CHAPTER XIX.

COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF IN THE MEDITERRANEAN.--THE LONG WATCH OFF

TOULON.--OCCUPATIONS OF A COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF.

MAY, 1803--JANUARY, 1805. AGE, 45-46.

When Nelson, after a three years' absence, returned to the

Mediterranean in 1803, he found the conditions, upon which the

military balance of power there depended, greatly altered from those

he had known during the period of his previous service. He had been

present, indeed, almost an eye-witness, at the tremendous reverse

associated with the name of Marengo, for that battle, it will be

remembered, was fought while he was at Leghorn on his return to

England; but Marengo, and the conventions following it, were at the

moment only the beginning of an end which then could not be foreseen.

The most significant token of the entire change of conditions--of the

predominant, far-reaching, and firmly fastened grip of France on the

land--was the presence of an army corps of fifteen thousand men in the

extreme southeast of Italy, occupying the Kingdom of Naples from the

river Ofanto, on the Adriatic coast, round to the Bradano on the Gulf

of Taranto, and including the useful ports of Brindisi and Taranto.

This distant and ex-centric extension of the arms of the Republic

bespoke Bonaparte's confidence in the solidity of his situation in the

South of Europe; for under previous circumstances, even after his

victorious campaign of 1796, he had always deprecated an occupation of

Naples, and relied upon threats and a display of force to insure the

quiescence of that state. That one of his first steps, upon the

renewal of war with Great Britain, should have been to place a large

body of troops in a position he once considered so exposed, shows the

fulness of his conviction that upon the Continent he had, for the

moment, nothing to fear from the other Great Powers. Strongly stirred

as they had been by his highhanded aggressions, none as yet ventured

to call him directly to account. Great Britain, the least immediately

affected, had stepped into the lists, and demanded not only that

aggression should cease, but that the state of the Continent should be

restored as it existed when she signed the treaty of Amiens. With this

requirement she maintained the war, single-handed, from May, 1803, to

the autumn of 1805.

It was not without reason that Bonaparte reckoned upon the inaction of

the Continent. Austria, although profoundly discontented by much he

had done since the peace of Lunéville, in 1801, was too thoroughly

disheartened and exhausted by the unsuccessful and protracted struggle

which preceded it, to be ready to renew the strife. Limited as she now

was, by the treaty, to the eastern bank of the Adige, there was in

Northern Italy no force to threaten the French communications, between

their divisions in the valley of the Po and the one at the heel of the

peninsula. Prussia, playing a double part for years back, seeking from

day to day the favor of the most powerful, was wholly committed for

the time to the First Consul; while Russia, although her youthful

sovereign had abandoned the anti-British policy of his predecessor,

remained undecided as to the general course she should pursue amid the

ever-shifting perplexities of the day. Less fantastic in imagination

than his insane father, Alexander I. inherited a visionary tendency,

which hindered practical action, and showed itself in plans too vast

and complicated for realization, even when two rulers of the

overwhelming power of himself and Napoleon, at a later date, set their

hands to the task. Swayed, alternately, by sympathy with the ancient

order of things, which Great Britain for the moment represented, and

by prospects of Russian aggrandizement, which Bonaparte dangled before

his eyes, the Czar halted between two opinions, pleasing himself,

meanwhile, in weaving, with associates of his own age, schemes for a

general reorganization of Europe. In these the interests of Russia

naturally, and quite properly, had a leading part, and not least in

those seas and regions that fell within the limits of Nelson's

command.

The power of the great states which lay to the northward and eastward

of him being thus neutralized, Bonaparte found upon the land nothing

to oppose his will, or to contest his influence, in the smaller and

weaker nations to the southward and westward, close to his own doors,

but isolated from the rest of Europe, except by sea--a weighty

exception. Spain, reduced to virtual vassalage in the previous war, no

longer even pretended to dispute his orders. She was not engaged in

the present hostilities, simply because it suited him better to take a

money tribute from her, and to enjoy for French ships the benevolent

neutrality of Spanish ports, more necessary to them than to the

British. Moreover, if Spain joined in the war, Minorca, restored to

her at the peace, would be at the mercy of Great Britain, and Port

Mahon, the fine haven of that island, was always a menace to Toulon.

The harbors of remote Portugal, where Lisbon formerly had given

powerful support to the British fleet, were now closed to it for

offensive operations; and Nelson, within whose command its seaboard

lay, was strictly enjoined to refrain from any such use of them, even

from sending in prizes, except under stress of weather. In Italy,

Piedmont had been incorporated with France, while the Italian and

Ligurian (Genoa) Republics in the North were so identified with her in

action, and so submissive to her, that the capture of the latter's

ships was at once ordered by Nelson; and he recommended to his

Government that a formal blockade should be proclaimed of her ports,

as well as of Leghorn, where the French flag was flown on the same

staff as the Tuscan. The States of the Pope, intermediate between

these tributaries of Bonaparte in the North and his garrisoned

province in Naples, enjoyed only such precarious independence as he

from day to day allowed. But, mighty as was the growth of French

ascendency, as shown by these changes, the very advantages accruing to

France from her advanced maritime positions laid her further open to

the Sea Power of Great Britain. The neutrality of Genoa and Tuscany

could no longer embarrass the British admiral, as it had Nelson in

1795 and 1796. Offensive operations against them were now merely a

question of adequate force, and the South of France depended greatly

upon free access to their ports. Taking Piedmont from the King of

Sardinia, too, relieved any scruples the British might have concerning

their use of the island of Sardinia injuring a friendly monarch, a

consideration which kept them away from Sicily.

Nelson, instructed by the experience and observation of the recent

past, and by a certain prescient sagacity which was at once native and

cultivated in him, recognized that the Mediterranean, with its immense

indented coast line, its positions of critical importance,--such as

the Straits of Gibraltar and the Bosphorus, Egypt and Malta,--and its

comparatively short water distances, was the field of operations to

which the maritime ambitions of Bonaparte, debarred a wider flight by

the sea-power of Great Britain, must inevitably incline. To this

contributed also its remoteness from England, as well as its nearness

to France and to the ports subject to her influence in Italy and

Spain; while the traditional ambitions of French rulers, for three

centuries back, had aspired to control in the Levant, and had regarded

Turkey for that reason as a natural ally. It was, therefore, not

merely as magnifying his own office, nor yet as the outcome of natural

bias, resulting from long service in its waters, that Nelson saw in

the Mediterranean the region at once for defence and offence against

Bonaparte; where he might be most fatally checked, and where also he

might be induced most surely to steps exhaustive to his strength. This

conviction was, indeed, rather an instance of accurate intuition than

of formulated reasoning. Clear, ample, and repeated, as are his

demonstrations of the importance of the various positions at stake,

and of the measures necessary to be taken, they rather apply to the

necessities of the moment than indicate a wide scheme of policy, which

should divert the energies of the enemy to the South of Europe, and so

provide the best of defences against his projected invasion of

England. Yet even of such broader view tokens are not wanting. "To say

the truth," he writes to the Queen of Naples, "I do not believe we had

in the last war, and, according to all appearance, we shall not have

in the present one either, plans of a sufficiently grand scale to

force France to keep within her proper limits. Small measures produce

only small results. The intelligent mind of your Majesty will readily

comprehend the great things which might be effected in the

Mediterranean. On this side Buonaparte is the most vulnerable. It is

from here that it would be the most easy to mortify his pride, and so

far humble him, as to make him accept reasonable conditions of peace."

It cannot be claimed, however, that there entered into Nelson's

thoughts, for Italy, any such diversion as that by which the Spanish

Peninsular War some years later drained the life blood of France. The

time, indeed, was not yet ripe, nor would the scene have been in any

way as favorable to Great Britain; and, moreover, so far from being

ready to threaten, her energies were effectually constrained to her

own defence, by the superior audacity and direct threats of Bonaparte.

Even the limited suggestions for the employment of troops in the

Mediterranean, made by Nelson from time to time, failed to receive

attention, and he himself was left to struggle on as best he might,

with inadequate means and upon a bare defensive, even in naval

matters. Great Britain, in short, had stripped herself, incautiously,

so bare, and was so alarmed by the French demonstrations of invasion,

that she for the moment could think only of the safety of her

territory and of her home waters, and her offensive operations were

confined to the sea.

Bonaparte understood as fully as Nelson the importance of the

Mediterranean to him. His mind was set upon the extension of France's

dominion therein,--in its islands, upon its northern and southern

shores, and in the East; nor was he troubled with scruples as to the

means by which that object might be attained. During the short peace

of Amiens, Lord Keith had felt it necessary to take precautions

against the re-occupation of Corfu by the French troops; and again at

a later date had stationed a ship for the same purpose at the Madalena

Islands, belonging to Sardinia, which Nelson afterwards made a

rendezvous for his fleet. Algiers, too, had attracted the First

Consul's attention. "Algiers will be French in one year after a

peace," wrote Nelson in August, 1804. "You see it, and a man may run

and read; that is the plan of Buonaparte." "The Ministers of the Dey

must know, that an armament at Toulon, and a large army, after the

peace with Great Britain, was intended to land and plunder Algiers,

which they doubtless would have effected, had not a British fleet been

placed in Oristan Bay [Sardinia] to watch their motions." These and

similar reasons had led the British Government to maintain the

Mediterranean Squadron nearly upon a war footing during the peace.

But, if Bonaparte's purpose was fixed to control the Mediterranean

some day, it now was set also upon the invasion of England; and

although he looked and plotted in many directions, taking long views,

and neglecting no opportunity to secure advanced footholds for future

uses, he had not yet reached the stage in his development when he

would divide his energies between two gigantic undertakings. One at a

time, and with an accumulation of force abundantly adequate to the end

in view, was his policy all the days of Nelson. The Mediterranean with

its varied interests was to him at this time one of several means, by

which he hoped to distract British counsels and to dissever British

strength; but it was no part of his design to provoke Great Britain to

measures which would convert her alarm for the Mediterranean

peninsulas into open war with them, or in them, compelling France

either to recede from thence, or to divert thither a force that might

weaken his main effort. His aim was to keep anxiety keenly alive, and

to cut short the resources of his enemy, by diplomatic pressure upon

neutral states, up to the last extreme that could be borne without war

against them being declared, as the lesser evil; and the nearer he

could approach this delicate boundary line, without crossing it, the

greater his success. "I do not think a Spanish war [that is, a

declaration by Spain] so near," wrote Nelson in November, 1803. "We

are more likely to go to war with Spain for her complaisance to the

French; but the French can gain nothing, but be great losers, by

forcing Spain to go to war with us; therefore, I never expect that the

Spaniards will begin, unless Buonaparte is absolutely mad, as many say

he is. I never can believe that he or his counsellors are such fools

as to force Spain to begin."

The course instinctively advocated by Nelson, transpiring through

occasional utterances, was directly contrary to Bonaparte's aims and

would have marred his game. "We never wanted ten thousand troops more

than at this moment," Nelson wrote shortly after he had reached the

station and become acquainted with the state of affairs. "They might

save Naples, Sicily, the Morea and Egypt, by assisting and giving

confidence to the inhabitants." "It has been my plan to have 10,000

disposable troops in the Mediterranean," he wrote to Acton; and he

regretted to the Ministry that they should have withdrawn all the fine

army which had regained Egypt in 1801. "The sending them home," he

remarked to an occasional correspondent, "was a very inconsiderate

measure, to say nothing further of it." His idea was to garrison Gaeta

and Naples on the coast of the mainland, and Messina in Sicily; and to

throw a force into the mountains of Calabria, which should sustain and

give cohesion to the insurrection that he confidently expected would

follow. With the British fleet covering the approaches by water, and

sustaining and reinforcing garrisons in the ports, there would be

imposed upon the enemy, unless he chose to abandon Southern Italy, a

scene of operations in a distant, difficult country, with a long and

narrow line of communications, flanked throughout by the sea, and

particularly by the two fortified harbors which he proposed to occupy.

"The peasantry would, I believe, defend their mountains, and at least

it would give a check to the movements of the French, and give us time

to get a fleet into the Mediterranean." That the attempt would have

been ultimately successful, against such power as Napoleon then

wielded, cannot be affirmed; but, until put down, it necessarily would

have engaged a force very disproportionate to its own numbers, drawing

off in great part the army destined against England, as it was

diverted two years later by Austria, and giving opportunity for

changes in the political conditions, even to the formation of a new

Coalition.

Nelson, therefore, was not far from right in reasoning that the

Mediterranean should, and therefore would, be the chief scene of

operations. In Bonaparte's eyes, to invade Britain was, justly, the

greatest of all ends, the compassing of which would cause all the rest

to fall. Nelson, weighing the difficulties of that enterprise more

accurately than could be done by one unaccustomed to the sea, doubted

the reality of the intention, and thought it more consonant to the

true policy of France to seize control of the Mediterranean, by a

sudden concentration of her fleets, and then to transport her troops

by water to the heel of Italy, to the Ionian Islands, to the Morea, to

Egypt. So stationed, with fortified stepping-stones rising at short

intervals from the deep, future movements of troops and supplies from

point to point would be but an affair of coasters, slipping from

battery to battery, such as he had experienced to his cost in the

Riviera. In this project he thought it likely that France could secure

the co-operation of Russia, by allowing the latter her share of the

spoils of Turkey, especially in Constantinople. He saw, indeed, that

the partition would involve some difficulty between the two partners,

and in his correspondence he attributes the Morea and the islands, now

to one, now to the other; but the prediction, elicited piece-meal from

his letters, received a close fulfilment four years later in the

general tenor of the agreements of Tilsit, nor was it less accurate in

its dim prophecy of a disagreement.

Such, in broad outline, were the prepossessions and views Nelson took

with him from England in 1803, as modified by the information he

received upon reaching the station; and such the counter-projects of

Bonaparte, to whom belonged, as the privilege of the offensive, the

choice of direction for his attack. The essential difference between

the two was, that one believed the invasion of England, however

difficult, to be possible, and therefore to be the true and first

object of his efforts; while the other, without pronouncing that

attempt impossible, saw its difficulties so clearly, that he conceived

his enemy must be aiming for the Mediterranean from the beginning. It

is permissible to remark that Bonaparte, after the failure of the

invasion, first busied himself in reducing Austria, Prussia, and

Russia, successively, to the state of inaction in which they were in

1803; next came to an understanding with the latter, such as Nelson

had foreseen; and then turned to the Mediterranean, where he

established his own rule in Naples, in the Ionian Islands, on the

eastern shore of the Adriatic, and finally in the Spanish peninsula.

Beyond that his advance was stayed by the Sea Power of Great Britain,

which at last wrought his ruin. Thus in the event the predictions of

the British admiral were postponed, but not falsified.

Nelson's characteristic impatience and energy hurried him on from the

moment he took up his command. "I cannot sail before to-morrow," he

said repeatedly in Portsmouth, "and that's an age." "If the Devil

stands at the door," he tells St. Vincent, "we shall sail to-morrow

forenoon." The Admiralty, in its primary anxiety about Brest, imposed

upon him a delay under which he chafed angrily. He was directed to

meet off that port the squadron of Admiral Cornwallis, in order that,

if the latter wanted the "Victory," she might be left there, and an

intimation was even given that he was "on no account to pass Admiral

Cornwallis, so as to run any chance of his being deprived of the

services of the Victory, if he should judge it necessary to detain

her." Nelson resented the implication that he was capable of evading

an order, like a frigate-captain parting company to better his chance

of prize-money. "I beg to assure you that I hold it impossible for any

officer, under such orders as their Lordships' to me, to designedly

miss Admiral Cornwallis off Brest."

On the 22d of May he was off Ushant, between which and Cornwallis's

rendezvous he passed twenty-four hours, fuming and fretting over a

delay that was losing him a fresh, fair, northerly wind; the more so,

that he was satisfied Cornwallis neither needed nor wanted the ship.

"From his conduct,"--not being on his rendezvous,--"I am clear there

can be nothing in Brest to demand his attention." On the 23d, however,

he could stand it no longer. "What a wind we are losing!" "If the

wisdom of my superiors had not prevented me," he growled, "at this

moment I should have been off the coast of Portugal. I am aware of the

importance of my getting to the Mediterranean, and think I might

safely have been allowed to proceed in the Victory." At 6 P.M. of that

day, Cornwallis not turning up, he tumbled himself and his suite on

board the frigate "Amphion," which was in company, and continued his

voyage, going out in all the discomfort of "a convict," to use St.

Vincent's expression; "seven or eight sleeping in one cabin," as

Nelson himself described it. "It is against my own judgment but in

obedience to orders," he told the Earl; while to the Prime Minister,

with whom he was in personal correspondence, he lamented the loss,

"for I well know the weight of the Victory in the Mediterranean." As

he anticipated, Cornwallis did not want the ship, and she joined

Nelson two months afterwards off Toulon.

Late in the evening of June 3d, the "Amphion" anchored at Gibraltar,

whither she brought the first certain news of the war, though it had

been declared nearly three weeks before. The next day was actively

employed in giving necessary instructions to the yard officials, and

detailing cruisers to guard the entrance to the Straits, and to

maintain the communications with the Barbary coast, upon which the

Rock depended for supplies of fresh provisions. At 4 P.M. the ship

again sailed for Malta, accompanied by the frigate "Maidstone," to

which, on the 11th of June, was transferred, for direct passage to

Naples by the north of Sicily, the new British minister to the Two

Sicilies, Mr. Elliot, who had embarked with Nelson on board the

"Victory," and afterwards gone with him to the "Amphion." Throughout

the following two years an active correspondence, personal and

diplomatic, was maintained with this gentleman, who, like his brother,

Lord Minto, placed the utmost dependence upon the political sagacity

and tact of the admiral. When the latter, a year later, spoke of

leaving the station on account of his health, Elliot wrote to him:

"Where such great interests are concerned, I shall not presume to

dwell upon my own feelings, although I cannot but recall to your

Lordship that I only consented to depart as abruptly as I did from

England, to undertake this arduous and ruinous mission, from the

expectation that my efforts to direct the councils of this Kingdom

would have been seconded by your pre-eminent talents and judgment."

After the two frigates parted, the "Amphion" kept on to Malta, where

she arrived on the 15th of June.

With the separation of the "Maidstone" Nelson began the extensive

diplomatic correspondence, which employed so much of his time during

this command, and through which we are made familiar with the workings

of his mind on the general political conditions of the Mediterranean.

She carried from him letters to the King and Queen of the Sicilies, to

their Prime Minister, Acton, and to the British minister to the Court

of Sardinia. To these succeeded, upon his arrival in Malta,--as a

better point of departure for the farther East, now that the French

held the west coast of the Adriatic,--despatches to the British

minister to the Porte, to the Grand Vizier and the Capitan Pacha, to

the Republic of the Seven Islands, as the group of Corfu and its

sisters was now styled, and to the British representative to their

government.

All these communications were, of course, tentative, based upon a yet

imperfect knowledge of conditions. For the most part they conveyed,

besides the notification of his having taken the command, chiefly

general assurances of the good-will of the writer's government, and an

undefined intimation that all had best be on their guard against

French scheming and aggressions. To Naples he spoke more definitely,

and indicated at once the considerations that would dictate his

course, and, he intimated, should control theirs also. He had been

instructed, he said, to consider the welfare of the Two Sicilies as

one of the first of British objects, and his Government was convinced

of the advantages that would accrue both to Sicily and Naples, if

their neutrality could be maintained. They had to do, however, with an

enemy that was not only powerful, but wily and unscrupulous; one whose

action would be governed wholly by considerations of interest and

expediency, not by those of right. Great Britain could not, probably,

keep the French out of Naples, but she could out of Sicily, provided,

and only provided, Messina was adequately garrisoned and held. If,

however, there was any hasty overt action taken, looking to the

security of Sicily, it might merely precipitate the seizure of Naples

and the entire conquest of the King's continental dominions; or, "ten

times more humiliating," leave him "an odious commissary to raise

contributions from his unhappy subjects for the French." On the other

hand, if, to avert suspicion, there was too much slackness in the

measures to guard Sicily, Messina might be suddenly seized, the gates

of the island thus thrown open, and, Sicily once lost, "_Naples falls

of course_." "It is a most important point," he wrote to Elliot soon

after, "to decide when Sicily ought to be placed in a state of

security. For the present, I am content to say that Messina need not

be taken possession of; but the strictest watch must be kept by Sir

John Acton that we are not lulled into a fatal security, and thus lose

both Kingdoms. To save for the moment Naples, we risk the two

Kingdoms, and General Acton must join me in this heavy

responsibility." "My whole opinion rests in these few words--_that we

must not risk Sicily too far in trying to save Naples; therefore,

General Acton, yourself and myself must keep a good lookout_."

This summed up the conditions for Naples during the long two years of

watching and waiting, while Bonaparte, concentrating his purposes upon

his invasion scheme, was content to leave things quiet in the South.

To check, as far as might be, the designs of the French towards Morea

or towards Sicily, on either side of the central position they held at

the heel of Italy, Nelson employed a proportionately large number of

cruisers--five--between Messina and the mouth of the Adriatic; while,

to provide for the safety of the royal family, he kept always a

ship-of-the-line in the Bay of Naples, the British minister holding

orders for her captain to embark them at a moment's notice, and take

them to Sicily. "I have kept everything here to save Italy, if in my

power," he wrote Elliot two months later, "and you know I was ordered

to send a squadron outside the Straits. Fourteen days ago, a French

seventy-four got into Cadiz from Santo Domingo, and two French

frigates, with some merchant ships. What will they say at home?

However, I feel I have done right, and care not." "I must place a

squadron between Elba and Genoa," he says again, "to prevent that

expedition from moving, and also send some ships to the Straits'

mouth, and keep enough to watch the ships in Toulon. These are all

important objects, but nothing when compared to the security of the

Sicilies."

Nelson's anxiety for Sicily threw him again into contact with an

instance of that rigid and blind conformity to orders which always

exasperated him. He had brought out directions to the general

commanding in Malta, to hold a detachment of two thousand British

troops in readiness to go at once to Messina, on the appearance of

danger, and to garrison the works there, if he thought they could be

spared from the defence of Malta. Nelson told the Prime Minister that

discretion, as to such a step, was a responsibility greater than the

average officer could bear, and would certainly defeat the object in

view; for he would never feel his charge secure enough to permit such

a diminution. There was at this time in Malta a body of Neapolitan

soldiers, which had been sent there during the peace of Amiens, in

accordance with a stipulation of the treaty. The general received an

order to send them to Messina. Nelson had pointed out to him that if

he did so, in the divided state of feeling in the Neapolitan

dominions, and with the general character of Neapolitan officers, for

both efficiency and fidelity, the citadel would not be safe from

betrayal at their hands. "I have requested him to keep the orders

secret, and not to send them; for if they got into Messina, they would

certainly not keep the French out one moment, and it would give a good

excuse for not asking us to secure Messina." "If General Acton sends

for them we must submit; but at present we need not find means of

sending them away." The British general, however, sent them over, and

then the Neapolitan governor, as Nelson foretold, said it was quite

unnecessary for any British to come. "I must apprise you," wrote

Nelson to Addington, "that General Villettes, although a most

excellent officer, will do nothing but what he receives, 'You are

hereby required and directed;' for to obey, is with him the very acme

of discipline. With respect to Sicily, I have no doubt but that the

French will have it. My former reasons for inducing General Villettes

to keep the Neapolitan troops in Malta, was to prevent what has

happened; but, in a month after my back was turned, Villettes obeyed

his orders, and now the Governor of Messina says, 'We can defend it,

and want no assistance.' His whole conduct, I am bold to say, is

either that of a traitor or a fool."[59]

Upon his own subordinates Nelson laid a distinct charge, that he

should expect them to use their judgment and act upon it with

independence, sure of his generous construction and support of their

action. "We must all in our several stations," he tells one of them,

"exert ourselves to the utmost, and not be nonsensical in saying, 'I

have an order for this, that, and the other,' if the King's service

clearly marks what ought to be done. I am well convinced of your

zeal." In accordance with this, he was emphatic in his expressions of

commendation for action rightly taken; a bare, cold approval was not

adequate reward for deeds which he expected to reproduce his own

spirit and temper, vivifying the whole of his command, and making his

presence virtually co-extensive with its utmost limits. No severer

condemnation, perhaps, was ever implied by him, than when he wrote to

Sidney Smith, unqualifiedly, "I strictly charge and command you never

to give any French ship or man leave to quit Egypt." To deny an

officer discretion was as scathing an expression of dissatisfaction as

Nelson could utter; and as he sowed, so he reaped, in a devotion and

vigor of service few have elicited equally.

In Malta Nelson remained but thirty-six hours. Arriving at 4 P.M. on

the evening of June 15th, he sailed again at 4 A.M. of the 17th. He

had expected partly to find the fleet there; but by an odd

coincidence, on the same day that he hoisted his flag in Portsmouth,

it had sailed, although in ignorance of the war, to cruise between

Sicily and Naples; whence, on the day he left Gibraltar, the

commanding officer, Sir Richard Bickerton, had started for

Toulon,--"very judiciously," said Nelson,--the instant he heard of the

renewal of hostilities.

The "Amphion" passed through the Straits of Messina, and within sight

of Naples, carrying Nelson once more over well-known seas, and in

sight of fondly remembered places. "I am looking at _dear_ Naples, if

it is what it was," he wrote to Elliot from off Capri. "Close to

Capri," he tells Lady Hamilton, "the view of Vesuvius calls so many

circumstances to my mind, that it almost overpowers my feelings." "I

am using force upon myself to keep away," he had already said to

Acton; "for I think it likely, was I to fly to Naples, which I am much

inclined to do, that the French might turn it to some plea against

those good sovereigns." In his anxiety to join the fleet, and get in

touch of the French, the length of the passage, three weeks, caused

him great vexation, and deepened his convictions of the uselessness of

the island to his squadron off Toulon. "My opinion of Malta, as a

naval station for watching the French in Toulon, is well known; and my

present experience of what will be a three weeks' passage, most fully

confirms me in it. The fleet can never go there, if I can find any

other corner to put them in; but having said this, I now declare, that

I consider Malta as a most important outwork to India, that it will

ever give us great influence in the Levant, and indeed all the

southern parts of Italy. In this view, I hope we shall never give it

up." "Malta and Toulon are entirely different services. It takes upon

an average seven weeks to get an answer to a letter. When I am forced

to send a ship there, I never see her under two months."

With Gibraltar, however, Malta gave the British two impregnable and

secure bases of operations, within reasonable distance of one another,

and each in close proximity to points most essential to control.

During Nelson's entire command, the three chief centres of interest

and of danger were the Straits of Gibraltar, the heel of Italy, and

Toulon. The narrowing of the trade routes near the two former rendered

them points of particular exposure for merchant shipping. Around them,

therefore, and in dependence upon them, gathered the largest bodies of

the cruisers which kept down privateering, and convoyed the merchant

ships, whose protection was not the least exacting of the many cares

that fell upon Nelson. Upon the Malta division depended also the watch

over the mouth of the Adriatic and the Straits of Messina, by which

Nelson hoped to prevent the passage of the French, in small bodies, to

either Sicily, the Morea, or the Ionian Islands. Malta in truth, even

in Nelson's time, was the base for operations only less important

than the destruction of the Toulon fleet. The latter he rightly

considered his principal mission, success in which would solve most

other maritime difficulties. "My first object must ever be to keep the

French fleet in check; and, if they put to sea, to have force enough

with me to _annihilate_ them. That would keep the Two Sicilies free

from any attack from sea."

On the 8th of July the "Amphion" joined the fleet off Toulon. It

numbered then nine ships-of-the-line, with three smaller cruisers. "As

far as outside show goes," he reported to St. Vincent, "the ships look

very well; but they complain of their bottoms, and are very short of

men." The fact was, as he afterwards explained, that before the war

came they had been expecting every day to go to England, and

consequently had been allowed to run down gradually, a result which

doubtless had been hastened by St. Vincent's stringent economies.

Gibraltar and Malta were both bare, Nelson wrote six months later, and

it was not the fault of the naval storekeepers. The ships, everywhere,

were "distressed for almost every article. They have entirely eat up

their stores, and their real wants not half complied with. I have

applications from the different line-of-battle-ships for surveys on

most of their sails and running rigging, which cannot be complied

with, as there is neither cordage nor sails to replace the

unserviceable stores, and, therefore, the evil must be combated in the

best manner possible." As the whole Navy had suffered from the same

cause, there was no reserve of ships at home to replace those in the

Mediterranean, which, besides lacking everything, were between eight

and nine hundred men short of their complement, or about one hundred

for each ship-of-the-line. "We can send you neither ships nor men,"

wrote St. Vincent as winter drew on; and even a year later, the

administration which followed his found it impossible to replace the

"crazy" vessels, of which Nelson said only four were fit for winter

cruising. "It is not a storeship a week," he declared, "that would

keep them in repair." The trouble was greater because, when leaving

Malta, they had anticipated only a cruise of three weeks, which for

many of them became two years.

Despite the difficulties, he determined that the fleet as a body

should not go into port; nor should the individual ships-of-the-line,

except when absolutely necessary, and then to Gibraltar, not Malta. "I

have made up my mind never to go into port till after the battle, if

they make me wait a year, provided the Admiralty change the ships who

cannot keep the sea in winter;" nor did the failure of the Admiralty

to meet this proviso alter his resolution. It was the carrying out of

this decision, with ships in such condition, in a region where winds

and seas were of exceptional violence, and supplies of food and water

most difficult to be obtained, because surrounded in all directions by

countries either directly hostile, or under the overmastering

influence of Bonaparte, that made the exercise of Nelson's command

during this period a triumph of naval administration and prevision. It

does not necessarily follow that an officer of distinguished ability

for handling a force in the face of an enemy, will possess also the

faculty which foresees and provides for the many contingencies, upon

which depend the constant efficiency and readiness of a great

organized body; though both qualities are doubtless essential to

constitute a great general officer. For twenty-two months Nelson's

fleet never went into a port, other than an open roadstead on a

neutral coast, destitute of supplies; at the end of that time, when

the need arose to pursue an enemy for four thousand miles, it was

found massed, and in all respects perfectly prepared for so distant

and sudden a call. To quote his own words, written a year before this

summons in reply to an intimation from the Admiralty to be on his

guard against Spain, "I have the pleasure to acquaint you that the

squadron under my command is all collected, except the Gibraltar,[60]

complete in their provisions and stores to near five months, and in a

perfect state of readiness to act as the exigency of the moment may

determine." "With the resources of your mind," wrote St. Vincent, when

unable to reinforce him, "you will do very well;" and Nelson, when he

put off his harness, might have boasted himself that the prediction

was more than fulfilled.

Provisions, water, and supplies of all sorts were brought to the ships

on their station, either at sea, or in unfrequented roadsteads within

the limits of the cruising ground. "I never could have spared the

ships to go to Gibraltar for them," he wrote to St. Vincent, to whom

he expressed his satisfaction with the way the plan worked. He soon

abandoned, in fact, the method of sending individual ships for water,

because of the long absence thus entailed. When water could not be

brought in transports, or rather could not easily be transhipped owing

to the badness of the season, he thought it better to take the whole

fleet to the nearest watering-place than to divide its strength. Fresh

provisions, absolutely indispensable to the health of the ships'

companies, constituted the greatest of difficulties. Opposition to

furnishing them must be expected wherever French influence could be

felt. "The great distance from Malta or Gibraltar renders the getting

such refreshments from those places, in a regular manner, absolutely

impossible;" and from the Spanish ports, Barcelona or Rosas, which

were near his cruising ground, they could be had only "clandestinely."

Government Bills would not be taken there, nor in Barbary or Sardinia,

where bullocks might be got. Hard money must be paid, and about this

there was some routine bureau difficulty. "I certainly hate to have

anything to do with the management of money," he wrote, "but I submit

the propriety of lodging public money on board the fleet, for the

purpose of paying for fresh beef and vegetables, provided, but on _no

account otherwise_, that the simple receipt from the captain of the

ship may be a sufficient voucher for the disbursement of such money."

Absolutely disposed as he was to assume political or military

responsibilities, he was not willing, even for the health of the

fleet, to incur the risk of pecuniary imputations for himself or his

captains.

Great dexterity of management was required to obtain these supplies,

without drawing, upon those who gave them, such tokens of displeasure

from Bonaparte as might result in their discontinuance. Towards Spain,

although he felt for her perplexities, Nelson took a firm tone. She

was nominally neutral, and enjoyed privileges as such; he insisted

therefore that she should deal equal measure to both belligerents. "I

am ready to make large allowances for the miserable situation Spain

has placed herself in; but there is a certain line beyond which I

cannot submit to be treated with disrespect." That line of forbearance

was dictated, of course, less by indulgence towards Spain than by the

necessities of Great Britain, which Nelson, however indignant, was too

good a diplomatist to drop out of sight; but he kept up a pressure

which secured very substantial assistance, though grudgingly given.

"Refreshments we have a right to as long as we remain at peace, and if

this goes on"--the refusal, that is, to allow provisions to be bought

in quantities--"you may acquaint them that I will anchor in Rosas with

the squadron, and receive our daily supplies, which will offend the

French much more than our staying at sea."

Towards Naples, as secretly friendly to Great Britain, he was of

course far more tender; and, while he rejected no suggestion without

consideration, he regarded the distance as too great to render such a

means of subsistence certain. The numerous privateers that haunted

every port would intercept the transports and render convoys

necessary; it was not worth while, for so small an advantage, to

involve Naples, in its already critical state, in a dispute with

France. An occasional purchase, however, seems to have been made

there; and even France herself was at times brought to contribute,

indirectly, to the support of the squadron which was watching one of

her principal ports. "Latterly our cattle and onions have been

procured from France," wrote Nelson; "but from the apparent

incivilities of the Spaniards, I suppose we are on the eve of being

shut out." To escape the notice of the French agents, it was obviously

desirable to distribute as widely as possible the sources of supply,

so as not to concentrate observation upon any one, or upon the general

fact.

It was, however, upon Sardinia that Nelson in the end chiefly

depended. The importance of this island, both in fact and in his

estimation, was so great, that it may be said to have constituted the

chief object of his thought and anxiety, after his own squadron and

the French, which also he at times prophetically spoke of as his own.

"I do not mean to use the shells you have sent me at sea," he writes

to General Villettes, "for that I hope to consider burning _our own_

ships; but in case they run ashore, then a few put into their sides

will do their business." In addition to its extremely favorable

central position, Sardinia, as compared to Sicily, did not entail the

perplexity that its use by the British might cause a friendly

sovereign the loss of his continental dominions. Those of the King of

Sardinia had passed already nearly, if not wholly, out of his hands.

The island itself was so wild, poor, and neglected, that, even if

seized by the enemy, the King would lose little. The net revenue

derived from it was only £5,000.

During the previous war Nelson's attention had not been called much to

Sardinia. Up to the withdrawal from the Mediterranean in 1796, Corsica

had been a sufficient, and more suitable, base for the operations of

the fleet, which until then had been upon the Riviera and the

northern coast of Italy. When he returned in 1798, even after the

Battle of the Nile and the disasters of the French in 1799, the

unsettled condition of Naples, the blockade of Malta, and the affairs

of Egypt, had combined to keep him in the South; while the tenure of

the Allies in Northern Italy, up to the Battle of Marengo, was

apparently so secure as to require no great support from the fleet.

Irrespective of any personal influences that may have swayed him,

Sicily was better suited then to be the centre from which to

superintend the varied duties of his wide command.

When he returned in 1803, the old prepossessions naturally remained.

In a survey of the political conditions written for the Prime Minister

when on the passage to Toulon, much is said of Malta, Sicily, and

Naples, but Sardinia is dismissed with a passing hope that the French

would not seize it. After joining the fleet off Toulon, however, he

had to realize that, if it was to remain at sea, as he purposed and

effected, and yet be kept fully provisioned and watered, it must at

times make an anchorage, which should be so far convenient as to keep

it, practically, as much on its station as when under way. In this

dilemma his attention was called to the Madalena Islands, a group off

the northeast end of Sardinia, where wood and water could be obtained.

Between them and the main island there was a good harbor, having the

decisive advantage of two entrances, by one or other of which it could

be left in winds from any quarter. A survey had been made a year

before, during the peace, by a Captain Ryves, now commanding a ship in

the fleet. As winter approached, Nelson decided to examine the spot

himself, which he did in the last days of October, taking advantage of

a moonlight week when the enemy would be less likely to leave port. He

found it admirably adapted for his purposes, and that fresh

provisions, though not of the best quality, could be had. "It is

certainly one of the best anchorages I have met with for a fleet," he

wrote, "but I suppose the French will take it now we have used it."

This they did not attempt, and the British fleet continued to resort

to it from time to time, obtaining water and bullocks.

Such a roadstead as an occasional rendezvous, where transports could

discharge their stores to the vessels, and ships be refitted and

supplied, would make the fleet as secure of holding its position as

were the cruisers that depended upon Malta and Gibraltar. Its being

two hundred miles from Toulon was not a serious drawback, for it was

no part of Nelson's plan to keep the fleet close to Toulon. When he

took command, he found it so stationed, but he soon removed to a

position thirty to forty miles west of the harbor's mouth, which seems

to have been his general summer rendezvous. "Lord Nelson," wrote a

young officer of the fleet,[61] "pursues a very different plan from

Sir Richard Bickerton. The latter kept close to the harbour, but Lord

Nelson is scarce ever in sight of the land, and there is but one

frigate inshore." "I chose this position," Nelson said, "to answer two

important purposes: one to prevent the junction of a Spanish fleet

from the westward; and the other, to be to windward, so as to enable

me, if the northerly gale came on to the N.N.W., to take shelter in a

few hours under the Hières Islands, or if N.N.E., under Cape San

Sebastian." "It is not my intention to close-watch Toulon, even with

frigates," he wrote, and his dispositions were taken rather with a

view to encourage the enemy to come out; although, of course, he took

every precaution that they should not get far without being observed,

and assured himself by frequent reconnoitring that they had not left

port. "My system is the very contrary of blockading," he told Admiral

Pole. "Every opportunity has been offered the enemy to put to sea,"

he says again, "for it is there we hope to realize the hopes and

expectations of our Country." There was also the obvious advantage

that, if habitually out of sight, the enemy could not know his

movements, nor profit by his occasional absences in any direction.

From Madalena he extended his observations over the whole island of

Sardinia, upon the holding of which he thenceforth laid the greatest

stress, and entertained most anxious fears lest the French should

snatch it out of his hands. "If we could possess Sardinia, we should

want neither Malta nor any other. It is the most important island, as

a naval and military station, in the Mediterranean. It possesses at

the northern end the finest harbour in the world [Madalena]. It is

twenty-four hours' sail from Toulon; it covers Italy; it is a position

that the wind which carries the French to the westward is fair for you

to follow. In passing to the southward they go close to you. In short,

it covers Egypt, Italy, and Turkey." He was anxious that the British

Government should buy it. "If we, from delicacy, or commiseration of

the unfortunate king of Sardinia, do not get possession of that

island, the French will. If I lose Sardinia, I lose the French fleet."

His apprehensions were not verified; as also they were not during his

command, either in the Morea, in Naples, or in Sicily. Napoleon took

no active steps against Sardinia, although the proceedings there did

not escape the sharp eyes of the French agents, but elicited from them

vivacious remonstrances. "The government of the Republic," wrote one,

"has a right to complain of this excessive complaisance. To give

regular support to a squadron blockading a port, to revictual it, in

one word, periodically, is to tread under foot the neutrality which is

professed. I shall notify my government of a fact which demands all

its attention, and in which it is painful to me to see a cause of

misunderstanding between France and his Sardinian Majesty." It is

singularly confirmatory of the reality of Bonaparte's intention to

attempt the invasion of England, that he confined his efforts in the

South--in the Mediterranean--to feints and demonstrations. What he did

there looked to the future, not to the present; although, doubtless,

he stood always so ready that no opportunity offering advantage would

have passed neglected. The active mind of Nelson, condemned to the

uncertainties of the defensive and to military idleness, however it

may have been burdened with administrative routine and official

correspondence, found ample time to speculate on the designs of

Bonaparte, and the latter took care that he should have matter enough

to occupy him--and if possible mislead him--in rumor and in movements.

"At Marseilles they are fitting, as reports say, eighty or ninety

gunboats, and intend sending them, by the canal of Languedoc to

Bordeaux; but I am sure this is not true. They are to go alongshore to

the Heel of Italy, and to embark and protect their army either to

Sicily or the Morea, or to both; and the Navy of Europe can hardly

prevent these alongshore voyages." In this will be noticed the

recurrence of ideas familiar to him in the Riviera eight years before;

the expectation of ex-centric operations into which Bonaparte was

rarely betrayed.

Frequent stories also reach him of projects to invade and seize

Sardinia. Vessels are fitting for that purpose, now at Marseilles, now

at Villefranche; now the expedition is to come from Corsica only. "A

light linen jacket, trowsers, red cap, and a pair of shoes, is the

whole expense of Government; the plunder of the Sardinian Anglo-Sardes

is held out as the reward." To prevent it he seeks the authority of

his Government and of the King of Sardinia to garrison Madalena. The

straits of Bonifacio are but ten miles wide; it is impossible

therefore for a cruiser to prevent boats passing. If the attempt is

made, no scruples about the neutrality of Sardinia shall tie his

hands. "I have directed the frigates to pursue them, even should they

chase into Sardinia, and to take or destroy them, and also the

Corsican troops; for if I wait till the island is taken I should feel

deserving of reprobation. Of course, they will say we have broken the

neutrality, if we attack them in the ports of Sardinia before their

conquest, and if we do not I shall be laughed at for a fool.

_Prevention is better than cure_." With his usual long-headed

circumspection, however, even when most bent on an extreme step, he

warns the Prime Minister, to whom he is writing, to mention his

purpose to the Russian ambassador--that the latter may understand the

apparent breach of neutrality; for Russia has constituted herself a

champion of the Sardinian monarch. "I mention my intention that idle

reports may not be attended to."

As the winter of 1803-4 approached, and it became evident that Spain

was to persevere in her neutrality, Nelson removed his fleet to a

rendezvous about thirty miles south of Cape San Sebastian, on the

Spanish coast--the Number 97 continually mentioned in his official

letters to captains. There the highlands of Spain afford some shelter

from the furious northerly gales, which, sweeping over France from the

Atlantic, are compressed as in a funnel between the Pyrenees and the

Alps, to fall with redoubled violence on the Gulf of Lyons. Only the

utmost care and the most skilful seamanship could preserve the rickety

ships, upon whose efficiency so much depended, and which, if damaged,

there was none to replace. I "bear up for every gale," wrote Nelson.

"I must not in our present state quarrel with the northwesters--with

crazy masts and no port or spars near us." Even in September, he

writes, there are "three days' gale of severe blowing weather out of

the seven, which frequently comes on suddenly, and thereby exposes the

topmasts, topsail yards and sails, to great hazard, under every care

and attention; and there are no topmasts or topsail yards in store,

either at Gibraltar or Malta." "The French fleet keep us waiting; and

such a place as all the Gulf of Lyons, for gales of wind from the N.W.

to N.E., I never saw; but by always going away large, we generally

lose much of their force and the heavy sea. By the great care and

attention of every captain, we have suffered much less than could have

been expected. I do not believe Lord St. Vincent would have kept the

sea with such ships. However, with nursing our ships, we have roughed

it out better than could have been expected. We either run to the

southward, or furl all the sails and make the ships as easy as

possible." Under such circumstances, it was no small nor unworthy

boast he made near the close of the cruise, when the first ineffectual

attempt of the French to leave Toulon ended in numerous accidents.

"These gentlemen are not accustomed to a Gulf of Lyons gale, which we

have buffeted for twenty-one months, and not carried away a spar."

Nelson himself, though reckless to desperation when an adequate object

was at stake, in the moments of repose husbanded his means, and looked

to the efficiency of his instruments, with the diligence of a miser.

With his own hand he noted the weather indications, including the

barometer, at least three times every twenty-four hours, and

occasionally even more often.

A rendezvous, however advantageous, was not permitted by Nelson to

become a permanent station, or a long-continued resting-place for the

fleet. In the inevitable monotony of a watch protracted so far beyond

his original expectations, his sleepless solicitude for the health and

contentment of the ships' companies warned him that lack of mental

interest saps the spirit, and wears away the strength, beyond the

power of mere bodily comfort to prevent. On Number 97 was kept always

a ship--frigate or smaller cruiser--with word where the admiral was to

be found at any time; and thither resorted the vessels returning from

their missions to all parts of the station, or coming out from

England. "Rejoin me at Number 97," their instructions ran, "where you

will find me, or orders for your further proceedings." Other

rendezvous there were, of course, each with its own number, and with a

cruiser if at sea; but in the anchorages occasionally resorted to, as

Madalena, or the Gulf of Palmas in the south of Sardinia,

communications were left on shore. With the threads thus reaching from

these centres to the different parts of his command, Nelson's habit

was to keep his fleet in motion from point to point, in the stretch of

sea bounded on the one side by the coast of Spain, as far south as the

Balearics, and on the east by the islands of Sardinia and Corsica.

Through this hunting-ground, from end to end of which he roamed in

unceasing restlessness, like a lion roaring for his prey, the Toulon

fleet must pass, wherever bound; and by the judicious distribution of

the cruisers--all too few--allowed him by St. Vincent's economies, he

hoped to get timely and sufficient information of its leaving port.

"The great thing in all military service is health," he wrote to his

old friend, Dr. Moseley, who had been with him in the far-back Central

American expedition in 1780; "and you will agree with me, that it is

easier for an officer to keep men healthy, than for a physician to

cure them. Situated as this fleet has been, without a friendly port,

where we could get all the things so necessary for us, yet I have, by

changing the cruizing ground, not allowed the sameness of prospect to

satiate the mind--sometimes by looking at Toulon, Ville Franche,

Barcelona, and Rosas; then running round Minorca, Majorca; Sardinia

and Corsica; and two or three times anchoring for a few days, and

sending a ship to the last place for _onions_, which I find the best

thing that can be given to seamen; having always good mutton for the

sick, cattle when we can get them, and plenty of fresh water. In the

winter it is the best plan to give half the allowance of grog, instead

of all wine. These things are for the commander-in-chief to look to;

but shut very nearly out from Spain, and only getting refreshments by

stealth from other places, my command has been an arduous one." "Our

men's minds," he added, "are always kept up with the daily hopes of

meeting the enemy." An order indicating one of the squadron movements,

of which he here speaks, may be worth quoting. "Whereas it is my

intention," he writes at Number 97 to the captain there stationed, "to

proceed with the squadron, the first westerly wind, off Toulon, for

the purpose of reconnoitring the enemy at that port, and from thence

pass through Rendezvous No. 102, to secure any information the ships

there may have obtained of them, you are hereby required and directed

to keep on your station and inform any of his Majesty's ships arriving

on said rendezvous," etc.

The health of the crews, thus carefully watched, remained excellent

throughout, and is mentioned by him continually with evident pride as

well as satisfaction. Occasional slight outbursts of scurvy are noted,

despite his efforts for fresh food, and he mentions hectic

complaints--"of the few men we have lost, nine in ten are dead of

consumption "--but upon the whole, the general condition is

unparalleled in his experience. "We are healthy beyond example, and in

great good humour with ourselves," he writes in October, 1803, "and so

sharp-set, that I would not be a French Admiral in the way of any of

our ships for something." It would be tedious to quote the numerous

assertions to the same effect scattered up and down his correspondence

at this time; but in December, 1804, when near the end of this long

period of suspense, and after eighteen months at sea, he writes to the

Admiralty: "The Fleet is in perfect good health and good humour,

unequalled by anything which has ever come within my knowledge, and

equal to the most active service which the times may call for." Dr.

Gillespie, who joined the "Victory" as physician to the fleet in

January, 1805, wrote immediately afterwards that out of her eight

hundred and forty men, but one was confined to his bed by sickness,

and that the other ships, though upwards of twenty months off Toulon,

were in a like condition of health.

The same could not then, nor for long before, be said of Nelson

himself. The first flush of excitement in leaving England and taking

command, the expectation and change of scene in going out, affected

him favorably. "As to my health," he says, immediately after joining

the fleet, "thank God, I have not had a finger ache since I left

England;" but this, unfortunately, did not endure. It was his first

experience of the weightier anxieties of a commander-in-chief; for

when he had succeeded to that position, temporarily, in the

Mediterranean and the Baltic, he had found either a squadron in good

running order, or at the least no serious hitch about necessary

maintenance. Now all this was different. The difficulties about

supplies and the condition of his ships have been mentioned, as have

also his fears for Naples, Sicily, and the Morea,--all of which, in

his belief, might possibly be conquered, even without the

interposition of the Toulon fleet. The latter, however, kept him most

uneasy; for he could get no certain knowledge as to its destination,

or the probable time of its moving; and the wide field for injury open

to it, if his vigilance were eluded, kept his eager, unquiet mind

continually on the strain of speculation and anticipation. "I hope

they will come out and let us settle the matter. You know I hate being

kept in suspense." The nervous excitability--irritability--that often

overlay the usually cordial kindliness and gracious bearing of the

man, was an easy prey to such harassment. It breaks out at times in

his letters, but was only occasionally visible to those around him. By

the first of December he already foresees that he cannot last long.

"Next Christmas, please God, I shall be at Merton; for, by that time,

with all the anxiety attendant on such a command as this, I shall be

done up. The mind and body both wear out."

As autumn drew towards winter, the bitter cold went through his feeble

frame, and in the wild weather he was "always tossed about, and always

sea-sick." "We have had a most terrible winter," he writes, even

before the New Year. "It has almost knocked me up. I have been very

ill, and am now far from recovered; but I hope to hold out till the

battle is over, when I must recruit." "My heart, my Lord, is warm," he

tells Lord Hobart, the Secretary of State for War, "my head is firm,

but my body is unequal to my wishes. I am visibly shook; but as long

as I can hold out, I shall never abandon my truly honourable post." He

feared also blindness. "My eyesight fails me most dreadfully," he

writes to his old friend Davison. "I firmly believe that, in a very

few years, I shall be stone-blind. It is this only, of all my

maladies, that makes me unhappy; but God's will be done." The first

winter was unusually severe, and during it was added, to his official

cares and personal suffering, an extreme anxiety about Lady Hamilton,

for he was expecting the birth of a second child in January. This

child, a girl, lived but a short time; he never saw her. The effect of

these various causes upon his health was so great, that the

physicians, as early as January, 1804, were advising his return. "The

medical gentlemen are wanting to survey me, and to send me to Bristol

for the re-establishment of my health," he tells Minto; but he adds,

"do not mention it (it is my concern) I beg of you." Reports were then

unusually persistent that the enemy was about to put to sea. "_I_ must

not be sick until after the French fleet is taken."

To the last moment the destination of the French and the purposes of

Bonaparte remained unknown to him, a fruitful source of guessing and

worry. "It is at best but a guess," he wrote to Ball, after a year's

pondering, "and the world attaches wisdom to him that guesses right."

Yet his conclusions, however reached, though subject to temporary

variations, were in the main correct. Strongly impressed though he was

with the importance and exposure of Egypt, he inclined upon the whole

to the belief that the French were bound to the westward, out of the

Straits and into the Atlantic. This confirmed him in taking his

general summer rendezvous to the westward, where he was to windward of

such a movement, as well as interposed between Toulon and any Spanish

fleet attempting to go there. "My station to the westward of Toulon,

an unusual one," he writes to Addington in August, 1803, "has been

taken upon an idea that the French fleet is bound out of the Straits

and probably to Ireland. I shall follow them to the Antipodes." Two

months later he says: "Plausible reasons may certainly be given for

every one of the plans" suggested by his various correspondents; but

he thinks that either Alexandria or outside the Mediterranean is the

most probable. "To those two points my whole attention is turned."

"Their destination, is it Ireland or the Levant? That is what I want

to know;" but in December he still holds to his first impression: "My

opinion is, certainly, out of the Mediterranean."

In this perplexity Elliot suggested to him to receive on board the

fleet some good Frenchmen, who could land from time to time and get

information in Toulon,--a proposition which drew from Nelson a

characteristic and amusing explosion. "Mr. Elliot wanted to send me

some _good_ Frenchmen, to go ashore and get me information. My answer

to all these offers is 'No.' I can be told nothing of any consequence

to me; but a copy of the French admiral's orders, when he is to put to

sea, and where he is destined to, is the only useful information I can

care about. I can see the number and force at Toulon any day I please,

and as for the names of the Captains or Admirals I care not what they

are called; therefore, as you may suppose, I have none of these 'good

Frenchmen' about me." "I put no confidence in them," he tells Elliot.

"You think yours good: the Queen thinks hers the same: I believe they

are all alike. Whatever information you can get me, I shall be very

thankful for; but not a Frenchman comes here. Forgive me, but my

mother hated the French." "I never trust a Corsican or a Frenchman. I

would give the devil ALL the good ones to take the remainder."

As winter advanced, his perplexities increased, for each

correspondent, by long dwelling on his particular concern, saw its

danger and importance growing in his own eyes, and dwelt upon them

with greater emphasis in his letters. "Ball is sure they are going to

Egypt; the Turks are sure they are going to the Morea; Mr. Elliot at

Naples, to Sicily; and the King of Sardinia, to his only spot. Every

power thinks they are destined against them; but whatever the French

may intend to do," he concludes, with a quaint humor occasional with

him, "I trust, and with confidence, they are destined for _Spithead_."

He recognized, too, that Bonaparte himself was not wholly master of

his own projects when contending with such uncertain elements; and the

great master of War, in this instance as in many others, had placed

his force so centrally, in the heel of Italy, that he threatened with

equal facility in two opposite directions, to his own advantage and

his enemies' perplexity. "Circumstances may even make it necessary to

alter its destination by Buonaparte; Egypt or Ireland, and I rather

lean to the latter destination." Anything, indeed, is possible; for,

as winter approaches, "we can be sure of nothing in so short a

run,"--as to Sardinia or Sicily.

For a little while during February, 1804, he was further stirred up by

reports that the French were about to concentrate their naval forces,

from Brest and Ferrol, in the Mediterranean; and this he was inclined

to believe, unfavorable as the season would be for maritime operations

in that stormy sea, with the inexperienced crews of the enemy. In the

summer his conviction of the importance of the Mediterranean had fully

prepared him for such an attempt. "Naples, the Morea, and ultimately

Egypt, are in Buonaparte's view," he had then written. "With this

idea, I fully expect that the French fleet from Brest will assuredly

come into the Mediterranean, to protect this army across the water. I

shall try and fight one party or the other, before they form a

junction." "Much may be done before British reinforcements arrive," he

reminded St. Vincent. "Your Lordship knows what Admiral Bruix might

have done, had he done his duty, and they may buy their experience."

Now he says to Ball, "The Admiralty tells me nothing, they know

nothing; but my private letters say, that the Brest squadron, as well

as Ferrol,[62] is bound here--if so, we shall have work enough upon

our hands." Thirty thousand troops, also, were ready to embark in

Marseilles and Nice. The conclusion, in view of so great a force

assembling, was natural: "Egypt, I have no doubt is the favourite and

ultimate object of the Corsican tyrant." Nelson's spirit rises with

the occasion. "I shall try to intercept them, but I cannot go so far

to the westward as is necessary; for I will not lose sight of the

Toulon fleet. What a most zealous man can do to meet all points of

difficulty, shall be done. My squadron is the finest for its numbers

in the world, and much may be expected of it. Should superior numbers

join, we must look it in the face. _Nil desperandum!_ God is good, and

our cause is just."

This alarm passed away like others. Bonaparte had no idea of pushing

ships into the Mediterranean, or embarking his naval forces on any

doubtful experiments, until he had first tested the possibility of

that supreme adventure, the invasion of England. When that mighty

imagination passed away like a dream that leaves no trace, he ordered

his fleets into the Mediterranean, as Nelson had expected, and the

result was Trafalgar.

As the spring of 1804 opened, the French admiral at Toulon began to

exercise his ships outside the harbor, singly or in small groups, like

half-fledged birds learning to fly; or, to use Nelson's expression,

"My friend Monsieur La Touche sometimes plays bo-peep in and out of

Toulon, like a mouse at the edge of her hole." The only drill-ground

for fleets, the open sea, being closed to him, he could do no better

than these furtive excursions, to prepare for the eagle's flight

Napoleon had prescribed to him. "Last week, at different times, two

sail of the line put their heads out of Toulon, and on Thursday, the

5th [April], in the afternoon, they all came out." "Yesterday [the

9th] a rear-admiral and seven sail, including frigates, put their nose

outside the harbour. If they go on playing this game, some day we

shall lay salt upon their tails, and so end the campaign."

These outings--"capers," Nelson called them--naturally became more

venturesome by little and little, as the British suffered them to

proceed without serious attempt at molestation, or near approach on

their part. Nelson veiled the keenness of his watch, as he crouched

for a spring, with a drowsy appearance of caution and indifference.

The French admiral, Latouche Tréville, was he who had commanded at

Boulogne when Nelson's boats were repelled with slaughter; and it was

also he who in 1792 had sent a grenadier to the King of Naples, with a

peremptory summons to diplomatic apology in one hand, and a threat of

bombardment in the other. For both these affairs Nelson considered he

had a personal score to settle. "I rather believe my antagonist at

Toulon begins to be angry with me: at least, I am trying to make him

so; and then, he may come out, and beat me, as he says he did off

Boulogne. He is the Admiral that went to Naples in December, 1792,

who landed the grenadier. I owe him something for that."

The French having eight sail-of-the-line certainly ready for sea, and

two or three more nearly so--how nearly Nelson was not sure--he now

endeavored to lure them out. "I have taken a method of making Mr. La

Touche Tréville angry. I have left Sir Richard Bickerton, with part of

the fleet, twenty leagues from hence, and, with five of the line, am

preventing his cutting capers, which he has done for some time past,

off Cape Sicie." "He seems inclined to try his hand with us," he

writes a week later, "and by my keeping so great an inferiority close

to him, perhaps he may some day be tempted." Nelson had near Toulon at

the time nine ships-of-the-line. Had he succeeded in bringing Latouche

Tréville to attack his five, he would have hoped, even with such odds,

for a decisive victory; but, failing that, he was assured that the

Toulon fleet would be out of the game for that summer. It was

important to bring matters to an issue, for, as he wrote Elliot, his

force was diminishing daily through the deterioration of ships never

from the first fit for their work. Measured by the standard of the

ships in the Channel, "I have but four sail fit to keep the sea. I

absolutely keep them out by management." Except the four, all needed

docking, and there was not a dock open to the British west of

Constantinople.

But, while thus keenly anxious to force an action, he was wary to

obtain tactical conditions that should insure a success, adequate both

to the risk he ran, and to the object at which he aimed. "I think

their fleet will be ordered out to fight close to Toulon, that they

may get their crippled ships in again, and that we must then quit the

coast to repair our damages, and thus leave the coast clear; but my

mind is fixed not to fight them, unless with a westerly wind, outside

the Hières, and with an easterly wind, to the westward of Sicie."

Crippled there, to leeward of their port, the other British division

coming up fresh, as a reserve, from the southward, where it lay

concealed, would both cut them off, and rescue any of their own fleet

that might have been overpowered. Bickerton's orders were to remain

due south from Port Cros, one of the Hyères, at a distance such that,

with the upper canvas furled, his ships could not be seen from the

islands, but could keep the main division in sight from their

mastheads. In all cases of anticipated battle, Nelson not only took

his measures thus thoughtfully, but was careful to put his

subordinates in possession both of his general plans, and, as far as

possible, of the underlying ideas. Thus, in a memorandum issued about

this time to the captains, he says: "As it is my determination to

attack the French fleet in any place where there is a reasonable

prospect of getting fairly alongside of them, I recommend that every

captain will make himself, by inquiries, as fully acquainted as

possible with the following places, viz., Hières Bay, [with its three

entrances], Gourjean Bay, (of which I send a chart from the latest

surveys made,) Port Especia, and, in particular the northern Passage

into Leghorn Roads, from which side it is only, in my opinion,

possible to attack an enemy's fleet to advantage; and with the Gulf of

Ajaccio." To these instructions he adds some details of practical

preparation for anchoring under fire, and the reasons therefor. In the

same spirit, when expecting the Brest fleet in the Mediterranean, he

says: "I am perfectly prepared how to act with either a superior or an

inferior force. My mind is firm as a rock, and my plans for every

event fixed in my mind." No man ever was served better than Nelson by

the inspiration of the moment; no man ever counted on it less.

In communicating his ideas to his subordinates Nelson did not confine

himself to official intercourse; on the contrary, his natural

disposition impelled him rather to familiar conversation with them on

service subjects. "Even for debating the most important naval

business," we learn through his confidential secretary at this period,

"he preferred a turn on the quarter-deck with his captains, whom he

led by his own frankness to express themselves freely, to all the

stiffness and formality of a council of war."[63] An interesting

instance of these occasional counsels has been transmitted to us by

one of his captains, then little more than a youth, but the last to

survive of those who commanded ships under him. "Throughout the month

of October, 1804, Toulon was frequently reconnoitred, and the Phoebe

and Amazon were ordered to cruize together. Previous to their going

away Lord Nelson gave to Captains Capel and Parker several

injunctions, in case they should get an opportunity of attacking two

of the French frigates, which now got under weigh more frequently. The

principal one was, that they should not each single out and attack an

opponent, but 'that both should endeavour together to take _one

frigate_; if successful, chase the other: but if you do not take the

second, still you have won a victory, and your country will gain a

frigate.' Then, half laughing, and half snappishly, said kindly to

them as he wished them good-bye, 'I daresay you consider yourselves a

couple of fine fellows, and when you get away from me you will do

nothing of the sort, but think yourselves wiser than I am!'"[64]

The game of cat and mouse, off Toulon, occasioned one incident which

greatly upset Nelson's composure, and led to a somewhat amusing

display of ire, excited by a statement of the French admiral,

published throughout Europe, that his renowned antagonist had run away

from him. On the 13th of June, two French frigates and a brig were

seen under the Hyères Islands, where they had been sent by Latouche

Tréville, upon the report that some enemy's cruisers were in the

neighborhood. Nelson despatched two frigates after them, which, owing

to light winds, did not get near until the next day. The French

vessels being then seen from the "Victory" to be close in with the

batteries, the "Excellent," 74, was sent to support the frigates, and

some time afterwards the other four ships also bore up for the main

entrance to the islands. Upon this, Latouche Tréville got under way,

and at about 5 P.M. came out of the harbor with his eight

sail-of-the-line. Nelson's division reduced their canvas, hauling to

the wind in line of battle, on the starboard tack, which, with the

then wind, was with their heads off shore, and the "Excellent" was

recalled, although she could not rejoin till midnight. In this order

they hove-to (stopped), with two reefs in the topsails and the main

yards square, at 7.30 P.M., which at that time of the year was broad

daylight, and in this general position remained till next morning.

As the distance between the hostile bodies was apparently from twelve

to fifteen miles, the French admiral's observations may have failed to

recognize that the enemy, by backing his topsails, had offered a fair

challenge; else, in his report of this very commonplace occurrence, he

could scarcely have used, concerning the movement of heading south,

the expression, _prit chasse_, which, whether rendered "retired," or

"retreated," or, as Nelson did, "ran away," was a misrepresentation of

the facts, and heightened by the assertion that he pursued till

nightfall, and next morning could not see the enemy. Writing to Elliot

four days after the affair happened, Nelson mentioned casually his

view of the matter. "Monsieur La Touche came out with eight sail of

the line and six frigates, cut a caper off Sepet, and went in again. I

brought-to for his attack, although I did not believe anything was

meant serious, but merely a gasconade." "On the morning of the 15th,"

he tells Acton on the same day, "I believe I may call it, we chased

him into Toulon." His purpose evidently was, as has been shown, to

fight, if the enemy meant business, to leeward of the port, and far

enough off to give Bickerton a chance to come up. Great was his wrath,

two months later, when Latouche's statement reached him, and he found

that not only no mention was made of the relative numbers, but that

the offensive expression quoted had been used. "I do assure you," he

wrote to the Admiralty, enclosing a copy of the day's log, "I know not

what to say, except by a flat contradiction; for if my character is

not established by this time for not being apt to run away, it is not

worth my time to attempt to put the world right." He might well have

rested there,--an imputation that might have injured an untried man

could provoke only a smile when levelled at his impregnable renown;

but his ruffled mind would not let him keep quiet, and in private

correspondence he vented his rage in terms similar to those used of

the Danish commodore after Copenhagen. "You will have seen Monsieur La

Touche's letter of how he chased me and how I _ran_. I keep it; and,

by G--d, if I take him, he shall _eat_ it." He is a "poltroon," a

"liar," and a "miscreant." It may be added that no admiral, whether a

Nelson or not, could have abandoned the "Excellent" under the

conditions.

Immediately after this abortive affair, Nelson, convinced by it that

something more than a taunt was needed to bring his enemy under his

guns, stationed frigates at the Hyères, and to cruise thence to the

eastward as far as Cape Taillat, to intercept the commerce between

Italy and Toulon and Marseilles. For this purpose he had recommended,

and the Government had ordered, a blockade of all Genoese ports

including Spezia; Genoa, now the Ligurian Republic, being considered

as much France as Toulon. Nothing, he said, could distress France

more. This blockade had been but feebly enforced, owing to the lack

of small cruisers; but he hoped to attain the same end by the frigates

off the Hyères. "I really am of opinion," he told their commander,

"that it will force La Touche out." In the latter, however, he had to

do with an opponent of skill as well as of resolution. Firmly imbued

with the French tradition, and with Bonaparte's instructions, which

subordinated his local action entirely to the great scheme in which

the Toulon fleet had its appointed part, Latouche Tréville was neither

to be provoked nor betrayed into an action, by which, however tempting

the promise, his fleet might be made unfit for their intended service.

Nelson did him no more than justice, when he said, "I am confident,

when he is ordered for any service, that he will risk falling in with

us, and the event of a battle, to try and accomplish his orders;" but,

short of the appointed time, nothing else could entice him. In vain

did the British admiral bait his trap by exposing frigates, without

visible support, to draw him to leeward, while the hostile fleet

hovered out of sight to windward. The shrewd Frenchman doubtless felt

the temptation, but he distrusted the gifts too plausibly tendered.

Besides the interest of the public service, Nelson had the strongest

personal motives for bringing matters to an issue. The prolonged

suspense and the anxiety were exhausting him, the steady tension even

of the normal conditions fretted him beyond endurance; but when a

crisis became accentuated by an appearance that the enemy had eluded

him, his feelings of distress, acting upon an enfeebled organization,

and a nervous temperament so sensitive that he started at the mere

dropping of a rope beside him, drove him almost to distraction. On

such an occasion he wrote: "I am absolutely beginning this letter in a

fever of the mind. It is thick as butter-milk, and blowing a Levanter;

and the Narcissus has just spoke me to say, 'she boarded a vessel,

and they understood that the men had seen, a few days before, twelve

sail of ships of war off Minorca. It was in the dusk, and he did not

know which way they were steering.' This is the whole story, and a

lame one. You will imagine my feelings, although I cannot bring my

mind to believe. To miss them, God forbid.... If I should miss these

fellows, my heart will break: I am actually only now recovering the

shock of missing them in 1798. God knows I only serve to fight those

scoundrels; and if I cannot do that, I should be better on shore."

When the weather cleared, and a reconnoissance showed the news was

false, his intense relief found expression in the words: "I believe

this is the only time in my life, that I was glad to hear the French

were in port." "The French ships," he says at another time, "have

either altered their anchorage, or some of them have got to sea in the

late gales: the idea has given me half a fever. If that admiral were

to cheat me out of my hopes of meeting him, it would kill me much

easier than one of his balls. Since we sat down to dinner Captain

Moubray has made the signal, but I am very far from being easy."

On the 12th of May, 1804, there was a change of administration in

England. Earl St. Vincent left the Admiralty, as First Lord, and was

succeeded by Lord Melville. A few days before this Nelson, by a

general promotion, had become Vice-Admiral of the White, the rank in

which he died eighteen months later.

The return of summer had improved his health from the low condition

into which it had fallen during the winter, but he did not flatter

himself as to the future. The combination of colorless monotony with

constant racking anxiety slackened the springs of moral energy, which,

and which alone, responding joyously to a call to action, afforded the

stimulus capable of triumphing over his bodily weakness, and causing

it for the moment to disappear. "This is an odd war," he said, "not a

battle!" Tying himself to the ship, in profound sympathy with the

crews, he never went ashore from the time he left Malta in June, 1803,

until he reached Gibraltar in July, 1805; nor was he ever outside of

the "Victory" from July 30, 1803, the day he went on board her from

the "Amphion." "Always shut up in the Victory's cabin," as he himself

wrote, "cannot be very good for the constitution. I think you will

find me grown thin, but never mind." Other officers, especially of the

frigates, got their occasional runs ashore; but his slight figure was

continually in view, walking the front of the poop, to the unconscious

contentment of the men, thus reminded ever that their admiral shared

their deprivations. This profound seclusion to the narrow circle of

the flagship, although often broken by the presence of officers from

the other vessels, who, whether cruising in company with the fleet, or

arriving with tidings from different ports, were daily partakers of

the admiral's hospitable table, could not but depress him; and there

was with him the constant sense of loss, by absence from those he held

most dear. "I have not a thought except on you and the French fleet,"

he tells Lady Hamilton; "all my thoughts, plans, and toils tend to

those two objects. Don't laugh at my putting you and the French fleet

together, but you cannot be separated."

Yet even towards her his mind is fixed as of old, that she must take a

place second to duty. She had, it appears, insisted upon her wish to

come out to the station to be near him. Malta and Italy were both, he

said, out of the question. His place was off Toulon, as long as the

French fleet was there; therefore he could not go into harbor; nay, "I

might absolutely miss you, by leaving the Mediterranean without

warning. The other day we had a report the French were out, and seen

steering to the westward. We were as far as Minorca when the alarm

proved false." As for coming on board the "Victory" to live, which

she seems to have suggested, "Imagine what a cruize off Toulon is;

even in summer time we have a hard gale every week, and two days'

heavy swell. It would kill you; and myself to see you. Much less

possible to have Charlotte, Horatia, &c., on board ship! And I, that

have given orders to carry no women to sea in the Victory, to be the

first to break them! I know, my own dear Emma, if she will let her

reason have fair play, will say I am right; but she is like Horatia,

very angry if she cannot have her own way." "Horatia is like her

mother; will have her own way, or kick up a devil of a dust,"--an

observation both Greville and Hamilton had had to make. "Your Nelson,"

he concludes, "is called upon, in the most honourable manner, to

defend his country. Absence to us is equally painful: but, if I had

either stayed at home, or neglected my duty abroad, would not my Emma

have blushed for me? She could never have heard my praises, and how

the country looks up." "The call of our country," he says again,

"makes it indispensable for both our honours--the country looks up to

the services of the poorest individual, much more to me, and are you

not a sharer of my glory?"

Of his daily life on board, and intercourse with others, we have

intimations, fragmentary yet sufficient. "Our days," he himself says,

"pass so much alike that, having described one, you have them all. We

now [October] breakfast by candle light; and all retire, at eight

o'clock, to bed." "We cruise, cruise, and one day so like another that

they are hardly distinguishable, but _hopes_, blessed _hopes_, keeps

us up, that some happy day the French may come out, then I shall

consider my duty to my country fulfilled." Of one of these monotonous

days we have received a description from an officer,[65] a member of

the admiral's mess, who had then too lately entered upon them to feel

the full weight of their deadly sameness.