219--1642--1798
One of the noblest characters in old Roman history is the first Scipio
Africanus, and his first appearance is in a most pleasing light, at the
battle of the River Ticinus, B.C. 219, when the Carthaginians, under
Hannibal, had just completed their wonderful march across the Alps, and
surprised the Romans in Italy itself.
Young Scipio was then only seventeen years of age, and had gone to
his first battle under the eagles of his father, the Consul, Publius
Cornelius Scipio. It was an unfortunate battle; the Romans, when
exhausted by long resistance to the Spanish horse in Hannibal's army,
were taken in flank by the Numidian calvary, and entirely broken. The
Consul rode in front of the few equites he could keep together, striving
by voice and example to rally his forces, until he was pierced by one
of the long Numidian javelins, and fell senseless from his horse. The
Romans, thinking him dead, entirely gave way; but his young son would
not leave him, and, lifting him on his horse, succeeded in bringing him
safe into the camp, where he recovered, and his after days retrieved the
honor of the Roman arms.
The story of a brave and devoted son comes to us to light up the sadness
of our civil wars between Cavaliers and Roundheads in the middle of
the seventeenth century. It was soon after King Charles had raised his
standard at Nottingham, and set forth on his march for London, that it
became evident that the Parliamentary army, under the Earl of Essex,
intended to intercept his march. The King himself was with the army,
with his two boys, Charles and James; but the General-in-chief was
Robert Bertie, Earl of Lindsay, a brave and experienced old soldier,
sixty years of age, godson to Queen Elizabeth, and to her two favorite
Earls, whose Christian name he bore. He had been in her Essex's
expedition to Cambridge, and had afterwards served in the Low Countries,
under Prince Maurice of Nassau; for the long Continental wars had
throughout King James' peaceful reign been treated by the English
nobility as schools of arms, and a few campaigns were considered as a
graceful finish to a gentleman's education. As soon as Lord Lindsay had
begun to fear that the disputes between the King and Parliament must end
in war, he had begun to exercise and train his tenantry in Lincolnshire
and Northamptonshire, of whom he had formed a regiment of infantry. With
him was his son Montagu Bertie, Lord Willoughby, a noble-looking man of
thirty-two, of whom it was said, that he was 'as excellent in reality as
others in pretence,' and that, thinking 'that the cross was an ornament
to the crown, and much more to the coronet, he satisfied not himself
with the mere exercise of virtue, but sublimated it, and made it
grace.' He had likewise seen some service against the Spaniards in
the Netherlands, and after his return had been made a captain in
the Lifeguards, and a Gentleman of the Bedchamber. Vandyke has left
portraits of the father and the son; the one a bald-headed, alert,
precise-looking old warrior, with the cuirass and gauntlets of elder
warfare; the other, the very model of a cavalier, tall, easy, and
graceful, with a gentle reflecting face, and wearing the long lovelocks
and deep point lace collar and cuffs characteristic of Queen Henrietta's
Court. Lindsay was called General-in-chief, but the King had imprudently
exempted the cavalry from his command, its general, Prince Rupert of
the Rhine, taking orders only from himself. Rupert was only three-and-
twenty, and his education in the wild school of the Thirty Years' War
had not taught him to lay aside his arrogance and opinionativeness;
indeed, he had shown great petulance at receiving orders from the King
through Lord Falkland.
At eight o'clock, on the morning of the 23rd of October, King Charles
was riding along the ridge of Edgehill, and looking down into the Vale
of Red Horse, a fair meadow land, here and there broken by hedges and
copses. His troops were mustering around him, and in the valley he could
see with his telescope the various Parliamentary regiments, as they
poured out of the town of Keinton, and took up their positions in three
lines. 'I never saw the rebels in a body before,' he said, as he gazed
sadly at the subjects arrayed against him. 'I shall give them battle.
God, and the prayers of good men to Him, assist the justice of my
cause.' The whole of his forces, about 11,000 in number, were not
assembled till two o'clock in the afternoon, for the gentlemen who
had become officers found it no easy matter to call their farmers and
retainers together, and marshal them into any sort of order. But while
one troop after another came trampling, clanking, and shouting in,
trying to find and take their proper place, there were hot words round
the royal standard.
Lord Lindsay, who was an old comrade of the Earl of Essex, the commander
of the rebel forces, knew that he would follow the tactics they had both
together studied in Holland, little thinking that one day they should be
arrayed one against the other in their own native England. He had a high
opinion of Essex's generalship, and insisted that the situation of the
Royal army required the utmost caution. Rupert, on the other hand, had
seen the swift fiery charges of the fierce troopers of the Thirty Years'
war, and was backed up by Patrick, Lord Ruthven, one of the many Scots
who had won honor under the great Swedish King, Gustavus Adolphus.
A sudden charge of the Royal horse would, Rupert argued, sweep the
Roundheads from the field, and the foot would have nothing to do but to
follow up the victory. The great portrait at Windsor shows us exactly
how the King must have stood, with his charger by his side, and his
grave, melancholy face, sad enough at having to fight at all with his
subjects, and never having seen a battle, entirely bewildered between
the ardent words of his spirited nephew and the grave replies of the
well-seasoned old Earl. At last, as time went on, and some decision was
necessary, the perplexed King, willing at least not to irritate Rupert,
desired that Ruthven should array the troops in the Swedish fashion.
It was a greater affront to the General-in-chief than the king was
likely to understand, but it could not shake the old soldier's loyalty.
He gravely resigned the empty title of General, which only made
confusion worse confounded, and rode away to act as colonel of his own
Lincoln regiment, pitying his master's perplexity, and resolved that no
private pique should hinder him from doing his duty. His regiment was
of foot soldiers, and was just opposite to the standard of the Earl of
Essex.
The church bell was ringing for afternoon service when the Royal forces
marched down the hill. The last hurried prayer before the charge was
stout old Sir Jacob Astley's, 'O Lord, Thou knowest how busy I must be
this day; if I forget Thee, do not Thou forget me;' then, rising, he
said, 'March on, boys.' And, amid prayer and exhortation, the other side
awaited the shock, as men whom a strong and deeply embittered sense of
wrong had roused to take up arms. Prince Rupert's charge was, however,
fully successful. No one even waited to cross swords with his troopers,
but all the Roundhead horse galloped headlong off the field, hotly
pursued by the Royalists. But the main body of the army stood firm, and
for some time the battle was nearly equal, until a large troop of the
enemy's cavalry who had been kept in reserve, wheeled round and fell
upon the Royal forces just when their scanty supply of ammunition was
exhausted.
Step by step, however, they retreated bravely, and Rupert, who had
returned from his charge, sought in vain to collect his scattered
troopers, so as to fall again on the rebels; but some were plundering,
some chasing the enemy, and none could be got together. Lord Lindsay was
shot through the thigh bone, and fell. He was instantly surrounded
by the rebels on horseback; but his son, Lord Willoughby, seeing
his danger, flung himself alone among the enemy, and forcing his way
forward, raised his father in his arms thinking of nothing else, and
unheeding his own peril. The throng of enemy around called to him to
surrender, and, hastily giving up his sword, he carried the Earl into
the nearest shed, and laid him on a heap of straw, vainly striving to
staunch the blood. It was a bitterly cold night, and the frosty wind
came howling through the darkness. Far above, on the ridge of the hill,
the fires of the King's army shone with red light, and some way off on
the other side twinkled those of the Parliamentary forces. Glimmering
lanterns or torches moved about the battlefield, those of the savage
plunderers who crept about to despoil the dead. Whether the battle were
won or lost, the father and son knew not, and the guard who watched
them knew as little. Lord Lindsay himself murmured, 'If it please God
I should survive, I never will fight in the same field with boys
again!'--no doubt deeming that young Rupert had wrought all the
mischief. His thoughts were all on the cause, his son's all on him;
and piteous was that night, as the blood continued to flow, and nothing
availed to check it, nor was any aid near to restore the old man's
ebbing strength.
Toward midnight the Earl's old comrade Essex had time to understand his
condition, and sent some officers to enquire for him, and promise speedy
surgical attendance. Lindsay was still full of spirit, and spoke to
them so strongly of their broken faith, and of the sin of disloyalty and
rebellion, that they slunk away one by one out of the hut, and dissuaded
Essex from coming himself to see his old friend, as he had intended.
The surgeon, however, arrived, but too late, Lindsay was already so much
exhausted by cold and loss of blood, that he died early in the morning
of the 24th, all his son's gallant devotion having failed to save him.
The sorrowing son received an affectionate note the next day from the
King, full of regret for his father and esteem for himself. Charles made
every effort to obtain his exchange, but could not succeed for a whole
year. He was afterwards one of the four noblemen who, seven years later,
followed the King's white, silent, snowy funeral in the dismantled
St. George's Chapel; and from first to last he was one of the bravest,
purest, and most devoted of those who did honor to the Cavalier cause.
We have still another brave son to describe, and for him we must return
away from these sad pages of our history, when we were a house divided
against itself, to one of the hours of our brightest glory, when the
cause we fought in was the cause of all the oppressed, and nearly alone
we upheld the rights of oppressed countries against the invader. And
thus it is that the battle of the Nile is one of the exploits to which
we look back with the greatest exultation, when we think of the triumph
of the British flag.
Let us think of all that was at stake. Napoleon Bonaparte was climbing
to power in France, by directing her successful arms against the world.
He had beaten Germany and conquered Italy; he had threatened England,
and his dream was of the conquest of the East. Like another Alexander,
he hoped to subdue Asia, and overthrow the hated British power by
depriving it of India. Hitherto, his dreams had become earnest by the
force of his marvelous genius, and by the ardor which he breathed into
the whole French nation; and when he set sail from Toulon, with 40,000
tried and victorious soldiers and a magnificent fleet, all were filled
with vague and unbounded expectations of almost fabulous glories. He
swept away as it were the degenerate Knights of St. john from their rock
of Malta, and sailed for Alexandria in Egypt, in the latter end of June,
1798.
His intentions had not become known, and the English Mediterranean fleet
was watching the course of this great armament. Sir Horatio Nelson was
in pursuit, with the English vessels, and wrote to the First Lord of the
Admiralty: 'Be they bound to the Antipodes, your lordship may rely that
I will not lose a moment in bringing them to action.'
Nelson had, however, not ships enough to be detached to reconnoitre, and
he actually overpassed the French, whom he guessed to be on the way to
Egypt; he arrived at the port of Alexandria on the 28th of June, and saw
its blue waters and flat coast lying still in their sunny torpor, as if
no enemy were on the seas. Back he went to Syracuse, but could learn no
more there; he obtained provisions with some difficulty, and then, in
great anxiety, sailed for Greece; where at last, on the 28th of July, he
learnt that the French fleet had been seen from Candia, steering to the
southeast, and about four weeks since. In fact, it had actually passed
by him in a thick haze, which concealed each fleet from the other, and
had arrived at Alexandria on the 1st of July, three days after he had
left it!
Every sail was set for the south, and at four o'clock in the afternoon
of the 1st of August a very different sight was seen in Aboukir Bay, so
solitary a month ago. It was crowded with shipping. Great castle-like
men-of-war rose with all their proud calm dignity out of the water,
their dark port-holes opening in the white bands on their sides, and the
tricolored flag floating as their ensign. There were thirteen ships of
the line and four frigates, and, of these, three were 80-gun ships, and
one, towering high above the rest, with her three decks, was L'Orient,
of 120 guns. Look well at her, for there stands the hero for whose sake
we have chose this and no other of Nelson's glorious fights to place
among the setting of our Golden Deeds. There he is, a little cadet de
vaisseau, as the French call a midshipman, only ten years old, with a
heart swelling between awe and exultation at the prospect of his first
battle; but, fearless and glad, for is he not the son of the brave
Casabianca, the flag-captain? And is not this Admiral Brueys' own ship,
looking down in scorn on the fourteen little English ships, not one
carrying more than 74 guns, and one only 50?
Why Napoleon had kept the fleet there was never known. In his usual
mean way of disavowing whatever turned out ill, he laid the blame upon
Admiral Brueys; but, though dead men could not tell tales, his papers
made it plain that the ships had remained in obedience to commands,
though they had not been able to enter the harbour of Alexandria. Large
rewards had been offered to any pilot who would take them in, but
none could be found who would venture to steer into that port a vessel
drawing more than twenty feet of water. They had, therefore, remained at
anchor outside, in Aboukir Bay, drawn up in a curve along the deepest
of the water, with no room to pass them at either end, so that the
commissary of the fleet reported that they could bid defiance to a force
more than double their number. The admiral believed that Nelson had
not ventured to attack him when they had passed by one another a month
before, and when the English fleet was signaled, he still supposed that
it was too late in the day for an attack to be made.
Nelson had, however, no sooner learnt that the French were in sight than
he signaled from his ship, the Vanguard, that preparations for battle
should be made, and in the meantime summoned up his captains to receive
his orders during a hurried meal. He explained that, where there was
room for a large French ship to swing, there was room for a small
English one to anchor, and, therefore, he designed to bring his ships up
to the outer part of the French line, and station them close below their
adversary; a plan that he said Lord Hood had once designed, though he
had not carried it out.
Captain Berry was delighted, and exclaimed, 'If we succeed, what will
the world say?'
'There is no if in the case,' returned Nelson, 'that we shall succeed is
certain. Who may live to tell the tale is a very different question.'
And when they rose and parted, he said, 'before this time to-morrow I
shall have gained a peerage or Westminster Abbey.'
In the fleet went, through a fierce storm of shot and shell from a
French battery in an island in advance. Nelson's own ship, the Vanguard,
was the first to anchor within half-pistol-shot of the third French
ship, the Spartiate. The Vanguard had six colours flying, in any case
any should be shot away; and such was the fire that was directed on
her, that in a few minutes every man at the six guns in her forepart
was killed or wounded, and this happened three times. Nelson himself
received a wound in the head, which was thought at first to be mortal,
but which proved but slight. He would not allow the surgeon to leave the
sailors to attend to him till it came to his turn.
Meantime his ships were doing their work gloriously. The Bellerophon
was, indeed, overpowered by L'Orient, 200 of her crew killed, and all
her masts and cables shot away, so that she drifted away as night
came on; but the Swiftsure came up in her place, and the Alexander and
Leander both poured in their shot. Admiral Brueys received three wounds,
but would not quit his post, and at length a fourth shot almost cut him
in two. He desired not to be carried below, but that he might die on
deck.
About nine o'clock the ship took fire, and blazed up with fearful
brightness, lighting up the whole bay, and showing five French ships
with their colours hauled down, the others still fighting on. Nelson
himself rose and came on deck when this fearful glow came shining from
sea and sky into his cabin; and gave orders that the English boars
should immediately be put off for L'Orient, to save as many lives as
possible.
The English sailors rowed up to the burning ship which they had lately
been attacking. The French officers listened to the offer of safety, and
called to the little favorite of the ship, the captain's son, to come
with them. 'No,' said the brave child, 'he was where his father had
stationed him, and bidden him not to move save at his call.' They told
him his father's voice would never call him again, for he lay senseless
and mortally wounded on the deck, and that the ship must blow up. 'No,'
said the brave child, 'he must obey his father.' The moment allowed no
delay the boat put off. The flames showed all that passed in a quivering
flare more intense than daylight, and the little fellow was then seen on
the deck, leaning over the prostrate figure, and presently tying it to
one of the spars of the shivered masts.
Just then a thundering explosion shook down to the very hold every ship
in the harbour, and burning fragments of L'Orient came falling far and
wide, plashing heavily into the water, in the dead, awful stillness
that followed the fearful sound. English boats were plying busily about,
picking up those who had leapt overboard in time. Some were dragged in
through the lower portholes of the English ships, and about seventy were
saved altogether. For one moment a boat's crew had a sight of a helpless
figure bound to a spar, and guided by a little childish swimmer, who
must have gone overboard with his precious freight just before the
explosion. They rowed after the brave little fellow, earnestly desiring
to save him; but in darkness, in smoke, in lurid uncertain light, amid
hosts of drowning wretches, they lost sight of him again.
The boy, oh where was he!
Ask of the winds that far around
With fragments strewed the sea; With mast and helm, and pennant fair
That well had borne their part: But the noblest thing that perished there
Was that young faithful heart!
By sunrise the victory was complete. Nay, as Nelson said, 'It was not a
victory, but a conquest.' Only four French ships escaped, and Napoleon
and his army were cut off from home. These are the glories of our navy,
gained by men with hearts as true and obedient as that of the brave
child they had tried in vain to save. Yet still, while giving the full
meed of thankful, sympathetic honor to our noble sailors, we cannot but
feel that the Golden Deed of Aboukir Bay fell to--
'That young faithful heart.'