “Lowestoffe” was
fortunate for Nelson. The ship was destined to the West
Indies—or, to speak more precisely, to Jamaica, which was a
command distinct from that of the eastern Caribbean, or Lesser
Antilles, officially styled the Leeward Islands Station. Great
Britain was then fully embarked in the war with her North
American colonies, which ended in their independence; and the
course of events was hastening her to the rupture with France and
Spain that followed within a year. In this protracted contest the
chief scene of naval hostilities was to be the West Indies; but
beyond even the casualties of war, the baneful climate of that
region insured numerous vacancies by prostration and death, with
consequent chances of promotion for those who escaped the fevers,
and found favor in the eyes of their commander-in-chief. The
brutal levity of the old toast, “A bloody war and a sickly
season,” nowhere found surer fulfilment than on those
pestilence-stricken coasts. Captain Locker’s health soon gave way. Arriving at
Jamaica on the 19th of July, 1777, we find Nelson in the
following month writing to him from the ship during an absence
produced by a serious illness, from which fatal results were
feared. The letter, like all those to Locker, was marked by that
tone of quick, eager sympathy, of genial inclination always to
say the kindest thing, that characterized his correspondence,
and, generally, his intercourse with others,—traits that
through life made him, beyond most men, acceptable and beloved.
He was, from first to last, not merely one of those whose
services are forced upon others by sheer weight of ability,
because indispensable,—though this, too, he was,—but
men wanted him because, although at times irritable, especially
after the wounds received in later years, he was an easy
yoke-fellow, pleasant to deal with, cordial and ready to support
those above him, a tolerant and appreciative master to
subordinates. It may even be said that, in matters indifferent to
him, he too readily reflected the feelings, views, and wishes of
those about him; but when they clashed with his own fixed
convictions, he was immovable. As he himself said in such a case,
“I feel I am perfectly right, and you know upon those occasions I
am not famous for giving up a point.”

Of his connection with the “Lowestoffe” he himself, in the
short autobiographical sketch before quoted, mentions two
circumstances, which, from the very fact of their remaining so
long in his memory, illustrate temperament. “Even a frigate,” he
says, “was not sufficiently active for my mind, and I got into a
schooner, tender to the Lowestoffe. In this vessel I made myself
a complete pilot for all the passages through the [Keys] Islands
situated on the north side Hispaniola.” This kind of service, it
will be noted, was in direct sequence, as to training, to his
handling of the “Triumph’s” long-boat in the lower waters of the
Thames, and would naturally contribute to increase that “confidence in himself among
rocks and sands,” which was afterwards to be so “great a comfort”
to him. In his later career he had frequent and pressing need of
that particular form of professional judgment and self-reliance
for which these early experiences stood him in good stead. As he
afterwards wrote to the First Lord of the Admiralty, when
pleading the cause of a daring and skilful officer who had run
his ship ashore: “If I had been censured every time I have run my
ship, or fleets under my command, into great danger, I should
long ago have been out of the service, and never in
the House of Peers.” At the critical instants of the Nile and
Copenhagen, as well as in the less conspicuous but more prolonged
anxieties of the operations off Corsica and along the Riviera of
Genoa, this early habit, grafted upon the singularly steady nerve
wherewith he was endowed by nature, sustained him at a height of
daring and achievement to which very few have been able to
rise.

The other incident recorded by him as happening while on board
the “Lowestoffe,” he himself cites as illustrative of
temperament. “Whilst in this frigate, an event happened which
presaged my character; and, as it conveys no dishonour to the
officer alluded to, I shall insert it. Blowing a gale of wind,
and a very heavy sea, the frigate captured an American
letter-of-marque. The first Lieutenant was ordered to board her,
which he did not do, owing to the very heavy sea. On his return,
the Captain said, ‘Have I no officer in the ship who can board
the prize?’ On which the Master ran to the gangway, to get into
the boat: when I stopped him, saying, ‘It is my turn now; and if
I come back, it is yours.’ This little incident,” he continues,
“has often occurred to my mind; and I know it is my disposition,
that difficulties and dangers do but increase my desire of
attempting them.” An action of this sort, in its results
unimportant, gives keener satisfaction in the remembrance than do
greater deeds, because more purely individual,—entirely one’s own. It is
upon such as this, rather than upon his victories, that Nelson in
his narrative dwells caressingly. His personal daring at St.
Vincent, and against the gunboats off Cadiz, ministered more
directly to his self-esteem, to that consciousness of high desert
which was dear to him, than did the Battle of the Nile, whose
honors he, though ungrudgingly, shared with his “band of
brothers.”

When the “Lowestoffe” had been a year upon the station, it
became very doubtful whether Locker could continue in her, and
finally he did go home ill. It was probably due to this
uncertainty that he obtained the transfer of Nelson, in whom he
had become most affectionately interested, to the “Bristol,”
flagship of Sir Peter Parker, the commander-in-chief. Here, under
the admiral’s own eye, warmly recommended by his last captain,
and with a singular faculty for enlisting the love and esteem of
all with whom he was brought into contact, the young officer’s
prospects were of the fairest; nor did the event belie them.
Joining the “Bristol” as her third lieutenant, not earlier than
July, 1778, he had by the end of September risen “by
succession”—to use his own phrase—to be first; a
promotion by seniority whose rapidity attests the rate at which
vacancies occurred. Both Parker and his wife became very fond of
him, cared for him in illness, and in later years she wrote to
him upon each of the occasions on which he most brilliantly
distinguished himself—after St. Vincent, the Nile, and
Copenhagen. “Your mother,” said she after the first, “could not
have heard of your deeds with more affection; nor could she be
more rejoiced at your personal escape from all the dangers of
that glorious day;” and again, after the Nile, “Sir Peter and I
have ever regarded you as a son.” The letter following the
victory at Copenhagen has not been published; but Nelson, whose
heart was never reluctant to gratitude nor to own obligation,
wrote in reply: “Believe me when I say that I am as sensible as ever that I owe
my present position in life to your and good Sir Peter’s
partiality for me, and friendly remembrance of Maurice
Suckling.”

This last allusion indicates some disinterestedness in
Parker’s patronage, and its vital importance to Nelson at that
time. Captain Suckling had died in July, 1778, and with him
departed the only powerful support upon which the young
lieutenant could then count, apart from his own merits and the
friends obtained by them. There was in those days an immense
difference in prospects between the nephew of the Comptroller of
the Navy and a man unknown at headquarters. By what leading
principles, if any, Sir Peter Parker was guided in the
distribution of his favors, can scarcely now be ascertained; but
that he brought rapidly forward two men of such great yet widely
differing merit as Nelson and Collingwood, is a proof that his
judgment was sound and the station one where vacancies were
frequent. Collingwood, who was then a lieutenant on board a
sloop-of-war, went to the “Lowestoffe” in Nelson’s place. When
the latter, in December, 1778, was made commander into the brig
“Badger,” the other was transferred to the vacant room in the
“Bristol;” and when Nelson, on the 11th of June, 1779, became
post-captain in the “Hinchinbrook” frigate, Collingwood again
followed him as commander of the “Badger.” Finally, when through
a death vacancy a better frigate offered for Nelson, Collingwood
also was posted into the “Hinchinbrook;” this ship thus having
the singular distinction of conferring the highest rank
obtainable by selection, and so fixing the final position of the
two life-long friends who led the columns at Trafalgar, the
crowning achievement of the British Navy as well as of their own
illustrious careers. The coincidence at the earlier date may have
been partly factitious, due to a fad of the commander-in-chief;
but it assumes a different and very impressive aspect viewed in
the light of their later close
association, especially when it is recalled that Collingwood also
succeeded, upon Nelson’s death, to the Mediterranean command, and
was there worn out, as his predecessor fell, in the discharge of
his duty upon that important station, which thus proved fatal to
them both. Few historic parallels are so complete. Sir Peter
Parker, living until 1811, survived both his illustrious juniors,
and at the age of eighty-two followed Nelson’s coffin, as chief
mourner at the imposing obsequies, where the nation, from the
highest to the lowest, mingled the exultation of triumph with
weeping for the loss of its best-beloved.

Of Nelson’s exterior at this time, his early biographers have
secured an account which, besides its value as a portrait,
possesses the further interest of mentioning explicitly that
charm of manner which was one of his best birth-gifts,
reflecting, as it did, the generous and kindly temper of his
heart. “The personal appearance of Captain Nelson at this period
of his life, owing to his delicate health and diminutive figure,
was far from expressing the greatness of his intellectual powers.
From his earliest years, like Cleomenes, the hero of Sparta, he
had been enamoured of glory, and had possessed a greatness of
mind. Nelson preserved, also, a similar temperance and simplicity
of manners. Nature, as Plutarch adds of the noble Spartan, had
given a spur to his mind which rendered him impetuous in the
pursuit of whatever he deemed honourable. The demeanour of this
extraordinary young man was entirely the demeanour of a British
seaman; when the energies of his mind were not called forth by
some object of duty, or professional interest, he seemed to
retire within himself, and to care but little for the refined
courtesies of polished life.” No saving sense of humor seems to
have suggested that the profane might here ask, “Is this the
British seaman?” “In his dress he had all the cleanliness of an
Englishman, though his manner of wearing it gave him an air of negligence; and yet his general
address and conversation, when he wished to please, possessed a
charm that was irresistible.”[2]

In June, 1779, when posted into the “Hinchinbrook,” Nelson
wanted still three months of being twenty-one. By the custom of
the British Navy, then and now, promotions from the grade of
Captain to that of Admiral are made by seniority only. Once a
captain, therefore, a man’s future was assured, so far as
concerned the possibility of juniors passing over his
head,—neither favor nor merit could procure that; his rank
relatively to others was finally fixed. The practical difficulty
of getting at a captain of conspicuous ability, to make of him a
flag-officer, was met by one of those clumsy yet adequate
expedients by which the practical English mind contrives to
reconcile respect for precedent with the demands of emergency.
There being then no legal limit to the number of admirals, a
promotion was in such case made of all captains down to and
including the one wanted; and Lord St. Vincent, one of the most
thorough-going of naval statesmen, is credited with the
declaration that he would promote a hundred down the list of
captains, if necessary, to reach the one demanded by the needs of
the country. Even with this rough-riding over
obstacles,—for the other officers promoted, however useful
in their former grade, not being wanted as admirals, remained
perforce unemployed,—the advantage of reaching post-rank
betimes is evident enough; and to this chiefly Nelson referred in
acknowledging his permanent indebtedness to Sir Peter Parker.
With this early start, every artificial impediment was cleared
from his path; his extraordinary ability was able to assert
itself, and could be given due opportunity, without a too violent
straining of service methods. He had, indeed, to wait eighteen
years for his flag-rank; but even so, he obtained it while still
in the very prime of his
energies, before he was thirty-nine,—a good fortune
equalled by none of his most distinguished
contemporaries.[3]

A somewhat singular feature of this early promotion of Nelson
is that it was accorded without the claim of service in actual
battle,—a circumstance that seems yet more remarkable when
contrasted with the stormy and incessant warfare of his later
career. While he was thus striding ahead, his equals in years,
Saumarez and Pellew, were fighting their way up step by step,
gaining each as the reward of a distinct meritorious action, only
to find themselves outstripped by one who had scarcely seen a gun
fired in anger. The result was mainly due to the nature of the
station, where sickness made vacancies more rapidly than the
deadliest engagement. But while this is true, and must be taken
into the account, it was characteristic of Nelson that his value
transpired through the simplest intercourse, and amid the
commonplace incidents of service. Locker and Parker each in turn
felt this. A little later, while he and Collingwood were still
unknown captains, the latter, usually measured and formal in his
language, wrote to him in these singularly strong words: “My
regard for you, my dear Nelson, my respect and veneration for
your character, I hope and believe, will never lessen.” So, some
years afterwards, but before he became renowned or had wrought
his more brilliant achievements, an envious brother captain said
to him, “You did just as you pleased in Lord Hood’s time, the
same in Admiral Hotham’s, and now again with Sir John Jervis; it
makes no difference to you who is Commander-in-chief.” This power
of winning confidence and inspiring attachment was one of the
strongest elements in Nelson’s success, alike as a subordinate
and when himself in chief command.

With his mind ever fixed upon glory, or rather upon honor,—the word he himself most
often used, and which more accurately expresses his desire for
fame; honor, which is to glory what character is to
reputation,—the same hard fortune persisted in denying to
him, during the War of the American Revolution, the opportunities
for distinction which he so ardently coveted. In the “Badger” and
in the “Hinchinbrook,” during the year 1779, his service was
confined to routine cruising about Jamaica and along the Mosquito
coast of Central America. A gleam of better things for a moment
shone upon him in August of that year, when the French fleet,
under Count D’Estaing, appeared in Haiti, numbering twenty-two
ships-of-the-line, with transports reported to be carrying twenty
thousand troops. All Jamaica was in an uproar of apprehension,
believing an attack upon the island to be imminent; for its
conquest was known to be one of the great objects of the enemy.
Nelson was at the time living on shore, the “Hinchinbrook”
seemingly[4] not having returned to
the port since his appointment to her, and he eagerly accepted
the duty of commanding the land batteries. The odds were
great,—”You must not be surprised to hear of my learning to
speak French,” he wrote, laughingly, to Locker in
England,—but if so, the greater the honor attendant,
whether upon success or defeat. D’Estaing, however, passed on to
America to encounter disaster at Savannah, and Nelson’s hopes
were again disappointed.

In January, 1780, an opportunity for service offered, which
ended in no conspicuous or permanent result, but nevertheless
conferred distinction upon one who, to use his own expression,
was determined to climb to the top of the tree, and to neglect no
chance, however slight, that could help him on. War with Spain
had then been about seven months declared, and the British
governor of Jamaica had
sagaciously determined to master Lake Nicaragua, and the course
of the river San Juan, its outlet to the Caribbean Sea. The
object of the attempt was twofold, both military and commercial.
The route was recognized then, as it is now, as one of the most
important, if not the most important, of those affording easy
transit from the Pacific to the Atlantic by way of the Isthmus.
To a nation of the mercantile aptitudes of Great Britain, such a
natural highway was necessarily an object of desire. In her hands
it would not only draw to itself the wealth of the surrounding
regions, but would likewise promote the development of her trade,
both north and south, along the eastern and western coasts of the
two Americas. But the pecuniary gain was not all. The military
tenure of this short and narrow strip, supported at either end,
upon the Pacific and the Atlantic, by naval detachments, all the
more easily to be maintained there by the use of the belt itself,
would effectually sever the northern and southern colonies of
Spain, both by actual interposition, and by depriving them of one
of their most vital lines of intercommunication. To seek control
of so valuable and central a link in a great network of maritime
interests was as natural and inevitable to Great Britain a
century ago, as it now is to try to dominate the Mediterranean
and the Suez Canal, which fulfil a like function to her Eastern
possessions and Eastern commerce.

Preoccupied, however, with numerous and more pressing cares in
many quarters of the world, and overweighted in a universal
struggle with outnumbering foes, Great Britain could spare but
scanty forces to her West India Islands, and from them Governor
Dalling could muster but five hundred men for his Nicaraguan
undertaking. Nelson was directed to convoy these with the
“Hinchinbrook” to the mouth of the San Juan del Norte, where was
the port now commonly called Greytown, in those days a fine and
spacious harbor. There his charge ended; but his mental constitution never allowed him to look
upon a military task as well done while anything remained to do.
In the spirit of his famous saying, fifteen years later, “Were
ten ships out of eleven taken, I would never call it well done if
the eleventh escaped, if able to get at her,” he determined to go
with the troops. With his temperament it was impossible to turn
his back upon the little body of soldiers, whose toilsome advance
up the tropical stream might be aided and hastened by his ready
seamen.

The first objective of the expedition was Fort San Juan, a
powerful work controlling the river of the same name, and thereby
the only natural water transit between the sea and Lake
Nicaragua. Upon the possession of this, as a position of vantage
and a safe depot for supplies and reinforcements, Dalling based
his hopes of future advance, both west and south. Nelson took
with him forty-seven seamen and marines from his ship’s company;
the former, aided by some Indians, doing most of the labor of
forcing the boats against the current, through shoal and tortuous
channels, under his own constant supervision and encouragement. A
small outpost that withstood their progress was by him intrepidly
stormed, sword in hand, by sudden assault; and upon reaching Fort
San Juan he urgently recommended the same summary method to the
officer commanding the troops. The latter, however, was not one
of the men who recognize the necessity for exceptional action.
Regular approaches, though the slower, were the surer way of
reducing a fortified place, and entailed less bloodshed.
Professional rule commonly demanded them, and to professional
rule he submitted. Nelson argued that through delays, which,
however incurred, were now past discussion, the expedition had
reached its destination in April, at the end of the healthy, dry
season, instead of shortly after its beginning, in January.
Consequently, owing to the fall of the water, much additional
trouble had been experienced in the advance, the men were
proportionately weakened by
toil and exposure, and the wet months, with their dire train of
tropical diseases, were at hand. Therefore, though more might
fall by the enemy’s weapons in a direct attack, the ultimate loss
would be less than by the protracted and sickly labors of the
spade; while with San Juan subdued, the force could receive all
the care possible in such a climate, and under the best
conditions await the return of good weather for further
progress.

In military enterprises there will frequently arise the
question, Is time or life in this case of the greater value?
Those regularly ordered and careful procedures which most
economize the blood of the soldier may, by their inevitable
delays, seriously imperil the objects of the campaign as a whole;
or they may even, while less sanguinary, entail indirectly a
greater loss of men than do prompter measures. In such doubtful
matters Nelson’s judgment was usually sound; and his instinct,
which ever inclined to instant and vigorous action, was commonly
by itself alone an accurate guide, in a profession whose prizes
are bestowed upon quick resolve more often than upon deliberate
consultation. The same intuition that in his prime dictated his
instant, unhesitating onslaught at the Nile, depriving the French
of all opportunity for further preparation,—that caused him
in the maturity of his renown, before Copenhagen, to write,
“every hour’s delay makes the enemy stronger; we shall never be
so good a match for them as at this moment,”—that induced
him at Trafalgar to modify his deliberately prepared plan in
favor of one vastly more hazardous, but which seized and held the
otherwise fleeting chance,—led him here also at San Juan,
unknown, and scarcely more than a boy, to press the policy of
immediate attack.

The decision was not in his hands, and he was overruled;
whereupon, with his usual readiness to do his utmost, he accepted
the course he disapproved, and, without nursing a grievance,
became at once active in erecting batteries and serving the guns. “When unfortunate
contentions,” says one dispassionate narrator, “had slackened the
ardour for public service, Captain Nelson did not suffer any
narrow spirit to influence his conduct. He did more than his
duty: where anything was to be done, he saw no difficulties.”
Great as his merits were, he was never insensible to them; and,
in the sketch of his career, furnished by him to his chief
biographers, he records his exploits with naïve
self-satisfaction, resembling the sententious tablets of Eastern
conquerors: “I boarded, if I may be allowed the expression, an
outpost of the enemy, situated on an island in the river; I made
batteries, and afterwards fought them, and was a principal cause
of our success.” But this simple, almost childlike, delight in
his own performances, which continually crops out in his
correspondence, did not exaggerate their deserts. Major Polson,
commanding the land forces, wrote to Governor Dalling: “I want
words to express the obligations I owe to Captain Nelson. He was
the first on every service, whether by day or night. There was
not a gun fired but was pointed by him, or by Captain Despard,
Chief Engineer.” Dalling, after some delay, wrote in the same
sense to the Minister of War in London, warmly recommending
Nelson to the notice of the home Government.

While the siege was in progress, Nelson received word of his
appointment to a better ship, the “Janus,” of forty-four guns,
and it became necessary for him to join her. He left Fort San
Juan only the day before it surrendered, and returned to Jamaica;
but his health now gave way wholly, and his command of the
“Janus,” for the most part merely nominal, soon came to an end
altogether. Dalling had truly said, “Captain Nelson’s
constitution is rather too delicate for service in this northern
ocean.”[5] Before starting on the expedition, he had himself
written to his friend Locker: “If my health is not much better
than it is at present, I shall certainly come home after this
trip, as all the doctors are against my staying so long in this
country. You know my old complaint in my breast: it is turned out
to be the gout got there. I have twice been given over since you
left this country with that cursed disorder, the gout.” In such
weakness he lived and worked through a month of a short campaign,
in which, of the “Hinchinbrook’s” crew of two hundred, one
hundred and forty-five were buried in his time or that of his
successor, Collingwood,—a mortality which he justly cites
as a further proof of the necessity for expedition in such
climates. But, though he survived, he escaped by the skin of his
teeth. Worn out by dysentery and fatigue, he was carried ashore
in his cot, and soon after taken to Sir Peter Parker’s house,
where Lady Parker herself nursed him through. Her kindness to him
and his own debility are touchingly shown by a note written from
the mountains, where he was carried in his convalescence: “Oh,
Mr. Ross, what would I give to be at Port Royal! Lady Parker not
here, and the servants letting me lay as if a log, and take no
notice.” By September, 1780, it was apparent that perfect
restoration, without change of climate, was impossible, and in
the autumn, having been somewhat over three years on the station,
he sailed for home in the “Lion,” of sixty-four guns, Captain
Cornwallis,[6] to whose careful
attention, as formerly to that of Captain Pigot, he gratefully
attributed his life. The expedition with which he had been
associated ended in failure, for although a part of the force
pushed on to Lake Nicaragua, sickness compelled the abandonment
of the conquests, which were repossessed by the Spaniards.

Arriving in England, Nelson
went to Bath, and there passed through a period of extreme
suffering and tedious recovery. “I have been so ill since I have
been here,” says one of his letters, “that I was obliged to be
carried to and from bed, with the most excruciating tortures.”
Exact dates are wanting; but he seems to have been under
treatment near three months, when, on the 28th of January, 1781,
he wrote to Locker, in his often uncouth style: “Although I have
not quite recovered the use of my limbs, yet my inside is a new
man;” and again, three weeks later, “I have now the perfect use
of all my limbs, except my left arm, which I can hardly tell what
is the matter with it. From the shoulder to my fingers’ ends are
as if half dead.” He remained in Bath until the middle of March,
latterly more for the mild climate than because feeling the
necessity of prosecuting his cure; yet that his health was far
from securely re-established is evident, for a severe relapse
followed his return to London. On the 7th of May, 1781, he writes
to his brother: “You will say, why does not he come into Norfolk?
I will tell you: I have entirely lost the use of my left arm, and
very near of my left leg and thigh.” In estimating Nelson’s
heroism, the sickly fragility of his bodily frame must be kept in
memory; not to excuse shortcomings of nerve or enterprise, for
there were none, but to exalt duly the extraordinary mental
energy which rather mocked at difficulties than triumphed over
them.

While yet an invalid he had again applied for employment, and,
as the war was still raging, was appointed in August, 1781, to
the “Albemarle,” a small frigate of twenty-eight guns. He was
pleased with the ship, the first commissioned by himself at home,
with a long cruise in prospect; and, together with his
expressions of content with her, there appears that manifestation
of complete satisfaction with his officers and crew, with those
surrounding him as subordinates, that so singularly characterized
his habit of mind. “I have an
exceeding good ship’s company. Not a man or officer in her I
would wish to change…. I am perfectly satisfied with both
officers and ship’s company.” Down to the month before Trafalgar,
when, to the bidding of the First Lord of the Admiralty to choose
his own officers, he replied, “Choose yourself, my lord; the same
spirit actuates the whole profession, you cannot choose wrong,”
there is rarely, it might almost be said never, anything but
praise for those beneath him. With the “Agamemnon,” “We are all
well; indeed, nobody can be ill with my ship’s company, they are
so fine a set.” At the Nile, “I had the happiness to command a
band of brothers; therefore night was to my advantage. Each knew
his duty, and I was sure each would feel for a French ship. My
friends readily conceived my plan.” His ships in the
Mediterranean, in 1803, “are the best commanded and the very best
manned” in the navy. So his frequent praise of others in his
despatches and letters has none of the formal, perfunctory ring
of an official paper; it springs evidently from the warmest
appreciation and admiration, is heartfelt, showing no deceptive
exterior, but the true native fibre of the man, full of the
charity which is kind and thinketh no evil. It was not always so
toward those above him. Under the timid and dilatory action of
Hotham and Hyde Parker, under the somewhat commonplace although
exact and energetic movements of Lord Keith, he was restive, and
freely showed what he felt. On the other hand, around Hood and
Jervis, who commanded his professional respect and esteem, he
quickly threw the same halo of excellence, arising from his
tendency to idealize, that colored the medium through which he
invariably saw the men whom he himself commanded. The disposition
to invest those near to him with merits, which must in part at
least have been imaginary, is a most noteworthy feature of his
character, and goes far to explain the attraction he exerted over
others, the enthusiasm which
ever followed him, the greatness of his success, and also,
unhappily, the otherwise almost inexplicable but enduring
infatuation which enslaved his later years, and has left the most
serious blot upon his memory.

Though thus pleased with his surroundings, his own health
continued indifferent. He excuses himself for delay in
correspondence, because “so ill as to be scarce kept out of bed.”
In such a state, and for one whose frame had been racked and
weakened by three years spent in the damp heat of the tropics, a
winter’s trip to the Baltic was hardly the best prescription; but
thither the “Albemarle” was sent,—”it would almost be
supposed,” he wrote, “to try my constitution.” He was away on
this cruise from October to December, 1781, reaching Yarmouth on
the 17th of the latter month, with a large convoy of a hundred
and ten sail of merchant-ships, all that then remained of two
hundred and sixty that had started from Elsinore on the 8th.
“They behaved, as all convoys that ever I saw did, shamefully
ill; parting company every day.” After being several days
wind-bound in Yarmouth Roads, he arrived in the Downs on the
first day of 1782. The bitter cold of the North had pierced him
almost as keenly as it did twenty years later in the Copenhagen
expedition. “I believe the Doctor has saved my life since I saw
you,” he wrote to his brother. The ship was then ordered to
Portsmouth to take in eight months’ provisions,—a sure
indication that she was intended for a distant voyage. Nelson
himself surmised that she would join the squadron of Sir Richard
Bickerton, then fitting out to reinforce the fleet in the East
Indies. Had this happened, he would have been on hand to hear
much and perchance see something of one of his own professional
forerunners, the great French Admiral Suffren, as well as of the
latter’s doughty antagonist, Sir Edward Hughes; for Bickerton
arrived in time to take part in the last of the five pitched
battles between those two hard fighters. Unluckily, a severe
accident had befallen the
“Albemarle,”—a large East Indiaman having dragged down upon
her during a heavy gale in the Downs. The injuries received by
this collision were so extensive that the ship was under repairs
at Portsmouth for six weeks, during which time Bickerton
sailed.

While thus detained in one of the principal dockyards and
naval stations of the kingdom, another large detachment,
belonging to the Channel fleet, assembled before Nelson’s eyes.
It comprised twelve sail-of-the-line, under Admiral Barrington;
and among these was the “Foudroyant,” the most famous ship of her
time, then commanded by Captain John Jervis, with whom, as the
Earl of St. Vincent, Nelson was afterwards closely associated;
but the young frigate captain did not now come in contact with
his stately superior, who in later years so highly valued and
loved him. It was for him still the day of small things. Though
thus thrown in the midst of the din and bustle of extensive naval
preparations, he had not the fortune to be directly connected
with them; and consequently no occasion arose for becoming known
to admirals who could recognize his worth, and give him the
opportunities without which distinction cannot be achieved. It
is, however, a significant and instructive fact that, while thus
persistently dissociated from the great operations then in
progress, and employed wholly in detached service, Nelson’s
natural genius for war asserted itself, controlling the direction
of his thoughts and interests, and fixing them to that broad
field of his profession from which he was as yet debarred. “The
height of his ambition,” an acquaintance of this period tells us,
“was to command a line-of-battle ship; as for prize money,” for
which frigates offered the best chances, “it never entered his
thoughts.” A few months later, while still in the “Albemarle,” it
was said of him by Lord Hood, the most original tactician of the
day, that he knew as much about naval tactics as any officer in
the fleet. When this high encomium was bestowed, Nelson had barely passed his twenty-fourth
birthday.

Meanwhile the “Albemarle” was again ordered upon convoy duty,
this time to Quebec. This destination also was distasteful on
account of the climate. “I want much to get off from this
d——d voyage,” he wrote. “Mr. Adair,” an eminent
London surgeon, who the year before had treated him for the
paralysis of his limbs, “has told me that if I was sent to a cold
damp climate it would make me worse than ever.” He himself had
scruples about applying for an exchange, and the efforts of some
friends who interfered proved useless. The “Albemarle” started
with a convoy of thirty-odd vessels on the 10th of April, 1782;
and after a short stop at Cork, anchored at St. John’s,
Newfoundland, on May 27, whence she reached Quebec July 1. Three
days later she again sailed on a cruise that lasted over two
months, spent chiefly about Boston Bay and Cape Cod. During this
time several enemy’s vessels were taken or destroyed; but, with
the bad luck that so often followed Nelson in the matter of
prize-money, none of the captures reached port, and the cruise
was pecuniarily unprofitable. It afforded him, however, an
opportunity for displaying conduct and gaining deserved
reputation, which he valued more highly. On the 14th of August
the sudden lifting of a fog showed the “Albemarle” within gunshot
of a French squadron, of four ships-of-the-line and a frigate,
that had just come out of Boston. A close chase followed, lasting
nine or ten hours; but Nelson threw off the heavy ships by
running among the shoals of George’s Bank, which he ventured to
do, trusting to the cool head and aptitude for pilotage acquired
in earlier life. The frigate followed warily, watching for a
chance to strike at advantage; but when the ships-of-the-line had
been dropped far enough to be unable to help their consort, the
British vessel hove-to[7] in defiance, and the enemy fell back upon his
supports.

Shortly after this escape,
so many of the ship’s company fell ill with scurvy that Nelson
decided to go back to Quebec, where he arrived on the 17th of
September. “For eight weeks,” he wrote, “myself and all the
officers lived upon salt beef; nor had the ship’s company had a
fresh meal since the 7th of April.” The fears for his health that
he had expressed before sailing from England had happily proved
groundless, and a month’s stay in port which now followed, at the
most delightful and invigorating of the American seasons, wrought
wonders for him. His letters to Locker state that the voyage
agreed with him better than he had expected; while from the St.
Lawrence he wrote to his father, “Health, that greatest of
blessings, is what I never truly enjoyed until I saw Fair
Canada. The change it has wrought, I am convinced, is truly
wonderful.” This happy result had been due, in part at least, to
surroundings that told favorably upon his sensitive nervous
system, and not to the bracing climate alone. He had been
actively occupied afloat, and had fallen desperately in love with
a fair Canadian, around whom his ardent imagination threw that
glamour of exaggerated charm in which he saw all who were dear to
him, except his wife. Her he seems from the first to have looked
upon with affection indeed, but without rapture or illusion. The
Canadian affair came near ending in an imprudent offer, from
which he was with difficulty deterred by a cool-headed friend.
The story runs that, the ship being ordered to New York and ready
for sea, he had bidden her good-bye and gone on board, expecting
to sail next day; but that, unable to bear the approaching
separation, he returned to the city, and was on his way to the
lady’s home when his friend met him.

Tearing himself away from his mistress by a violent effort,
Nelson, on the 20th of October, sailed for New York. Arriving on
the 13th of November, he found there a large part of the West
India fleet, under Lord Hood, who had been second in command to Rodney on the
occasion of the latter’s celebrated victory over De Grasse in the
previous April. Rodney had since then been recalled to England,
while Hood had gone to Boston to look after a division of the
beaten French fleet, which was there refitting. He was now on his
return to the islands, where the enemy was expected to make a
vigorous aggressive campaign the following spring. Extensive
preparations were in fact on foot for the reduction of Jamaica,
frustrated six months before by De Grasse’s mishap. Nelson thus
found himself again in tantalizing contact with the stirring
circumstance that preludes hostilities, in which he himself had
little hope to share; for the “Albemarle” belonged to the North
American station, where all active naval operations had ceased
with the surrender of Cornwallis the year before. He went,
therefore, to Hood, and begged to be transferred to his squadron.
In vain did Admiral Digby, his own commander-in-chief, tell him
that he was on a good station for prize-money. “Yes,” he replied,
“but the West Indies is the station for honour.”

Digby was reluctant to part with a frigate, as all admirals
were; but Hood, either from an intuitive faculty for judging men,
or from his conversations with Nelson eliciting the latter’s
singular knowledge of the higher part of his profession, wished
to push an officer of so much promise, and succeeded in obtaining
the transfer of the “Albemarle” to his squadron. “I am a
candidate with Lord Hood for a line-of-battle ship,” wrote Nelson
to Locker; “he has honoured me highly, by a letter, for wishing
to go off this station to a station of service, and has promised
me his friendship.” A few months later he wrote again: “My
situation in Lord Hood’s fleet must be in the highest degree
flattering to any young man. He treats me as if I were his son,
and will, I am convinced, give me anything I can ask of him.”
This was really the beginning, the outstart, of Nelson’s great
career; for Hood’s interest in him, then aroused, and deepened by experience to
the utmost confidence and appreciation, made itself felt the
instant the French Revolutionary War began. Nelson then came at
once under his orders, went with him to the Mediterranean, and
there speedily made his mark, being transferred from admiral to
admiral with ever-growing tokens of reliance. Despite the lapse
of time, and the long interval of peace, it is no exaggeration to
say that there is a direct connection of cause and effect between
his transfer to Hood’s fleet, in the harbor of New York, and the
battle of Cape St. Vincent, in 1797, when he emerged from merely
professional distinction to national renown, standing head and
shoulders above all competitors. In the four days that followed
his arrival in New York, Nelson took the tide at the flood, and
was borne on to fortune. Yet in this, as in many other instant
and happy decisions, we may not see the mere casting of a die,
the chance result of an irreflective impulse. The determination
to change into Hood’s squadron, with its powerful, far-reaching
effect upon his future, was in necessary logical sequence to
Nelson’s whole habit of thought, and wish, and previous
preparation. He was swept into the current that carried him on to
fame by the irresistible tendency of his own conscious will and
cherished purpose. Opportunity flitted by; he was ready, and
grasped it.

At this turning-point the commendable diligence of his
principal biographers has again secured for us a striking
description of the young captain’s personal appearance, and of
the impression produced by his manner upon an interested
acquaintance, who afterwards became a warm friend and admirer as
well as a frequent correspondent. The narrator—then Prince
William Henry, afterwards King William IV.—gave the
following account, apparently at some period between 1805, when
Nelson fell, and 1809, when the first edition of Clarke and
M’Arthur’s Life appeared. “I was then a midshipman on board the
Barfleur,” Lord Hood’s
flagship, “lying in the Narrows off Staten Island, and had the
watch on deck, when Captain Nelson, of the Albemarle, came in his
barge alongside, who appeared to be the merest boy of a captain I
ever beheld; and his dress was worthy of attention. He had on a
full-laced uniform; his lank unpowdered hair was tied in a stiff
Hessian tail, of an extraordinary length; the old-fashioned flaps
of his waistcoat added to the general quaintness of his figure,
and produced an appearance which particularly attracted my
notice; for I had never seen anything like it before, nor could I
imagine who he was, nor what he came about. My doubts were,
however, removed when Lord Hood introduced me to him. There was
something irresistibly pleasing in his address and conversation;
and an enthusiasm, when speaking on professional subjects, that
showed he was no common being.” The Countess of Minto, in her
Life of Lord Minto, speaks of Nelson’s “shock head” at the time
(1794) when he was a frequent visitor at the house of Minto, then
Sir Gilbert Elliott, and Viceroy of Corsica; a trivial detail,
but confirmatory, so far, of the picture drawn by the prince. The
latter continued: “Nelson, after this, went with us to the West
Indies, and served under Lord Hood’s flag during his
indefatigable cruise off Cape François…. I found him
warmly attached to my father [King George III.], and singularly
humane. He had the honour of the King’s service and the
independence of the British navy particularly at heart; and his
mind glowed with this idea as much when he was simply captain of
the Albemarle, and had obtained none of the honours of his
Country, as when he was afterwards decorated with so much
well-earned distinction.”

The war of 1778 was now fast drawing to its close; the
preliminaries of peace being signed in January, 1783, though not
ratified till the following September. Hood cruised off Cap
François, a naval station of the French at the west end of
Haiti, to intercept the fleet from Boston, which was understood to be on its way to the
Caribbean; but the enemy, learning his whereabouts, went through
the Mona Passage, east of the island, thus avoiding a meeting,
and was next heard of by the British as being off Curaçao
far to the southward. Nelson, therefore, had no opportunity to
show his prowess in battle; and as only three letters remain
covering this uneventful period, little is known of his
movements, except that he made an abortive attempt to recapture
Turk’s Island from the French with a small force of ships he was
able to gather at short notice. An interesting indication of the
spirit which animated him transpires in the first of the three
letters mentioned. He had received unexpected orders to wait in
New York after Hood’s leaving. “I was to have sailed with the
fleet this day, but for some private reasons, when my ship was
under sail from New York to join Lord Hood, at Sandy Hook, I was
sent for on shore, and told I was to be kept forty-eight hours
after the sailing of the fleet. It is much to my private
advantage,” allowing more latitude for picking up prizes, without
having to share with the other ships, “but I had much rather have
sailed with the fleet.” “Money,” he continues, “is the great
object here,” on the North American Station, “nothing else is
attended to,”—a motive of action which he always rejected
with disdain, although by no means insensible to the value of
money, nor ever thoroughly at his ease in the matter of income,
owing largely to the lavish liberality with which he responded to
the calls upon his generosity or benevolence. A year later he
wrote in the same strain: “I have closed the war without a
fortune; but I trust, and, from the attention that has been paid
to me, believe, that there is not a speck in my character. True
honour, I hope, predominates in my mind far above riches.”

When news of the peace reached the West Indies, Hood was
ordered to return with his fleet to England. Nelson went home at
the same time, being directed first to accompany Prince William Henry in a visit to Havana. The
“Albemarle” reached Spithead on the 25th of June, 1783, and was
paid off a week later, her captain going on half-pay until the
following April. The cruise of nearly two years’ duration closed
with this characteristic comment: “Not an officer has been
changed, except the second lieutenant, since the Albemarle was
commissioned; therefore, it is needless to say, I am happy in my
ship’s company.” And again he writes: “My ship was paid off last
week, and in such a manner that must flatter any officer, in
particular in these turbulent times. The whole ship’s company
offered, if I could get a ship, to enter for her immediately.”
Nelson was keenly alive to the impolicy and injury to the service
involved in the frequent changes of officers and men from ship to
ship. “The disgust of the seamen to the Navy,” he wrote
immediately after leaving the Albemarle, “is all owing to the
infernal plan of turning them over from ship to ship, so that men
cannot be attached to their officers, or the officers care
twopence about them.” This element of personal attachment is
never left out of calculation safely.

Nelson was now nearly twenty-five. In direct achievement he
had accomplished little, and to most he was unknown; but he did
not deceive himself in believing that his reputation was
established, and his promise, as a capable man of action,
understood by those who knew him, and especially by the brilliant
admiral under whom he had last served. Within a week of his
release from the ship Hood carried him to Court, and presented
him to the King,—an evident proof of his approbation; and
Nelson notes that the sovereign was exceedingly attentive. The
next few months were spent in London, or at his old home in
Norfolk, to which and to his family he was always fondly
attached. Toward the end of October he obtained a leave of
absence, in order to visit France and acquire the French
language. His impressions of that country, as far as he went,—from Calais to St.
Omer,—are given in lively enough style in a few letters;
but they differ little from what might be expected from any very
young man deeply tinged with insular prejudice. “I hate their
country and their manners,” he wrote, soon after his return; and
his biographers were quite right in saying that he had been
brought up in the old anti-Gallican school, with prejudices not
to be eradicated by a flying visit. He duly records his disgust
with two British naval captains, one of whom was afterwards among
his most valued and valuable friends, for wearing epaulettes, at
that time confined to the French service. “I hold them a little
cheap,” he said, “for putting on any part of a Frenchman’s
uniform.”

It is more interesting to notice that his impressionable fancy
was again taken by an attractive young Englishwoman, the daughter
of a clergyman named Andrews, living at St. Omer. “Two very
beautiful young ladies,” he writes to Locker and to his brother;
“I must take care of my heart, I assure you.” “My heart is quite
secured against the French beauties; I almost wish I could say as
much for an English young lady, the daughter of a clergyman, with
whom I am just going to dine, and spend the day. She has such
accomplishments that, had I a million of money, I am sure I
should at this moment make her an offer of them.” “The most
accomplished woman my eyes ever beheld,” he repeats, a month
later. The sentimental raptures of a young man about a handsome
girl have in themselves too much of the commonplace to justify
mention. What is remarkable, and suggests an explanation of the
deplorable vagary of his later years, is that his attachment to
his wife, even in the days of courtship, elicited no such
extravagance of admiration as that into which he freely lapses in
his earlier fancies, and yet more in his last absorbing passion.
Respect and tenderness for her he certainly felt and expressed;
but there is no indication that she ever enkindled his ardent
imagination, or filled for him the place of an ideal, which his mental
constitution imperatively demanded as an object of worship. The
present attachment went so far with him that he wrote to his
uncle William Suckling, asking for an allowance to enable him to
marry. “If nothing can be done for me,” said he, gloomily, “I
know what I have to trust to. Life is not worth preserving
without happiness; and I care not where I may linger out a
miserable existence. I am prepared to hear your refusal, and have
fixed my resolution if that should happen…. I pray you may
never know the pangs which at this instant tear my heart.” If, as
is said by the gentlemen into whose hands this letter passed,
Suckling consented to help him, as he certainly did at the time
of his actual marriage, it seems probable that the lady refused
him.

CHAPTER II.

THE CRUISE OF THE
“BOREAS.”—CONTROVERSY OVER THE ENFORCEMENT OF THE
NAVIGATION ACT.—RETURN TO ENGLAND.—RETIREMENT UNTIL
THE OUTBREAK OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.—APPOINTED TO COMMAND
THE “AGAMEMNON,” 64.

1784-1793. AGE, 26-34.

Whatever the cause, Nelson’s visit to France ended prematurely
and abruptly. Early in January, 1784, after an absence of two
months, he went back to England, announcing to his friends that
his coming was only temporary, partly on business, partly for
treatment; for his delicate health again occasioned him anxiety.
“The frost, thank God, is broke,” he wrote; “cold weather is
death to me.” But even while speaking confidently of his speedy
return to the Continent, he dropped a hint that he was disposed
to resume the active pursuit of his profession, although on
leaving the “Albemarle,” six months before, he had said that he
could not afford to live afloat, in peace times, in the style
then prevalent. “My stay in England will be but very short,
without the First Lord in the Admiralty thinks proper to employ
me. I shall offer my services.” He did see Lord Howe, at that
time First Lord, asking him for a ship; and he renewed his
cordial relations with Hood, then living in London. On the 18th
of March Howe appointed him to the command of the frigate
“Boreas.” Occupation in peace, with a reduced establishment, was
not easy to get, and his brother, an inveterate wirepuller, must
needs know to whose favor Nelson owed it. “You ask,” replied the
hero, “by what interest did I
get a ship? I answer, having served with credit was my
recommendation to Lord Howe. Anything in reason that I can ask, I
am sure of obtaining from his justice.” The statement was no more
than fair to Howe; but in his knowledge of the merits of Nelson,
whose claim lay rather in evident promise than in conspicuous
performance, we can probably trace the friendly intervention of
Lord Hood.

Nelson’s wish was that the “Boreas” should go to the East
Indies. To this he inclined, apparently, because the station was
to be under the command of Commodore Cornwallis, in whose ship he
had returned from Jamaica as an invalid in 1780, and to whom on
that occasion he was indebted for the most friendly care. He was
not long allowed to indulge this hope, for five days after
receiving his appointment he wrote that the ship was bound to the
Leeward Islands, and that he had been asked to take as passengers
the wife and family of the commander-in-chief, Sir Richard
Hughes, who had already gone out. In a small vessel, for such the
“Boreas” was, the request, which he could not well refuse, gave
Nelson cause of reasonable discontent, entailing crowding and a
large outlay of money. “I shall be pretty well filled with
lumber,” he wrote; and later, on the voyage out, “I shall
not be sorry to part with them, although they are very pleasant,
good people; but they are an incredible expense.” The incident,
annoying though it was, was not without compensations. After
arriving on the station, he soon became involved in a serious
difference with Sir Richard Hughes; and the latter, though a weak
man and in the wrong, might have acted more peremptorily, had he
not laid himself under such obligations. On the other hand, Lady
Hughes, many years later, shortly after Nelson’s death, committed
to writing some recollections of his personal traits and actions
during the passage, so characteristic, even though trivial, that
we could ill have spared them.

“I was too much affected
when we met at Bath,” wrote she to Mr. Matcham, Nelson’s
brother-in-law, “to say every particular in which was always
displayed the infinite cleverness and goodness of heart of our
dearly beloved Hero. As a woman, I can only be a judge of those
things that I could comprehend—such as his attention to the
young gentlemen who had the happiness of being on his
quarter-deck. It may reasonably be supposed that among the number
of thirty, there must be timid as well as bold; the timid he
never rebuked, but always wished to show them he desired nothing
of them that he would not instantly do himself: and I have known
him say, ‘Well, Sir, I am going a race to the masthead, and beg I
may meet you there.’ No denial could be given to such a wish, and
the poor fellow instantly began his march. His Lordship never
took the least notice with what alacrity it was done, but when he
met in the top, instantly began speaking in the most cheerful
manner, and saying how much a person was to be pitied that could
fancy there was any danger, or even anything disagreeable, in the
attempt. After this excellent example, I have seen the timid
youth lead another, and rehearse his captain’s words. In like
manner, he every day went into the school-room, and saw them do
their nautical business, and at twelve o’clock he was the first
upon deck with his quadrant. No one there could be behindhand in
their business when their captain set them so good an example.
One other circumstance I must mention which will close the
subject, which was the day we landed at Barbadoes. We were to
dine at the Governor’s. Our dear captain said, ‘You must permit
me, Lady Hughes, to carry one of my aid-de-camps with me;’ and
when he presented him to the Governor, he said, ‘Your Excellency
must excuse me for bringing one of my midshipmen, as I make it a
rule to introduce them to all the good company I can, as they
have few to look up to besides myself during the time they are at
sea.’ This kindness and
attention made the young people adore him; and even his wishes,
could they have been known, would have been instantly complied
with.”

The charm and wisdom of such a bearing is patent; but it was
the natural character of the man that thus shone out, and no mere
result of conscientious care. To the last, through all his
ill-health, anxiety, and sufferings, the same genial sweetness of
manner, the outcome of an unaffected, cordial good-will to all,
was shown to those who came in contact with him. Captain Duff,
who met him for the first time three weeks before Trafalgar, and
who fell in the battle, wrote to his wife in almost the same
words as Lady Hughes: “You ask me about Lord Nelson, and how I
like him. I have already answered that question as every person
must do that ever served under him. He is so good and pleasant a
man, that we all wish to do what he likes, without any kind of
orders. I have been myself very lucky with most of my admirals,
but I really think the present the pleasantest I have met with.”
There do, it is true, occur in Nelson’s letters occasional,
though very rare, expressions of that passing annoyance with
individuals which is inseparable from the close and
long-continued contact of ship life. Thus, shortly before leaving
the “Boreas,” he writes: “I begin to be very strict in my Ship.
Whenever I may set off in another, I shall be indifferent whether
I ever speak to an Officer in her, but upon duty.” One wonders
what passing and soon forgotten breeze, was responsible for this
most un-Nelson-like outburst. But to the end it remained true
that between the officers and crews under Nelson’s command and
their chief, there was always that cordial regard which can only
spring from the hearty sympathy of the commander with those
beneath him.

While thoughtful and considerate, even to gentleness, for the
weak and dependent, the singular energy that quickened Nelson’s
frail and puny frame showed itself on occasion in instant resentment of any official
slight to himself or his ship, or injury to the interests of the
country. During the “Boreas’s” stay at Madeira, the British
Consul neglected to return his visit, on the plea that the
Government allowed him no boat. Nelson declined any further
intercourse with him. While lying in the Downs, he learns that
sixteen British seamen are detained by force on board a Dutch
Indiaman. He requires their delivery to him; and when their
effects were withheld, on the alleged ground of their being in
debt to the ship, he stops all intercourse between it and the
shore, sending an armed cutter to enforce his order. “The
Admiralty,” he wrote, “have fortunately approved my conduct in
the business,” and added grimly, “a thing they are not very
guilty of where there is a likelihood of a scrape.” When entering
the harbor of Fort Royal, Martinique, the principal French island
in the Lesser Antilles, the officer at the citadel neglected to
hoist the colors, a ceremonial observance customary when a ship
of war approached. Nelson at once demanded an explanation and
received ample amends; the offending party being placed under
arrest. To the governor of some of the British West India
islands, he wrote making suggestions for the better discharge of
certain duties, in which both of them were interested. He
received, it is said, a testy message that “old generals were not
in the habit of taking advice from young gentlemen.” “I have the
honour, Sir,” replied Nelson, “of being as old as the prime
minister of England, and think myself as capable of commanding
one of his majesty’s ships as that minister is of governing the
state;” and throughout he held to the stand he had taken.

The most remarkable instance, however, of this promptness to
assert the dignity and rights of his official position, allowing
no man to despise his youth, occurred very soon after his arrival
upon the station, and brought him to a direct issue with his
commander-in-chief,—if not, indeed, with an authoritative precedent set by so great a
man as Lord Rodney. Young though he still was in
years,—only twenty-six,—Nelson was by date of
commission the senior captain in the small squadron, of some
half-dozen vessels, to which the economies of the administration
had reduced the Leeward Islands station. Being thus next in rank
to the admiral, the latter, who made his headquarters at
Barbadoes in the southern part of the station, sent him to the
northern division, centring about the island of Antigua. Having
remained in harbor, as was usual, during the hurricane months,
Nelson cruised during the winter and until February, 1785, when
some damage received compelled the “Boreas” to put into Antigua
for repairs. Here he found a vessel of the squadron, whose own
captain was of course junior to him, flying a Commodore’s broad
pendant, which asserted the official presence of a captain
superior to himself in rank and command, and duly qualified to
give him orders. He at once asked the meaning of this from the
ship’s proper commander, and was informed by him that Captain
Moutray, an old officer, twenty years his senior on the post
list, and then acting as Commissioner of the Navy, a civil office
connected with the dockyard at Antigua, had directed it to be
hoisted, and claimed to exercise control over all men-of-war in
the harbor, during the admiral’s absence.

Nelson was not wholly unprepared for this, for Hughes had
notified him and the other captains that Moutray was authorized
by himself to take this step. Being then away from the island, he
had replied guardedly that if Commissioner Moutray was put
into commission, he would have great pleasure in serving
under him,—thus reserving his decision to the moment for
action. He now took the ground that an officer not commissioned
afloat, but holding only a civil appointment, could not exercise
naval command,—that an order authorizing him to do so was
invalid,—that to entitle him to such command he must be
put into military commission
by being attached to a ship in commission. He therefore flatly
declined to obey Moutray’s orders, refusing to admit his claim to
be considered a commodore, or entitled to military obedience,
unless he produced a commission. This he held to when Moutray
gave him a written order to put himself under his command.

On technical points of this kind Nelson was a clear and
accurate thinker, and in the admiral he had to do with a
muddle-headed, irresolute superior. Hughes had already been badly
worried and prodded, on matters concerning his own neglected
duties, by his unquiet young subordinate, who was never satisfied
to leave bad enough alone, but kept raising knotty points to
harass an easy-going old gentleman, who wanted only to be allowed
to shut his eyes to what went on under his nose. He was now
exasperated by Nelson’s contumacy, but he was also a little
afraid of him, and supported his own order by no more decisive
action than laying the case before the Admiralty, who informed
Nelson that he should have referred his doubts to the admiral,
instead of deciding for himself in a matter that concerned “the
exercise of the functions of his [the admiral’s] appointment.”
This was rather begging the question, for Nelson expressed no
doubts, either to Hughes or in his explanatory letter to the
Admiralty. The latter in turn shirked thus the decision of the
question,—for, if Nelson was right, Hughes’s order was
illegal and not entitled to obedience; if he was wrong, he had
been guilty of flagrant insubordination, and should have been
sharply dealt with. The Government probably thought that the
admiral had blundered in undertaking to give military authority
to a civil official,—a step so generally disastrous in
experience that it is now explicitly forbidden by the regulations
of most navies. It is worthy of note that twenty years later,
when commander-in-chief in the Mediterranean, Nelson directed the
captains of ships cruising in
the Straits of Gibraltar to consult on all occasions with the
Commissioner of the Navy resident in Gibraltar, as well as to
receive his advice, if proffered,—adding that the
commissioner’s opinion of their conduct would have great weight
with himself; but he did not put them under his orders.[8]

Reasoning from Nelson’s position, as the pendant was flying
without proper authority on board a ship under his immediate
command, he should, as senior captain afloat, have gone further
and hauled it down. Of his authority to do so he felt no doubt,
as is evident from his letter to the Admiralty; but his motive
for refraining was characteristic. He was unwilling to wound
Moutray; just as, before Trafalgar, in direct disregard of the
Admiralty’s orders, he allowed an admiral going home under
charges to take with him his flagship, a vessel of the first
force and likely to be sorely needed in the approaching battle,
because he was reluctant to add to the distress the officer was
undergoing already. “I did not choose to order the Commissioner’s
pendant to be struck, as Mr. Moutray is an old officer of high
military character; and it might hurt his feelings to be supposed
wrong by so young an officer.” The question solved itself shortly
by the Commissioner’s returning to England; but the controversy
seems to have made no change in the friendly and even
affectionate relations existing between him and his wife and
Nelson. For Mrs. Moutray the latter had formed one of those
strong idealizing attachments which sprang up from time to time
along his path. “You may be certain,” he writes to his brother at
the very period the discussion was pending, “I never passed
English Harbour without a call, but alas! I am not to have much
comfort. My dear, sweet friend is going home. I am really an
April day; happy on her account, but truly grieved were I only to
consider myself. Her equal I never saw in any country or in any
situation. If my dear Kate
[his sister] goes to Bath next winter she will be known to her,
for my dear friend promised to make herself known. What an
acquisition to any female to be acquainted with, what an example
to take pattern from.” “My sweet, amiable friend sails the 20th
for England. I took my leave of her three days ago with a heavy
heart. What a treasure of a woman.” Returning to Antigua a few
weeks later, he writes again in a sentimental vein very rare in
him: “This country appears now intolerable, my dear friend being
absent. It is barren indeed. English Harbour I hate the sight of,
and Windsor I detest. I went once up the hill to look at the spot
where I spent more happy days than in any one spot in the world.
E’en the trees drooped their heads, and the tamarind tree
died:—all was melancholy: the road is covered with
thistles; let them grow. I shall never pull one of them up.” His
regard for this attractive woman seems to have lasted through his
life; for she survived him, and to her Collingwood addressed a
letter after Trafalgar, giving some particulars of Nelson’s
death. Her only son also died under the latter’s immediate
command, ten years later, when serving in Corsica.

The chief interest of the dispute over Moutray’s position lies
not in the somewhat obscure point involved, but in the
illustration it affords of Nelson’s singular independence and
tenacity in a matter of principle. Under a conviction of right he
throughout life feared no responsibility and shrank from no
consequences. It is difficult for the non-military mind to
realize how great is the moral effort of disobeying a superior,
whose order on the one hand covers all responsibility, and on the
other entails the most serious personal and professional injury,
if violated without due cause; the burden of proving which rests
upon the junior. For the latter it is, justly and necessarily,
not enough that his own intentions or convictions were honest: he
has to show, not that he meant to do right, but that he actually did right, in disobeying
in the particular instance. Under no less rigorous exactions can
due military subordination be maintained. The whole bent of
advantage and life-long training, therefore, draws in one
direction, and is withstood by nothing, unless either strong
personal character supplies a motive, or established professional
standing permits a man to presume upon it, and to exercise a
certain right to independence of action. At this time Nelson was
practically unknown, and in refusing compliance with an order he
took a risk that no other captain on the station would have
assumed, as was shown by their failure a few months later to
support their convictions in an analogous controversy, upon which
Nelson had entered even before the Moutray business. In both
cases he staked all upon legal points, considered by him vital to
the welfare of the navy and the country. The spirit was
identically the same that led him to swing his ship out of the
line at Cape St. Vincent without waiting for signals. After that
day and the Nile he could afford to take liberties, and sometimes
took them with less justification than in his early career.

When the Moutray question arose, Nelson was already engaged in
a more far-reaching dispute, not only with his
commander-in-chief, but with the colonial authorities and the
popular sentiment of the West India Islands. Like most men, great
and small, he shared the prepossessions of his day and
generation; differing, however, from others, in that he held his
opinions as principles, from asserting which he was not to be
deterred by the ill-will or dislike of those immediately about
him. Upon arriving in the West Indies he found nourishing a
system of trade extremely beneficial to the islands, but which
his education condemned as hurtful to Great Britain, as it
certainly was contrary to then existing laws that had for a
century previous regulated the commerce of the kingdom. In 1784,
a year only had elapsed since the United States had been formally recognized as independent,
thereby becoming, in British estimation as well as in their own,
a nation foreign to the British flag. By the Navigation Laws,
first established by Cromwell, but continued under the restored
monarchy without serious modification until 1794, trade with the
Colonies was reserved to vessels built in Great Britain or her
dependencies, and manned in three-fourths part by British
subjects. The chief object and advantage of the law were
conceived to be, not merely a monopoly of the
trade,—concerning the economical wisdom of which serious
doubts began to be felt,—but the fostering of the British
merchant service as a nursery of seamen, upon whom, in time of
war, the navy could draw. The military strength of the Empire was
thought to be involved in the enforcement of the Navigation
Act.[9]

Before the United States declared their independence, they, as
British colonies, enjoyed the privilege of trading with their
fellow-colonists under what was then the common flag; and the
nearness of the two regions contributed to the advantage of both
in this traffic, in which the continental communities were the
chief suppliers of many articles essential to the islands,
notably provisions and lumber. This mutual intercourse and
dependence promoted a sympathy which was scarcely disguised in
the West Indies during the War of Independence; indeed, Nelson
wrote that many of the inhabitants were as arrant rebels as those
who had renounced their allegiance. Under these conditions, when
peace was restored, the old relations were readily resumed; and
as there had really been considerable inconvenience and loss to
the islanders from the deprivation of American products, the
renewal was eagerly promoted by popular sentiment. The local
authorities, as usual and
natural, yielded to the pressure around them, and in entire
disregard of the known policy of the home government permitted
American vessels to trade openly under their own colors. In
Jamaica the governor had even gone so far as to authorize
formally a free trade, during pleasure, with the United States,
contrary to the explicit orders of his superiors in Great
Britain. Where scruples were felt or hesitation was shown,
advantage was taken of the exceptions of the law, which allowed
vessels in distress to sell so much of their cargoes as would pay
for necessary repairs. With the tendency of commerce to evade
restrictions by liberal stretching of the conscience, the
merchant captain and the colonial officer found little difficulty
in arranging that the damage should be great enough to cover the
sale of the whole lading.

After laying up in Antigua during the hurricane season of
1784, Nelson was summoned to Barbadoes in November, with the
other captains, to receive orders for the winter’s cruising.
These, when issued, were found to direct only the examination of
anchorages, and the gathering of information about supplies of
wood and water. Nelson’s attention had been drawn already to the
American traffic; and he, with his friend Collingwood, who was
again on the station, went to the admiral, and urged that it was
the duty of ships of war to enforce the Navigation Laws. The
admiral professed ignorance of these; and Nelson himself remarks
that British vessels up to that time had been so much cheaper
built than others, that they had, without artificial protection,
naturally absorbed their own colonial trade,—the question,
therefore, had dropped out of sight till it was revived by
American competition. A copy of the Act being then produced,
Hughes gave an order requiring his vessels to enforce it; making
special mention of the changed relations of the United States to
Great Britain, whereby they were “to be considered as foreigners, and excluded from all
commerce with the islands in these seas.”

With these instructions Nelson sailed again for the north,
where the Virgin Islands, with those of Montserrat, Nevis, and
St. Christopher, were put under his especial charge,—the
sloop “Rattler,” Captain Wilfred Collingwood, a brother of the
well-known admiral, being associated with the “Boreas.” At first
the two officers confined their action to warning off American
vessels, and at times forcing them to leave ports where they had
anchored; but they found that either the vessels returned during
the absence of the ships of war, or that permissions to land,
upon what they thought trivial grounds, were given by the
Customs’ officials, in virtue of the exceptions to the law above
mentioned.

There matters stood until the 11th of January, 1785, Nelson
acting by the authority of the commander-in-chief, but exercising
his own discretion, and with forbearance, in carrying out his
instructions. On the day named he received another order from the
admiral, modifying the first upon the grounds of a more mature
consideration, and of “the opinion of the King’s
Attorney-General” in the islands. Nelson was now directed, in
case of a foreign merchant-ship coming within the limits of his
station, to cause her to anchor near his own vessel and to report
her arrival, and situation in all respects, to the governor of
the colony where he then was; “and if, after such report shall
have been made and received, the governor or his representative
shall think proper to admit the said foreigner into the port or
harbour of the island where you may be, you are on no account
to hinder or prevent such foreign vessel from going in
accordingly, or to interfere any further in her subsequent
proceedings.”

Here the admiral not only raised, but also decided, the point
as to whether the enforcement of the Navigation Act rested with
naval officers, or was vested only in the civil authorities of the islands. Nelson was
convinced that an essential part of the duty of ships of war, and
especially when peace took from them so much of their military
function, was to afford to the commerce of the nation proper
protection, of which a necessary feature, according to the ideas
of the age, was the interdiction of foreign traders. A seaman, he
plausibly argued, could decide better than an unprofessional man
the questions of injuries and distress upon which the unlawful
traffic largely hinged. “In judging of their distress, no person
can know better than the sea officers,” he wrote to Hughes. “The
governors may be imposed upon by false declarations; we, who are
on the spot, cannot.” He was aware, also, that a petition for
relaxing the Act in favor of the American trade with the West
Indies had been referred to the home government, by which it had
been explicitly rejected. Strengthened by this knowledge, but
actuated, after all, chiefly by his invariable resoluteness to
assume responsibility where he felt he was right, he replied to
the admiral’s letter with a clear statement of the facts,
concluding with the words: “Whilst I have the honour to command
an English man-of-war, I never shall allow myself to be
subservient to the will of any Governor, nor coöperate with
him in doing illegal acts…. If I rightly understand your
order of the 29th of December, it is founded upon an Opinion of
the King’s Attorney-General, viz.: ‘That it is legal for
Governors or their representatives to admit foreigners into the
ports of their government, if they think fit.’ How the King’s
Attorney-General conceives he has a right to give an illegal
opinion, which I assert the above is, he must answer for. I know
the Navigation Laws.” As he summed up the matter in a letter to
his friend Locker: “Sir Richard Hughes was a delicate business. I
must either disobey my orders, or disobey Acts of Parliament,
which the admiral was disobeying. I determined upon the former,
trusting to the uprightness of
my intention. In short, I wrote the Admiral that I should decline
obeying his orders, till I had an opportunity of seeing and
talking to him, at the same time making him an apology.”

Hughes’s first impulse was to supersede his recalcitrant
subordinate, and bring him to trial. He learned, however, that
many of the other captains, of whom the court must be formed,
shared his junior’s views, although they shrank, with the
submissiveness of military men, from the decisive act of
disobedience. The result of a trial must therefore be doubtful.
He was, moreover, a fiddler, as Nelson continually styled him,
shifting back and forth, from opinion to opinion, and to be
relied upon for only one thing,—to dodge responsibility, if
possible. Consequently, no official action was taken; the
commander-in-chief contented himself with washing his hands of
all accountability. He had given orders which would clear
himself, in case Nelson’s conduct was censured in England. If, on
the contrary, it was approved, it would redound to the credit of
the station.

The matter was soon brought to a test. The governors and all
the officials, particularly of the Custom House, resented the
action of the naval officers; but the vigilance of the latter so
seriously interrupted the forbidden traffic under American
colors, that recourse was had to giving British registers to the
vessels concerned, allowing them to trade under British flags.
This, however, was equally contrary to the Navigation Act, which
forbade British registry to foreign-built ships, except when
prizes taken in war; and the disguise wast too thin to baffle men
like Collingwood and Nelson. The latter reported the practice to
the home Government, in order that any measures deemed necessary
might be taken. Meanwhile he patiently persisted in turning away
all vessels, not British built, which he encountered, confining
himself for the time to this merely passive prevention; but
finding at last that this was
not a sufficient deterrent, he gave notice that after the 1st of
May, 1785, he would seize all American vessels trading to the
islands, “let them be registered by whom they might.”
Accordingly, on the 2d of May he arrested an American-built
schooner, owned in Philadelphia and manned entirely by Americans,
but having a British register issued at the island of St.
Christopher.

The Crown lawyer was now called upon to prosecute the suit. He
expressed grave doubts as to a naval captain’s power to act by
virtue simply of his commission, the sole authority alleged by
the captor; and, although he proceeded with the case, his manner
so betrayed his uncertainty that Nelson felt it necessary to
plead for himself. To the confusion of all opponents the judge
decided in his favor, saying he had an undoubted right to seize
vessels transgressing the Navigation Laws. The principle thus
established, Nelson on the 23d of the same month, at the island
of Nevis, upon the same grounds, seized four vessels,—one
of which had been registered at Dominica by Governor Orde, a
naval captain senior in rank to himself, and with whom he came
into unpleasant contact upon several occasions in his later
life.

There was no serious question as to the condemnation of the
four last seizures, the facts being clear and the principle
settled;[10] but the rage of the
inhabitants of Nevis led them to seek revenge upon Nelson for the
injury they could no longer prevent. He had summoned the masters
of the ships on board the “Boreas,” and, after satisfying
himself that the vessels were
not entitled to British registers, had sent marines to hold them,
and to prevent essential witnesses from leaving them, until the
cases were tried. Upon these circumstances was based an
accusation of assault and imprisonment, the masters swearing that
they had made their statements under bodily fear. Writs were
issued against Nelson, damages being laid at four thousand
pounds, a sum which to him meant ruin. Although he asserted that
there was absolutely no truth in the charges, which are certainly
in entire contradiction to the general, if not invariable, tenor
of his life and conduct, he was advised by the Crown lawyers not
to subject himself to trial, as in the state of public feeling he
could not expect a fair verdict. To avoid arrest, he was forced
to confine himself to the ship for seven weeks, during which the
marshal made several attempts to serve the writ, but without
success. On the day that the case of the seized ships came up, he
was able to be present in court only by the safe conduct of the
judge.

Two days after the seizure of the four vessels, Sir Richard
Hughes, who was making a tour of the station under his command,
arrived at Nevis; but he had no support to give his zealous
lieutenant. “He did not appear to be pleased with my conduct,”
wrote Nelson to Locker. “At least he did not approve it, but told
me I should get into a scrape. Seven weeks I was kept a close
prisoner to my ship; nor did I ever learn that the admiral took
any steps for my release. He did not even acquaint the Admiralty
Board how cruelly I had been treated; nor of the attempts which
had been made to take me out of my ship by force, and that
indignity offered under the fly of his flag.” “I had the
governor, the Customs, all the planters upon me; subscriptions
were soon filled to prosecute; and my admiral stood neuter,
although his flag was then in the roads.” To this lack of
countenance on the part of his superior, and direct persecution
by those injuriously affected by his action, there was added a
general social ostracism, to which he frequently alludes, and which was particularly
emphasized by its contrast with the habits of hospitality
prevalent among the small and wealthy planter community. One
friend, however, stood by him, and offered to become his bail in
the sum of ten thousand pounds,—Mr. Herbert, the President
of Nevis, and one of the wealthiest men in the island. He had,
Nelson said, suffered more than any one else from the
interruption of the trade, but he considered that the young
captain had done only his duty. Possibly there may have been a
warmer feeling underlying this esteem, for he was the uncle of
the lady whom Nelson afterwards married, and to whom he seems to
have been paying attention already.

Despite his indomitable pluck and resolve, the confinement,
uncertainty, and contention told heavily on Nelson’s health and
spirits. His temper was too kindly and social not to feel the
general alienation. It could not affect his purpose; but the
sense of right-doing, which sustained him in that, did not make
his road otherwise easier. It is, indeed, especially to be
noticed that there was not in him that hard, unyielding fibre,
upon which care, or neglect, or anxiety, makes little impression.
He was, on the contrary, extremely sympathetic, even emotional;
and although insensible to bodily fear, he was by no means so to
censure, or to risk of other misfortune. To this susceptibility
to worry, strong witness is borne by an expression of his, used
at the very time of which we are now writing. One of his
friends—Captain Pole of the Navy—had detained and
sent in a neutral vessel for breach of belligerent rights. After
long legal proceedings, extending over five years, she was
condemned, and proved to be a very valuable prize to the captors.
“Our friend Charles Pole,” he writes, “has been fortunate in his
trial; but the lottery is so very much against an officer, that
never will I knowingly involve myself in a doubtful cause.
Prize-money is doubtless very acceptable; but my mind would
have suffered so much, that no
pecuniary compensation, at so late a period, would have made me
amends.” Contrasting this utterance with the resolution shown by
him at this time, in fighting what he considered the cause of his
country in the West Indies, it can be seen how much stronger with
him was the influence of duty than that exercised by any
considerations of merely material advantage. In the one he could
find support; in the other not. But in neither case was he
insensible to care, nor could he escape the physical consequences
of anxiety upon a delicate frame and nervous organization. Of
this, his harassment in the pursuit of the French fleet in 1798,
during Bonaparte’s Egyptian expedition, gave a very conspicuous
illustration.

With such a temperament, being now very much in the position
of an individual fighting a corporation, he appealed to the home
Government; addressing, on the 29th of June, 1785, a memorial to
the King, setting forth the facts of the case, as already given,
adding that his health was much impaired, and asking for
assistance. He received a reply to this in the following
September, informing him that the King had directed that he
should be defended by the Crown lawyers. This implied approval of
his course was succeeded, in November, by a letter from the
Secretary of the Treasury, through the usual official channels of
the Admiralty, acquainting him that the Government was “of
opinion that the commander-in-chief of the Leeward Islands, and
officers under him, have shown a very commendable zeal, in
endeavouring to put a stop to the very illicit practices which
were carrying on in the islands, in open violation of the law,
and to the great detriment of the navigation and trade of his
Majesty’s dominions.” Verily, Hughes had his reward. Here he was
commended in express terms for doing that which he had been too
prudent to do, for zeal which he had never shown, for maintaining
a law which he had given orders not to maintain. “I own I was surprised,” wrote Nelson,
“that the commander-in-chief should be thanked for an act which
he did not order, but which, if I understand the meaning of
words, by his order of the 29th December, 1784, he ordered not to
be.” “To the end of the station,[11] his order of the 29th of December was never
repealed, so that I always acted with a rod over me.” How heavily
the responsibility he assumed was felt by others, is clearly
shown in another statement made by him. “The Captains Collingwood
were the only officers, with myself, who ever attempted to hinder
the illicit trade with America; and I stood singly with
respect to seizing, for the other officers were fearful of
being brought into scrapes.”

Backed by the royal approval, and with his legal expenses
guaranteed, Nelson’s course was now smooth. He continued in all
parts of the station to suppress the contraband trade, and his
unpopularity, of course, also continued; but excitement
necessarily subsided as it became clear that submission was
unavoidable, and as men adapted themselves to the new conditions.
The whole procedure now looks somewhat barbarous and blundering,
but in no essential principle differs from the methods of
protection to which the world at present seems again tending. It
is not for us to throw stones at it. The results, then, were
completely successful, judged by the standards of the time. “At
this moment,” wrote Nelson some few months later, “there are
nearly fifty sail employed in the trade between the Islands of
St. Kitts, Nevis, and America, which are truly British built,
owned, and navigated. Had I been an idle spectator, my firm
belief is that not a single vessel would have belonged to those
islands in the foreign trade.” His own action was further
endorsed by the ministry, which now gave captains of ships-of-war
much more extensive powers,
thereby justifying his contention that it was within their office
to enforce the Navigation Act. Nor was this increased activity of
the executive branch of the government the only result of
Nelson’s persistence. His sagacious study of the whole question,
under the local conditions of the West Indies, led to his making
several suggestions for more surely carrying out the spirit of
the Law; and these were embodied the next year in a formal Act of
the Legislature.

With so vivid a career as that of Nelson ahead, the delay
imposed by this wrangling episode is somewhat dreary; but it
undeniably shows his characteristics in the strongest light.
Duty, not ease; honor, not gain; the ideal, not the
material,—such, not indeed without frailty and blemish,
were ever his motives. And, while he craved his reward in the
approval and recognition of those around and above him, he could
find consolation for the lack of them in his own sense of
right-doing. “That thing called Honour,” he writes to a friend
soon after the “Boreas” cruise, “is now, alas! thought of no
more. My integrity cannot be mended, I hope; but my fortune, God
knows, has grown worse for the service; so much for serving my
country. But I have invariably laid down, and followed close, a
plan of what ought to be uppermost in the breast of an officer:
that it is much better to serve an ungrateful Country than to
give up his own fame. Posterity will do him justice; a uniform
conduct of honour and integrity seldom fails of bringing a man to
the goal of fame at last.”

This struggle with Sir Richard Hughes, in which Nelson took
the undesirable, and to a naval officer invidious, step of
disobeying orders, showed clearly, not only the loftiness of his
motives, but the distinguishing features which constituted the
strength of his character, both personal and military. There was
an acute perception of the right thing to do, an entire readiness
to assume all the
responsibility of doing it, and above all an accurate judgment of
the best way to do it,—to act with impunity to himself and
with most chances of success to his cause. Its analogy to a
military situation is striking. There was a wrong condition of
things to be righted—a victory to be won. To achieve this a
great risk must be taken, and he was willing to take it; but in
so doing he made such choice of his ground as to be practically
unassailable—to attain his end without lasting harm to
himself. That Nelson would have managed better had he been ten
years older is very probable. Likely enough he betrayed some of
the carelessness of sensibilities which the inexperience of youth
is too apt to show towards age; but, upon a careful review of the
whole, it appears to the writer that his general course of action
was distinctly right, judged by the standards of the time and the
well-settled principles of military obedience, and that he
pursued an extremely difficult line of conduct with singular
resolution, with sound judgment, and, in the main, with an
unusual amount of tact, without which he could scarcely have
failed, however well purposing, to lay himself open to serious
consequences. Certainly he achieved success.

It was in the midst of this legal warfare, and of the
preoccupations arising from it, that Nelson first met the lady
who became his wife. She was by birth a Miss Frances Woolward,
her mother being a sister of the Mr. Herbert already mentioned as
President of the Council in Nevis. She was born in the first half
of 1758,[12] and was therefore a
few months older than Nelson. In 1779 she had married Dr. Josiah
Nisbet, of Nevis, and the next year was left a widow with one
son, who bore his father’s full name. After her husband’s death,
being apparently portionless,
she came to live with Herbert, who looked upon and treated her as
his own child, although he also had an only daughter. When Nelson
first arrived at Nevis, in January, 1785,[13] she was absent, visiting friends in a
neighboring island, so that they did not then meet,—a
circumstance somewhat fortunate for us, because it led to a
description of him being sent to her in a letter from a lady of
Herbert’s family, not improbably her cousin, Miss Herbert. Nelson
had then become a somewhat conspicuous factor in the contracted
interests of the island society, owing to the stand he had
already publicly assumed with reference to the contraband trade.
People were talking about him, although he had not as yet
enforced the extreme measures which made him so unpopular. “We
have at last,” so ran the letter, “seen the little captain of the
Boreas of whom so much has been said. He came up just before
dinner, much heated, and was very silent; but seemed, according
to the old adage, to think the more. He declined drinking any
wine; but after dinner, when the president, as usual, gave the
three following toasts, ‘the King,’ ‘the Queen and Royal Family,’
and ‘Lord Hood,’ this strange man regularly filled his glass, and
observed that those were always bumper toasts with him; which,
having drank, he uniformly passed the bottle, and relapsed into
his former taciturnity. It was impossible, during this visit, for
any of us to make out his real character; there was such a
reserve and sternness in his behaviour, with occasional sallies,
though very transient, of a superior mind. Being placed by him, I
endeavoured to rouse his attention by showing him all the
civilities in my power; but I drew out little more than ‘Yes’ and
‘No.’ If you, Fanny, had been there, we think you would have made
something of him, for you have
been in the habit of attending to these odd sort of people.”

Mrs. Nisbet very quickly made something of him. Little direct
description has been transmitted to us concerning the looks or
characteristics of the woman who now, at the time when marriage
was possible to him, had the misfortune to appear in the line of
succession of Nelson’s early fancies, and to attract the too
easily aroused admiration and affection of a man whose attachment
she had not the inborn power to bind. That Nelson was naturally
inconstant, beyond the volatility inherent in youth, is
sufficiently disproved by the strength and endurance of his
devotion to the one woman, in whom he either found or imagined
the qualities that appealed to the heroic side of his character.
How completely she mastered all the approaches to his heart, and
retained her supremacy, once established, to the end, is
evidenced by the whole tenor of his correspondence with her, by
his mention of her in letters to others, by the recorded
expressions he used in speaking to or about her. Despite all that
he certainly knew of her, and much more that it is unreasonable
to doubt he must have known of her history, there is no mistaking
the profound emotions she stirred in his spirit, which show
themselves continually in spontaneous outbreaks of passionate
fondness and extravagant admiration, whose ring is too true and
strong for doubt concerning their reality to find a place.

Many men are swayed by strong and wayward impulses; but to
most the fetters imposed by social conventions, by inherited or
implanted standards of seemliness and decorum, suffice to steady
them in the path of outward propriety. Of how great and absorbing
a passion Lord Nelson was capable is shown by the immensity of
the sacrifice that he made to it. Principle apart,—and
principle wholly failed him,—all else that most appeals to
man’s self-respect and regard for the esteem of others was
powerless to exert control.
Loyalty to friendship, the sanctity which man is naturally fain
to see in the woman he loves, and, in Nelson’s own case, a
peculiar reluctance to wound another,—all these were
trampled under foot, and ruthlessly piled on the holocaust which
he offered to her whom he worshipped. He could fling to the
winds, as others cannot, considerations of interest or
expediency, as he flung them over and over in his professional
career. My motto, he said once and again, is “All or nothing.”
The same disregard of consequences that hazarded all for all, in
battle or for duty, broke through the barriers within which
prudence, reputation, decency, or even weakness and cowardice,
confine the actions of lesser men. And it must be remembered that
the admitted great stain upon Nelson’s fame, which it would be
wicked to deny, lies not in a general looseness of life, but in
the notoriety of one relation,—a notoriety due chiefly to
the reckless singleness of heart which was not ashamed to own its
love, but rather gloried in the public exhibition of a faith in
the worthiness of its object, and a constancy, which never
wavered to the hour of his death.[14] The pitifulness of it is to see the
incongruity between such faith, such devotion, and the
distasteful inadequacy of their object.

To answer the demands of a nature capable of such energetic
manifestation—to fulfil the imagination of one who could so
cast himself at the feet of an ideal—was beyond the gentle,
well-ordered, and somewhat prosaic charms with which alone Mrs.
Nisbet was invested by Nelson, even when most loverlike in tone.
“My greatest wish,” he writes in the first of his letters to her
that has been preserved, “is
to be united to you; and the foundation of all conjugal
happiness, real love and esteem, is, I trust, what you believe I
possess in the strongest degree toward you.” Fifteen months
later, and but a short time before their wedding, he says again:
“His Royal Highness often tells me, he believes I am married; for
he never saw a lover so easy, or say so little of the object he
has a regard for. When I tell him I certainly am not, he says,
‘Then he is sure I must have a great esteem for you, and that it
is not what is (vulgarly), I do not much like the use of that
word, called love.’ He is right: my love is founded on esteem,
the only foundation that can make the passion last.” But general
maxims, even when less disputable than this, do not admit of
universal application; and if an affection was to hold its own in
a nature enthusiastic and imaginative as that of Nelson, it had
need to strike root deeper than that surface soil indicated by
mere esteem, at least when the latter rests simply upon an
assemblage of upright and amiable qualities, and not upon that
force of character which compels dependence as well as
appreciation. At their last parting he solemnly avowed that his
esteem was not lessened; while he was destined also to afford a
conspicuous illustration of how enduring a passion may flourish
where no just title to esteem exists.

The progress of his wooing was rapid enough. On the 12th of
May he mentions their first meeting; on the 28th of June he
writes to his brother: “Entre, nous.—Do not be
surprised to hear I am a Benedict, for if at all, it will
be before a month. Do not tell.” On the 11th of September is
dated his first letter to her, already quoted, in which he
addresses her as “My dear Fanny,” and alludes to the
understanding existing between them. At the expiration of six
months he wrote, formally announcing his engagement, to Mr.
William Suckling, his mother’s brother. He anticipates the
latter’s doubts as to the permanence of this fancy: “This
Horatio, you will say, is for ever in love;” but he considers
that six months without change
settles that question. “My present attachment is of pretty long
standing; but I was determined to be fixed before I broke this
matter to any person.” He then explains the situation,—that
the lady herself has little or nothing; that Mr. Herbert, though
rich, is not likely to help the young couple much, and he asks
his uncle’s assistance. This Suckling consented to give, and for
several years continued liberally to extend. But still, impatient
though Nelson always was to complete whatever he had on hand,
various causes delayed the wedding for another year. Even with
Suckling’s help the question of means was pressing; and while,
with pardonable self-justification, he gloried to his betrothed
that “the world is convinced that I am superior to pecuniary
considerations in my public and private life, as in both
instances I might have been rich,” he nevertheless owned to
regretting that he “had not given greater attention to making
money.” Besides, as he wrote to his brother, “What should I do
carrying a wife in a ship, and when I marry I do not mean to part
with my wife.” The cruising duty of the “Boreas” took her from
port to port of the limited area embraced in the Leeward Islands
Station, and Nevis was among the least important of the points
demanding his attention. He was, therefore, frequently away from
his betrothed during this period, and absence rather fanned than
cooled the impetuous ardor which he carried into all his
undertakings. Whether it were the pursuit of a love affair, or
the chase of an enemy’s fleet, delays served only to increase the
vehemence with which Nelson chafed against difficulties. “Duty,”
he tells Mrs. Nisbet, “is the great business of a sea
officer,—all private considerations must give way to it,
however painful it is;” but he owns he wishes “the American
vessels at the Devil, and the whole continent of America to
boot,” because they detain him from her side.

There is no singularity in the experience that obstacles
tend rather to inflame than to
check a lover’s eagerness. What is noteworthy in Nelson’s letters
at this time is the utter absence of any illusions, of any
tendency to exaggerate and glorify the qualities of the woman who
for the nonce possessed his heart. There is not a sign of the
perturbation of feeling, of the stirring of the soul, that was
afterwards so painfully elicited by another influence. “The dear
object,” he writes to his brother, “you must like. Her sense,
polite manners, and, to you I may say, beauty, you will much
admire. She possesses sense far superior to half the people of
our acquaintance, and her manners are Mrs. Moutray’s.” The same
calm, measured tone pervades all his mention of her to others.
His letters to herself, on the other hand, are often pleasing in
the quiet, simple, and generally unaffected tenderness which
inspires them. In a more ordinary man, destined to more
commonplace fortunes, they might well be regarded as promising
that enduring wedded love which strikes root downward and bears
fruit upward, steadily growing in depth and devotion as the years
roll by. But Nelson was not an ordinary man, and from that more
humble happiness a childless marriage further debarred him. He
could rise far higher, and, alas! descend far lower as he
followed the radiant vision,—the image of his own mind
rather than an external reality,—the ideal, which, whether
in fame or in love, beckoned him onward. The calm, even, and
wholly matter-of-fact appreciation of his wife’s estimable traits
can now be seen in the light of his after career, and its
doubtful augury descried; for to idealize was an essential
attribute of his temperament. Her failure, even in the heyday of
courtship, to arouse in him any extravagance of emotion, any
illusive exaltation of her merits, left vacant that throne in his
mind which could be permanently occupied only by a highly wrought
excellence,—even though that were the purely subjective
creation of his own enthusiasm. This hold Lady Nelson never gained; and the long absence
from 1793 to 1797, during the opening period of the war of the
French Revolution, probably did to death an affection which owed
what languid life it retained chiefly to propinquity and custom.
Both Saumarez and Codrington, who served under him, speak
passingly of the lightness with which his family ties sat upon
Nelson in the years following his short stay at home in 1797. The
house was empty, swept, and garnished, when the simple-minded, if
lion-hearted, seaman came under the spell of one whose
fascinations had overpowered the resistance of a cool-headed man
of the world, leading him in his old age, with open eyes, to do
what every prepossession and every reasonable conviction of his
life condemned as folly.

In the summer of 1786 Sir Richard Hughes was recalled to
England. During the later part of his association with Nelson,
the strain which had characterized their earlier relations had
not only disappeared, but had been succeeded by feelings
approaching cordiality. The Government’s approval of his
subordinate’s action, and of himself as credited with supporting
it, had removed that element of apprehension which in timid men
induces irritation; and Hughes, who, though irresolute, was
naturally kindly, had been still farther placated by the
prize-money falling to him from the vessels condemned through the
zeal of Nelson. The latter, who never harbored malice, easily
forgave the past, and responded to this change of tone. “I have
been upon the best terms with the Admiral,” he wrote from
Barbadoes to his intended wife in April, 1786, “and I declare I
think I could ever remain so. He is always remarkably kind and
civil to every one;” and again, a few days earlier, “The admiral
is highly pleased with my conduct here, as you will believe, by
sending me such fine lines with a white hat. I well know I am not
of abilities to deserve what he has said of me: but I take it as
they are meant, to show his regard for me; and his politeness and attention to me are
great: nor shall I forget it. I like the man, although not all
his acts.” He then directs that the lines shall not be shown to
any one, “as the compliment is paid to me at the expense of the
officers of the squadron,” an injunction thoroughly
characteristic of the man’s kindly consideration for others. It
was creditable to Hughes that, after being so braved, and his
instructions set at naught, by his junior, he had candor enough
to see and acknowledge his merit; but the fact still remained
that in the hour of trial he had failed Nelson, nor did the
latter, though he forgave, forget it. As he wrote to Locker in
September, 1786, after the admiral’s departure, “Instead of being
supported by my admiral, I was obliged to keep him up, for he was
frightened at this business;” of which business he truly said,
emphasizing, but not at all exaggerating, the gravity of the
responsibility he had taken in defiance of his superior: “After
loss of health and risk of fortune, another is thanked for what I
did against his orders. Either I deserved to be sent out of
the service,[15] or at least to have had some little notice
taken of me.”

Nelson indeed, in the West Indies, as an unknown captain, had
done that which as a junior admiral he did later at Copenhagen,
at a moment far more critical to Great Britain. By his own
unusual powers of impulse and resolve he had enforced, as far as
was possible against the passive, inert lethargy—not to say
timidity—of his superior, the course of action which at the
moment was essential to the interests of his country. Truly great
in his strength to endure, he knew not the perturbations nor the
vacillations that fret the temper, and cripple the action, of
smaller men; and, however harassed and distressed externally, the calmness of a clear
insight and an unshaken purpose guided his footsteps, unwavering,
in the path of duty, through all opposition, to the goal of
success. It is reported that an officer of the “Boreas,” speaking
to him of the vexations and odium he had undergone, used the word
“pity.” Nelson’s reply showed the profound confidence which
throughout had animated him, keenly as he had undoubtedly felt
the temporary anxieties. “Pity, did you say? I shall live, Sir,
to be envied; and to that point I shall always direct my
course.”

By the departure of Sir Richard Hughes Nelson was left senior
officer upon the station until his own return home, a twelvemonth
later. In November he renewed his acquaintance with Prince
William Henry, whom he had known as a midshipman in 1782, and who
now came to the Leeward Islands a post-captain, in command of the
frigate “Pegasus.” The two young men were not far apart in age,
and an intimacy between them soon arose, which ended only with
the death of Nelson. The latter had a profound reverence for
royalty, both as an institution and as represented in its
members; and to this, in the present case, was added a strong
personal esteem, based upon the zeal and efficiency in the
discharge of official duties, which he recognized in one whose
rank would assure him impunity for any mere indifference. The
prince, on the other hand, quickly yielded to the charm of
Nelson’s intercourse, so vividly felt by most who knew him, and
to the contagious enthusiasm which animated his conversation when
talking of his profession. This, also, his ardent imagination
endowed with possibilities and aspirations, not greater, indeed,
than its deserts, but which only the intuitions of a genius like
his could realize and vivify, imparting to slower temperaments
something of his own fire. To this association the prince
afterwards attributed the awakening of that strong interest in
maritime affairs which he retained to the day of his death.
The two friends dined
alternately one with the other, and, in their association of some
six months at this time, they together fought over all the naval
battles that during the recent war had illustrated the waters
through which they were then cruising.

The incessant energy displayed by Nelson, and the agitations
through which he passed during the three years of this stay upon
the West Indian station, again produced distressing symptoms in
his general health. To use his own words, the activity of the
mind was “too much for my puny constitution.” “I am worn to a
skeleton,” he writes to Mr. Suckling in July, 1786; and three
months later to Locker, “I have been since June so very ill that
I have only a faint recollection of anything which I did. My
complaint was in my breast, such a one as I had going out to
Jamaica [in 1777]. The Doctor thought I was in a consumption, and
quite gave me up.” This fear, however, proved unfounded; nor does
there appear at any time to have been any serious trouble with
his lungs.

On the 11th[16] of March, 1787, the marriage of Captain
Nelson to Mrs. Nisbet took place at Nevis. Prince William Henry,
whose rule it was never to visit in any private house, made an
exception on this occasion, having exacted from Nelson a promise
that the wedding should wait until he could be present; and he
gave away the bride. Three months later, on the 7th of June, the
“Boreas” sailed for England, and on the 4th of July anchored at
Spithead. Whether Mrs. Nelson accompanied him in the ship does
not appear certainly; but from several expressions in his letters
it seems most probable that she did. Five days after his arrival
he sent a message from her to
Locker, in terms which indicate that she was with him.

A newly married man, who had just concluded a full cruise of
such arduous and unremitting exertions, might reasonably have
wished and expected a period of relaxation; but the return of the
“Boreas” coincided with a very disturbed state of European
politics. In the neighboring republic of Holland two parties were
striving for the mastery; one of which was closely attached to
France, the other, that of the Stadtholder, to Great Britain. In
1785 the former had gained the upper hand; and, by a treaty
signed on Christmas Day of that year, a decided preponderance in
the councils of the United Provinces had been given to France.
The enfeebled condition of the latter country, however, had
allowed little prospect of permanence to this arrangement; and,
in the summer of 1787, an insult offered by the French party to
the wife of the Stadtholder led to a forcible intervention by the
King of Prussia, whose sister she was. Louis XVI. prepared to
support his partisans, and notified his purpose to Great Britain;
whereupon the latter, whose traditional policy for over a century
had been to resist the progress of French influence in the Low
Countries, replied that she could not remain a quiet spectator,
and at once began to arm. “The Dutch business,” wrote Nelson, “is
becoming every day more serious; and I hardly think we can keep
from a war, without giving forever the weight of the Dutch to the
French, and allowing the Stadtholdership to be
abolished,—things which I should suppose hardly possible.”
Already his eager spirit was panting for the fray. “If we are to
have a bustle, I do not want to come on shore; I begin to think I
am fonder of the sea than ever.” Only five months married!

The threatening aspect of affairs necessitated the “Boreas”
being kept in commission,—the more so because the economies
introduced by Mr. Pitt into the administration of the two military services had reduced the
available naval force below that which France could at once send
out. “The Boreas is kept in readiness to go to sea with the
squadron at Spithead,” wrote Nelson; “but in my poor opinion we
shall go no further at present. The French have eight sail in
Brest water ready for sea: therefore I think we shall not court
the French out of port,”—singular illustration of the
unreadiness of Great Britain in the years immediately preceding
the French Revolution. He looks for war, however, the following
summer. As not only ships, but men also, were urgently needed,
the impress service was hastily organized. His friend Locker was
summoned from his long retirement to superintend that work in
Exeter, and the “Boreas” was ordered to the Thames on the same
business, arriving on the 20th of August at the Nore. There her
duty was to board passing vessels, and take from them as many of
their crew as were above the number barely necessary for the
safety of the ship. She herself, besides acting as receiving ship
for the men thus pressed, was to be kept in readiness to sail at
a moment’s warning. Mrs. Nelson had therefore to leave her and go
to London. “Here we are,” wrote Nelson on the 23d of September,
“laying seven miles from the land on the Impress service, and I
am as much separated from my wife as if I were in the East
Indies;” and he closes the letter with the words, “I am this
moment getting under sail after some ships.”

His early biographers say that Nelson keenly felt and resented
the kind of service in which he was then engaged; so much so
that, moved also by other causes of irritation, he decided at one
time to quit the Navy. No indication of such feeling, however,
appears in his letters. On the contrary, one of the surest signs
with him of pleasurable, or at least of interested, excitement,
was now manifested in his improving health. As he himself said,
many years later, “To say the truth, when I am actively employed
I am not so bad.”[17] A month after
reaching England, though then midsummer, he wrote: “It is not
kind in one’s native air to treat a poor wanderer as it has me
since my arrival. The rain and cold at first gave me a sore
throat and its accompaniments; the hot weather has given me a
slow fever, not absolutely bad enough to keep my bed, yet enough
to hinder me from doing anything;” and again, “I have scarcely
been able to hold up my head.” In blustering October, on the
other hand, while in the midst of the detested Impress work, he
says: “My health, thank God, was never better, and I am fit for
any quarter of the globe;” although “it rains hard, and we have
had very bad weather of late.” Whatever momentary vexation he may
have vented in a hasty expression, it was entirely inconsistent
with his general tone to take amiss an employment whose vital
importance he would have been the first to admit. Lack of zeal,
or haggling about the duty assigned him, was entirely foreign to
his character; that the country needed the men who were to be
pressed was reason sufficient for one of his temper. If, indeed,
there had been an apparent intention to keep him in such
inglorious occupation, and out of the expected war, he might have
chafed; but his orders to be constantly ready indicated the
intention to send him at once to the front, if hostilities began.
Doubtless he was disappointed that the application he made for a
ship-of-the-line was not granted; but he knew that, being still a
very young captain, what he asked was a favor, and its refusal
not a grievance, nor does he seem to have looked upon it
otherwise.

There were, however, some annoyances, which, joined to the
lack of appreciation for his eminent services to the interests of the nation in the West
Indies, must have keenly stung him. Without the slightest
necessity, except that laid upon him by his own public spirit, he
had fought and struggled, and endured three years of hot water to
serve the Government. He might have gone easy, as did the admiral
and the other captains; but instead of so doing he had destroyed
the contraband trade, and re-established the working of laws upon
which the prosperity and security of the kingdom were thought to
depend. For this he had received a perfunctory, formal
acknowledgment, though none apparently from the Admiralty, the
head of his own service. But he soon found that, if slow to
thank, they were prompt to blame, and that with no light hand nor
disposition to make allowances. He had run his head against
various regulations of the bureaucracy; and this let him know,
with all the amenities of official censure, that if they could
not recognize what he had done well, they were perfectly
clear-sighted as to where he had gone wrong.

So far from appreciation, there seems even to have been a
prejudice against Nelson in high quarters, due not only to the
discomposure felt by the routine official, at the rude
irregularities of the man who is more concerned to do his work
than nice about the formalities surrounding it, but also to
misrepresentation by the powerful interests he had offended
through his independent course in the West Indies. After Hughes
had gone home, Nelson, as senior officer on the station, began to
examine the modes of conducting government business, and
especially of making purchases. Conceiving that there were
serious irregularities in these, he suggested to the Civil
Department of the Navy, under whose cognizance the transactions
fell, some alterations in the procedure, by which the senior
naval officer would have more control over the purchases than
simply to certify that so much money was wanted. The Comptroller
of the Navy replied that the old forms were sufficient,—”a circumstance which hurt me,”
wrote Nelson; while all the civil functionaries resented his
interference with their methods, and seem to have received the
tacit support, if not the direct sympathy, of the Navy Board, as
the Civil Department was then called. His disposition to look
into matters, however, had become known, and the long struggle
over the contraband trade had given him in the islands a
reputation for tenacity and success. It was probably in
dependence upon these that two merchants came to him, two months
before he left the station, and told him of the existence of very
extensive frauds, dating back several years, in which were
implicated both civil officials of the Navy and private parties
on shore. It is possible that the informants themselves had
shared in some of these transactions, and they certainly demanded
in payment a part of the sums recovered; but, as Nelson truly
said, the question was not as to their character, but how to stop
the continuance of embezzlements which had then amounted to over
two millions sterling.

The reports made by him upon this subject reached London about
a month before the return of the “Boreas;” but the war scare, and
the urgent call upon all departments of the Navy to mobilize the
available force, prevented any immediate steps being taken. His
letters were acknowledged, and the intention expressed to
investigate the matter, but nothing more was then done. October,
however, the Prussian troops occupied Amsterdam, reinstating the
Stadtholder in all his privileges, and restoring to power the
partisans of Great Britain; while France remained passive, her
power for external action paralyzed by the dying convulsions of
the monarchy. The curtain had just risen upon the opening scene
in the great drama of the Revolution,—the first Assembly of
Notables. Warlike preparations consequently ceased, and on the
30th of November, 1787, the cruise of the “Boreas” came to an
end.

It was during this last
month of servitude, and immediately before quitting the ship,
that Nelson is said to have used the vehement expressions of
discontent with “an ungrateful service,” recorded by his
biographers, concluding with his resolve to go at once to London
and resign his commission. In the absence of the faintest trace,
in his letters, of dissatisfaction with the duty to which the
ship was assigned, it is reasonable to attribute this
exasperation to his soreness under the numerous reprimands he had
received,—a feeling which plainly transpires in some of his
replies, despite the forms of official respect that he
scrupulously observed. Even in much later days, when his
distinguished reputation might have enabled him to sustain with
indifference this supercilious rudeness, he winced under it with
over-sensitiveness. “Do not, my dear lord,” he wrote to Earl
Spencer a year after the battle of the Nile, “let the Admiralty
write harshly to me—my generous soul cannot bear it, being
conscious it is entirely unmerited.” This freedom of censure,
often felt by him to be undeserved, or at least excessive, and
its sharp contrast with the scanty recognition of his unwearied
efforts,—of whose value he himself was by no means
forgetful,—though not unusual in the experience of
officers, are quite sufficient to account for the sense of
neglect and unjust treatment by which he was then outraged. This
feeling was probably accentuated, also, by a renewal of the legal
persecution which had been begun in the West Indies; for towards
the end of the year he received formal notice of suits being
instituted against him for the seizure of the American vessels,
and it is likely enough that some intimation of what was coming
reached him before leaving the “Boreas.” Scanty thanks, liberal
blame, and the prospect of an expensive lawsuit based upon his
official action, constituted, for a poor man lately married,
causes of disturbance which might well have upset his
equanimity.

Lord Howe, who was then at
the head of the Admiralty, though formal and unbending in outward
bearing, was a just and kind man, and one fully appreciative of
professional worth. A mutual friend acquainted him with Nelson’s
irritation, and Howe wrote a private letter asking that he would
call upon him as soon as he came to town. Though quick to resent,
Nelson was easily soothed by attention and pleased by compliment,
even when it rose to flattery,—which Howe’s was not likely
to do. A short interview gave the First Lord a clearer idea than
he before had of the extent, value, and wholly voluntary
character of the services rendered by the young captain in the
West Indies; and he indicated the completeness of his
satisfaction by offering to present him to the King, which was
accordingly done at the next levee. George III. received him
graciously; and the resentment of Nelson, whose loyalty was of
the most extreme type, melted away in the sunshine of royal
favor.

Thus reconciled to the service, and convinced, as in his less
morbid moods he often said, that gratitude and honor, though long
deferred, were sure to follow upon steadfast performance of duty,
he speedily renewed his efforts to bring to light the frauds
practised in the colonies. His letters on the subject to Mr.
Pitt, the Prime Minister, had been turned over to the Secretary
of the Treasury, Mr. George Rose, and upon the latter Nelson now
called. Rose received him at first with that courteous
nonchalance which is the defensive armor of the beset
official,—the name of his visitor, and the business with
which it was connected, had for the moment slipped his mind.
Nelson’s mastery of his subject, however, and his warmth in it,
soon roused the attention of his hearer, who, being then pressed
for time, asked to see him again the next day, stipulating only
that the interview should be early, before office hours. “It
cannot be too early for me,” replied Nelson, whose habit, in his
career as admiral, was to get through his correspondence before eight
o’clock,—”six o’clock, if you please.”

The arrangement was so made, and the consequent meeting lasted
from six to nine the next morning. Of its general nature and
results we have an authentic outline, given in later years to
Nelson’s biographers by Rose, who became, and to the last
remained, his warm personal friend. The conversation ranged,
apparently, over all the chief occurrences in the West Indies
during the cruise of the “Boreas,” including both the naval
frauds and the contraband trade. The breadth and acuteness of
Nelson’s intellect have been too much overlooked, in the
admiration excited by his unusually grand moral endowments of
resolution, dash, and fearlessness of responsibility. Though
scarcely what could be called an educated man, he was one of
close and constant observation, thereby gaining a great deal of
information; and to the use of this he brought a practical
sagacity, which coped with the civil or political questions
placed before it, for action, much as it did with military
questions—for, after all, good generalship, on its
intellectual side, is simply the application, to the solution of
a military problem, of a mind naturally gifted therefor, and
stored with experience, either personal or of others. As a
strategist and tactician, Nelson made full proof of high native
endowments, of wisdom garnered through fruitful study and
meditation, and of clear insight into the determining conditions
of the various military situations with which he had to deal. To
Mr. Rose, the young captain of barely thirty years displayed a
precise knowledge of several political subjects, connected with
the commerce of the country, that would not naturally come under
his notice as an officer, and which therefore the mere seaman
would probably not have imbibed. Not only so, but his suggestions
for dealing practically with the interests at stake were so
judicious, that Rose, a valued associate of Pitt and intimately
acquainted with the financial
measures of that brilliant administrator, complimented him warmly
upon the justice and correctness of his views, the result, as
they were, of reflection based upon a mastery of the data
involved. With Nelson’s consent, he undertook to lay them before
the prime minister, as the direct testimony of a singularly
competent first-hand observer.

It is to be noted, however, of Nelson, that this accuracy of
mental perception, this power of penetrating to the root of a
matter, disregarding unessential details and fastening solely on
decisive features, was largely dependent upon the necessity laid
upon him for action; which is probably equivalent to saying that
it was usually elicited by a sobering sense of responsibility. In
his letters and despatches may be found many wild guesses,
inconsistent from week to week, colored by changing moods and
humors,—the mere passing comments of a mind off
guard,—the records of evanescent impressions as numerous,
fickle, and unfounded as those of the most ordinary mortal. It is
when urgency presses and danger threatens, when the need for
action comes, that his mental energies are aroused, and he begins
to speak, as it were, ex cathedrâ. Then the
unsubstantial haze rolls away; and the solid features of the
scene one by one appear, until, amid all the unavoidable
uncertainties of imperfect information, it becomes plain that the
man has a firm grasp upon the great landmarks by which he must
guide his course. Like the blind, who at first saw men as trees
walking, and then saw everything clearly, so his mental
illumination gradually reduces confusion to order, and from
perplexity evolves correct decision. But what shall be said of
those flashes of insight, as at Cape St. Vincent, elicited in a
moment, as by the stroke of iron on rock, where all the previous
processes of ordered thought and labored reasoning are condensed
into one vivid inspiration, and transmuted without a pause into
instant heroic action? Is that we call “genius” purely a mystery,
of which our only account is
to give it a name? Or is it true, as Napoleon said, that “on the
field of battle the happiest inspiration is often but a
recollection”?

From Rose Nelson went to the Comptroller of the Navy, Sir
Charles Middleton, who afterwards, as Lord Barham, sent him forth
to Trafalgar. Middleton had replied promptly to the first report
of the fraudulent transactions, giving assurance of his readiness
to act, and urging that all the information possible should be
secured, as he feared that the allegations were substantially
true. He now showed the instructions of the Navy Board, under
which its colonial employees acted, to Nelson, who said that, if
honestly followed, they must prevent the unlawful practices; but
that he believed they were habitually violated, and that he
himself, though senior officer on the station, had never before
seen the instructions. This failure to intrust supervision to the
one person upon whom all responsibility should ultimately have
rested, practically neutralized the otherwise laudable methods
prescribed by the Board. It was simply another instance of the
jealousy between the civil and military branches of the naval
organization, which, as is well known, resulted in constant
strained relations between the Admiralty and the Naval
Commissioners, until the latter Board was at last abolished.

It is, fortunately, unnecessary to follow farther this dreary
record of old-time dishonesty. Nelson continued to interest
himself strenuously in the matter for two years after his return
to England, both by letter and interview with persons in
authority. His own position and influence were too insignificant
to effect anything, except by moving the home officials, whose
administration was compromised and embarrassed by the
malpractices of their representatives. Though uphill work, it was
far from fruitless. “His representations,” said Mr. Rose, in a
memorandum furnished to his biographers, “were all attended to,
and every step which he recommended was adopted. He thus put the investigation into a proper
course; which ended in the detection and punishment of some of
the parties whose conduct was complained of.” The broad result
appears to have been that the guilty for the most part escaped
punishment, unless, indeed, some of them lost their positions, of
which no certain information exists; but the corrupt combination
was broken up, and measures were adopted to prevent the
recurrence of the same iniquities. Upon Nelson himself the effect
was twofold. His energy and intelligence could not fail to
impress the powerful men with whom he was in this way brought
into contact. The affair increased his reputation, and made him
more widely known than as a simple captain in the Navy he would
otherwise have been. As the various public Boards whose money had
been stolen realized the amount of the thefts, and the extent of
the conspiracy to rob the Government, they felt their obligations
to him, and expressed them in formal, but warm, letters of
thanks. On the other hand, the principal culprits had command of
both money and influence; and by means of these, as so often
happens, they not only impeded inquiry, but, according to
Southey, who wrote not very long after the events, “succeeded in
raising prejudices against Nelson at the Board of Admiralty which
it was many years before he could subdue.” Clarke and M’Arthur
make the same assertion.

That these prejudices did at one time exist is beyond doubt,
and that they should have been fostered by this means is
perfectly in keeping with common experience. Such intrigues,
however, work in the dark and by indirection; it is not often
easy to trace their course. The independence and
single-mindedness with which Nelson followed his convictions, and
the outspoken frankness with which he expressed his views and
feelings, not improbably gave a handle to malicious
misrepresentation. His known intimacy with Prince William Henry,
upon whose favor he to some extent relied, was also more likely
to do him harm than good; and
he entertained for the royal captain prepossessions not far
removed from partisanship, at a time when the prince avowed
himself not a friend to the present minister. “Amidst that
variety of business which demanded his attention on his return to
England,” say his biographers, “he failed not, by every means in
his power, to fulfil the promise which he had made to his Royal
Highness Prince William of counteracting whatever had been
opposed to the merited reputation of his illustrious pupil, and
to the friendship they had invariably preserved for each other.”
It was a difficult task. Opinionated and headstrong as the King,
his father, the young man was an uneasy subordinate to the
Admiralty, and made those above him realize that he was full as
conscious of his personal rank as of his official position as a
captain in the Navy. It was, indeed, this self-assertive
temperament that afterwards frustrated his natural ambition to be
the active head of the service. Having such an ally, there is
something ominous for Nelson’s own prospects to find him writing
in evident sympathy: “The great folks above now see he will not
be a cypher, therefore many of the rising people must submit to
act subordinate to him, which is not so palatable; and I think a
Lord of the Admiralty is hurt to see him so able, after what he
has said about him. He has certainly not taken a leaf out of his
book, for he is steady in his command and not violent.” Upon this
follows, “He has wrote Lord Hood what I cannot but
approve,”—a sentence unquestionably vague, but which sounds
combative. Nelson had already felt it necessary to caution the
prince to be careful in the choice of those to whom he told his
mind.

In fact, at the time when the letter just quoted was written,
the conduct of the prince had been such as necessarily, and not
wholly unjustly, to prejudice an officer who displayed marked
partisanship for him, such as certainly was indicated by Nelson’s
expressions. He had brought his ship from Newfoundland to Ireland in flat
disobedience of orders, issued by the commander of the station,
to go to Quebec. When this action became known to the Admiralty
by his arrival at Cork, in December, 1787, it was at once
reported to the King, who himself directed that the prince should
proceed to Plymouth with his ship, should remain within the
limits of the port for as many months as he had been absent from
his station, and should then be sent back to Halifax. The Prince
of Wales, afterwards George IV., who was already at variance with
the King, took advantage of this flagrant breach of discipline to
flaunt his opposition before the world. In company with his
second brother, the Duke of York, he went down to Plymouth, and
paid a ceremonious visit to Prince William on board his ship. The
round of festivities necessitated by their presence emphasized
the disagreement between the sovereign and the heir to the
throne, and drew to it public attention. Immediately after this,
in January, 1788, Nelson also visited the prince, having been
summoned by him from London. He could, indeed, scarcely decline,
nor was he at all the man to turn his back on a friend in
difficulty; but, in his fight against corruption, the matter
could scarcely fail to be represented by his opponents under the
worst light to the King, to whom corruption was less odious than
insubordination. If, in conversation, Nelson uttered such
expressions as he wrote to his friend Locker, he had only himself
to blame for the disfavor which followed; for, to a naval
officer, the prince’s conduct should have appeared absolutely
indefensible. In the course of the same year the King became
insane, and the famous struggle about the Regency took place. The
prince had meantime returned to America, in accordance with his
orders, and by the time he again reached England the King had
recovered. He could, therefore, have refrained from any
indication of his own sympathies; but instead of this he openly
associated himself with the party of the Prince of Wales,
whose course throughout, when
it became known to his father, had bitterly displeased the
latter, and accentuated the breach between them. At a banquet
given by the Spanish ambassador in celebration of the King’s
recovery, the three princes sat at a table separate from the rest
of the royal family. A formal reconciliation took place in
September, 1789; but the Duke of Clarence, as he had then become,
continued attached to the Prince of Wales’s clique. Those who
know how party considerations influenced naval appointments at
that time, will in these facts find at least a partial
explanation of the cloud which then hung over Nelson.

Lord Chatham, brother of the minister to whom Prince William
was not a friend, became head of the Admiralty in July, 1788, and
so remained until after the war with France began in 1793. With
him was associated Lord Hood, between whom and Nelson there arose
what the latter called “a difference of opinion,” which led to a
cessation of “familiar correspondence.” The exact date at which
this occurred does not appear, but it was probably before May,
1790; for Hood refused to use his influence to get Nelson a ship,
in the armament which was then ordered on account of a difficulty
with Spain, whereas eighteen months before he had assured him
that in case of hostilities he need not fear not having a good
ship. This refusal was the more marked, because “almost the whole
service was then called out.” On the same occasion, Nelson wrote,
“he made a speech never to be effaced from my memory, viz.: that
the King was impressed with an unfavourable opinion of me.”
Knowing Nelson’s value as an officer as well as Hood did, there
can scarcely remain a doubt that some serious indiscretion, real
or imagined, must have caused this alienation; but of what it was
there is no trace, unless in his evident siding with the prince,
who was then out of favor with both the King and the
administration.

The five years—from
1788 to 1792 inclusive—intervening between the cruise of
the “Boreas” and the outbreak of war with the French Republic,
were thus marked by a variety of unpleasant circumstances, of
which the most disagreeable, to a man of Nelson’s active
temperament, was the apparently fixed resolve of the authorities
to deny him employment. He was harassed, indeed, by the recurring
threats of prosecution for the West India seizures; but both the
Admiralty and the Treasury agreed that he should be defended at
the expense of the Crown,—a fact which tends to show that
his subsequent disfavor arose from some other cause than
disapproval of his official action, however some incidents may
have been misrepresented. On its private side, his life during
this period seems to have been happy, though uneventful; but in
the failure of children he was deprived, both then and
afterwards, of that sweetest of interests, continuous yet ever
new in its gradual unfolding, which brings to the most monotonous
existence its daily tribute of novelty and incident. The fond,
almost rapturous, expressions with which he greeted the daughter
afterwards born to him out of wedlock, shows the blank in his
home,—none the less real because not consciously
realized.

The lack of stimulus to his mind from his surroundings at this
time is also manifested by the fewness of his letters. But thirty
remain to show his occupation during the five years, and
seventeen of these are purely official in character. From the
year 1791 no record survives. His wife being with him, one line
of correspondence was thereby closed; but even to his brother,
and to his friend Locker, he finds nothing to write. For the
ordinary country amusements and pursuits of the English gentry he
had scant liking; and, barring the occasional worry over his
neglect by the Admiralty, there was little else to engage his
attention. The first few months after his release from the
“Boreas” were spent in the West of England, chiefly at Bath, for the recovery of Mrs.
Nelson’s health as well as his own; but toward the latter part of
1788 the young couple went to live with his father at the
parsonage of Burnham Thorpe, and there made their home until he
was again called into active service. “It is extremely
interesting,” say his biographers, “to contemplate this great
man, when thus removed from the busy scenes in which he had borne
so distinguished a part to the remote village of Burnham Thorpe;”
but the interest seems by their account to be limited to the
energy with which he dug in the garden, or, from sheer want of
something to do, reverted to the bird-nesting of his boyhood. His
favorite amusement, we are told, was coursing, and he once shot a
partridge; but his habit of carrying his gun at full cock, and
firing as soon as a bird rose, without bringing the piece to his
shoulder, made him a dangerous companion in a shooting-party. His
own account is somewhat different: “Shoot I cannot, therefore I
have not taken out a license; but notwithstanding the neglect I
have met with I am happy;” and again, to his brother, he says:
“It was not my intention to have gone to the coursing meeting,
for, to say the truth, I have rarely escaped a wet jacket and a
violent cold; besides, to me, even the ride to the Smee is longer
than any pleasure I find in the sport will compensate for.” The
fact is that Nelson cared for none of these things, and the only
deduction of real interest from his letters at this time is the
absolute failure of his home life and affections to content his
aspirations,—the emptiness both of mind and heart, which
caused his passionate eagerness for external employment to fill
the void. Earnestness appears only when he is brooding over the
slight with which he was treated, and the resultant thwarting of
his career. For both mind and heart the future held in store for
him the most engrossing emotions, but it did not therefore bring
him happiness.

Of his frames of mind during this period of neglect and
disfavor, his biographers give a very strongly colored
picture, for which, it is to
be presumed, they drew upon contemporary witnesses that were to
them still accessible. “With a mortified and dejected spirit, he
looked forward to a continuance of inactivity and neglect….
During this interval of disappointment and mortification, his
latent ambition would at times burst forth, and despise all
restraint. At others, a sudden melancholy seemed to overshadow
his noble faculties, and to affect his temper; at those moments
the remonstrances of his wife and venerable father alone could
calm the tempest of his passions.” That Nelson keenly felt the
cold indifference he now underwent, is thoroughly in keeping with
the sensitiveness to censure, expressed or implied, which his
correspondence frequently betrays, while his frail organization
and uncertain health would naturally entail periods of depression
or nervous exasperation; but the general tenor of his letters,
few as they at this time were, shows rather dignified acceptance
of a treatment he had not merited, and a steady resolve not to
waver in his readiness to serve his country, nor to cease asking
an opportunity to do so. Many years later, at a time of still
more sickening suspense, he wrote: “I am in truth half dead, but
what man can do shall be done,—I am not made to despair;”
and now, according to a not improbable story, he closed an
application for employment with the words, “If your Lordships
should be pleased to appoint me to a cockle boat, I shall feel
grateful.” Hood, whose pupil he in a sense was, and who shared
his genius, said of himself, when under a condition of enforced
inactivity: “This proves very strongly the different frames of
men’s minds; some are full of anxiety, impatience, and
apprehension, while others, under similar circumstances, are
perfectly cool, tranquil, and indifferent.”

The latter half of the year 1792 was marked by the rapid
progress in France of the political distemper, which was so soon
to culminate in the worst excesses of the Revolution. The quick succession of symptoms, each
more alarming than the other,—the suspension of the royal
power at the tumultuous bidding of a mob, the September
massacres, the abolition of royalty, the aggressive character of
the National Convention shown by the decrees of November 19 and
December 15,—roused the apprehensions of most thoughtful
men throughout Europe; and their concern was increased by the
growing popular effervescence in other countries than France. The
British cabinet, as was natural, shifted more slowly than did the
irresponsible members of the community; nor could Pitt lightly
surrender his strong instinctive prepossessions in favor of
peace, with the continuance of which was identified the exercise
of his own best powers.

During this stormy and anxious period, Nelson shared the
feelings of his day and class. It is noteworthy, however, that,
in regarding the perils of the time, he was no mere panic-monger,
but showed the same discriminating carefulness of observation
that had distinguished him as captain of the “Boreas,” and had
elicited the admiration of Mr. Rose. Strenuous and even bigoted
royalist as he always was, satisfied of the excellence of the
British Constitution, and condemning utterly the proceedings of
the more or less seditious societies then forming throughout the
kingdom, he yet recognized the substantial grievances of the
working-men, as evident in the district immediately under his
eye. The sympathetic qualities which made him, fortune’s own
favorite in his profession, keenly alive to the hardships,
neglect, and injustice undergone by the common seaman, now
engaged him to set forth the sad lot of the ill-paid rural
peasantry. In his letters to the Duke of Clarence, he on the one
hand strongly blames the weakness and timidity of the justices
and country gentlemen, in their attitude towards the abettors of
lawlessness; but, on the other, he dwells upon the sufferings of
the poor, prepares a careful statement of their earnings and unavoidable expenses, and insists
upon the necessity of the living wage. The field laborers, he
said, “do not want loyalty, many of their superiors, in many
instances, might have imitated their conduct to advantage; but
hunger is a sharp thorn, and they are not only in want of food
sufficient, but of clothes and firing.”

Under the threatening outlook, he considers that every
individual will soon “be called forth to show himself;” and for
his own part, he writes on the 3d of November, he sees no way so
proper as asking for a ship. But, even at that late moment,
neither Pitt nor his associates had abandoned the hope of peace,
and this, as well as other applications of Nelson’s, received
only a formal acknowledgment without encouragement. Roused,
however, by the Convention’s decree of November 19, which
extended the succor of France to all people who should wish to
recover their liberty, and charged the generals of the republic
to make good the offer with the forces under their command, the
ministry decided to abandon their guarded attitude; and their new
resolution was confirmed by the reception, on the 28th of
November, of deputations from British revolutionary societies at
the bar of the Convention, on which occasion the president of the
latter affected to draw a dividing line between the British
government and the British nation. On the 1st of December the
militia was called out by proclamation, and Parliament summoned
to meet on the 15th of the month. On the latter day the
Convention put forth another decree, announcing in the most
explicit terms its purpose to overthrow all existing governments
in countries where the Republican armies could penetrate. Pitt
now changed his front with an instantaneousness and absoluteness
which gave the highest proof of his capacity as a leader of men.
It was not so much that war was then determined, as that the
purpose was formed, once for all, to accept the challenge
contained in the French decree, unless France would discontinue her avowed course of
aggression. Orders were immediately given to increase largely the
number of ships of war in commission.

When danger looms close at hand, the best men, if known, are
not left in the cold shade of official disfavor. “Post nubila
Phoebus,” was the expression of Nelson, astonished for a rarity
into Latin by the suddenness with which the sun now burst upon
him through the clouds. “The Admiralty so smile upon me, that
really I am as much surprised as when they frowned.” On the 6th
of January, 1793, the First Lord, with many apologies for
previous neglect, promised to give him a seventy-four-gun ship as
soon as it was in his power to do so, and that meanwhile, if he
chose to take a sixty-four, he could have one as soon as she was
ready. On the 30th he was appointed to the “Agamemnon,” of the
latter rate. Within the preceding fortnight Louis XVI. had been
beheaded, and the French ambassador ordered to leave England. On
February 1, 1793, two days after Nelson’s orders were issued, the
Republic declared war against Great Britain and Holland.

CHAPTER III.

NELSON’S DEPARTURE FROM ENGLAND
IN THE “AGAMEMNON.”—SERVICES IN THE MEDITERRANEAN UNTIL THE
RECOVERY OF TOULON BY THE FRENCH.—LORD HOOD IN COMMAND.

FEBRUARY-DECEMBER, 1793. AGE, 34.

Nelson’s page in history covers a little more than twelve
years, from February, 1793, to October, 1805. Its opening
coincides with the moment when the wild passions of the French
Revolution, still at fiercest heat, and which had hitherto raged
like flame uncontrolled, operative only for destruction, were
being rapidly mastered, guided, and regulated for efficient work,
by the terrors of the Revolutionary Tribunal and the Committee of
Public Safety. In the object to which these tremendous forces
were now about to be applied lay the threat to the peace of
Europe, which aroused Great Britain to action, and sent into the
field her yet unknown champion from the Norfolk parsonage. The
representatives of the French people had imparted to the original
movement of their nation,—which aimed only at internal
reforms, however radical,—a new direction, of avowed
purposeful aggression upon all political institutions exterior
to, and differing from, their own. This became the one
characteristic common to the successive forms of government,
which culminated in the pure military despotism of Napoleon.

To beat back that spirit of aggression was the mission of
Nelson. Therein is found the true significance of his career,
which mounts higher and higher in strenuous effort and gigantic
achievement, as the blast of the Revolution swells fiercer and stronger under the mighty
impulse of the great Corsican. At each of the momentous crises,
so far removed in time and place,—at the Nile, at
Copenhagen, at Trafalgar,—as the unfolding drama of the age
reveals to the onlooker the schemes of the arch-planner about to
touch success, over against Napoleon rises ever Nelson; and as
the latter in the hour of victory drops upon the stage where he
has played so chief a part, his task is seen to be accomplished,
his triumph secured. In the very act of dying he has dealt the
foe a blow from which recovery is impossible. Moscow and Waterloo
are the inevitable consequences of Trafalgar; as the glories of
that day were but the fit and assured ending of the illustrious
course which was begun upon the quarter-deck of the
“Agamemnon.”

With the exception of the “Victory,” under whose flag he fell
after two years of arduous, heart-breaking uncertainties, no ship
has such intimate association with the career and name of Nelson
as has the “Agamemnon.” And this is but natural, for to her he
was the captain, solely, simply, and entirely; identified with
her alone, glorying in her excellences and in her achievements,
one in purpose and in spirit with her officers and seamen;
sharing their hopes, their dangers, and their triumphs;
quickening them with his own ardor, moulding them into his own
image, until vessel and crew, as one living organism, reflected
in act the heroic and unyielding energy that inspired his feeble
frame. Although, for a brief and teeming period, he while in
command of her controlled also a number of smaller vessels on
detached service, it was not until after he had removed to
another ship that he became the squadron-commander, whose
relations to the vessel on which he himself dwelt were no longer
immediate, nor differed, save in his bodily presence, from those
he bore to others of the same division. A personality such as
Nelson’s makes itself indeed felt throughout its entire sphere of
action, be that large or small; but, withal, diffusion contends in vain with
the inevitable law that forever couples it with slackening power,
nor was it possible even for him to lavish on the various units
of a fleet, and on the diverse conflicting claims of a great
theatre of war, the same degree of interest and influence that he
concentrated upon the “Agamemnon,” and upon the brilliant though
contracted services through which he carried her. Bonds such as
these are not lightly broken, and to the “Agamemnon” Nelson clave
for three long years and more, persistently refusing larger
ships, until the exhausted hulk could no longer respond to the
demands of her masters, and separation became inevitable. When he
quitted her, at the moment of her departure for England, it was
simply a question whether he would abandon the Mediterranean, and
the prospect of a great future there opening before him, or sever
a few weeks earlier a companionship which must in any event end
upon her arrival home.

There is yet another point of view from which his command of
the “Agamemnon” is seen to hold a peculiar relation to Nelson’s
story. This was the period in which expectation passed into
fulfilment, when development, long arrested by unpropitious
circumstances, resumed its outward progress under the benign
influence of a favoring environment, and the bud, whose rare
promise had long been noted by a few discerning eyes, unfolded
into the brilliant flower, destined in the magnificence of its
maturity to draw the attention of a world. To the fulness of his
glorious course these three years were what the days of early
manhood are to ripened age; and they are marked by the same
elasticity, hopefulness, and sanguine looking to the future that
characterize youth, before illusions vanish and even success is
found to disappoint. Happiness was his then, as at no other time
before or after; for the surrounding conditions of enterprise, of
difficulties to be overcome, and dangers to be met, were in
complete correspondence with
those native powers that had so long struggled painfully for room
to exert themselves. His health revived, and his very being
seemed to expand in this congenial atmosphere, which to him was
as life from the dead. As with untiring steps he sped onward and
upward,—counting naught done while aught remained to do,
forgetting what was behind as he pressed on to what was
before,—the ardor of pursuit, the delight of achievement,
the joy of the giant running his course, sustained in him that
glow of animation, that gladness in the mere fact of existence,
physical or moral, in which, if anywhere, this earth’s content is
found. Lack of recognition, even, wrung from him only the
undaunted words: “Never mind! some day I will have a gazette of
my own.” Not till his dreams were realized, till aspiration had
issued in the completest and most brilliant triumph ever wrought
upon the seas, and he had for his gazette the loud homage of
every mouth in Europe,—not till six months after the battle
of the Nile,—did Nelson write: “There is no true happiness
in this life, and in my present state I could quit it with a
smile. My only wish is to sink with honour into the grave.”

The preparation of the Mediterranean fleet, to which the
“Agamemnon” was assigned, was singularly protracted, and in the
face of a well-ordered enemy the delay must have led to
disastrous results. Nelson himself joined his ship at Chatham on
the 7th of February, a week after his orders were issued; but not
until the 16th of March did she leave the dockyard, and then only
for Sheerness, where she remained four weeks longer. By that time
it seems probable, from remarks in his letters, that the material
equipment of the vessel was complete; but until the 14th of April
she remained over a hundred men short of her complement. “Yet, I
think,” wrote Nelson, “that we shall be far from ill-manned, even
if the rest be not so good as they ought to be.” Mobilization in
those days had not been
perfected into a science, even in theory, and the difficulty of
raising crews on the outbreak of war was experienced by all
nations, but by none more than by Great Britain. Her wants were
greatest, and for supply depended upon a merchant service
scattered in all quarters of the globe. “Men are very hard to be
got,” Nelson said to his brother, “and without a press I have no
idea that our fleet can be manned.” It does not appear that this
crude and violent, yet unavoidable, method was employed for the
“Agamemnon,” except so far as her crew was completed from the
guard-ship. Dependence was placed upon the ordinary wiles of the
recruiting-sergeant, and upon Nelson’s own popularity in the
adjacent counties of Suffolk and Norfolk, from which the bulk of
his ship’s company was actually drawn. “I have sent out a
lieutenant and four midshipmen,” he writes to Locker, “to get men
at every seaport in Norfolk, and to forward them to Lynn and
Yarmouth; my friends in Yorkshire and the North tell me they will
send what men they can lay hands on;” but at the same time he
hopes that Locker, then Commander-in-chief at the Nore, will not
turn away any who from other districts may present themselves for
the “Agamemnon.” Coming mainly from the same neighborhood gave to
the crew a certain homogeneousness of character, affording ground
for appeal to local pride, a most powerful incentive in moments
of difficulty and emulation; and this feeling was enhanced by the
thought that their captain too was a Norfolk man. To one
possessing the sympathetic qualities of Nelson, who so readily
shared the emotions and gained the affections of his associates,
it was easy to bind into a living whole the units animated by
this common sentiment.

His stepson, Josiah Nisbet, at this time about thirteen years
old, now entered the service as a midshipman, and accompanied him
on board the “Agamemnon.” The oncoming of a great war naturally
roused to a yet higher pitch
the impulse towards the sea, which in all generations has stirred
the blood of English boys. Of these, Nelson, using his captain’s
privilege, received a number as midshipmen upon his quarter-deck,
among them several from the sons of neighbors and friends, and
therefore, like the crew, Norfolk lads. It is told that to one,
whose father he knew to be a strong Whig, of the party which in
the past few years had sympathized with the general current of
the French Revolution, he gave the following pithy counsels for
his guidance in professional life: “First, you must always
implicitly obey orders, without attempting to form any opinion of
your own respecting their propriety; secondly, you must consider
every man as your enemy who speaks ill of your king; and thirdly,
you must hate a Frenchman as you do the devil.” On the last two
items Nelson’s practice was in full accord with his precept; but
to the first, his statement of which, sound enough in the
general, is open to criticism as being too absolute, he was
certainly not obedient. Not to form an opinion is pushing the
principle of subordination to an indefensible extreme, even for a
junior officer, though the caution not to express it is wise, as
well as becoming to the modesty of youth. Lord Howe’s advice to
Codrington, to watch carefully all that passed and to form his
own conclusions, but to keep them to himself, was in every
respect more reasonable and profitable. But in fact this dictum
of Nelson’s was simply another instance of hating the French as
he did the devil. The French were pushing independence and
private judgment to one extreme, and he instinctively adopted the
other.

It was not till near the end of April that the “Agamemnon”
finally left the Thames, anchoring at Spithead on the 28th of
that month. Still the fleet which Lord Hood was to command was
not ready. While awaiting her consorts, the ship made a short
cruise in the Channel, and a few days later sailed as one of a
division of five ships-of-the-line under Admiral Hotham, to occupy
a station fifty to a hundred miles west of the Channel Islands.
Nelson’s disposition not to form any opinion of his own
respecting the propriety of orders was thus evidenced: “What we
have been sent out for is best known to the great folks in
London: to us, it appears, only to hum the nation and make tools
of us, for where we have been stationed no enemy was likely to be
met with, or where we could protect our own trade.” There can be
no doubt that not only was the practical management of the Navy
at this time exceedingly bad, but that no sound ideas even
prevailed upon the subject. Hotham’s squadron gained from neutral
vessels two important pieces of information,—that Nantes,
Bordeaux, and L’Orient were filled with English vessels, prizes
to French cruisers; and that the enemy kept eight
sail-of-the-line, with frigates in proportion, constantly moving
in detachments about the Bay of Biscay. Under the dispositions
adopted by the British Admiralty, these hostile divisions gave,
to the commerce destroying of the smaller depredators, a support
that sufficiently accounts for the notorious sufferings of
British trade during the opening years of the war. Nelson had no
mastery of the terminology of warfare,—he never talked
about strategy and little about tactics,—but, though
without those valuable aids to precision of thought, he had
pondered, studied, and reasoned, and he had, besides, what is
given to few,—real genius and insight. Accordingly he at
once pierced to the root of the trouble,—the enemy’s
squadrons, rather than the petty cruisers dependent upon them, to
which the damage was commonly attributed. “They are always at
sea, and England not willing to send a squadron to interrupt
them.” But, while instancing this intuitive perception of a man
gifted with rare penetration, it is necessary to guard against
rash conclusions that might be drawn from it, and to remark that
it by no means follows that education is unnecessary to the common run of men, because a
genius is in advance of his times. It is well also to note that
even in him this flash of insight, though unerring in its
indications, lacked the definiteness of conviction which results
from ordered thought. However accurate, it is but a
glimmer,—not yet a fixed light.

Hotham’s division joined the main body under Lord Hood, off
the Scilly Islands, on the 23d of May, the total force then
consisting of eleven sail-of-the-line, with the usual smaller
vessels. It remained cruising in that neighborhood until the 6th
of June, keeping the approaches of the Channel open for a
homeward-bound convoy of merchantmen, which passed on that day.
The fleet then bore up for the Straits, and on the 14th six
ships, the “Agamemnon” among them, parted company for Cadiz,
there to fill up with water, in order to avoid the delays which
would arise if the scanty resources of Gibraltar had to supply
all the vessels. On the 23d this division left Cadiz, reaching
Gibraltar the same evening; and on the 27th Hood, having now with
him fifteen of the line, sailed for Toulon.

Nelson’s mind was already busy with the prospects of the
campaign, and the various naval factors that went to make up the
military situation. “Time must discover what we are going after,”
he writes to his brother; while to Locker he propounds the
problem which always has perplexed the British mind, and still
does,—how to make the French fight, if they are unwilling.
So long as that question remains unsolved, the British government
has to bear the uncertainties, exposure, and expense of a
difficult and protracted defensive. “We have done nothing,” he
says, “and the same prospect appears before us: the French cannot
come out, and we have no means of getting at them in Toulon.” In
“cannot come out,” he alludes to the presence of a Spanish fleet
of twenty-four ships-of-the-line. This, in conjunction with
Hood’s force, would far
exceed the French in Toulon, which the highest estimate then
placed at twenty-one of the line. He had, however, already
measured the capabilities of the Spanish Navy. They have very
fine ships, he admits, but they are shockingly manned,—so
much so that if only the barges’ crews of the six British vessels
that entered Cadiz, numbering at the most seventy-five to a
hundred men, but all picked, could have got on board one of their
first-rates, he was certain they could have captured her,
although her ship’s company numbered nearly a thousand. “If those
we are to meet in the Mediterranean are no better manned,” he
continues, “much service cannot be expected of them.” The
prediction proved true, for no sooner did Hood find the Spanish
admiral than the latter informed him he must go to Cartagena,
having nineteen hundred sick in his fleet. The officer who
brought this message said it was no wonder they were sickly, for
they had been sixty days at sea. This excited Nelson’s
derision—not unjustly. “From the circumstance of having
been longer than that time at sea, do we attribute our getting
healthy. It has stamped with me the extent of their nautical
abilities: long may they remain in their present state.” The last
sentence reveals his intuitive appreciation of the fact that the
Spain of that day could in no true sense be the ally of Great
Britain; for, at the moment he penned the wish, the impotence or
defection of their allies would leave the British fleet actually
inferior to the enemy in those waters. He never forgot these
impressions, nor the bungling efforts of the Spaniards to form a
line of battle. Up to the end of his life the prospect of a
Spanish war involved no military anxieties, but only the prospect
of more prize money.

Among the various rumors of that troubled time, there came one
that the French were fitting their ships with forges to bring
their shot to a red heat, and so set fire to the enemy’s vessel
in which they might lodge. Nelson was promptly ready with a counter and quite
adequate tactical move. “This, if true,” he wrote, “I humbly
conceive would have been as well kept secret; but as it is known,
we must take care to get so close that their red shots may go
through both sides, when it will not matter whether they
are hot or cold.” It is somewhat odd that the extremely diligent
and painstaking Sir Harris Nicolas, in his version of this
letter, should have dropped the concluding sentence, one of the
most important and characteristic occurring in Nelson’s
correspondence at this time.

On the 14th of July Nelson notes that the fleet had received
orders to consider Marseilles and Toulon as invested, and to take
all vessels of whatever nation bound into those ports. He at once
recognized the importance of this step, and the accurate judgment
that dictated it. The British could not, as he said, get at the
enemy in his fortified harbor; but they might by this means
exercise the pressure that would force him to come out.
Undoubtedly, whether on a large or on a small scale, whether it
concern the whole plan of a war or of a campaign, or merely the
question of a single military position, the best way to compel an
unwilling foe to action, and to spoil his waiting game which is
so onerous to the would-be assailant, is to attack him elsewhere,
to cut short his resources, and make his position untenable by
exhaustion. “This has pleased us,” Nelson wrote; “if we make
these red-hot gentlemen hungry, they may be induced to come
out.”

The investment by sea of these two harbors, but especially of
Toulon, as being an important dockyard, was accordingly the
opening move made by the British admiral. On the 16th of July he
approached the latter port, and from that time until August 25 a
close blockade was maintained, with the exception of a very few
days, during which Hood took the fleet off Nice, and thence to
Genoa, to remonstrate with that republic upon its supplying the south of France with grain,
and bringing back French property under neutral papers. “Our
being here is a farce if this trade is allowed,” said Nelson, and
rightly; for so far as appearances then went, the only influence
the British squadrons could exert was by curtailing the supplies
of southern France. That district raised only grain enough for
three months’ consumption; for the remainder of the year’s food
it depended almost wholly upon Sicily and Barbary, its
communications with the interior being so bad that the more
abundant fields of distant French provinces could not send their
surplus.

In the chaotic state in which France was then plunged, the
utmost uncertainty prevailed as to the course events might take,
and rumors of all descriptions were current, the wildest scarcely
exceeding in improbability the fantastic horrors that actually
prevailed throughout the land during these opening days of the
Reign of Terror. The expectation that found most favor in the
fleet was that Provence would separate from the rest of France,
and proclaim itself an independent republic under the protection
of Great Britain; but few looked for the amazing result which
shortly followed, in the delivery of Toulon by its citizens into
the hands of Lord Hood. This Nelson attributed purely to the
suffering caused by the strictness of the blockade. “At
Marseilles and Toulon,” wrote he on the 20th of August, “they are
almost starving, yet nothing brings them to their senses.
Although the Convention has denounced them as traitors, yet even
these people will not declare for anything but Liberty and
Equality.” Three days later, Commissioners from both cities went
on board Hood’s flagship to treat for peace, upon the basis of
re-establishing the monarchy, and recognizing as king the son of
Louis XVI. The admiral accepted the proposal, on condition that
the port and arsenal of Toulon should be delivered to him for
safe keeping, until the restoration of the young prince was
effected. On the 27th of
August the city ran up the white flag of the Bourbons, and the
British fleet, together with the Spanish, which at this moment
arrived on the scene, anchored in the outer port. The allied
troops took possession of the forts commanding the harbor, while
the dockyards and thirty ships-of-the-line were delivered to the
navies.

“The perseverance of our fleet has been great,” wrote Nelson,
“and to that only can be attributed our unexampled success. Not
even a boat could get into Marseilles or Toulon, or on the coast,
with provisions; and the old saying, ‘that hunger will tame a
lion,’ was never more strongly exemplified.” In this he deceived
himself, however natural the illusion. The opposition of Toulon
to the Paris Government was part of a general movement of revolt,
which spread throughout the provinces in May and June, 1793, upon
the violent overthrow of the Girondists in the National
Convention. The latter then proclaimed several cities outlawed,
Toulon among them; and the bloody severities it exercised were
the chief determining cause of the sudden treason, the offspring
of fear more than of hunger,—though the latter doubtless
contributed,—which precipitated the great southern arsenal
into the arms of the Republic’s most dangerous foe. Marseilles
fell before the Conventional troops, and the resultant panic in
the sister city occasioned the hasty step, which in less troubled
moments would have been regarded with just horror. But in truth
Nelson, despite his acute military perceptions, had not yet
developed that keen political sagacity, the fruit of riper
judgment grounded on wider information, which he afterwards
showed. His ambition was yet limited to the sphere of the
“Agamemnon,” his horizon bounded by the petty round of the day’s
events. He rose, as yet, to no apprehension of the mighty crisis
hanging over Europe, to no appreciation of the profound meanings
of the opening strife. “I hardly think the War can last,” he writes to his wife, “for what are
we at war about?” and again, “I think we shall be in England in
the winter or spring.” Even some months later, in December,
before Toulon had reverted to the French, he is completely blind
to the importance of the Mediterranean in the great struggle, and
expresses a wish to exchange to the West Indies, “for I think our
Sea War is over in these seas.”

It is probable, indeed, that in his zeal, thoroughness, and
fidelity to the least of the duties then falling to him, is to be
seen a surer indication of his great future than in any wider
speculations about matters as yet too high for his position. The
recent coolness between him and Lord Hood had been rapidly
disappearing under the admiral’s reviving appreciation and his
own aptitude to conciliation. “Lord Hood is very civil,” he
writes on more than one occasion, “I think we may be good friends
again;” and the offer of a seventy-four-gun ship in place of his
smaller vessel was further proof of his superior’s confidence.
Nelson refused the proposal. “I cannot give up my officers,” he
said, in the spirit that so endeared him to his followers; but
the compliment was felt, and was enhanced by the admiral’s
approval of his motives. The prospective occupation of Toulon
gave occasion for a yet more nattering evidence of the esteem in
which he was held. As soon as the agreement with the city was
completed, but the day before taking possession, Hood despatched
him in haste to Oneglia, a small port on the Riviera of Genoa,
and thence to Naples, to seek from the latter court and that of
Turin[18] a reinforcement of
ten thousand troops to hold the new acquisition. The “Agamemnon”
being a fast sailer undoubtedly contributed much to this
selection; but the character of the commanding officer could not
but be considered on so important, and in some ways delicate, a mission. “I should
have liked to have stayed one day longer with the fleet, when
they entered the harbour,” he wrote to Mrs. Nelson, “but service
could not be neglected for any private gratification,”—a
sentiment she had to hear pretty often, as betrothed and as wife,
but which was no platitude on the lips of one who gave it
constant demonstration in his acts. “Duty is the great business
of a sea officer,” he told his intended bride in early manhood,
to comfort her and himself under a prolonged separation. “Thank
God! I have done my duty,” was the spoken thought that most
solaced his death hour, as his heart yearned towards those at
home whom he should see no more.

About this time he must have felt some touch of sympathy for
the effeminate Spaniards, who were made ill by a sixty days’
cruise. “All we get here,” he writes, “is honour and salt beef.
My poor fellows have not had a morsel of fresh meat or vegetables
for near nineteen weeks; and in that time I have only had my foot
twice on shore at Cadiz. We are absolutely getting sick from
fatigue.” “I am here [Naples] with news of our most glorious and
great success, but, alas! the fatigue of getting it has been so
great that the fleet generally, and I am sorry to say, my ship
most so, are knocked up. Day after day, week after week, month
after month, we have not been two gun shots from Toulon.” The
evident looseness of this statement, for the ship had only been a
little over a month off Toulon, shows the impression the service
had made upon his mind, for he was not prone to such
exaggerations. “It is hardly possible,” he says again, “to
conceive the state of my ship; I have little less than one
hundred sick.” This condition of things is an eloquent testimony
to the hardships endured; for Nelson was singularly successful,
both before and after these days, in maintaining the health of a
ship’s company. His biographers say that during the term of three
years that he commanded the “Boreas” in the West Indies, not a single officer or man
died out of her whole complement,—an achievement almost
incredible in that sickly climate;[19] and he himself records that in his two
months’ chase of Villeneuve, in 1805, no death from sickness
occurred among the seven or eight thousand persons in the fleet.
He attributed these remarkable results to his attention, not
merely to the physical surroundings of the crews, but also to the
constant mental stimulus and interest, which he aroused by
providing the seamen with occupation, frequent amusements, and
change of scene, thus keeping the various faculties in continual
play, and avoiding the monotony which most saps health, through
its deadening influence on the mind and spirits.

The “Agamemnon” reached Naples on the 12th of September, and
remained there four days. Nelson pressed the matter of
reinforcements with such diligence, and was so heartily sustained
by the British minister, Sir William Hamilton, that he obtained
the promise of six thousand troops to sail at once under the
convoy of the “Agamemnon.” “I have acted for Lord Hood,” he
wrote, “with a zeal which no one could exceed;” and a few weeks
later he says: “The Lord is very much pleased with my conduct
about the troops at Naples, which I undertook without any
authority whatever from him; and they arrived at Toulon before
his requisition reached Naples.” It appears, therefore, that his
orders were rather those of a despatch-bearer than of a
negotiator; but that he, with the quick initiative he always
displayed, took upon himself diplomatic action, to further the
known wishes of his superior and the common cause of England and
Naples. It was upon this occasion that Nelson first met Lady
Hamilton, who exercised so
marked an influence over his later life; but, though she was
still in the prime of her singular loveliness, being yet under
thirty, not a ripple stirred the surface of his soul, afterward
so powerfully perturbed by this fascinating woman. “Lady
Hamilton,” he writes to his wife, “has been wonderfully kind and
good to Josiah [his stepson]. She is a young woman of amiable
manners, and who does honour to the station to which she is
raised.” His mind was then too full of what was to be done; not
as after the Nile, when, unstrung by reaction from the exhausting
emotions of the past months, it was for the moment empty of
aspiration and cloyed with flattery only.

The prospect of sailing with the convoy of troops, as well as
of a few days’ repose for the wearied ship’s company, was cut
short by the news that a French ship of war, with some merchant
vessels in convoy, had anchored on the Sardinian coast. Although
there were at Naples several Neapolitan naval vessels, and one
Spaniard, none of them moved; and as the Prime Minister sent the
information to Nelson, he felt bound to go, though but four days
in port. “Unfit as my ship was, I had nothing left for the honour
of our country but to sail, which I did in two hours afterwards.
It was necessary to show them what an English man-of-war would
do.” The expected enemy was not found, and, after stretching
along the coast in a vain search, the “Agamemnon” put into
Leghorn on the 25th of September, nine days after leaving
Naples,—to “absolutely save my poor fellows,” wrote her
captain to his brother. But even so, he purposed staying at his
new anchorage but three days, “for I cannot bear the thought of
being absent from the scene of action” at Toulon. In the same
letter he mentions that since the 23d of April—five
months—the ship had been at anchor only twenty days.

The unwavering resolution and prompt decision of his character thus crop out at every
step. In Leghorn he found a large French frigate, which had been
on the point of sailing when his ship came in sight. “I am
obliged to keep close watch to take care he does not give me the
slip, which he is inclined to do. I shall pursue him, and leave
the two Courts [Great Britain and Tuscany] to settle the
propriety of the measure, which I think will not be strictly
regular. Have been up all night watching him—ready to cut
the moment he did.” The enemy, however, made no movement, and
Nelson was not prepared to violate flagrantly the neutrality of
the port. On the 30th of September he sailed, and on the 5th of
October rejoined Lord Hood off Toulon, where four thousand of the
Neapolitan troops, for which he had negotiated, had already
arrived.

The high favor in which the admiral had held him ten years
before in the West Indies, though slightly overcast by the
coolness which arose during the intervening peace, had been
rapidly regained in the course of the present campaign; and the
customary report of his proceedings during the six weeks’ absence
could not but confirm Hood in the assurance that he had now to
deal with a very exceptional character, especially fitted for
separate and responsible service. Accordingly, from this time
forward, such is the distinguishing feature of Nelson’s career as
a subordinate. He is selected from among many competitors,
frequently his seniors, for the performance of duty outside the
reach of the commander-in-chief, but requiring the attention of
one upon whose activity, intelligence, and readiness, the fullest
dependence could be placed. Up to the battle of the
Nile,—in which, it must always be remembered, he commanded
a squadron detached from the main fleet, and was assigned to it
in deliberate preference to two older
flag-officers,—Nelson’s life presents a series of detached
commands, independent as regarded the local scene of operations,
and his method of attaining the prescribed end with the force allotted to him, but
dependent, technically, upon the distant commanders-in-chief,
each of whom in succession, with one accord, recognized his
singular fitness. The pithy but characteristic expression said to
have been used by Earl St. Vincent, when asked for instructions
about the Copenhagen expedition,—”D—n it, Nelson,
send them to the devil your own way,”—sums up accurately
enough the confidence shown him by his superiors. He could not
indeed lift them all to the height of his own conceptions,
fearlessness, and enterprise; but when they had made up their
minds to any particular course, they were, each and all,
perfectly willing to intrust the execution to him. Even at
Copenhagen he was but second in command, though conspicuously
first in achievement. It was not till the opening of the second
war of the French Revolution, in May, 1803, that he himself had
supreme charge of a station,—his old familiar
Mediterranean.

Being held in such esteem, it was but a short time before
Nelson was again sent off from Toulon, to which he did not return
during the British occupation. He was now ordered to report to
Commodore Linzee, then lying with a detachment of three
ships-of-the-line in the harbor of Cagliari, at the south end of
Sardinia. On her passage the “Agamemnon” met and engaged a French
squadron, of four large frigates and a brig. Though without
decisive results, Nelson was satisfied with his own conduct in
this affair, as was also Lord Hood when it came to his knowledge;
for, one of the frigates being badly crippled, the whole force,
which was on its way to Nice, was compelled to take refuge in
Corsica, where it was far from secure. Two days later, on the
24th of October, Cagliari was reached, and the “Agamemnon”
accompanied the division to Tunis, arriving there on the 1st of
November.

Linzee’s mission was to try and detach the Bey from the French
interest, and it was hoped he could be induced to allow the seizure of a number of
French vessels which had entered the port, under the convoy of a
ship-of-the-line and four frigates. When the British entered, the
frigates had disappeared, being in fact the same that Nelson had
fought ten days before. In accordance with his instructions,
Linzee strove to persuade the Bey that the Republican government,
because of its revolutionary and bloodthirsty character, should
receive no recognition or support from more regular states, not
even the protection usually extended by a neutral port, and that
in consequence he should be permitted to seize for Great Britain
the vessels in Tunis. The Turk may possibly have overlooked the
fallacy in this argument, which assumed that the protection
extended by neutral governments was rather for the benefit of the
belligerent than for the quiet and safety of its own waters; but
he was perfectly clear-sighted as to his personal advantage in
the situation, for the French owners, in despair of getting to
France, were selling their cargoes to him at one third their
value. To the argument that the French had beheaded their king,
he drily replied that the English had once done the same; and he
decisively refused to allow the ships to be molested. Nelson was
disgusted that his consent should have been awaited. “The English
seldom get much by negotiation except the being laughed at, which
we have been; and I don’t like it. Had we taken, which in my
opinion we ought to have done, the men-of-war and convoy, worth
at least £300,000, how much better we could have
negotiated:—given the Bey £50,000, he would have been
glad to have put up with the insult offered to his dignity;” and
he plainly intimates his dissatisfaction with Linzee. This
irresponsible and irreflective outburst was, however, only an
instance of the impatience his enterprising, energetic spirit
always felt when debarred from prompt action, whether by good or
bad reasons; for almost on the same day he expresses the sounder
judgment: “Had we latterly attempted to take them I am sure the Bey would
have declared against us, and done our trade some damage.” No
advantage could have accrued from the seizure of the French
vessels, at all proportioned to the inconvenience of having the
hostility of Tunis, flanking as it did the trade routes to the
Levant. The British had then quite enough on their hands, without
detaching an additional force from the north coast of the
Mediterranean, to support a gratuitous quarrel on the south. As a
matter of mere policy it would have been ill-judged.

Nelson, however, did not as yet at all realize the wideness of
the impending struggle, for it was in these very letters that he
expressed a wish to exchange to the West Indies. “You know,” he
writes to his old friend Locker, “that Pole is gone to the West
Indies. I have not seen him since his order, but I know it was a
thing he dreaded. Had I been at Toulon I should have been a
candidate for that service, for I think our sea war is over in
these seas.” Perhaps his intrinsic merit would have retrieved
even such a mistake as we can now see this would have been, and
he would there have come sooner into contact with Sir John
Jervis—to whom, if to any one, the name of patron to Nelson
may be applied—for Jervis then had the West India command;
but it is difficult to imagine Nelson’s career apart from the
incidents of his Mediterranean service. The Mediterranean seems
inseparable from his name, and he in the end felt himself
identified with it beyond all other waters.

His longing for action, which prompted the desire for the West
Indies, was quickly gratified, for orders were received from
Hood, by Linzee, to detach him from the latter’s command. The
admiral sent him a very handsome letter upon his single-handed
combat with the French frigates, and directed him to go to the
north end of Corsica, to take charge of a division of vessels he
would there find cruising, and to search for his late enemies
along that coast and through
the neighboring waters, between the island and the shores of
Italy. He was also to warn off neutral vessels bound to Genoa,
that port being declared blockaded, and to seize them if they
persisted in their voyage thither. “I consider this command as a
very high compliment,” wrote Nelson to his uncle Suckling, “there
being five older captains in the fleet.” This it certainly
was,—a compliment and a prophecy as well.

In pursuance of these orders Nelson left Tunis on the 30th of
November, and on the 8th of December discovered the French
squadron, protected by shore batteries, in San Fiorenzo Bay, in
Corsica. This island, which during the middle ages, and until
some twenty years before the beginning of the French Revolution,
was a dependency of Genoa, had then by the latter been ceded to
France, against the express wishes of the inhabitants, whose
resistance was crushed only after a prolonged struggle. Although
it was now in open revolt against the Revolutionary government,
the troops of the latter still held three or four of the
principal seaports, among them the northern one in which the
frigates then lay, as well as Bastia upon the east coast of the
island, and Calvi on the west. His force being insufficient to
engage the works of any of these places, there was nothing for
Nelson to do but to blockade them, in hopes of exhausting their
resources and at least preventing the escape of the ships of war.
In this he was successful, for the latter either were destroyed
or fell into the hands of Great Britain, when the ports were
reduced.

Meanwhile affairs at Toulon were approaching the crisis which
ended its tenure by the British and their allies. The garrison
had never been sufficient to man properly the very extensive
lines, which the peculiar configuration of the surrounding
country made it necessary to occupy for the security of the town;
and the troops themselves were not only of different nations, but
of very varying degrees of efficiency. Under these conditions the key of the
position, accurately indicated by Napoleon Bonaparte, then a
major and in command of the artillery, was held in insufficient
force, and was successfully stormed on the night of December 16,
1793. It was immediately recognized that the ships could no
longer remain in the harbor, and that with them the land forces
also must depart. After two days of hurried preparations, and an
attempt, only partially successful, to destroy the dockyard and
French ships of war, the fleets sailed out on the 19th of
December, carrying with them, besides the soldiery, as many as
possible of the wretched citizens, who were forced to fly in
confusion and misery from their homes, in order to escape the
sure and fearful vengeance of the Republican government. The
“Agamemnon” was in Leghorn, getting provisions, when the
fugitives arrived there, and Nelson speaks in vivid terms of the
impression made upon him by the tales he heard and the sights he
saw. “Fathers are here without families, and families without
fathers, the pictures of horror and despair.” “In short, all is
horror. I cannot write all: my mind is deeply impressed with
grief. Each teller makes the scene more horrible.” He expressed
the opinion that the evacuation was a benefit to England, and it
unquestionably was. He had not always thought so; but it must be
allowed that the hopes and exultation with which he greeted the
acquisition of the place had sufficient foundation, in the
reported attitude of the people of Southern France, to justify
the first opinion as well as the last. The attempt was worth
making, though it proved unsuccessful. As it was, the occupation
had resulted in a degree of destruction to the French ships and
arsenal in Toulon, which, though then over-estimated, was a real
gain to the allies.

CHAPTER IV.

REDUCTION OF CORSICA BY THE
BRITISH.—DEPARTURE OF LORD HOOD FOR ENGLAND.—THE
“AGAMEMNON” REFITTED AT LEGHORN.

JANUARY-DECEMBER, 1794. AGE, 35.

Map of Northern Italy and Corsica
Full-resolution image

By the loss of Toulon the British fleet in the Mediterranean
was left adrift, without any secure harbor to serve as a depot
for supplies and a base for extended operations. Hood took his
ships to Hyères Bay, a few miles east of Toulon, a spot
where they could lie safely at anchor, but which was unsuitable
for a permanent establishment,—the shores not being tenable
against French attack. He now turned his eyes upon Corsica,
whence the celebrated native chieftain, Paoli, who had led the
natives in their former struggle against France, had made
overtures to him, looking to the union of the island to the
British crown. Nelson in person, or, during his brief absence in
Leghorn, his division, had so closely invested the shores, that
neither troops nor supplies of any kind had been able to enter
since the early part of December, nor had the blockaded vessels
been able to get out. The thoroughness with which this work was
done brought him, on the 6th of January, 1794, yet further
compliments from Hood, who wrote him that “he looked upon these
frigates as certain, trusting to my zeal and activity, and knows,
if it is in the power of man to have them, I will secure them.”
At the same time he was instructed to enter into communication
with Paoli, and settle plans for the landing of the troops. In
attending to this commission his intermediary was Lieutenant
George Andrews, brother to
the lady to whom he had become attached at St. Omer, and who had
afterwards been a midshipman with him on board the “Boreas.”
“This business going through my hands,” he wrote with just pride,
“is a proof of Lord Hood’s confidence in me, and that I shall
pledge myself for nothing but what will be acceptable to him.” It
was indeed evident that Hood was more and more reposing in him a
peculiar trust, a feeling which beyond most others tends to
increase by its own action. Nelson repaid him with the most
unbounded admiration. “The Lord is very good friends with me,” he
writes; “he is certainly the best officer I ever saw. Everything
from him is so clear it is impossible to misunderstand him.” “His
zeal, his activity for the honour and benefit of his country,” he
says at another time, “are not abated. Upwards of seventy, he
possesses the mind of forty years of age. He has not a thought
separated from honour and glory.” The flattering proofs of his
superior’s esteem, and the demand made upon his natural powers to
exert themselves freely, had a very beneficial effect upon his
health and spirits. It was not effort, however protracted and
severe, but the denial of opportunity to act, whether by being
left unemployed or through want of information, that wore Nelson
down. “I have not been one hour at anchor for pleasure in eight
months; but I can assure you I never was better in health.”

Meanwhile a commission from the fleet arrived in Corsica. Sir
Gilbert Elliot, the representative of the British government in
the island, was at its head, and with him were associated two
army officers, one of whom afterwards became widely celebrated as
Sir John Moore. A satisfactory agreement being concluded, Hood
sailed from Hyères Bay with the ships and troops, and
operations began against San Fiorenzo, terminating in the
evacuation of the place by the French, who upon the 19th of
February retreated by land to Bastia. Nelson was not immediately
connected with this
undertaking; but he had the satisfaction of knowing that two of
the four frigates, of whose detention in the island he was the
immediate cause, were here lost to the enemy. He was during these
weeks actively employed harrying the coast—destroying
depots of stores on shore, and small vessels laden with supplies.
These services were mainly, though not entirely, rendered in the
neighborhood of Bastia, a strongly fortified town, which was to
become the next object of the British efforts, and the scene of
his own exertions. There, also, though on a comparatively small
scale, he was to give striking evidence of the characteristics
which led him on, step by step, to his great renown.

When Hood himself took command at San Fiorenzo, he relieved
Nelson from that part of his charge, and sent him on the 7th of
February to blockade Bastia,—a strictly detached service,
and one of the utmost importance, as upon the intercepting of
supplies the issue of the siege largely turned. Three weeks
later, on the 1st of March, Nelson wrote: “We are still in the
busy scene of war, a situation in which I own I feel pleasure,
more especially as my actions have given great satisfaction to my
commander-in-chief. The blocking up of Corsica he left to me: it
has been accomplished in the most complete manner, not a boat got
in, nor a soldier landed, although eight thousand men were
embarked at Nice;” and, he might have added, although a vessel
was said to sail from Nice every thirty-six hours. Nor was his
activity confined to blockading. He continually reconnoitered the
town and the works, in doing which on the 23d of February he
engaged the batteries at short range, with the “Agamemnon” and
two frigates,—the action lasting for nearly two hours.
While it was at its height, the heads of the British columns,
coming from San Fiorenzo, only twelve miles distant by land, were
seen upon the heights overlooking Bastia from the rear. “What a
noble sight it must have been” to them! wrote Nelson enthusiastically, in the ardor of
his now opening career,—for it must be remembered that this
hero of a hundred fights was even then but beginning to taste
that rapture of the strife, in which he always breathed most
freely, as though in his native element.

Bastia, as he saw it and reported to Lord Hood, was a walled
town with central citadel, of some ten thousand inhabitants, on
the east coast of Corsica, and twenty miles south of Cape Corso,
the northern extremity of the island. The main fortifications
were along the sea-front; but there was, besides, a series of
detached works on either flank and to the rear. The latter not
only guarded the approaches from the interior, but also, being
situated on the hills, much above the town, were capable of
commanding it, in case of an enemy gaining possession. Nelson,
while modestly disclaiming any presumptuous dependence upon his
own judgment, expressed a decided opinion, based upon the
engagement of the 23d, that the “Agamemnon” and the frigates
could silence the fire of the sea-front, batter down the walls,
and that then five hundred troops could carry the place by
assault. “That the works on the hills would annoy the town
afterwards is certain, but the enemy being cut off from all
supplies—the provisions in the town being of course in our
possession—would think of nothing but making the best terms
they could for themselves.” To his dismay, however, and to the
extreme annoyance of the admiral, General Dundas, commanding the
army, refused to move against Bastia, condemning the attempt as
visionary and rash. Meantime the French, unmolested except by the
desultory efforts of the insurgent Corsicans, were each day
strengthening their works, and converting the possibilities
Nelson saw into the impossibilities of the cautious general.

Hood on the 25th of February came round from San Fiorenzo to
Bastia; but he purposely brought with him no captain senior to
Nelson, in order that the latter might remain in charge of the operations he had begun so
well. When Dundas retreated again to San Fiorenzo, Hood on the 3d
of March followed him there with the flagship, to urge his
co-operation; leaving Nelson with six frigates to conduct the
blockade and take such other steps as the opportunities might
justify. By the middle of March, nearly three months having
elapsed since her last hasty visit to Leghorn, the “Agamemnon”
was wholly destitute of supplies. “We are really,” wrote Nelson
to Hood, “without firing, wine, beef, pork, flour, and almost
without water: not a rope, canvas, twine, or nail in the ship.
The ship is so light she cannot hold her side to the wind…. We
are certainly in a bad plight at present, not a man has slept dry
for many months. Yet,” he continues, with that indomitable energy
which made light of mere difficulties of material, and conveys so
impressive a lesson to our modern days, when slight physical
defects appear insurmountable, and ships not wholly up to date
are counted obsolete,—”yet if your Lordship wishes me to
remain off Bastia, I can, by going to Porto Ferrajo, get water
and stores, and twenty-four hours in Leghorn will give us
provisions; and our refitting, which will take some time, can be
put off a little. My wish is to be present at the attack of
Bastia.”

On the 18th of March Hood summoned him to San Fiorenzo. The
difference between him and Dundas had become a quarrel, and the
latter had quitted his command. Hood wished to strengthen the
argument with his successor, by a report of the observations made
by Nelson; but the latter records that, after expressing his
opinion that eight hundred troops with four hundred seamen could
reduce the place, it was found that all the army was united
against an attack, declaring the impossibility of taking Bastia,
even if all the force were united,—and this,
notwithstanding that an engineer and an artillery officer had
visited the scene, and agreed with Nelson that there was a
probability of success. On
the north side both they and he considered the place weak, and at
the same time found the ground favorable for establishing the
siege guns. Moreover, even during the winter gales, he had
succeeded in so closing the sea approaches, while the revolted
Corsicans intercepted those by land, that a pound of coarse bread
was selling for three francs. The spring equinox was now near at
hand, and with better weather the blockade would be yet more
efficient. Between actual attack and famine, he argued, the place
must fall. “Not attacking it I could not but consider as a
national disgrace. If the Army will not take it, we must, by some
way or other.”

If every particular operation of war is to be considered by
itself alone, and as a purely professional question, to be
determined by striking a balance between the arguments pro and
con, it is probable that the army officers were right in their
present contention. In nothing military was scientific accuracy
of prediction so possible as in forecasting the result and
duration of a regular siege, where the force brought to bear on
either side could be approximately known. But, even in this most
methodical and least inspired of processes, the elements of
chance, of the unforeseen, or even the improbable, will enter,
disturbing the most careful calculations. For this reason, no
case must be decided purely on its individual merits, without
taking into account the other conditions of the campaign at
large. For good and sufficient reasons, the British had
undertaken, not to conquer a hostile island, but to effect the
deliverance of a people who were already in arms, and had
themselves redeemed their country with the exception of two or
three fortified seaports, for the reduction of which they
possessed neither the materials nor the technical skill. To pause
in the movement of advance was, with a half-civilized race of
unstable temperament, to risk everything. But besides, for the
mere purpose of the blockade, it was imperative to force the
enemy as far as possible to contract his lines. Speaking of a new work thrown
up north of the town, Nelson said with accurate judgment: “It
must be destroyed, or the Corsicans will be obliged to give up a
post which the enemy would immediately possess; and of course
throw us on that side at a greater distance from Bastia.” The
result would be, not merely so much more time and labor to be
expended, nor yet only the moral effect on either party, but also
the uncovering of a greater length of seaboard, by which supplies
might be run into the town.

The strength of the place, in which, when it fell, were found
“seventy-seven pieces of ordnance with an incredible amount of
stores,” was far superior to that estimated by the eye of Nelson,
untrained as an engineer. Not only so, but the force within the
walls was very much larger than he thought, when he spoke with
such confidence. “I never yet told Lord Hood,” he wrote nearly a
year later, “that after everything was fixed for the attack of
Bastia, I had information given me of the enormous number of
troops we had to oppose us; but my own honour, Lord Hood’s
honour, and the honour of our Country must have all been
sacrificed, had I mentioned what I knew; therefore you will
believe what must have been my feelings during the whole siege,
when I had often proposals made to me by men, now rewarded, to
write to Lord Hood to raise the siege.” “Had this been an English
town,” he said immediately after the surrender, “I am sure it
would not have been taken by them. The more we see of this place,
the more we are astonished at their giving it up, but the truth
is, the different parties were afraid to trust each other.” The
last assertion, if correct, conveys just one of those incidents
which so frequently concur to insure the success of a step
rightly taken, as that of Nelson and Hood in this instance
certainly was. “Forty-five hundred men,” he continues, “have laid
down their arms to under twelve hundred troops and seamen. If
proofs were wanting to show
that perseverance, unanimity, and gallantry, can accomplish
almost incredible things, we are an additional instance.”

“I always was of opinion,” he wrote in the exultation of
reaction from the weight of responsibility he had assumed by his
secrecy,—”I always was of opinion, have ever acted up to
it, and never have had any reason to repent it, that one
Englishman was equal to three Frenchmen.” This curious bit of the
gasconade into which Nelson from time to time lapsed, can
scarcely be accepted as a sound working theory, or as of itself
justifying the risk taken; and yet it undoubtedly, under a
grossly distorted form, portrays the temperament which enabled
him to capture Bastia, and which made him what he was,—a
man strong enough to take great chances for adequate ends. “All
naval operations undertaken since I have been at the head of the
government,” said Napoleon, “have always failed, because the
admirals see double, and have learned—where I do not
know—that war can be made without running risks.” It is not
material certainty of success, the ignis fatuus which is
the great snare of the mere engineer, or of the merely
accomplished soldier, that points the way to heroic achievements.
It is the vivid inspiration that enables its happy possessor, at
critical moments, to see and follow the bright clear line, which,
like a ray of light at midnight, shining among manifold doubtful
indications, guides his steps. Whether it leads him to success or
to failure, he may not know; but that it is the path of wisdom,
of duty, and of honor, he knows full well by the persuasion
within,—by conviction, the fortifier of the reason, though
not by sight, the assurance of demonstration. Only a man capable
of incurring a disaster like that at Teneriffe could rise to the
level of daring, which, through hidden perils, sought and wrought
the superb triumph of Aboukir Bay. Such is genius, that rare but
hazardous gift, which separates a man from his fellows by
a chasm not to be bridged by
human will. Thus endowed, Nelson before the walls of Bastia
showed, though in a smaller sphere, and therefore with a lighter
hazard, the same keen perception, the same instant decision, the
same unfaltering resolve, the same tenacity of purpose, that, far
over and beyond the glamour of mere success, have rendered
eternally illustrious the days of St. Vincent, of the Nile, and
of Copenhagen.

Of the spirit which really actuated him, in his unwavering
support of Lord Hood’s inclination to try the doubtful issue,
many interesting instances are afforded by his correspondence. “I
feel for the honour of my Country, and had rather be beat than
not make the attack. If we do not try we can never be successful.
I own I have no fears for the final issue: it will be conquest,
certain we will deserve it. My reputation depends on the opinion
I have given; but I feel an honest consciousness that I have done
right. We must, we will have it, or some of our heads will be
laid low. I glory in the attempt.” “What would the immortal Wolfe
have done?” he says again, refreshing his own constancy in the
recollection of an equal heroism, crowned with success against
even greater odds. “As he did, beat the enemy, if he perished in
the attempt.” Again, a fortnight later: “We are in high health
and spirits besieging Bastia; the final event, I feel assured,
will be conquest.” When the siege had already endured for a
month, and with such slight actual progress as to compel him to
admit to Hood that the town battery had been “put in such a
state, that firing away many shot at it is almost useless till we
have a force sufficient to get nearer,” his confidence remains
unabated. “I have no fears about the final issue,” he writes to
his wife; “it will be victory, Bastia will be ours; and if so, it
must prove an event to which the history of England can hardly
boast an equal.” Further on in the same letter he makes a
prediction, so singularly accurate as to excite curiosity
about its source: “I will
tell you as a secret, Bastia will be ours between the 20th and
24th of this month”—three weeks after the date of
writing—”if succours do not get in.” It surrendered
actually on the 22d. One is tempted to speculate if there had
been any such understanding with the garrison as was afterwards
reached with Calvi; but there is no other token of such an
arrangement. It is instructive also to compare this high-strung
steadfastness of purpose to dare every risk, if success perchance
might be won thereby, with his comment upon his own impulses at a
somewhat later date. “My disposition cannot bear tame and slow
measures. Sure I am, had I commanded our fleet on the 14th, that
either the whole French fleet would have graced my triumph, or I
should have been in a confounded scrape.” Surely the secret of
great successes is in these words.

The siege of Bastia was not in its course productive of
striking events. Having reasoned in vain with the two successive
generals, Hood demanded that there should be sent back to him a
contingent of troops, which had originally been detailed to serve
as marines in the fleet, but which he had loaned to the army for
the operations against San Fiorenzo. Having received these, he
returned to Bastia, and on the 4th of April, 1794, the besieging
force, twelve hundred troops and two hundred and fifty seamen,
landed to the northward of the town. They at once began to throw
up batteries, while the Corsicans harassed the landward
approaches to the place. Nelson being with the troops, the
“Agamemnon” with some frigates was anchored north of the city,
Hood with his ships south of it. During the nights, boats from
the fleet rowed guard near to the sea-front, with such diligence
that few of the craft that attempted to run in or out succeeded
in so doing. When darkness covered the waters, British gunboats
crept close to the walls, and by an intermitting but frequent
fire added much to the distress of the enemy. On the 11th of
April the garrison was
formally summoned, and, the expected refusal having been
received, the British batteries opened. There was not force
enough, however, to bring the place to terms as a consequence of
direct attack, and after three weeks Nelson, while betraying no
apprehension of failure, practically admitted the fact. “Although
I have no doubt but even remaining in our present situation, and
by strict guard rowing close to the town, and the Corsicans
harassing them on the hills, and the gunboats by night, but that
the enemy must surrender before any great length of time, yet, if
force can be spared, a successful attack on the heights must much
facilitate a speedy capture. I own it will give me the highest
pleasure to assist in the attack.”

It was by such an attack, or rather by the fear of it, coming
upon the long and exhausting endurance of cannonade and hunger,
that Bastia finally fell. “We shall in time accomplish the taking
of Bastia,” wrote Nelson on the 3d of May. “I have no doubt in
the way we proposed to attempt it, by bombardment and
cannonading, joined to a close blockade of the harbour.” “If
not,” he adds, “our Country will, I believe, sooner forgive an
officer for attacking his enemy than for letting it alone.” On
the 12th a large boat was captured coming out from the port; and
on her were found letters from the governor, Gentili, confessing
the annoyance caused by the British fire, and saying that if
relief did not arrive by the 29th, the place must be looked upon
as lost. Three nights later another boat was caught attempting to
enter. On board her was a brother of the Mayor of Bastia. This
man, while talking with Hood’s secretary, expressed his fears for
the result to his relatives, if the town were carried by assault.
The secretary replied that Hood could not prevent those evils, if
the garrison awaited the attack, and gave the Corsican to
understand that it was imminent, troops being expected from San
Fiorenzo. At the urgent request of the prisoner, one of the seamen taken with him was
permitted to land with a letter, stating the impending danger. By
a singular coincidence, or by skilful contrivance, the San
Fiorenzo troops appeared on the heights upon the evening, May 19,
following this conversation. Flags of truce had already been
hoisted, negotiations were opened, and on the 22d the French
colors were struck and the British took possession. “When I
reflect what we have achieved,” confessed the hitherto outwardly
unmoved Nelson, “I am all astonishment. The most glorious sight
that an Englishman can experience, and which, I believe, none but
an Englishman could bring about, was exhibited,—4,500 men
laying down their arms to less than 1,000 British soldiers, who
were serving as marines.” As towards the French this account is
perhaps somewhat less than fair; but it does no more than justice
to the admirable firmness and enterprise shown by Hood and
Nelson. As a question of Bastia only, their attempt might be
charged with rashness; but having regard to the political and
military conditions, to the instability of the Corsican
character, and to the value of the island as a naval station, it
was amply justified, for the risks run were out of all proportion
less than the advantage to be gained.

Thus the siege of Bastia ended in triumph, despite the prior
pronouncement of the general commanding the troops, that the
attempt was “most visionary and rash.” These epithets, being used
to Hood after his own expressions in favor of the undertaking,
had not unnaturally provoked from him a resentful retort; and, as
men are rarely conciliated by the success of measures which they
have ridiculed, there arose a degree of strained relations
between army and navy, that continued even after the arrival of a
new commander of the land forces, and indeed throughout Hood’s
association with the operations in Corsica.

During this busy and laborious period, despite his burden of
secret anxiety, Nelson’s naturally delicate health showed the favorable reaction,
which, as has before been noted, was with him the usual result of
the call to exertion. His letters steadily reflect, and
occasionally mention, the glow of exultation produced by constant
action of a worthy and congenial nature. “We are in high health
and spirits besieging Bastia,” he writes to his wife soon after
landing; and shortly before the fall of the place he says again:
“As to my health, it was never better, seldom so well.” Yet,
although from beginning to end the essential stay of the
enterprise, the animating soul, without whose positive
convictions and ardent support Lord Hood could scarcely have
dared so great a hazard, he was throughout the siege left,
apparently purposely, in an anomalous position, and was at the
end granted a recognition which, though probably not grudging,
was certainly scanty. No definition of his duties was ever given
by the commander-in-chief. He appears as it were the latter’s
unacknowledged representative ashore, a plenipotentiary without
credentials. “What my situation is,” he writes to a relative, “is
not to be described. I am everything, yet nothing ostensible;
enjoying the confidence of Lord Hood and Colonel Villettes, and
the captains landed with the seamen obeying my orders.” A
fortnight later he writes to Hood: “Your Lordship knows exactly
the situation I am in here. With Colonel Villettes I have no
reason but to suppose I am respected in the highest degree; nor
have I occasion to complain of want of attention to my wishes
from any parties; but yet I am considered as not commanding the
seamen landed. My wishes may be, and are, complied with; my
orders would possibly be disregarded. Therefore, if we move from
hence, I would wish your Lordship to settle that point. Your
Lordship will not, I trust, take this request amiss: I have been
struggling with it since the first day I landed.”

Hood apparently gave him full satisfaction as regards his own
view of the situation. “I am happy,” Nelson wrote, when acknowledging his reply, “that my
ideas of the situation I am in here so perfectly agree with your
Lordship’s;” but he did not settle the matter by a decisive
order. His object, as he seems to have explained, was to bestow a
certain amount of prominence upon a young captain, Hunt, who had
recently lost his ship, and who, Hood thought, would be sooner
provided with another, if he appeared as in command at the guns.
Nelson acceded to this arrangement with his usual generosity.
“Your kind intention to Captain Hunt,” he wrote, “I had the
honour of telling your Lordship, should be furthered by every
means in my power; and my regard for him, I assure you, is
undiminished. He is a most exceeding good young man, nor is any
one more zealous for the service. I don’t complain of any one,
but an idea has entered into the heads of some under him, that
his command was absolutely distinct from me; and that I had no
authority over him, except as a request.” Unfortunately, Hood, in
his desire to serve Hunt, not only unduly but absurdly minimized
Nelson’s relations to the whole affair. His despatch ran:
“Captain Nelson, of his Majesty’s ship Agamemnon, who had the
command and directions of the seamen in landing the guns,
mortars and stores,[20] and Captain Hunt who commanded at
the batteries,[20] … have an equal claim to my gratitude.” To
limit Nelson’s share in the capture of Bastia to the purely
subsidiary though important function of landing the guns, was as
unjust as it was unnecessary to the interests of Hunt. The
latter, being second in command ashore, and afterwards sent home
with the despatches, was sure to receive the reward customarily
bestowed upon such services.

The incident singularly and aptly illustrates the difference,
which in a military service cannot be too carefully kept in mind,
between individual expressions of opinion, which may be biassed,
and professional reputation, which, like public sentiment, usually settles at last not
far from the truth. Despite this curious inversion of the facts
by Lord Hood, there probably was no one among the naval forces,
nor among the soldiery, who did not thoroughly, if perchance
somewhat vaguely, appreciate that Nelson was the moving spirit of
the whole operation, even beyond Hood himself. As the Greek
commanders after Salamis were said to have voted the award of
merit each to himself first, but all to Themistocles second, so
at Bastia, whatever value individuals might place on their own
services, all probably would have agreed that Nelson came
next.

The latter meantime was happily unconscious of the wrong done
him, so that nothing marred the pleasure with which he
congratulated the commander-in-chief, and received the latter’s
brief but hearty general order of thanks, wherein Nelson’s own
name stood foremost, as was due both to his seniority and to his
exertions. When the despatch reached him, he freely expressed his
discontent in letters to friends; but being, at the time of its
reception, actively engaged in the siege of Calvi, the
exhilaration of that congenial employment for the moment took the
edge off the keenness of his resentment. “Lord Hood and myself
were never better friends—nor, although his Letter
does,[21] did he wish to put me where I never
was—in the rear. Captain Hunt, who lost his ship, he wanted
to push forward for another,—a young man who never was on a
battery, or ever rendered any service during the siege; if any
person ever says he did, then I submit to the character of a
story-teller. Poor Serocold, who fell here,[22] was determined to
publish an advertisement, as he commanded a battery under my
orders. The whole operations of the siege were carried on through
Lord Hood’s letters to me. I was the mover of it—I was the
cause of its success. Sir Gilbert Elliot will be my evidence, if any is required. I am not
a little vexed, but shall not quarrel.” “I am well aware,” he had
written to Mrs. Nelson a few days before, “my poor services will
not be noticed: I have no interest; but, however services may be
received, it is not right in an officer to slacken his zeal for
his Country.”

These noble words only voiced a feeling which in Nelson’s
heart had all the strength of a principle; and this light of the
single eye stood him in good stead in the moments of bitterness
which followed a few months later, when a lull in the storm of
fighting gave the sense of neglect a chance to rankle. “My heart
is full,” he writes then to his uncle Suckling, speaking not only
of Bastia, but of the entire course of operations in Corsica,
“when I think of the treatment I have received: every man who had
any considerable share in the reduction has got some place or
other—I, only I, am without reward…. Nothing but my
anxious endeavour to serve my Country makes me bear up against
it; but I sometimes am ready to give all up.” “Forgive this
letter,” he adds towards the end: “I have said a great deal too
much of myself; but indeed it is all too true.” In similar strain
he expressed himself to his wife: “It is very true that I have
ever served faithfully, and ever has it been my fate to be
neglected; but that shall not make me inattentive to my duty. I
have pride in doing my duty well, and a self-approbation, which
if it is not so lucrative, yet perhaps affords more pleasing
sensations.” Thus the consciousness of duty done in the past, and
the clear recognition of what duty still demanded in the present
and future, stood him in full stead, when he failed to receive at
the hands of others the honor he felt to be his due, and which,
he never wearied in proclaiming, was in his eyes priceless, above
all other reward. “Corsica, in respect of prizes,” he wrote to
Mrs. Nelson, “produces nothing but honour, far above the
consideration of wealth: not that I despise riches, quite the
contrary, yet I would not
sacrifice a good name to obtain them. Had I attended less than I
have done to the service of my Country, I might have made some
money too: however, I trust my name will stand on record, when
the money-makers will be forgot,”—a hope to be abundantly
fulfilled.

At the moment Bastia fell there arrived from England a new
commander-in-chief for the land forces, General Stuart, an
officer of distinguished ability and enterprise. Cheered by the
hope of cordial co-operation, Hood and Nelson resumed without
delay their enthusiastic efforts. Within a week, on the 30th of
May, the latter wrote that the “Agamemnon” was taking on board
ammunition for the siege of Calvi, the last remaining of the
hostile strongholds. In the midst of the preparations, at eleven
P.M. of June 6, word was received that nine French
ships-of-the-line had come out of Toulon, and were believed to be
bound for Calvi, with reinforcements for the garrison. At seven
the next morning the squadron was under way; the “Agamemnon,”
which had two hundred tons of ordnance stores to unload, sailing
only half an hour after her less encumbered consorts, whom she
soon overtook.

Hood shaped his course for Calvi, being constrained thereto,
not only by the rumor of the enemy’s destination, but also by the
military necessity of effecting a junction with the rest of his
fleet. Admiral Hotham, who commanded the British division of
seven ships in front of Toulon, instead of waiting to verify the
report brought to him of the enemy’s force,—which was
actually the same, numerically, as his own,—bore up hastily
for Calvi, intending, so wrote Nelson at the time, to fight them
there, rather than that they should throw in succors. Whatever
their numbers, thus to surrender touch of them at the beginning
was an evident mistake, for which, as for most mistakes, a
penalty had in the end to be paid; and in fact, if the relief of
Calvi was the object of the sortie, the place to fight was evidently as far from there
as possible. Off Toulon, even had Hotham been beaten, his
opponents would have been too roughly handled to carry out their
mission. As it was, this precipitate retirement lost the British
an opportunity for a combat that might have placed their control
of the sea beyond peradventure; and a few months later, Nelson,
who at first had viewed Hotham’s action with the generous
sympathy and confident pride which always characterized his
attitude towards his brother officers, showed how clearly he was
reading in the book of experience the lessons that should
afterwards stand himself in good stead. “When ‘Victory’ is gone,”
he wrote, “we shall be thirteen sail of the line [to the French
fifteen], when the enemy will keep our new Commanding Officer
[Hotham] in hot water, who missed, unfortunately, the opportunity
of fighting them, last June.” Ten years later, in his celebrated
chase of Villeneuve’s fleet, he said to his captains: “If we meet
the enemy we shall find them not less than eighteen, I rather
think twenty, sail of the line, and therefore do not be surprised
if I should not fall on them immediately [he had but
eleven]—we won’t part[23] without a battle;” and he expressed with the
utmost decision his clear appreciation that even a lost battle,
if delivered at the right point or at the right moment, would
frustrate the ulterior objects of the enemy, by crippling the
force upon which they depended. As will be seen in the sequel,
Hotham, throughout his brief command as Hood’s successor,
suffered the consequences of permitting so important a fraction
of the enemy’s fleet to escape his grasp, when it was in his
power to close with it.

The British divisions met off the threatened port two days
after leaving Bastia, and two hours later a lookout frigate
brought word that the French fleet had been seen by her the
evening before, to the northward and westward, some forty miles off its own coast. Hood at
once made sail in pursuit, and in the afternoon of the 10th of
June caught sight of the enemy, but so close in with the shore
that they succeeded in towing their ships under the protection of
the batteries in Golfe Jouan, where, for lack of wind, he was
unable to follow them for some days, during which they had time
to strengthen their position beyond his powers of offence.
Hotham’s error was irreparable. The “Agamemnon” was then sent
back to Bastia, to resume the work of transportation, which
Nelson pushed with the untiring energy that characterized all his
movements. Arriving on the 12th, fifteen hundred troops were
embarked by eight the next morning, and at four in the afternoon
he sailed, having with him two smaller ships of war and
twenty-two transports. On the 15th he anchored at San
Fiorenzo.

Here he met General Stuart. The latter was anxious to proceed
at once with the siege of Calvi, but asked Nelson whether he
thought it proper to take the shipping to that exposed position;
alluding to the French fleet that had left Toulon, and which Hood
was then seeking. Nelson’s reply is interesting, as reflecting
the judgment of a warrior at once prudent and enterprising,
concerning the influence of a hostile “fleet in being” upon a
contemplated detached operation. “I certainly thought it right,”
he said, “placing the firmest reliance that we should be
perfectly safe under Lord Hood’s protection, who would take care
that the French fleet at Gourjean[24] should not molest us.” To Hood he wrote a
week later: “I believed ourselves safe under your Lordship’s
wing.” At this moment he thought the French to be nine
sail-of-the-line to the British thirteen,—no contemptible
inferior force. Yet that he recognized the possible danger from
such a detachment is also clear; for, writing two days earlier,
under the same belief as to the enemy’s strength, and speaking of the expected approach of
an important convoy, he says: “I hope they will not venture up
till Lord Hood can get off Toulon, or wherever the French fleet
are got to.” When a particular opinion has received the extreme
expression now given to that concerning the “fleet in being,” and
apparently has undergone equally extreme misconception, it is
instructive to recur to the actual effect of such a force, upon
the practice of a man with whom moral effect was never in excess
of the facts of the case, whose imagination produced to him no
paralyzing picture of remote contingencies. Is it probable that,
with the great issues of 1690 at stake, Nelson, had he been in
Tourville’s place, would have deemed the crossing of the Channel
by French troops impossible, because of Torrington’s “fleet in
being”?

Sailing again on June 16, the expedition arrived next day off
Calvi. Although it was now summer, the difficulties of the new
undertaking were, from the maritime point of view, very great.
The town of Calvi, which was walled and had a citadel, lies upon
a promontory on the west side of an open gulf of the same name, a
semicircular recess, three miles wide by two deep, on the
northwest coast of Corsica. The western point of its shore line
is Cape Revellata; the eastern, Point Espano. The port being
fortified and garrisoned, it was not practicable to take the
shipping inside, nor to establish on the inner beach a safe base
for disembarking. The “Agamemnon” therefore anchored outside,
nearly two miles south of Cape Revellata, and a mile from shore,
in the excessive depth of fifty-three fathoms; the transports
coming-to off the cape, but farther to seaward. The water being
so deep, and the bottom rocky, the position was perilous for
sailing-ships, for the prevailing summer wind blows directly on
the shore, which is steep-to and affords no shelter. Abreast the
“Agamemnon” was a small inlet, Porto Agro, about three miles from
Calvi by difficult approaches. Here Nelson landed on the 18th with
General Stuart; and, after reconnoitring both the beach and the
town, the two officers decided that, though a very bad landing,
it was the best available. On the 19th, at 7 A.M., the troops
disembarked. That afternoon Nelson himself went ashore to stay,
taking with him two hundred and fifty seamen. The next day it
came on to blow so hard that most of the ships put to sea, and no
intercourse was had from the land with those which remained. The
“Agamemnon” did not return till the 24th. Lord Hood was by this
time in San Fiorenzo Bay, having abandoned the hope of attacking
the French fleet in Golfe Jouan. On the 27th he arrived off
Calvi, and thenceforth Nelson was in daily communication with him
till the place fell.

As the army in moderate, though not wholly adequate, force
conducted the siege of Calvi, under a general officer of vigorous
character, the part taken by Nelson and his seamen, though
extremely important, and indeed essential to the ultimate
success, was necessarily subordinate. It is well to notice that
his journal, and correspondence with Lord Hood, clearly recognize
this, his true relation to the siege of Calvi; for it makes it
probable that, in attributing to himself a much more important
part at Bastia, and in saying that Hood’s report had put him
unfairly in the background, he was not exaggerating his actual
though ill-defined position there. That Nelson loved to dwell in
thought upon his own achievements, that distinction in the eyes
of his fellows was dear to him, that he craved recognition, and
was at times perhaps too insistent in requiring it, is true
enough; but there is no indication that he ever coveted the
laurels of others, or materially misconceived his own share in
particular events. Glory, sweet as it was to him, lost its value,
if unaccompanied by the consciousness of desert which stamps it
as honor. It is, therefore, not so much for personal achievement
as for revelation of
character that this siege has interest in his life.

Besides the defences of the town proper, Calvi was protected
by a series of outworks extending across the neck of land upon
which it lay. Of these the outermost was on the left, looking
from the place. It flanked the approaches to the others, and
commanded the communications with the interior. It was, by
Nelson’s estimate, about twenty-two hundred yards from the town,
and had first to be reduced. By the 3d of July thirteen long
guns, besides a number of mortars and howitzers, had been dragged
from the beach to the spot by the seamen, who also assisted in
placing them in position, and for the most part worked them in
battle, an artillerist from the army pointing. Nelson, with
Captain Hallowell, already an officer of mark and afterwards one
of distinction, took alternate day’s duty at the batteries, a
third captain, Serocold, having fallen early in the siege.
Fearing news might reach his wife that a naval captain had been
killed, without the name being mentioned, he wrote to her of this
sad event, adding expressively: “I am very busy, yet own I am in
all my glory; except with you, I would not be anywhere but where
I am, for the world.” On July 7th the first outwork fell. The
attack upon the others was then steadily and systematically
prosecuted, until on the 19th all had been captured, and the
besiegers stood face to face with the town walls.

During this time Nelson, as always, was continually at the
front and among the most exposed. Out of six guns in the battery
which he calls “ours,” five were disabled in six days. On the
12th at daylight, a heavy fire opened from the town, which, he
says, “seldom missed our battery;” and at seven o’clock a shot,
which on the ricochet cleared his head by a hair’s breadth, drove
sand into his face and right eye with such violence as to
incapacitate him. He spoke lightly and cheerfully of the incident
to Lord Hood, “I got a
little hurt this morning: not much, as you may judge by my
writing,” and remained absent from duty only the regular
twenty-four hours; but, after some fluctuations of hope, the
sight of the eye was permanently lost to him. Of General Stuart’s
conduct in the operations he frequently speaks with cordial
admiration. “He is not sparing of himself on any occasion, he
every night sleeps with us in the advanced battery. If I may be
allowed to judge, he is an extraordinary good judge of ground. No
officer ever deserved success more.” At the same time he
expresses dissatisfaction with some of the subordinate army
officers, to whose inefficiency he attributes the necessity for
undue personal exertion on the general’s part: “The General is
not well. He fatigues himself too much, but I can’t help seeing
he is obliged to do it. He has not a person to forward his
views,—the engineer sick, the artillery captain not fit for
active service; therefore every minute thing must be done by
himself, or it is not done at all.”

The work was tedious and exhausting, and the malaria of the
hot Corsican summer told heavily on men’s health and patience.
The supply of ammunition, and of material of war generally, for
the army seems to have been inadequate; and heavy demands were
made upon the fleet, not only for guns, which could be returned,
but for powder and shot, the expenditure of which might prove
embarrassing before they could be renewed. The troops also were
not numerous enough, under the climatic conditions, to do all
their own duty. In such circumstances, when two parties are
working together to the same end, but under no common control,
each is prone to think the other behindhand in his work and
exacting in his demands. “Why don’t Lord Hood land 500 men to
work?” said Colonel Moore, the general’s right-hand man. “Our
soldiers are tired.” Nelson, on the other hand, thought that
Moore wanted over-much battering done to the breach of a work, before he led the
stormers to it; and Hood, who was receiving frequent reports of
the preparations of the French fleet in Toulon, was impatient to
have the siege pushed, and thought the army dilatory. “The
rapidity with which the French are getting on at Toulon,” he
wrote confidentially to Nelson, “makes it indispensably necessary
for me to put the whole of the fleet under my command in the best
possible state for service; and I must soon apply to the general
for those parts of the regiments now on shore, ordered by his
Majesty to serve in lieu of marines, to be held in readiness to
embark at the shortest notice. I shall delay this application as
long as possible.”

Nelson, being a seaman, sympathized of course with his own
service, and with Hood, for whom he had most cordial admiration,
both personal and professional. But at the same time he was on
the spot, a constant eye-witness to the difficulties of the
siege, a clear-headed observer, with sound military instincts,
and fair-minded when facts were before him. The army, he wrote to
Hood, is harassed to death, and he notices that it suffers from
sickness far more than do the seamen. He repeats the request for
more seamen, and, although he seems to doubt the reasonableness
of the demand, evidently thinks that they should be furnished, if
possible. Hood accordingly sent an additional detachment of three
hundred, raising the number on shore to the five hundred
suggested by Moore. “I had much rather,” he wrote, “that a
hundred seamen should be landed unnecessarily, than that one
should be kept back that was judged necessary.” On the other
hand, when the general, after a work bearing on the bay had been
destroyed, suggests that the navy might help, by laying the ships
against the walls, Nelson takes “the liberty of observing that
the business of laying wood before walls was much altered of
late,” and adds the common-sense remark, that “the quantity of
powder and shot which would
be fired away on such an attack could be much better directed
from a battery on shore.” This conversation took place
immediately after all the outworks had been reduced. It was
conducted “with the greatest politeness,” he writes, and “the
General thanked me for my assistance, but it was necessary to
come to the point whether the siege should be persevered in or
given up. If the former, he must be supplied with the means,
which were more troops, more seamen to work, and more
ammunition.” Nelson replied that, if the requisite means could
not be had on the spot, they could at least hold on where they
were till supplied from elsewhere.

It will be noticed that Nelson was practically the
intermediary between the two commanders-in-chief. In fact, there
appears to have been between them some constraint, and he was at
times asked to transmit a message which he thought had better go
direct. In this particularly delicate situation, one cannot but
be impressed with the tact he for the most part shows, the
diplomatic ability, which was freely attributed to him by his
superiors in later and more influential commands. This was
greatly helped by his cordial good-will towards others, combined
with disinterested zeal for the duty before him; the whole
illumined by unusual sagacity and good sense. He sees both sides,
and conveys his suggestions to either with a self-restraint and
deference which avert resentment; and he preserves both his
calmness and candor, although he notices in the camp some
jealousy of his confidential communication with his immediate
superior, the admiral. Though never backward to demand what he
thought the rights of himself or his associates, Nelson was
always naturally disposed to reconcile differences, to minimize
causes of trouble, and this native temperament had not yet
undergone the warping which followed his later
wounds—especially that on the head received at the
Nile—and the mental conflict into which he was plunged by
his unhappy passion for Lady
Hamilton. At this time, in the flush of earlier enthusiasm,
delighting as few men do in the joy of battle, he strove to
promote harmony, to smooth over difficulties by every exertion
possible, either by doing whatever was asked of him, or by
judicious representations to others. Thus, when Hood, impatient
at the disturbing news from Toulon, wishes to hasten the
conclusion by summoning the garrison, in the hope that it may
yield at once, the general objected, apparently on the ground
that the statement of their own advantages, upon which such a
summons might be based, would be prejudicial, if, as was most
probable, the demand was rejected. Whatever his reason, Nelson,
though indirectly, intimates to Hood that in this matter he
himself agrees, upon the whole, with the general, and Hood yields
the point,—the more so that he learns from Nelson that the
outposts are to be stormed the next night; and sorely was the
captain, in his judicious efforts thus to keep the peace, tried
by the postponement of the promised assault for twenty-four
hours. “Such things are,” he wrote to Hood, using a
favorite expression. “I hope to God the general, who seems a good
officer and an amiable man, is not led away; but Colonel Moore is
his great friend.”

Admiral, Lord
Hood

The feeling between the land and sea services was emphasized
in the relations existing between Lord Hood and Colonel Moore,
who afterwards, as Sir John Moore, fell gloriously at Corunna. To
these two eminent officers fortune denied the occasion to make
full proof of their greatness to the world; but they stand in the
first rank of those men of promise whose failure has been due,
not to their own shortcomings, but to the lack of opportunity.
Sir John Moore has been the happier, in that the enterprise with
which his name is chiefly connected, and upon which his title to
fame securely rests, was completed, and wrought its full results;
fortunate, too, in having received the vindication of that great
action at the hands of the most eloquent of military historians. His country
and his profession may well mourn a career of such fair opening
so soon cut short. But daring and original in the highest degree
as was the march from Salamanca to Sahagun, it did not exceed,
either in originality or in daring, the purposes nourished by
Lord Hood, which he had no opportunity so to execute as to
attract attention. Condemned to subordinate positions until he
had reached the age of seventy, his genius is known to us only by
his letters, and by the frustrated plans at St. Kitts in 1782,
and at Golfe Jouan in 1794, in the former of which, less
fortunate than Moore, he failed to realize his well-grounded hope
of reversing, by a single blow, the issues of a campaign.

It is to be regretted that two such men could not understand
each other cordially. Hood, we know from his letters, was “of
that frame and texture that I cannot be indifferent,”—”full
of anxiety, impatience, and apprehension,”—when service
seemed to him slothfully done. Moore, we are told by Napier,
“maintained the right with vehemence bordering upon fierceness.”
Had he had the chief command on shore, it is possible that the
two, impetuous and self-asserting though they were, might have
reached an understanding. But in the most unfortunate
disagreement about Bastia,—wherein it is to a naval officer
of to-day scarcely possible to do otherwise than blame the sullen
lack of enterprise shown by the army,—and afterwards at
Calvi, Moore appeared to Hood, and to Nelson also, as the
subordinate, the power behind the throne, who was prompting a
line of action they both condemned. No position in military life
is more provocative of trouble than to feel you are not dealing
with the principal, but with an irresponsible inferior; and the
situation is worse, because one in which it is almost impossible
to come to an issue. Moore’s professional talent and force of
character naturally made itself felt, even with a man of Stuart’s ability. Hood and Nelson
recognized this, and they resented, as inspired by a junior, what
they might have combated dispassionately, if attributed to the
chief. There was friction also between Moore and Elliot, the
viceroy of the island. Doubtless, as in all cases where
suspicion, not to say jealousy, has been begot, much more and
worse was imagined by both parties than actually occurred. The
apportionment of blame, or prolonged discussion of the matter, is
out of place in a biography of Nelson. To that it is of moment,
only because it is proper to state that Nelson, on the spot and
in daily contact,—Nelson, upon whose zeal and entire
self-devotion at this period no doubt is cast,—agreed in
the main with Hood’s opinion as to what the latter called the San
Fiorenzo leaven, of which Moore was to them the exponent. It is
true that Nelson naturally sympathized with his profession and
his admiral, whom he heartily admired; but some corrective, at
least, to such partiality, was supplied by his soreness about the
latter’s omission duly to report his services at Bastia, of which
he just now became aware. The estrangement between the two
commanders-in-chief was doubtless increased by the apparent
reluctance, certainly the lack of effort, to see one another
frequently.

The principal work, called by Nelson the Mozelle battery, was
carried before daylight of July 19, and before dark all the
outposts were in the hands of the British. “I could have wished
to have had a little part in the storm,” wrote Nelson,
characteristically covetous of strenuous action, “if it was only
to have placed the ladders and pulled away the palisadoes.
However, we did the part allotted to us.” That day a summons was
sent to the garrison, but rejected, and work upon batteries to
breach the town walls was then pushed rapidly forward; for it was
becoming more and more evident that the siege must be brought to
an end, lest the entire force of besiegers should become disabled
by sickness. On the 28th the batteries were ready, and General Stuart sent in
word that he would not fire upon the hospital positions, where
indicated by black flags. The besieged then asked for a truce of
twenty-five days, undertaking to lay down their arms, if not by
then relieved. The general and admiral refused, but were willing
to allow six days. This the garrison in turn rejected; and on the
night of the 30th four small vessels succeeded in eluding the
blockading frigates and entering supplies, which encouraged the
besieged. On the 31st the batteries opened, and after thirty-six
hours’ heavy cannonade the town held out a flag of truce. An
arrangement was made that it should surrender on the 10th of
August, if not relieved; the garrison to be transported to France
without becoming prisoners of war.

No relief arriving, the place capitulated on the day named. It
was high time for the besiegers. “We have upwards of one thousand
sick out of two thousand,” wrote Nelson, “and the others not much
better than so many phantoms. We have lost many men from the
season, very few from the enemy.” He himself escaped more easily
than most. To use his own quaint expression, “All the prevailing
disorders have attacked me, but I have not strength enough for
them to fasten upon. I am here the reed amongst the oaks: I bow
before the storm, while the sturdy oak is laid low.” The
congenial moral surroundings, in short,—the atmosphere of
exertion, of worthy and engrossing occupation,—the
consciousness, to him delightful, of distinguished action, of
heroic persistence through toil and danger,—prevailed even
in his physical frame over discomfort, over the insidious
climate, and even over his distressing wound. “This is my ague
day,” he writes when the batteries opened; “I hope so active a
scene will keep off the fit. It has shaken me a good deal; but I
have been used to them, and now don’t mind them much.” “Amongst
the wounded, in a slight manner, is myself, my head being a good deal wounded and my
right eye cut down; but the surgeons flatter me I shall not
entirely lose the sight. It confined me, thank God, only one day,
and at a time when nothing particular happened to be doing.” “You
must not think my hurts confined me,” he tells his wife; “no,
nothing but the loss of a limb would have kept me from my duty,
and I believe my exertions conduced to preserve me in this
general mortality.” In his cheery letters, now, no trace is
perceptible of the fretful, complaining temper, which impaired,
though it did not destroy, the self-devotion of his later career.
No other mistress at this time contended with honor for the
possession of his heart; no other place than the post of duty
before Calvi distracted his desires, or appealed to his
imagination through his senses. Not even Lord Hood’s report of
the siege of Bastia, which here came to his knowledge, and by
which he thought himself wronged, had bitterness to overcome the
joy of action and of self-contentment.

Not many days were required, after the fall of Calvi, to
remove the fleet, and the seamen who had been serving on shore,
from the pestilential coast. Nelson seems to have been intrusted
with the embarkation of the prisoners in the transports which
were to take them to Toulon. He told his wife that he had been
four months landed, and felt almost qualified to pass his
examination as a besieging general, but that he had no desire to
go on with campaigning. On the 11th of August, the day after the
delivery of the place, he was again on board the “Agamemnon,”
from whose crew had been drawn the greatest proportion of the
seamen for the batteries. One hundred and fifty of them were now
in their beds. “My ship’s company are all worn out,” he wrote,
“as is this whole army, except myself; nothing hurts me,—of
two thousand men I am the most healthy. Every other officer is
scarcely able to crawl.” Among the victims of the deadly climate
was Lieutenant Moutray, the
son of the lady to whom, ten years before, he had been so warmly
attracted in the West Indies. Nelson placed a monument to him in
the church at San Fiorenzo.

On the 10th of August the “Agamemnon” sailed from Calvi, and
after a stop at San Fiorenzo, where Hood then was, reached
Leghorn on the 18th. Now that the immediate danger of the siege
was over, Nelson admitted to his wife the serious character of
the injury he had received. The right eye was nearly deprived of
sight,—only so far recovered as to enable him to
distinguish light from darkness. For all purposes of use it was
gone; but the blemish was not to be perceived, unless attention
was drawn to it.

At Leghorn the ship lay for a month,—the first period of
repose since she went into commission, a year and a half before.
While there, the physician to the fleet came on board and
surveyed the crew, finding them in a very weak state, and unfit
to serve. This condition of things gave Nelson hopes that, upon
the approaching departure of Lord Hood for England, the
“Agamemnon” might go with him; for he was loath to separate from
an admiral whose high esteem he had won, and upon whom he looked
as the first sea-officer of Great Britain. Hood was inclined to
take her, and to transfer the ship’s company bodily to a
seventy-four. This he considered no more than due to Nelson’s
distinguished merit and services, and he had indeed offered him
each ship of that rate whose command fell vacant in the
Mediterranean; but the strong sense of attachment to those who
had shared his toils and dangers, of reluctance that they should
see him willing to leave them, after their hard work
together,—that combination of sympathy and tact which made
so much of Nelson’s success as a leader of men,—continued
to prevent his accepting promotion that would sever his ties to
them.

The exigencies of the war in the Mediterranean forbade the
departure, even of a sixty-four with a disabled crew. A full month later her sick-list was
still seventy-seven, out of a total of less than four hundred.
“Though certainly unfit for a long cruise,” Nelson said, “we are
here making a show,”—a military requirement not to be
neglected or despised. He accepted the disappointment, as he did
all service rubs at this period, with perfect temper and in the
best spirit. “We must not repine,” he wrote to his wife on the
12th of October, the day after Hood sailed for England. “Lord
Hood is very well inclined towards me, but the service must ever
supersede all private consideration. I hope you will spend the
winter cheerfully. Do not repine at my absence; before spring I
hope we shall have peace, when we must look out for some little
cottage.” She fretted, however, as some women will; and he, to
comfort her, wrote more sanguinely about himself than the facts
warranted. “Why you should be uneasy about me, so as to make
yourself ill, I know not. I feel a confident protection in
whatever service I may be employed upon; and as to my health, I
don’t know that I was ever so truly well. I fancy myself grown
quite stout.” To his old captain, Locker, he admitted that he
could not get the better of the fever.

Corsica being now wholly in the power of its inhabitants,
allied with and supported by Great Britain, his attention and
interest were engrossed by the French fleet centring upon Toulon,
the dominant factor of concern to the British in the
Mediterranean, where Vice-Admiral Hotham had succeeded Hood as
commander-in-chief. Nelson realizes more and more the mistake
that was made, when a fraction of it was allowed to escape battle
in the previous June. The various reasons by which he had at
first excused the neglect to bring it to action no longer weigh
with him. He does not directly blame, but he speaks of the
omission as an “opportunity lost,”—a phrase than which
there are few more ominous, in characterizing the closely
balanced, yet weighty, decisions, upon which the issues of war
depend. Nothing, he thinks,
can prevent the junction of the two fragments,—then in
Golfe Jouan and Toulon,—one of which, with more resolution
and promptitude on Hotham’s part, might have been struck singly
at sea a few months before; and if they join, there must follow a
fleet action, between forces too nearly equal to insure to Great
Britain the decisive results that were needed. The thought he
afterwards expressed, “Numbers only can annihilate,” was clearly
floating in his brain,—inarticulate, perhaps, as yet, but
sure to come to the birth. “If we are not completely
victorious,—I mean, able to remain at sea whilst the enemy
must retire into port,—if we only make a Lord Howe’s
victory, take a part, and retire into port, Italy is lost.”
Criticism clearly is going on in his mind; and not mere
criticism, (there is enough and to spare of that in the world,
and not least in navies), but criticism judicious, well
considered, and above all fruitful. The error of opportunity lost
he had seen; the error of a partial victory—”a Lord Howe’s
victory,” another opportunity lost—he intuitively
anticipated for the Mediterranean, and was soon to see. He was
already prepared to pass an accurate judgment instantly, when he
saw it. May we not almost hear, thundering back from the clouds
that yet veiled the distant future of the Nile, the words, of
which his thought was already pregnant, “You may be assured I
will bring the French fleet to action the moment I can lay my
hands upon them.”

The year closed with the British fleet watching, as best it
could, the French ships, which, according to Nelson’s
expectation, had given the blockaders the slip, and had made
their junction at Toulon. There was now no great disparity in the
nominal force of the two opponents, the British having fourteen
ships-of-the-line, the French fifteen; and it was quite in the
enemy’s power to fulfil his other prediction, by keeping Hotham
in hot water during the winter. In the middle of November the
“Agamemnon” had to go to
Leghorn for extensive repairs, and remained there, shifting her
main and mizzen masts, until the 21st of December. Nelson, who
had endured with unyielding cheerfulness the dangers, exposure,
and sickliness of Calvi, found himself unable to bear patiently
the comfort of quiet nights in a friendly port, while hot work
might chance outside. “Lying in port is misery to me. My heart is
almost broke to find the Agamemnon lying here, little better than
a wreck. I own my sincere wish that the enemy would rest quiet
until we are ready for sea, and a gleam of hope sometimes crosses
me that they will.” “I am uneasy enough for fear they will fight,
and Agamemnon not present,—it will almost break my heart;
but I hope the best,—that they are only boasting at
present, and will be quiet until I am ready.” “It is misery,” he
repeats, “for me to be laid up dismantled.”

It was during this period of comparative inactivity in port,
followed by monotonous though arduous winter cruising off Toulon,
which was broken only by equally dreary stays at San Fiorenzo,
that Nelson found time to brood over the neglect of which he
thought himself the victim, in the omission of Lord Hood to
notice more markedly his services in Corsica. It is usually
disagreeable to the uninterested bystander to see an excessive
desire for praise, even under the guise of just recognition of
work done. Words of complaint, whether heard or read, strike a
discord to one who himself at the moment is satisfied with his
surroundings. We all have an instinctive shrinking from the tones
of a grumbler. Nelson’s insistence upon his grievances has no
exemption from this common experience; yet it must be remembered
that these assertions of the importance of his own services, and
dissatisfaction with the terms in which they had been mentioned,
occur chiefly, if not solely, in letters to closest
relations,—to his wife and uncle,—and that they would
never have become known but for the after fame, which has caused
all his most private correspondence to have interest and to be brought
to light. As a revelation of character they have a legitimate
interest, and they reveal, or rather they confirm, what is
abundantly revealed throughout his life,—that intense
longing for distinction, for admiration justly earned, for
conspicuous exaltation above the level of his kind, which existed
in him to so great a degree, and which is perhaps the most
potent—certainly the most universal—factor in
military achievement. They reveal this ambition for honor, or
glory, on its weak side; on its stronger side of noble emulation,
of self-devotion, of heroic action, his correspondence teems with
its evidence in words, as does his life in acts. To quote the
words of Lord Radstock, who at this period, and until after the
battle of Cape St. Vincent, was serving as one of the junior
admirals in the Mediterranean, and retained his friendship
through life, “a perpetual thirst of glory was ever raging within
him.” “He has ever showed himself as great a despiser of riches
as he is a lover of glory; and I am fully convinced in my own
mind that he would sooner defeat the French fleet than capture
fifty galleons.”

After all allowance made, however, it cannot be denied that
there is in these complaints a tone which one regrets in such a
man. The repeated “It was I” jars, by the very sharpness of its
contrast, with the more generous expressions that abound in his
correspondence. “When I reflect that I was the cause of
re-attacking Bastia, after our wise generals gave it over,
from not knowing the force, fancying it 2,000 men; that it was I,
who, landing, joined the Corsicans, and with only my ship’s party
of marines, drove the French under the walls of Bastia; that it
was I, who, knowing the force in Bastia to be upwards of 4,000
men, as I have now only ventured to tell Lord Hood, landed with
only 1,200 men, and kept the secret till within this week
past;—what I must have felt during the whole siege may be
easily conceived. Yet I am scarcely mentioned. I freely forgive, but cannot forget. This and
much more ought to have been mentioned. It is known that, for two
months, I blockaded Bastia with a squadron; only fifty sacks of
flour got into the town. At San Fiorenzo and Calvi, for two
months before, nothing got in, and four French frigates could not
get out, and are now ours. Yet my diligence is not mentioned; and
others, for keeping succours out of Calvi for a few summer
months, are handsomely mentioned. Such things are. I have
got upon a subject near my heart, which is full when I think of
the treatment I have received…. The taking of Corsica, like the
taking of St. Juan’s, has cost me money. St. Juan’s cost near
£500; Corsica has cost me £300, an eye, and a cut
across my back; and my money, I find, cannot be repaid me.”

As regards the justice of his complaints, it seems to the
author impossible to read carefully Hood’s two reports, after the
fall of Bastia and that of Calvi, and not admit, either that
Nelson played a very unimportant part in the general operations
connected with the reduction of Corsica, with which he became
associated even before it was effectively undertaken, and so
remained throughout; or else that no due recognition was accorded
to him in the admiral’s despatches. Had he not become otherwise
celebrated in his after life, he would from these papers be
inferred to stand, in achievement, rather below than above the
level of the other captains who from time to time were present.
That this was unfair seems certain; and notably at Calvi, where,
from the distance of the operations from the anchorage, and the
strained relations which kept Hood and Stuart apart, he was
practically the one naval man upon whose discretion and zeal
success depended. It is probable, however, that the failure to do
him justice proceeded as much from awkward literary construction,
phrases badly turned, as from reluctance to assign due prominence
to one subordinate among several others.

How readily, yet how keenly, he derived satisfaction, even from slight tributes of
recognition, is shown by the simplicity and pleasure with which
he quoted to Mrs. Nelson the following words of Sir Gilbert
Elliot, the Viceroy of Corsica, then and always a warm friend and
admirer: “I know that you, who have had such an honourable share
in this acquisition, will not be indifferent at the prosperity of
the Country which you have so much assisted to place under His
Majesty’s government.” “Whether these are words of course and to
be forgotten,” wrote Nelson, “I know not; they are pleasant,
however, for the time.” Certainly his demands for praise, if thus
measured, were not extreme.

CHAPTER V.

NELSON’S SERVICES WITH THE FLEET
IN THE MEDITERRANEAN UNDER ADMIRAL HOTHAM.—PARTIAL FLEET
ACTIONS OF MARCH 13 AND 14, AND JULY 13.—NELSON ORDERED TO
COMMAND A DETACHED SQUADRON CO-OPERATING WITH THE AUSTRIAN ARMY
IN THE RIVIERA OF GENOA.

JANUARY-JULY, 1795. AGE, 36.

From the naval point of view, as a strategic measure, the
acquisition of Corsica by the British was a matter of great
importance. It was, however, only one among several factors,
which went to make up the general military and political
situation in the Mediterranean at the end of the year 1794.
Hitherto the exigencies of the well-nigh universal hostilities in
which France had been engaged, and the anarchical internal state
of that country, had prevented any decisive operations by her on
the side of Italy, although she had, since 1792, been formally at
war with the Kingdom of Sardinia, of which Piedmont was a
province.

At the close of 1794 the conditions were greatly modified. In
the north, the combined forces of Great Britain, Austria, and
Holland had been driven out of France and Belgium, and the United
Provinces were on the point of submission. On the east, the
Austrians and Prussians had retreated to the far bank of the
Rhine, and Prussia was about to withdraw from the coalition,
which, three years before, she had been so eager to form. On the
south, even greater success had attended the French armies, which
had crossed the Pyrenees into Spain, driving before them the forces of the enemy, who also
was soon to ask for peace. It was therefore probable that
operations in Italy would assume greatly increased activity, from
the number of French soldiers released elsewhere, as well as from
the fact that the Austrians themselves, though they continued the
war in Germany, had abandoned other portions of the continent
which they had hitherto contested.

The political and military conditions in Italy were, briefly,
as follows. The region north of the Maritime Alps and in the
valley of the Po was, for the most part, in arms against
France,—the western province, Piedmont, as part of the
Kingdom of Sardinia, whose capital was at Turin, and, to the
eastward of it, the duchies of Milan and Mantua, as belonging to
Austria. The governments of the numerous small states into which
Northern and Central Italy were then divided—Venice, Genoa,
Tuscany, the States of the Church, and others—sympathized
generally with the opponents of France, but, as far as possible,
sought to maintain a formal though difficult neutrality. The
position of Genoa was the most embarrassing, because in direct
contact with all the principal parties to the war. To the
westward, her territory along the Riviera included Vintimiglia,
bordering there on the county of Nice, and contained Vado Bay,
the best anchorage between Nice and Genoa. To the eastward, it
embraced the Gulf of Spezia, continually mentioned by Nelson as
Porto Especia.

The occupation of the Riviera was of particular moment to the
French, for it offered a road by which to enter Italy,—bad,
indeed, but better far than those through the passes of the upper
Alps. Skirting the sea, it afforded a double line of
communications, by land and by water; for the various detachments
of their army, posted along it, could in great degree be supplied
by the small coasting-vessels of the Mediterranean. So long,
also, as it was in their
possession, and they held passes of the Maritime Alps and
Apennines, as they did in 1794, there was the possibility of
their penetrating through them, to turn the left flank of the
Sardinian army in Piedmont, which was, in fact, what Bonaparte
accomplished two years later. These inducements had led the
French to advance into the county of Nice, then belonging to
Sardinia, which in the existing state of war it was perfectly
proper for them to do; but, not stopping there, they had pushed
on past the Sardinian boundary into the neutral Riviera of Genoa,
as far as Vado Bay, which they occupied, and where they still
were at the end of 1794.

Genoa submitted under protest to this breach of her
neutrality, as she did both before[25] and after to similar insults from parties to
the war. She derived some pecuniary benefit from the condition of
affairs,—her ports, as well as those of Tuscany,
immediately to the southward, becoming depots of a trade in
grain, which supplied both the French army and the southern
provinces of France. These food stuffs, absolutely essential to
the French, were drawn chiefly from Sicily and the Barbary
States, and could not be freely taken into French ports by the
larger class of sea-going vessels, in face of the British fleet.
They were, therefore, commonly transshipped in Leghorn or Genoa,
and carried on by coasters. As so much Genoese sea-coast was
occupied by French divisions, it was practically impossible for
British cruisers to distinguish between vessels carrying corn for
the inhabitants and those laden for the armies, and entirely
impossible to know that what was intended for one object would
not be diverted to another. If, too, a vessel’s papers showed her
to be destined for Vintimiglia, near the extreme of the Genoese
line, there could be no certainty that, having got so far, she
might not quietly slip by
into a French port, either Nice or beyond. The tenure of the
neutral Riviera of Genoa by the French army was a threat to the
allies of Great Britain in Piedmont and Lombardy, as well as to
the quasi-neutrals in Genoa, Tuscany, Venice, and the Papal
States. Its further advance or successes would imperil the
latter, and seriously affect the attitude of Naples, hostile to
the Republic, but weak, timid, and unstable of purpose. On the
other hand, the retention of its position, and much more any
further advance, depended upon continuing to receive supplies by
way of the sea. To do so by the shore route alone was not
possible. Southern France itself depended upon the sea for grain,
and could send nothing, even if the then miserable Corniche road
could have sufficed, as the sole line of communications for forty
thousand troops.

Thus the transfer of Corsica to Great Britain had a very
important bearing upon the military and political conditions. At
the moment when Italy was about to become the scene of operations
which might, and in the event actually did, exercise a decisive
influence upon the course of the general war, the British
position was solidified by the acquisition of a naval base,
unassailable while the sea remained in their control and the
Corsicans attached to their cause, and centrally situated with
reference to the probable scenes of hostilities, as well as to
the points of political interest, on the mainland of Italy. The
fleet resting upon it, no longer dependent upon the reluctant
hospitality of Genoese or Tuscan ports, or upon the far distant
Kingdom of Naples, was secure to keep in its station, whence it
menaced the entire seaboard trade of France and the Riviera, as
well as the tenure of the French army in the latter, and exerted
a strong influence upon the attitude of both Genoa and Tuscany,
who yielded only too easily to the nearest or most urgent
pressure. The fleet to which Nelson belonged had spent the
greater part of the year 1794 in securing for itself, as a base
of operations, this
position, by far the most suitable among those that could be
considered at all. It remained now to utilize the advantage
obtained, to make the situation of the French army in Italy
untenable, by establishing an indisputable control of the sea. To
this the holding of Corsica also contributed, indirectly; for the
loss of the island forced the French fleet to go to sea, in
order, if possible, to expedite its re-conquest. In all the
operations resulting from these various motives, Nelson bore a
part as conspicuous and characteristic as he had done in the
reduction of Corsica. Almost always on detached service, in
positions approaching independent command, he was continually
adding to his reputation, and, what was far more important,
maturing the professional character, the seeds of which had been
so bountifully bestowed upon him by nature. His reputation, won
hard and step by step, obtained for him opportunity; but it was
to character, ripened by experience and reflection, that he owed
his transcendent successes.

The scheme for the government of the island as a British
dependency, stated broadly, was that it should be administered by
the Corsicans themselves, under a viceroy appointed by the
British crown. Its military security was provided for by the
control of the sea, and by British soldiers holding the fortified
ports,—a duty for which the Corsicans themselves had not
then the necessary training. Nelson, who did not yet feel the
impossibility of sustaining a successful over-sea invasion, when
control of the sea was not had, was anxious about the expected
attempts of the French against the island, and urged the viceroy,
by private letter, to see that Ajaccio, which he regarded as the
point most favorable to a descent, was garrisoned sufficiently to
keep the gates shut for a few days. This caution did not then
proceed from a distrust of the Corsicans’ fidelity, without which
neither France nor England could hold the island, as was shown by
the quickness of its transfer two years later, when the inhabitants
again revolted to France. “With this defence,” he wrote, “I am
confident Ajaccio, and I believe I may say the island of Corsica,
would be perfectly safe until our fleet could get to the enemy,
when I have no doubt the event would be what every Briton might
expect.”

The repairs of the “Agamemnon” were completed before Nelson’s
anxious apprehensions of a battle taking place in his absence
could be fulfilled. On the 21st of December, 1794, he sailed from
Leghorn with the fleet, in company with which he remained from
that time until the following July, when he was sent to the
Riviera of Genoa on special detached service. He thus shared the
severe cruising of that winter, as well as the abortive actions
of the spring and early summer, where the admiral again contrived
to lose opportunities of settling the sea campaign, and with it,
not improbably, that of the land also. There were plain
indications in the port of Toulon that a maritime enterprise of
some importance was in contemplation. In the outer road lay
fifteen sail-of-the-line, the British having then fourteen; but
more significant of the enemy’s purpose was the presence at
Marseilles of fifty large transports, said to be ready. “I have
no doubt,” wrote Nelson, “but Porto Especia is their object.”
This was a mistake, interesting as indicating the slight weight
that Nelson at that time attributed to the deterrent effect of
the British fleet “in being” upon such an enterprise, involving
an open-sea passage of over a hundred miles, though he neither
expressed nor entertained any uncertainty as to the result of a
meeting, if the enemy were encountered. The French Government,
not yet appreciating the inefficiency to which its navy had been
reduced by many concurrent circumstances, was ready to dispute
the control of the Mediterranean, and it contemplated, among
other things, a demonstration at Leghorn, similar to that
successfully practised at Naples in 1792, which might compel the Court of Tuscany to renounce
the formally hostile attitude it had assumed at the bidding of
Great Britain; but it does not appear that there was any serious
purpose of exposing a large detachment, in the attempt to hold
upon the Continent a position, such as Spezia, with which secure
communication by land could not be had.

Though none too careful to proportion its projects to the
force at its disposal, the Directory sufficiently understood that
a detachment at Spezia could not be self-dependent, nor could,
with any certainty, combine its operations with those of the army
in the Riviera; and also that, to be properly supported at all,
there must be reasonably secure and unbroken communication,
either by land or water, neither of which was possible until the
British fleet was neutralized. The same consideration dictated to
it the necessity of a naval victory, before sending out the
expedition, of whose assembling the British were now hearing, and
which was actually intended for Corsica; although it was known
that in the island there had already begun the revulsion against
the British rule, which culminated in open revolt the following
year. Owing to the dearth of seamen, the crews of the French
ships were largely composed of soldiers, and it was thought that,
after beating the enemy, four or five thousand of these might be
at once thrown on shore at Ajaccio, and that afterwards the main
body could be sent across in safety. First of all, however,
control of the sea must be established by a battle, more or less
decisive.

On the 24th of February, 1795, the British fleet arrived at
Leghorn, after a very severe cruise of over a fortnight. On the
2d of March Nelson mentioned, in a letter to his wife, that the
French were said then to have a hundred and twenty-four
transports full of troops, from which he naturally argued that
they must mean to attempt something. On the evening of the 8th,
an express from Genoa brought Hotham word that they were actually
at sea, fifteen
ships-of-the-line, with half a dozen or more smaller vessels. He
sailed in pursuit early the next morning, having with him
thirteen[26] British
ships-of-the-line and one Neapolitan seventy-four. Of the former,
four were three-decked ships, carrying ninety-eight to one
hundred guns, a class of vessel of which the French had but one,
the “Sans Culottes,” of one hundred and twenty, which, under the
more dignified name of “L’Orient,” afterwards, met so tragic a
fate at the Battle of the Nile; but they had, in compensation,
three powerful ships of eighty guns, much superior to the British
seventy-fours. As, however, only partial engagements followed,
the aggregate of force on either side is a matter of
comparatively little importance in a Life of Nelson.

Standing to the northward and westward, with a fresh easterly
wind, the British fleet through its lookouts discovered the enemy
on the evening of the day of sailing, and by the same means kept
touch with them throughout the 10th and 11th; but the baffling
airs, frequent in the Mediterranean, prevented the main body
seeing them until the morning of the 12th. At daylight, then,
they were visible from the “Agamemnon,” in company with which
were five British ships and the Neapolitan; the remainder of the
fleet being so far to the eastward that their hulls were just
rising out of the water. The British lying nearly becalmed, the
French, who were to windward, bore down to within three miles;
but although, in Nelson’s judgment, they had a fair opportunity
to separate the advanced British ships, with which he was, from
the main body, they failed to improve it. Nothing happened that
day, and, a fresh breeze from the west springing up at dusk, both
fleets stood to the southward with it, the French being to
windward. That night one of the latter, a seventy-four, having
lost a topmast, was permitted to return to port.

The next morning the wind
was still southwest and squally. Hotham at daylight ordered a
general chase, which allowed each ship a certain freedom of
movement in endeavoring to close with the French. The “Agamemnon”
had been well to the westward, from the start; and being a very
handy, quick-working ship, as well as, originally at least, more
than commonly fast, was early in the day in a position where she
had a fair chance for reaching the enemy. A favorable opportunity
soon occurred, one of those which so often show that, if a man
only puts himself in the way of good luck, good luck is apt to
offer. At 8 A.M. the eighty-gun ship “Ça Ira,” third from
the rear in the French order, ran on board the vessel next ahead
of her, and by the collision lost her fore and main topmasts.
These falling overboard on the lee side—in this case the
port,[27]—not only
deprived her of by far the greater part of her motive power, but
acted as a drag on her progress, besides for the time preventing
the working of the guns on that side. The “Ça Ira” dropped
astern of her fleet. Although this eighty-gun ship was much
bigger than his own,—”absolutely large enough to take
Agamemnon in her hold,” Nelson said,—the latter saw his
chance, and instantly seized it with the promptitude
characteristic of all his actions. The “Agamemnon,” if she was
not already on the port tack, opposite to that on which the
fleets had been during the night, must have gone about at this
time, and probably for this reason. She was able thus to fetch
into the wake of the crippled vessel, which a frigate had already
gallantly attacked, taking advantage of the uselessness of the
Frenchman’s lee batteries, encumbered with the wreckage of the
masts.

The “Agamemnon” and the “Ça
Ira”

At 10 A.M., the “Ça Ira” and the “Agamemnon” having
passed on opposite tacks, the latter again went about and stood
in pursuit under all sail, rapidly nearing the enemy, who at this time was taken in tow by
a frigate. But although in this position the French ship could
not train her broadside guns upon her smaller opponent, she could
still work freely the half-dozen stern guns, and did so with much
effect. “So true did she fire,” noted Nelson, “that not a shot
missed some part of the ship, and latterly the masts were struck
every shot, which obliged me to open our fire a few minutes
sooner than I intended, for it was my intention to have touched
his stern before a shot was fired.” At quarter before eleven, the
“Agamemnon” was within a hundred yards of the “Ça Ira’s”
stern, and this distance she was able to keep until I P.M. Here,
by the use of the helm and of the sails, the ship alternately
turned her starboard side to the enemy to fire her batteries, and
again resumed her course, to regain the distance necessarily lost
at each deviation. This raking fire not only killed and wounded
many of the “Ça Ira’s” crew, and injured the hull, but,
what was tactically of yet greater importance, preventing the
replacing of the lost spars. Thus was entailed upon the French
that night a crippled ship, which they could not in honor
abandon, nor yet could save without fighting for her,—a
tactical dilemma which was the direct cause of the next day’s
battle.

Brief and cursory as is the notice of this action of the
“Agamemnon” in Hotham’s despatches, he mentions no other
ship-of-the-line as engaged at this time, and states that she and
the frigate were so far detached from the fleet, that they were
finally obliged to retire on account of other enemy’s vessels
approaching. Nelson’s journal says that two French ships, one of
one hundred and twenty guns and a seventy-four, were at gunshot
distance on the bow of the “Ça Ira” when he began to
attack her. These, with several others of their fleet, went about
some time before one, at which hour the frigate, towing the
disabled ship, tacked herself, and also got the latter around.
The “Agamemnon” standing on, she and the “Ça Ira” now
crossed within half
pistol-range; but, the French guns being too much elevated, the
shot passed over their antagonist, who lost in this day’s work
only seven men wounded. Nelson then again tacked to follow, but
by this time the French admiral had apparently decided that his
crippled vessel must be rescued, and his fleet no longer defied
by a foe so inferior in strength. Several of the enemy were
approaching, when Hotham made a signal of recall, which Nelson on
this occasion at least had no hesitation in obeying, and
promptly. There was no pursuit, the hostile commander-in-chief
being apparently satisfied to save the “Ça Ira” for the
moment, without bringing on a general engagement.

In this affair, what is mainly to be noted in Nelson is not
the personal courage, nor yet even the professional daring, or
the skill which justified the daring. It may be conceded that all
these were displayed in a high degree, but they can scarcely be
claimed to have exceeded that shown by other officers, not a few,
when equally tried. What is rather striking, account for it how
we will, is that Nelson, here as always, was on hand when
opportunity offered; that after three days of chase he, and he
only, was so far to the front as to be able to snatch the
fleeting moment. “On looking round,” he says at ten o’clock, when
about to begin the action, “I saw no ship-of-the-line within
several miles to support me; the Captain was the nearest on our
lee-quarter.” With the looseness and lack of particularity which
characterize most logs and despatches remaining from those days,
and make the comprehension of naval engagements, other than the
greatest, a matter of painful and uncertain inference, it is
impossible accurately to realize the entire situation; but it
seems difficult to imagine that among all the other thirteen
captains, “where emulation was common to all and zeal for his
Majesty’s service the general description of the fleet,” to use
Hotham’s words, none could have been on the spot to support so
promising an attempt, had there been “common” that sort of
emulation which takes a man
ever to the front, not merely in battle but at all
times,—the spirit that will not and cannot rest while
anything remains to be done, ever pressing onward to the mark. To
this unquestionably must be added the rapid comprehension of a
situation, and the exceeding promptitude with which Nelson seized
his opportunity, as well as the tenacious intrepidity with which
he held to his position of advantage, despite the imminent threat
to his safety from the uninjured and gigantic “Sans Culottes,”
barely out of gunshot to windward. It is right also to note the
accessibility to advice, a feature of his genial and kindly
temperament, to which he admitted much of the success was due.
The trait is not rare in mankind in general, but it is
exceptional in men of a character so self-reliant and decided as
Nelson. “If the conduct of the Agamemnon on the 13th,” he
generously wrote, “was by any means the cause of our success on
the 14th, Lieutenant Andrews has a principal share in the merit,
for a more proper opinion was never given by an officer than the
one he gave me on the 13th, in a situation of great
difficulty.”

The same hot spirit, the same unwearying energy, made itself
still more manifest the next day, when were to be garnered the
results of his own partial, yet, in its degree, decisive action
of the 13th. “Sure I am,” said he afterwards, “had I commanded
our fleet on the 14th, that either the whole French fleet would
have graced my triumph, or I should have been in a confounded
scrape.” A confounded scrape he would have been in on the 13th,
and on other days also, great and small, had there been a
different issue to the risks he dared, and rightly dared, to
take. Of what man eminent in war, indeed, is not the like true?
It is the price of fame, which he who dare not pay must forfeit;
and not fame only, but repute.

During the following night the “Sans Culottes” quitted the
French fleet. The wind continued southerly, both fleets standing to the westward, the
crippled “Ça Ira” being taken in tow by the “Censeur,” of
seventy-four guns. At daylight of March 14, being about twenty
miles southwest from Genoa, these two were found to be much
astern and to leeward, of their main body,—that is,
northeast from it. The British lay in the same direction, and
were estimated by Nelson to be three and a half miles from the
disabled ship and her consort, five miles from the rest of the
French. At 5.30 A.M. a smart breeze sprang up from the northwest,
which took the British aback, but enabled them afterwards to head
for the two separated French ships. Apparently, from Nelson’s
log, this wind did not reach the main body of the enemy, a
circumstance not uncommon in the Mediterranean. Two British
seventy-fours, the “Captain” and the “Bedford,” in obedience to
signals, stood down to attack the “Censeur” and the “Ça
Ira;” and, having in this to undergo for twenty minutes a fire to
which they could not reply, were then and afterwards pretty
roughly handled. They were eventually left behind, crippled, as
their own fleet advanced. The rest of the British were meantime
forming in line and moving down to sustain them. The French main
body, keeping the southerly wind, wore in succession to support
their separated ships, and headed to pass between them and their
enemies. The latter, having formed, stood also towards these two,
which now lay between the contestants as the prize to the
victor.

Partial Fleet Action, March 14, 1795

Apparently, in these manoeuvres, the leading British ships ran
again into the belt of southerly wind,—which the French
kept throughout,—while part of the centre and rear were
left becalmed, and had little or no share in the cannonade that
followed. Under these conditions the resolution of the French
admiral seems to have faltered, for instead of passing to
leeward—north—of his endangered ships, which was
quite in his power, and so covering them from the enemy, he
allowed the latter to cut them off, thus insuring their surrender. His fleet kept to
windward of the British, passing fairly near the two leading
ships, the “Illustrious” and the “Courageux,” who thus underwent
a “concentration by defiling,” that took the main and mizzen
masts out of both, besides killing and wounding many of their
people. The “Princess Royal” and “Agamemnon,” which came next,
could only engage at long range. “The enemy’s fleet kept the
southerly wind,” wrote Nelson in his journal, “which enabled them
to keep their distance, which was very great. At 8 A.M. they
began to pass our line to windward, and the Ça Ira and Le
Censeur were on our lee side; therefore the Illustrious,
Courageux, Princess Royal, and Agamemnon were obliged to fight on
both sides of the ship.” At five minutes past ten A.M. both the
French vessels struck, the “Ça Ira” having lost her three
masts, and the “Censeur” her mainmast. It was past one P.M. when
firing wholly ceased; and the enemy then crowded all possible
sail to the westward, the British fleet lying with their heads to
the southeast.

When the British line was forming, between seven and eight in
the morning, Nelson was directed by Vice-Admiral Goodall, the
second in command, to take his station astern of his flagship,
the “Princess Royal,” of ninety guns. Immediately behind the
“Agamemnon” came the “Britannia,” carrying Hotham’s flag. This
position, and the lightness of the wind, serve to explain how
Nelson came to take the step he mentions in several letters;
going on board the “Britannia,” after the two French vessels
struck, and urging the commander-in-chief to leave the prizes in
charge of the British frigates and crippled ships-of-the-line,
and vigorously to pursue the French, who having lost four ships
out of their fleet, by casualty or capture, were now reduced to
eleven sail. “I went on board Admiral Hotham as soon as our
firing grew slack in the van, and the Ça Ira and the
Censeur had struck, to propose to him leaving our two crippled
ships, the two prizes, and four frigates, to themselves, and to pursue the enemy; but he,
much cooler than myself, said, ‘We must be contented, we have
done very well.’ Now, had we taken ten sail, and had allowed the
eleventh to escape, when it had been possible to have got at her,
I could never have called it well done. Goodall backed me; I got
him to write to the admiral, but it would not do: we should have
had such a day as I believe the annals of England never
produced.”

Nelson here evidently assumes that it was possible to have got
at the French fleet. After a man’s reputation has been
established, there is always the danger of giving undue weight to
his opinions, expressed at an earlier time, somewhat casually,
and not under the sobering sense of responsibility. Hotham may
have questioned the possibility of getting at the French
effectively, having regard to the fickle lightness of the wind
then prevalent, and to the fact that, besides the two ships
partially dismasted and for the moment useless, two others, the
“Captain” and the “Bedford,” had suffered severely in sails and
rigging. He would also doubtless consider that the three-decked
ships, of which he had four, were notoriously bad sailers, and
sure to drop behind if the chase lasted long, leaving to eight
ships, including the “Neapolitan,” the burden of arresting the
enemy, who had shown very fair offensive powers in the morning.
Nelson was not blind to these facts, and not infrequently alludes
to them. “Had we only a breeze, I have no doubt we should have
given a destructive blow to the enemy’s fleet.” “Sure I am, that
had the breeze continued, so as to have allowed us to close with
the enemy, we should have destroyed their whole fleet.” Whether
these remarks apply to the heat of the engagement, or to the
proposed chase, which Hotham declined to permit, is not perfectly
clear; but inasmuch as the second part of the action of the 14th
consisted, actually, in the French filing by the “Courageux” and
the “Illustrious,” upon whom their fire was thus concentrated,
while the rest of the
British were becalmed out of gunshot, it is very possible he was
thinking of that incident only, which doubtless would have taken
a very different turn had the main body been able to come down.
His wish to pursue is unquestionable, both from his assertion and
from the whole character of his career before and after; and a
casual remark, written ten days after the affair, shows his
opinion confirmed by time. “Had our good admiral followed the
blow, we should probably have done more, but the risk was thought
too great.”

The question attracts attention, both impersonally, as of
military interest, and also as bearing upon Nelson’s correctness
of judgment, and professional characteristics, at this time. As
regards the amount of wind, it is sufficient to say that the
French fleet, having borne away to the westward in the afternoon,
was next day out of sight.[28] Most of the British might equally have been
out of sight from the position in which they remained. As for the
risk—of course there was risk; but the whole idea of a
general chase rests upon the fact that, for one reason or
another, the extreme speed of the ships in each fleet will vary,
and that it is always probable that the fastest of the pursuers
can overtake the slowest of the pursued. The resulting combats
compel the latter either to abandon his ships, or to incur a
general action, which, from the fact of his flight, it is evident
he has reason to avoid. In this case many of the retreating
French were crippled,—some went off towed by frigates, and
some without bowsprits. Unquestionably, the pursuers who thus
engage may be overpowered before those following them come up;
but the balance of chances is generally in their favor, and in
the particular instance would have been markedly so, as was shown
by the results of the two days’ fighting, which had proved the
superior quality of the British ships’ companies.

The fact is, neither Hotham nor his opponent, Martin, was willing to hazard a decisive
naval action, but wished merely to obtain a temporary
advantage,—the moment’s safety, no risks. “I have good
reason,” wrote Hotham in his despatch, “to hope, from the enemy’s
steering to the westward after having passed our fleet, that
whatever might have been their design, their intentions are
for the present frustrated.” It is scarcely necessary to say
that a man who looks no further ahead than this, who fails to
realize that the destruction of the enemy’s fleet is the one
condition of permanent safety to his cause, will not rise to the
conception presented to him on his quarter-deck by Nelson. The
latter, whether by the sheer intuition of genius, which is most
probable, or by the result of well-ordered reasoning, which is
less likely, realized fully that to destroy the French fleet was
the one thing for which the British fleet was there, and the one
thing by doing which it could decisively affect the war. As he
wrote four years later to St. Vincent, “Not one moment shall be
lost in bringing the enemy to battle; for I consider the best
defence for his Sicilian Majesty’s dominions is to place myself
alongside the French.”