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THE LIFE OF NELSON
THE EMBODIMENT OF THE SEA POWER OF GREAT BRITAIN
BY
CAPTAIN A.T. MAHAN, D.C.L., LL.D.
UNITED STATES NAVY
AUTHOR OF
"THE INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER UPON HISTORY, 1660-1783,"
"THE INFLUENCE OF SEA POWER UPON THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND EMPIRE,"
AND OF A "LIFE OF ADMIRAL FARRAGUT"
IN TWO VOLUMES
VOL. I.
LONDON
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON, & COMPANY, _LIMITED_
1897
PREFACE.
The Life of Nelson has been written so often, that an
explanation--almost an apology--seems due for any renewal of the
attempt; but, not to mention the attractiveness of the theme in
itself, it is essential to the completeness and rounding off of the
author's discussion of the Influence of Sea Power, that he present a
study, from his own point of view, of the one man who in himself
summed up and embodied the greatness of the possibilities which Sea
Power comprehends,--the man for whom genius and opportunity worked
together, to make him the personification of the Navy of Great
Britain, the dominant factor in the periods hitherto treated. In the
century and a half embraced in those periods, the tide of influence
and of power has swelled higher and higher, floating upward before the
eyes of mankind many a distinguished name; but it is not until their
close that one arises in whom all the promises of the past find their
finished realization, their perfect fulfilment. Thenceforward the name
of Nelson is enrolled among those few presented to us by History, the
simple mention of which suggests, not merely a personality or a
career, but a great force or a great era concrete in a single man, who
is its standard-bearer before the nations.
Yet, in this process of exaltation, the man himself, even when so very
human and so very near our own time as Nelson is, suffers from an
association which merges his individuality in the splendor of his
surroundings; and it is perhaps pardonable to hope that the subject is
not so far exhausted but that a new worker, gleaning after the
reapers, may contribute something further towards disengaging the
figure of the hero from the glory that cloaks it. The aim of the
present writer, while not neglecting other sources of knowledge, has
been to make Nelson describe himself, — tell the story of his own
inner life as well as of his external actions. To realize this object,
it has not seemed the best way to insert numerous letters, because, in
the career of a man of action, each one commonly deals with a variety
of subjects, which bear to one another little relation, except that,
at the moment of writing, they all formed part of the multifold life
the writer was then leading. It is true, life in general is passed in
that way; but it is not by such distraction of interest among minute
details that a particular life is best understood. Few letters,
therefore, have been inserted entire; and those which have, have been
chosen because of their unity of subject, and of their value as
characteristic.
The author's method has been to make a careful study of Nelson's
voluminous correspondence, analyzing it, in order to detect the
leading features of temperament, traits of thought, and motives of
action; and thence to conceive within himself, by gradual familiarity
even more than by formal effort, the character therein revealed. The
impression thus produced he has sought to convey to others, partly in
the form of ordinary narrative,--daily living with his hero,--and
partly by such grouping of incidents and utterances, not always, nor
even nearly, simultaneous, as shall serve by their joint evidence to
emphasize particular traits, or particular opinions, more forcibly
than when such testimonies are scattered far apart; as they would be,
if recounted in a strict order of time.
A like method of treatment has been pursued in regard to that purely
external part of Nelson's career in which are embraced his military
actions, as well as his public and private life. The same aim is kept
in view of showing clearly, not only what he did, but the principles
which dominated his military thought, and guided his military actions,
throughout his life; or, it may be, such changes as must inevitably
occur in the development of a man who truly lives. This cannot be done
satisfactorily without concentrating the evidence from time to time;
and it is therefore a duty a writer owes to his readers, if they wish
such acquaintance with his subject as he thinks he has succeeded in
acquiring for himself.
The author has received individual assistance from several persons. To
a general expression of thanks he wishes to add his special
acknowledgments to the present Earl Nelson, through whose aid he has
obtained information of interest which otherwise probably would have
escaped him; and to Lords Radstock and De Saumarez, both of whom have
been good enough to place in his hands letters contemporary with
Nelson, and touching incidentally matters that throw light on his
career. Material of the same kind has also been furnished him by
Professor John Knox Laughton, whose knowledge of Nelson and of the
Navy of that period is second to none; it is not the least of the
writer's advantages that he has had before him, to check possible
errors in either fact or conclusions, the admirable, though brief,
Life of Nelson published by Mr. Laughton two years since.
Illustrative anecdotes have also been supplied by Admiral Sir William
R. Mends, G.C.B., who has shown his continued interest in the work by
the trouble he has taken for it; by Mr. Stuart J. Reid, of Blackwell
Cliff, East Grinstead; and by Mr. Edgar Goble, of Fareham, Hants. Mr.
B.F. Stevens, of 4 Trafalgar Square, has also kindly exerted himself
on several occasions to obtain needed information. To Mrs. F.H.B.
Eccles, of Sherwell House, Plymouth, granddaughter of Josiah Nisbet,
Nelson's stepson, the author is indebted for reminiscences of Lady
Nelson, and for her portrait here published; and his thanks are also
due to Lieutenant-Colonel W. Clement D. Esdaile, of Burley Manor,
Ringwood, Hants, through whom he was brought into communication with
Mrs. Eccles, and who has in other ways helped him.
Throughout the writing of the book constant assistance has been
received from Mr. Robert B. Marston, to whom cordial acknowledgment is
made for the untiring pains taken in prosecuting necessary inquiries,
which could not have been done without great delay by one not living
in England. Suggestions valuable to the completeness of the work have
been given also by Mr. Marston.
For the portrait of Mrs. Philip Ward, the "Horatia" whom Nelson called
generally his adopted daughter, but at times spoke of as his daughter
simply, and whom, on the last morning of his life, he commended to the
care of his Country, the author has to thank Mr. and Mrs. Nelson Ward,
of 15 Lancaster Road, Belsize Park, London. Mr. Nelson Ward is her
son.
To the more usual sources of information already in print, it is not
necessary to refer in detail; but it is right to mention especially
the collection of Hamilton and Nelson letters, published by Mr. Alfred
Morrison, a copy of which by his polite attention was sent the writer,
and upon which must necessarily be based such account of Nelson's
relations with Lady Hamilton as, unfortunately, cannot be omitted
wholly from a life so profoundly affected by them.
A.T. MAHAN.
MARCH, 1897.
CONTENTS OF VOL. I.
CHAPTER I.
THE FIRST TWENTY-FIVE YEARS.
Distinction of Nelson's career
His extensive and varied correspondence
Parentage and birth
Delicacy of constitution
First entry in the Navy
Anecdotes of childhood
Cared for by his uncle, Captain Maurice Suckling
Serves in a West India merchantman
Expedition to the Arctic Sea
Cruise to the East Indies
Acting lieutenant in the Channel Fleet
Promoted lieutenant in the "Lowestoffe"
Goes to the West Indies
Incidents of service
Transferred to the flagship "Bristol"
Promoted to Commander and to Post-Captain
Personal appearance, 1780
Youth when promoted
Scanty opportunities for war service
The Nicaragua Expedition
Health breaks down
Returns to England
Appointed to the "Albemarle"
Short trip to the Baltic
Goes to the North American Station
At New York, and transferred to the West Indies
Personal appearance, 1782
Sentiments concerning honor and money
Returns to England and goes on half-pay
Visit to France
Unsuccessful courtship
CHAPTER II.
CRUISE OF THE "BOREAS."--CONTROVERSY OVER THE ENFORCEMENT OF THE
NAVIGATION ACT.--RETURN TO ENGLAND.--RETIREMENT UNTIL THE OUTBREAK OF
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION.--APPOINTED TO COMMAND THE "AGAMEMNON."
1784-1793.
Appointed to command the "Boreas"
Sails for the Leeward Islands
Traits of character and manners
Refuses to recognize a commodore's pendant, of a captain "not
in commission"
Indications of character in this act
Controversy over the Navigation Act
Refuses obedience to the Admiral's order, as illegal
Persists in seizing vessels violating the Act
Consequent legal proceedings
Conduct approved by the Home Government
Results of his action
Characteristics shown by it
Meets his future wife, Mrs. Nisbet
Contemporary description of him
Progress of courtship
Reconciliation with the Admiral
Characteristics manifested by Nelson in the controversy
Left senior officer on the Station
Health and marriage
The "Boreas" returns to England
Employed on the Impress Service
Annoyances and dissatisfaction
Prejudices against him
The "Boreas" paid off
Sensitiveness under censure
Flattering reception at Court
Efforts to suppress frauds in West Indies
Breadth and acuteness of intellect
Results of his efforts against frauds
Prejudices against him at the Admiralty
His partisanship for Prince William Henry
Insubordinate conduct of the latter
Nelson's difference with Lord Hood
Out of favor at Court
On half-pay, 1788-1792
Progress of the French Revolution
Nelson applies for a ship
Appointed to the "Agamemnon," 64
France declares war against Great Britain
CHAPTER III.
NELSON'S DEPARTURE FROM ENGLAND IN THE "AGAMEMNON."--SERVICES IN THE
MEDITERRANEAN UNTIL THE RECOVERY OF TOULON BY THE FRENCH.--LORD HOOD
IN COMMAND.
FEBRUARY-DECEMBER, 1793.
Significance of Nelson's career
Intimate association of the "Agamemnon" with his name
Delay in her equipment
Nelson's hatred for the French
Sails for Spithead
Cruising in the Channel
Departure for Mediterranean, and arrival off Toulon
Remarks on the Spanish Navy
Professional utterances
Services off Toulon and at Naples
Toulon surrendered to the British and Spaniards
Nelson's reconcilement with Hood
Hardships of the cruise
His intelligence and zeal
Rejoins fleet off Toulon
Constantly on detached, semi-independent, service
Sent to Tunis
Action with four French frigates
Negotiations at Tunis
Nelson's wish to go to the West Indies
Ordered to command a division blockading Corsica
The allies are forced to quit Toulon
CHAPTER IV.
REDUCTION OF CORSICA BY THE BRITISH.--DEPARTURE OF LORD HOOD FOR
ENGLAND.--THE "AGAMEMNON" REFITTED AT LEGHORN.
JANUARY-DECEMBER, 1794.
Importance of Corsica
Hood orders Nelson to open communications with Paoli
Operations begun at San Fiorenzo
Bastia blockaded by Nelson
Description of Bastia
The army refuses to undertake the siege
Destitute condition of the "Agamemnon"
Quarrel between Hood and General Dundas
Nelson's opinions about besieging Bastia
Comments
Strength of the place
Nelson's military character as shown by his opinion
Instances in his correspondence
Progress of the siege
The place capitulates
Nelson's part in the operations
Inadequate credit from Hood
Nelson's dissatisfaction, but continued zeal
Loftiness of his motives
Arrival of General Stuart to command army in Corsica
Preparations for siege of Calvi
News of the sailing of French Toulon fleet
Hood sails in pursuit
Development of Nelson's military opinions
"Agamemnon" sent back to Bastia
Proceeds thence to San Fiorenzo
Nelson's meeting with General Stuart
His opinions on a "fleet in being"
Arrival off Calvi
Nelson lands with the troops
Arrival of Lord Hood
Nelson's part in the siege of Calvi
Defences of Calvi
Nelson loses his right eye
Friction between Army and Navy
Nelson's tact towards both
Feeling between Hood and Moore
Progress of the siege
Calvi capitulates
Sickness among the British
Condition of "Agamemnon's" crew
Repose given at Leghorn
Hood is relieved by Hotham and returns to England
Nelson's criticisms on naval actions
His distress at prolonged continuance in port
Broods over Hood's inadequate mention of him
Compliment from the Viceroy of Corsica
CHAPTER V.
NELSON'S SERVICES WITH THE FLEET IN THE MEDITERRANEAN UNDER ADMIRAL
HOTHAM.--PARTIAL FLEET ACTIONS OF MARCH 13 AND 14, AND JULY
13.--NELSON ORDERED TO COMMAND A DETACHED SQUADRON CO-OPERATING WITH
THE AUSTRIAN ARMY IN THE RIVIERA OF GENOA.
JANUARY-JULY, 1795.
General military conditions in Europe and Italy
Importance of the British conquest of Corsica
General character of Nelson's service
He rejoins the fleet
His speculations as to the French objects
The French put to sea
Action between "Agamemnon" and "Ça Ira"
Characteristics displayed by Nelson
Partial fleet action, March
Nelson's urgency with Hotham
Discussion of Hotham's action
Nelson's share in the general result
His affectionate correspondence with his wife
Anxiety for Corsica
Regret at Hood's detachment from command
Receives Honorary Colonelcy of Marines
Sent on detached service to the Riviera
Encounters French fleet
Rejoins Hotham at San Fiorenzo
Partial fleet action of July
Nelson's dissatisfaction with it
Discussion of his criticisms
Effects of Hotham's inertness
CHAPTER VI.
NELSON'S COMMAND OF A DETACHED SQUADRON ON THE RIVIERA OF GENOA, UNTIL
THE DEFEAT OF THE AUSTRIANS AT THE BATTLE OF LOANO.--SIR JOHN JERVIS
APPOINTED COMMANDER-IN-CHIEF IN THE MEDITERRANEAN.
JULY-DECEMBER, 1795.
Nelson takes command of a squadron on the Riviera
Conditions of belligerents and neutrals on the Riviera
Nelson's "political courage"
Disregards Hotham's orders
Hotham approves his action
Effect of his action upon the enemy
Evasion of his efforts by the coasters
He proposes to the Austrians to occupy San Remo
Discussion of this proposal
The effect in his mind of a "fleet in being"
Inactivity of the Austrians and of the fleet
Menacing attitude of the French
Hotham succeeded by Hyde Parker
Battle of Loano.--Defeat of the Austrians
Nelson's condemnation of the British admirals
Increase of his own reputation
Forcible letter repudiating an attack on his integrity
Generally congenial character of his service on the Riviera
Correspondence with home
Passing desire to return to England
CHAPTER VII.
NELSON'S SERVICES IN THE MEDITERRANEAN DURING THE YEAR
1796.--BONAPARTE'S ITALIAN CAMPAIGN.--THE BRITISH ABANDON CORSICA, AND
THE FLEET LEAVES THE MEDITERRANEAN.
JANUARY-DECEMBER, 1796.
The "Agamemnon" refits at Leghorn
Nelson's sensitiveness to censure
His vindication of his recent conduct
His erroneous conceptions of French military aims
Importance of Vado Bay
First meeting between Nelson and Jervis
Nelson's anxiety to remain on the station
Coincidence of views between Nelson and Jervis
Nelson sent again to the Riviera
Reconnoitres Toulon
Expects a French descent in force near Leghorn
Analogy between this and Napoleon's plans in 1805
Nelson urges the Austrians to occupy Vado
He hoists his broad pendant as Commodore
The Austrian general, Beaulieu, advances
Nelson accompanies the movement with his ships
Premature attack by Austrians
Nelson receives news of their defeat by Bonaparte
Austrians retreat behind the Apennines
Nelson resumes operations against the coasting-traffic
His singleness of purpose and resoluteness
His activity, difficulties encountered, and plans
Transferred from the "Agamemnon" to the "Captain"
Subsequent fortunes of the "Agamemnon"
Bonaparte's designs upon Corsica
The French seize Leghorn
Nelson's inferences from that act
Nelson and Bonaparte compared
British blockade of Leghorn
Occupation of Elba by the British
The Austrians under Wurmser attack Bonaparte
Nelson plans an assault on Leghorn
He learns the Austrian defeat at Castiglione
His gradual change of opinion as to leaving the Mediterranean
His pride in the British fleet
Genoa closes her ports against the British
The fleet ordered to quit the Mediterranean
Effect on Nelson
He superintends the evacuation of Bastia
The fleet withdraws to Gibraltar
Growth of Nelson's reputation
His susceptibility to flattery
His home relations
His inadequate appreciation of the character of the war
CHAPTER VIII.
THE EVACUATION OF ELBA.--NIGHT COMBAT WITH TWO SPANISH
FRIGATES.--BATTLE OF CAPE ST. VINCENT.--NELSON PROMOTED TO
REAR-ADMIRAL.--SERVICES BEFORE CADIZ.
DECEMBER, 1796-JUNE, 1797.
Nelson sent to Elba to remove naval material
Combat with Spanish frigates
Arrival at Elba
Hesitations of the General about evacuating
Nelson leaves Elba with the naval vessels
Deliberate reconnoissance of the enemy's coast
Characteristic action of Nelson throughout this expedition
Night encounter with the Spanish fleet
Rejoins Jervis off Cape St. Vincent
Battle of Cape St. Vincent
Nelson's exceptional action
His merit in taking it
Takes possession of two Spanish ships-of-the-line
Characteristics here evinced
Controversy with Vice-Admiral William Parker
Comments upon this
Jervis's neglect to mention special services
His sense of Nelson's merit
Nelson's preferences in the matter of rewards
Made a Knight of the Bath
Promoted Rear-Admiral
Cruises for treasure-ships from Mexico
Anxiety about the Elba troops
Sent by Jervis to escort them to Gibraltar
Safe return to Gibraltar
Provides protection for American merchant-ships against French privateers
Rejoins Jervis off Cadiz
Operations against Cadiz
General good health and happiness
Pride in his reputation
CHAPTER IX.
THE UNSUCCESSFUL ATTEMPT AGAINST TENERIFFE.--NELSON LOSES HIS RIGHT
ARM.--RETURN TO ENGLAND.--REJOINS ST. VINCENT'S FLEET, AND SENT INTO
THE MEDITERRANEAN TO WATCH THE TOULON ARMAMENT.
JULY, 1797-MAY, 1798.
Origin of the Teneriffe Expedition
Conditions conducive to success
Orders to Nelson to undertake it
Failure of the first attempt
Nelson determines to storm the town
The assault and the repulse
Nelson loses his right arm
Rejoins the Commander-in-Chief off Cadiz
Returns to England on sick-leave
Painful convalescence
Restoration to health
His flag hoisted again, on board the "Vanguard"
Rejoins St. Vincent off Cadiz
Ordered to the Mediterranean to watch the Toulon Armament
Close of the first period of his career
Contrasts between his career hitherto and subsequently
Relations with his wife while in England
Quits the fleet to repair off Toulon
CHAPTER X.
THE CAMPAIGN AND BATTLE OF THE NILE.
MAY-SEPTEMBER, 1798.
Changed political conditions in Europe, 1798
The British Cabinet decides to take the offensive
The quarter in which to strike determined by the Toulon armament
Orders issued to St. Vincent
Preference for Nelson indicated by Government
Nelson's flagship, the "Vanguard," dismasted at sea
Indications of character elicited by the accident
He is joined by ten ships-of-the-line, raising his squadron to thirteen
Pursuit of the expedition under Bonaparte
Nelson's fixedness of purpose
Attitude of Naples
Perplexities of the pursuit
The light of the single eye
Embarrassment from the want of frigates
Squadron reaches Alexandria before the French
Renewed perplexity
Nelson returns to the westward
Anchors at Syracuse
Again goes east in search of the French
The French fleet discovered at anchor in Aboukir Bay
Prompt resolution to attack
Disposition of the French fleet for battle
Steadiness and caution of Nelson's advance
The Battle of the Nile
Nelson severely wounded
The French flagship blows up
Nelson's dissatisfaction with the results
His orders after the battle
Subsequent measures
Effect of the news in Great Britain
Nelson's rewards
Reception of the news in Europe generally
Nelson's concern about Troubridge
Immediate effect of the victory upon the French in Egypt
Nelson ordered with his fleet to the westward
Sails for Naples
CHAPTER XI.
NELSON'S RETURN FROM EGYPT TO NAPLES.--MEETING WITH LADY
HAMILTON.--ASSOCIATION WITH THE COURT OF NAPLES.--WAR BETWEEN NAPLES
AND FRANCE.--DEFEAT OF THE NEAPOLITANS.--FLIGHT OF THE COURT TO
PALERMO.
SEPTEMBER-DECEMBER, 1798.
Voyage to Naples
Recovery from wound
His views as to future operations
Change of view after reaching Naples
Arrival at Naples
Meeting with the Hamiltons
Previous career of Lady Hamilton
Her political influence in Naples
Her characteristics
Her influence over Nelson
Rapid progress of the intimacy
His association with the Court
He urges Naples to declare war against France
Political situation of Naples relatively to France
Nelson goes off Malta
Returns to Naples
Neapolitans advance against the French in Rome
Their overthrow and rout
The royal family and Court fly to Palermo
Nelson in Palermo
Scandals about his residence there
Troubridge's remonstrances with him
CHAPTER XII.
NELSON'S CAREER, AND GENERAL EVENTS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN AND ITALY,
FROM THE OVERTHROW OF THE ROYAL GOVERNMENT IN NAPLES TO THE INCURSION
OF THE FRENCH FLEET UNDER ADMIRAL BRUIX.
JANUARY-MAY, 1799.
The French enter Naples
Nelson's distress and comments
The Sidney Smith mission
Nelson's indignation
Modification of Smith's orders
Nelson's diplomatic capacity
Jealousy of Russian progress in the Mediterranean
His expectations of Russian assistance
Precautions against Russians in Malta
His poor opinion of the Neapolitan troops
Difficulties with the Barbary States
Nelson's dealings with them
His hatred of the French
Deep depression of spirits
Fears for Sicily
French reverses in Germany and Italy
British and Neapolitan successes about Naples
The French evacuate the kingdom of Naples
News of the approach of the French fleet under Bruix
CHAPTER XIII.
FROM THE INCURSION OF THE FRENCH FLEET UNDER BRUIX TO THE RESTORATION
OF THE ROYAL AUTHORITY AT NAPLES.--THE CARACCIOLO EXECUTION.--NELSON'S
DISOBEDIENCE TO ADMIRAL LORD KEITH.
MAY-JULY, 1799.
Nelson's measures to meet Bruix's fleet
His perplexity and mental distress
Concentrates his division off Maritimo
His sagacity and resolution
Growing infatuation about Lady Hamilton
Learns that Bruix has gone to Toulon
Takes his squadron to Palermo
Distress at St. Vincent's intention to go home
Movements of St. Vincent and of Keith with the main fleet
Nelson starts from Palermo for Naples
News from Keith causes him to return off Maritimo
Dissatisfaction with Keith's measures
Resolves to go to Naples with the squadron
Arrival at Naples
State of affairs there
Nelson's powers as representative of the King of Naples
Annuls the existing armistice
Capitulation of the castles Uovo and Nuovo
Discussion of Nelson's action at this time
Justification of his conduct
The Caracciolo incident
Execution of Caracciolo
Discussion of Nelson's action in this case
His profound attachment to the royal family of Naples
The King establishes his court on board Nelson's flagship
Mutual admiration of Nelson and the Hamiltons
Castle of St. Elmo capitulates
Troubridge sent against Capua
Keith orders Nelson to send ships to Minorca
Nelson disobeys
Keith repeats his orders
Nelson again refuses obedience
Discussion of this incident
The Admiralty censure Nelson
Nelson's discontent
His complaints of his health
CHAPTER I.
THE FIRST TWENTY-FIVE YEARS.
1758-1783.
It is the appointed lot of some of History's chosen few to come upon
the scene at the moment when a great tendency is nearing its crisis
and culmination. Specially gifted with qualities needed to realize the
fulness of its possibilities, they so identify themselves with it by
their deeds that they thenceforth personify to the world the movement
which brought them forth, and of which their own achievements are at
once the climax and the most dazzling illustration. Fewer still, but
happiest of all, viewed from the standpoint of fame, are those whose
departure is as well timed as their appearance, who do not survive the
instant of perfected success, to linger on subjected to the searching
tests of common life, but pass from our ken in a blaze of glory which
thenceforth forever encircles their names. In that evening light break
away and vanish the ominous clouds wherewith human frailties or tyrant
passions had threatened to darken their renown; and their sun goes
down with a lustre which the lapse of time is powerless to dim. Such
was the privilege of the stainless Wolfe; such, beyond all others,
that of Nelson. Rarely has a man been more favored in the hour of his
appearing; never one so fortunate in the moment of his death.
Yet, however accidental, or providential, this rarely allotted
portion, this crowning incident of an heroic career, it is after all
but an incident. It the man has not contrived; but to it he has
contributed much, without which his passing hour would have faded to
memory, undistinguished among those of the myriads, great and small,
who have died as nobly and are forever forgotten. A sun has set; but
before its setting it has run a course, be it long or short, and has
gathered a radiance which fixes upon its parting beams the rapt
attention of beholders. The man's self and the man's works, what he
was and what he did, the nature which brought forth such fruits, the
thoughts which issued in such acts, hopes, fears, desires, quick
intuitions, painful struggles, lofty ambitions, happy opportunities,
have blended to form that luminous whole, known and seen of all, but
not to be understood except by a patient effort to resolve the great
result into its several rays, to separate the strands whose twisting
has made so strong a cord.
Concerning the man's external acts, it will often happen that their
true value and significance can best be learned, not from his own
personal recital, but from an analytic study of the deeds themselves.
Yet into them, too, often enters, not only the subtile working of
their author's natural qualities, but also a certain previous history
of well-defined opinions, of settled principles firmly held, of trains
of thought and reasoning, of intuitions wrought into rational
convictions, all of which betray both temperament and character. Of
these intellectual antecedents, the existence and development may be
gleaned from his writings, confirming the inference reached somewhat
mechanically by the scrutiny of his actions. They play to the latter
the part of the soul to the body, and thus contribute to the rather
anatomical result of the dissecting process a spiritual element it
would otherwise lack. But if this is so even of the outward career, it
is far more deeply true of the inner history, of that underlying
native character, which masterfully moulds and colors every life, yet
evades the last analysis except when the obscure workings of heart and
mind have been laid bare by their owner's words, recording the
feelings of the fleeting hour with no view to future inspection. In
these revelations of self, made without thought of the world outside,
is to be found, if anywhere, the clue to that complex and often
contradictory mingling of qualities which go to form the oneness of
the man's personality. This discordance between essential unity and
superficial diversities must be harmonized, if a true conception of
his being is to be formed. We know the faces of our friends, but we
see each as one. The features can, if we will, be separately
considered, catalogued, and valued; but who ever thus thinks
habitually of one he knows well? Yet to know well must be the aim of
biography,--so to present the traits in their totality, without
suppression of any, and in their true relative proportions, as to
produce, not the blurred or distorted outlines seen through an
imperfect lens, but the vivid apprehension which follows long intimacy
with its continual, though unconscious, process of correction.
For such a treatment of Nelson's character, copious, if imperfect,
material is afforded in his extensive and varied correspondence. From
it the author aims, first, to draw forth a distinct and living image
of the man himself, as sketched therein at random and loosely by his
own hand. It is sought to reach the result by keeping the reader in
constant contact, as by daily acquaintance, with a personality of
mingled weakness and strength, of grave faults as well as of great
virtues, but one whose charm was felt in life by all who knew it. The
second object, far less ambitious, is to present a clear narrative of
the military career, of the mighty deeds of arms, of this first of
British seamen, whom the gifts of Nature and the course of History
have united to make, in his victories and in their results, the
representative figure of the greatest sea-power that the world has
known.
It will not be thought surprising that we have, of the first thirty
years of Nelson's life, no such daily informal record as that which
illustrates the comparatively brief but teeming period of his active
fighting career, from 1793 to 1805, when he at once, with inevitable
directness and singular rapidity, rose to prominence, and established
intimate relations with numbers of his contemporaries. A few
anecdotes, more or less characteristic, have been preserved concerning
his boyhood and youth. In his early manhood we have his own account,
both explicit and implied in many casual unpremeditated phrases, of
the motives which governed his public conduct in an episode occurring
when, scarcely yet more than a youth, he commanded a frigate in the
West Indies,--the whole singularly confirmatory, it might better be
said prophetic, of the distinguishing qualities afterwards so
brilliantly manifested in his maturity. But beyond these, it is only
by the closest attention and careful gleaning that can be found, in
the defective and discontinuous collection of letters which remains
from his first thirty years, the indisputable tokens, in most
important particulars, of the man that was to be.
The external details of this generally uneventful period can be
rapidly summarized. He was born on the 29th of September, 1758, the
fifth son and sixth child of Edmund Nelson, then rector of the parish
of Burnham Thorpe, in Norfolk, a county which lies along the eastern
coast of England, bordering the North Sea. His mother, whose name
before marriage was Catherine Suckling, was grandniece to Sir Robert
Walpole, the famous prime minister of Great Britain during twenty
years of the reigns of the first two Georges. Sir Robert's second
brother was called Horatio; and it was from the latter, or from his
son, that the future hero took his baptismal name, which, in a more
common form, was also that of Sir Robert's younger son, the celebrated
letter and memoir writer, Horace Walpole.
Of the eleven children borne by Nelson's mother in her eighteen wedded
years, only two lived to grow old. She herself died at forty-two; and
her brother, Captain Maurice Suckling, of the Royal Navy, was also cut
off in the prime of his age. As the earlier Nelsons were unusually
long-lived, it seems probable that a certain delicacy of constitution
was transmitted through the Sucklings to the generation to which the
admiral belonged. He was himself, at various periods through life, a
great sufferer, and frequently an invalid; allusions to illness, often
of a most prostrating type, and to his susceptibility to the
influences of climate or weather, occur repeatedly and at brief
intervals throughout his correspondence. This is a factor in his
career which should not be lost to mind; for on the one hand it
explains in part the fretfulness which at times appears, and on the
other brings out with increased force the general kindly sweetness of
his temper, which breathed with slight abatement through such
depressing conditions. It enhances, too, the strength of purpose that
trod bodily weakness under foot, almost unconsciously, at the call of
duty or of honor. It is notable, in his letters, that the necessity
for exertion, even when involving severe exposure, is apt to be
followed, though without apparent recognition of a connection between
the two, by the remark that he has not for a long time been so well.
He probably experienced, as have others, that it is not the greater
hardships of the profession, much less the dangers, but its
uncertainties and petty vexations, which tell most severely on a
high-strung organization like his own.
The immediate occasion of his going to sea was as follows. In 1770 the
Falkland Islands, a desolate and then unimportant group, lying in the
South Atlantic, to the eastward of Patagonia, were claimed as a
possession by both Spain and Great Britain. The latter had upon them
a settlement called Port Egmont, before which, in the year named, an
overwhelming Spanish squadron suddenly appeared, and compelled the
British occupants to lower their flag. The insult aroused public
indignation in England to the highest pitch; and while peremptory
demands for reparation were despatched to Spain, a number of ships of
war were ordered at once into commission. Among these was the
"Raisonnable," of sixty-four guns, to the command of which was
appointed Nelson's uncle, Captain Maurice Suckling. The latter had
some time before promised to provide for one of his sister's children,
the family being very poor; and, the custom of the day permitting
naval captains, as a kind of patronage, to take into the King's
service on board their own ships a certain number of lads, as
midshipmen or otherwise, the opportunity of giving a nephew a start in
life was now in his hands. The story is that Horatio, though then but
twelve years old, realized the burden of pecuniary care that his
father was carrying, and himself volunteered the wish that his uncle
would take him to sea. However it happened, the suggestion staggered
Suckling, who well knew the lad's puny frame and fragile constitution.
"What has poor little Horatio done," cried he, "that he, being so
weak, should be sent to rough it at sea? But let him come, and if a
cannon-ball takes off his head, he will at least be provided for."
Under such gloomy foreboding began the most dazzling career that the
sea, the mother of so many heroes, has ever seen.[1] Spain, after a
short hesitation, yielded the British demands, so that war did not
come, and the "Raisonnable," with other ships, was again put out of
commission. The incident of the Falkland Islands, however, had served
the purpose of introducing Nelson to his profession, for which
otherwise the opportunity might not have offered. Being so young when
thus embarked, he, in common with many of the most successful seamen
of that day, got scanty schooling; nor did he, as some others did, by
after application remedy the eccentricities of style, and even of
grammar, which are apt to result from such early neglect. His letters,
vigorous and direct as they are, present neither the polished diction
of Collingwood, nor the usual even correctness of St. Vincent and
Saumarez, but are, on the contrary, constantly disfigured by awkward
expressions and bad English. There was rarely, however, danger of
mistaking his meaning, as was sometimes charged against Lord Howe.
Here, before fairly parting with the humble home life, of which the
motherless boy had seen, and was throughout his career to see so
little, is a fit place to introduce two anecdotes associated with
those early days which his biographers have transmitted to us. We of
these critical times have learned to look with incredulity, not always
unmixed with derision, upon stories relating to the childhood of
distinguished men; but it can safely be said that the two now to be
given are in entire keeping, not merely with particular traits, but
with the great ruling tenor of Nelson's whole life. He and his elder
brother were going to school one winter day upon their ponies.
Finding the snow so deep as to delay them seriously, they went back,
and the elder reported that they could not get on. The father very
judiciously replied: "If that be so, I have of course nothing to say;
but I wish you to try again, and I leave it to your honour not to turn
back, unless necessary." On the second attempt, the elder was more
than once for returning; but Horatio stuck it out, repeating
continually, "Remember it was left to our honour," and the difficult
journey was accomplished.
The children in this instance seem to have felt that there was danger
in going on. The other recorded occurrence shows in the lad that
indifference to personal benefit, as distinguished from the sense of
conspicuous achievement, which was ever a prominent characteristic of
the man. The master of his school had a very fine pear-tree, whose
fruit the boys coveted, but upon which none dared hazard an attempt.
At last Nelson, who did not share their desires, undertook the risk,
climbed the tree by night, and carried off the pears, but refused to
eat any of them,--saying that he had taken them only because the
others were afraid.
Trivial though these incidents may seem, they are so merely because
they belong to the day of small things. To those accustomed to watch
children, they will not appear unworthy of note. Taken together, they
illustrate, as really as do his greatest deeds, the two forms assumed
at different times by the one incentive which always most powerfully
determined Nelson's action through life,--the motive to which an
appeal was never made in vain. No material considerations, neither
danger on the one hand, nor gain on the other, ever affected him as
did that idealized conception which presented itself, now as duty, now
as honor, according as it bore for the moment upon his relations to
the state or to his own personality. "In my mind's eye," said he to
his friend Captain Hardy, who afterwards bent over him as his spirit
was parting amid the tumult of his last victory, "I ever saw a radiant
orb suspended which beckoned me onward to renown." Nelson did not
often verge upon the poetical in words, but to the poetry of lofty
aspiration his inmost being always answered true.
To the young naval officer of a century ago, especially if without
political or social influence, it was a weighty advantage to be
attached to some one commanding officer in active employment, who by
favorable opportunity or through professional friendships could push
the fortunes of those in whom he was interested. Much of the promotion
was then in the hands of the admirals on foreign stations; and this
local power to reward distinguished service, though liable to abuse in
many ways, conduced greatly to stimulate the zeal and efforts of
officers who felt themselves immediately under the eye of one who
could make or mar their future. Each naval captain, also, could in his
degree affect more or less the prospects of those dependent upon him.
Thus Suckling, though not going to sea himself, continued with
intelligent solicitude his promised care of the young Nelson. When the
"Raisonnable" was paid off, he was transferred to the command of the
"Triumph," of seventy-four guns, stationed as guard-ship in the river
Medway; and to her also he took with him his nephew, who was borne
upon her books for the two following years, which were, however, far
from being a period of inactive harbor life. Having considerable
professional interest, he saw to the lad's being kept afloat, and
obtained for him from time to time such service as seemed most
desirable to his enterprising spirit.
The distinction between the merchant seaman and the man-of-war's man,
or even the naval officer, in those days of sailing ships and simple
weapons was much less sharply marked than it has since become. Skill
in seamanship, from the use of the marlinespike and the sail-needle
up to the full equipping of a ship and the handling of her under
canvas, was in either service the prime essential. In both alike,
cannon and small arms were carried; and the ship's company, in the
peaceful trader as well as in the ship of war, expected to repel force
with force, when meeting upon equal terms. With a reduced number of
naval vessels in commission, and their quarter-decks consequently
over-crowded with young officers, a youth was more likely to find on
board them a life of untasked idleness than a call to professional
occupation and improvement. Nelson therefore was sent by his careful
guardian to a merchant-ship trading to the West Indies, to learn upon
her, as a foremast hand, the elements of his profession, under
conditions which, from the comparative fewness of the crew and the
activity of the life, would tend to develop his powers most rapidly.
In this vessel he imbibed, along with nautical knowledge, the
prejudice which has usually existed, more or less, in the merchant
marine against the naval service, due probably to the more rigorous
exactions and longer terms of enlistment in the latter, although the
life in other respects is one of less hardship; but in Nelson's day
the feeling had been intensified by the practice of impressment, and
by the severe, almost brutal discipline that obtained on board some
ships of war, through the arbitrary use of their powers by captains,
then insufficiently controlled by law. In this cruise he seems to have
spent a little over a year; a time, however, that was not lost to him
for the accomplishment of the period of service technically required
to qualify as a lieutenant, his name continuing throughout on the
books of the "Triumph," to which he returned in July, 1772.
Suckling's care next insured for him a continuance of active,
semi-detached duty, in the boats of the "Triumph,"--an employment very
different from, and more responsible than, that in which he had
recently been occupied, and particularly calculated to develop in so
apt a nature the fearlessness of responsibility, both professional
and personal, that was among the most prominent features of Nelson's
character. "The test of a man's courage is responsibility," said that
great admiral and shrewd judge of men, the Earl of St. Vincent, after
a long and varied experience of naval officers; and none ever shone
more brightly under this supreme proof than the lad whose career is
now opening before us. It may be interesting, too, to note that this
condition of more or less detached service, so early begun, in which,
though not in chief command, he held an authority temporarily
independent, and was immediately answerable for all that happened on
the spot, was the singular characteristic of most of his brilliant
course, during which, until 1803, two years before Trafalgar, he was
only for brief periods commander-in-chief, yet almost always acted
apart from his superior. Many a man, gallant, fearless, and capable,
within signal distance of his admiral, has, when out of sight of the
flag, succumbed with feeble knees to the burden of independent
responsible action, though not beyond his professional powers. This
strength, like all Nature's best gifts, is inborn; yet, both for the
happy possessor and for the merely average man, it is susceptible of
high development only by being early exercised, which was the good
fortune of Nelson.
Of these two years of somewhat irregular service, while nominally
attached to the "Triumph," it will be well to give the account in his
own words; for, having been written a full quarter of a century later,
they record the deepest and most lasting impressions made upon him
during that susceptible period when first becoming familiar with the
calling he was to adorn:--
"The business with Spain being accommodated, I was sent in a
West India ship belonging to the house of Hibbert, Purrier, and
Horton, with Mr. John Rathbone, who had formerly been in the
Navy, in the Dreadnought with Captain Suckling. From this voyage
I returned to the Triumph at Chatham in July, 1772; and, if I
did not improve in my education, I returned a practical Seaman,
with a horror of the Royal Navy, and with a saying, then
constant with the Seamen, _'Aft the most honour, forward the
better man_!' It was many weeks before I got the least
reconciled to a Man-of-War, so deep was the prejudice rooted;
and what pains were taken to instil this erroneous principle in
a young mind! However, as my ambition was to be a Seaman, it was
always held out as a reward, that if I attended well to my
navigation, I should go in the cutter and decked long-boat,
which was attached to the Commanding officer's ship at Chatham.
Thus by degrees I became a good pilot, for vessels of that
description, from Chatham to the Tower of London, down the Swin,
and the North Foreland; and confident of myself amongst rocks
and sands, which has many times since been of great comfort to
me. In this way I was trained, till the expedition towards the
North Pole was fitted out; when, although no boys were allowed
to go in the Ships, (as of no use,) yet nothing could prevent my
using every interest to go with Captain Lutwidge in the Carcass;
and, as I fancied I was to fill a man's place, I begged I might
be his cockswain; which, finding my ardent desire for going with
him, Captain Lutwidge complied with, and has continued the
strictest friendship to this moment. Lord Mulgrave, whom I then
first knew, maintained his kindest friendship and regard to the
last moment of his life. When the boats were fitting out to quit
the two Ships blocked up in the ice, I exerted myself to have
the command of a four-oared cutter raised upon, which was given
me, with twelve men; and I prided myself in fancying I could
navigate her better than any other boat in the Ship."
It will be recognized from this brief yet suggestive and
characteristic narrative, that, however valuable and even
indispensable may have been his uncle's assistance in forwarding his
wishes, it was his own ambition and his own impulse that even at this
early day gave direction to his course, and obtained opportunities
which would scarcely have been offered spontaneously to one of his
physical frailty. In this Arctic expedition he underwent the
experiences common to all who tempt those icebound seas. During it
occurred an incident illustrative of Nelson's recklessness of personal
danger,--a very different thing from official recklessness, which he
never showed even in his moments of greatest daring and highest
inspiration. The story is so hackneyed by frequent repetition as to
make its relation a weariness to the biographer, the more so that the
trait of extreme rashness in youth is one by no means so rare as to be
specially significant of Nelson's character. It will be given in the
words of his first biographers:--
"There is also an anecdote recollected by Admiral Lutwidge,
which marked the filial attention of his gallant cockswain.
Among the gentlemen on the quarter-deck of the Carcass, who were
not rated midshipmen, there was, besides young Nelson, a daring
shipmate of his, to whom he had become attached. One night,
during the mid-watch, it was concerted between them that they
should steal together from the ship, and endeavour to obtain a
bear's skin. The clearness of the nights in those high latitudes
rendered the accomplishment of this object extremely difficult:
they, however, seem to have taken advantage of the haze of an
approaching fog, and thus to have escaped unnoticed. Nelson in
high spirits led the way over the frightful chasms in the ice,
armed with a rusty musket. It was not, however, long before the
adventurers were missed by those on board; and, as the fog had
come on very thick, the anxiety of Captain Lutwidge and his
officers was very great. Between three and four in the morning
the mist somewhat dispersed, and the hunters were discovered at
a considerable distance, attacking a large bear. The signal was
instantly made for their return; but it was in vain that
Nelson's companion urged him to obey it. He was at this time
divided by a chasm in the ice from his shaggy antagonist, which
probably saved his life; for the musket had flashed in the pan,
and their ammunition was expended. 'Never mind,' exclaimed
Horatio, 'do but let me get a blow at this devil with the
but-end of my musket, and we shall have him.' His companion,
finding that entreaty was in vain, regained the ship. The
captain, seeing the young man's danger, ordered a gun to be
fired to terrify the enraged animal. This had the desired
effect; but Nelson was obliged to return without his bear,
somewhat agitated with the apprehension of the consequence of
this adventure. Captain Lutwidge, though he could not but admire
so daring a disposition, reprimanded him rather sternly for such
rashness, and for conduct so unworthy of the situation he
occupied; and desired to know what motive he could have for
hunting a bear? Being thought by his captain to have acted in a
manner unworthy of his situation, made a deep impression on the
high-minded cockswain; who, pouting his lip, as he was wont to
do when agitated, replied, 'Sir, I wished to kill the bear, that
I might carry its skin to my father.'"
Upon his return to England from the Arctic Seas, Nelson again by his
own choice determined his immediate future. Within a fortnight of
leaving the "Carcass," he was, through his uncle's influence, received
on board by the captain of the "Seahorse," of twenty guns, one of the
ships composing a squadron that was just then fitting out for the East
Indies. To quote himself, "Nothing less than such a distant voyage
could in the least satisfy my desire of maritime knowledge." During an
absence of three years he for much of the time, as formerly in his
West India cruise, did the duty of a seaman aloft, from which he was
afterwards rated midshipman, and placed, this time finally, upon the
quarter-deck as an officer. In the ordinary course of cruising in
peace times, he visited every part of the station from Bengal to
Bussorah; but the climate, trying even to vigorous Europeans, proved
too much for his frail health. After a couple of years he broke down
and was invalided home, reaching England in September, 1776. His
escape from death was attributed by himself to the kind care of
Captain Pigot of the "Dolphin," in which ship he came back. At this
period we are told that, when well, he was of florid countenance,
rather stout and athletic; but, as the result of his illness, he was
reduced to a mere skeleton, and for some time entirely lost the use of
his limbs,--a distressing symptom, that returned upon him a few years
later after his Central American expedition in 1780, and confirms the
impression of extreme fragility of constitution, which is frequently
indicated in other ways.
During this absence in the East Indies Captain Suckling, in April,
1775, had been named Comptroller of the Navy,--a civil position, but
one that carried with it power and consequent influence. This probably
told for much in obtaining for Nelson, who was but just eighteen, and
had not yet passed the examinations for his first promotion, an acting
appointment as lieutenant. With this he joined a small
ship-of-the-line, the "Worcester," of sixty-four guns, on board which
he remained for six months, engaged in convoy duty between the Channel
and Gibraltar, seeing from her decks for the first time the waters of
the Mediterranean and its approaches, since then indissolubly
associated with his name and his glory. He took with him a letter from
his uncle to the captain of his new ship; but while such introduction,
coming from so influential a quarter, doubtless contributed powerfully
to clear from his path the obstacles commonly encountered by young
men, Nelson had gained for himself a reputation for professional
capacity, which, here as throughout his life, quickly won him the full
confidence of his superiors. In later years, when his admiral's flag
was flying, he recorded, with evident pride in the recollection, that
while on board the "Worcester," notwithstanding his youth, his captain
used to say, "He felt as easy when I was upon deck as any officer of
the ship." It is doubtful, indeed, whether Nelson ever possessed in a
high degree the delicate knack of handling a ship with the utmost
dexterity and precision. He certainly had not the reputation for so
doing. Codrington,--a thorough Nelsonian, to use his own somewhat
factious expression--used to say in later years, "Lord Nelson was no
seaman; even in the earlier stages of the profession his genius had
soared higher, and all his energies were turned to becoming a great
commander." His apprenticeship, before reaching command, was probably
too short; and, as captain, his generous disposition to trust others
to do work for which he knew them fitted, would naturally lead him to
throw the manipulation of the vessel upon his subordinates. But
although, absorbed by broader and deeper thoughts of the
responsibilities and opportunities of a naval commander, to which he
was naturally attracted by both his genius and his temperament, he was
excelled in technical skill by many who had no touch of his own
inspiration, he nevertheless possessed a thoroughly competent
knowledge of his profession as a simple seaman; which, joined to his
zeal, energy, and intelligence, would more than justify the confidence
expressed by his early commander. Of this knowledge he gave full proof
a year later, when, before a board of captains, strangers to him, he
successfully passed his examinations for a lieutenancy. His uncle
Suckling, as Comptroller of the Navy, was indeed on the Board; but he
concealed the fact of relationship until the other members had
expressed themselves satisfied.
His examination was held within a week of his leaving the "Worcester,"
on the 8th of April, 1777; and Suckling once more, but for the last
time in his life, was able to exert his influence in behalf of his
relative by promptly securing for him, not only his promotion to
lieutenant, which many waited for long, but with it his commission,
dated April 10, to the "Lowestoffe," a frigate of thirty-two guns.
This class of vessel was in the old days considered particularly
desirable for young officers, being more active than
ships-of-the-line, while at the same time more comfortable, and a
better school for the forming of an officer, than were the smaller
cruisers; and his uncle probably felt that Nelson, whose service
hitherto had been mainly upon the latter, needed yet to perfect the
habits and methods distinctive of a ship of war, for he now wrote him
a letter upon the proprieties of naval conduct, excellently conceived,
yet embracing particulars that should scarcely have been necessary to
one who had served his time on board well-ordered ships. The
appointment to the "Lowestoffe" was further fortunate, both for him
and for us, as in the commander of the vessel, Captain William Locker,
he found, not only an admirable officer and gentleman, but a friend
for whom he formed a lasting attachment, ending only with Locker's
death in 1800, two years after the Battle of the Nile. To this
friendship we owe the fullest record, at his own hands, of his early
career; for Locker kept the numerous letters written him by Nelson
while still an unknown young man. Of sixty-seven which now remain,
covering the years from 1777 to 1783, all but thirty were to this one
correspondent.
In another respect the appointment to the "Lowestoffe" was fortunate
for Nelson. The ship was destined to the West Indies--or, to speak
more precisely, to Jamaica, which was a command distinct from that of
the eastern Caribbean, or Lesser Antilles, officially styled the
Leeward Islands Station. Great Britain was then fully embarked in the
war with her North American colonies, which ended in their
independence; and the course of events was hastening her to the
rupture with France and Spain that followed within a year. In this
protracted contest the chief scene of naval hostilities was to be the
West Indies; but beyond even the casualties of war, the baneful
climate of that region insured numerous vacancies by prostration and
death, with consequent chances of promotion for those who escaped the
fevers, and found favor in the eyes of their commander-in-chief. The
brutal levity of the old toast, "A bloody war and a sickly season,"
nowhere found surer fulfilment than on those pestilence-stricken
coasts. Captain Locker's health soon gave way. Arriving at Jamaica on
the 19th of July, 1777, we find Nelson in the following month writing
to him from the ship during an absence produced by a serious illness,
from which fatal results were feared. The letter, like all those to
Locker, was marked by that tone of quick, eager sympathy, of genial
inclination always to say the kindest thing, that characterized his
correspondence, and, generally, his intercourse with others,--traits
that through life made him, beyond most men, acceptable and beloved.
He was, from first to last, not merely one of those whose services are
forced upon others by sheer weight of ability, because
indispensable,--though this, too, he was,--but men wanted him because,
although at times irritable, especially after the wounds received in
later years, he was an easy yoke-fellow, pleasant to deal with,
cordial and ready to support those above him, a tolerant and
appreciative master to subordinates. It may even be said that, in
matters indifferent to him, he too readily reflected the feelings,
views, and wishes of those about him; but when they clashed with his
own fixed convictions, he was immovable. As he himself said in such a
case, "I feel I am perfectly right, and you know upon those occasions
I am not famous for giving up a point."
Of his connection with the "Lowestoffe" he himself, in the short
autobiographical sketch before quoted, mentions two circumstances,
which, from the very fact of their remaining so long in his memory,
illustrate temperament. "Even a frigate," he says, "was not
sufficiently active for my mind, and I got into a schooner, tender to
the Lowestoffe. In this vessel I made myself a complete pilot for all
the passages through the [Keys] Islands situated on the north side
Hispaniola." This kind of service, it will be noted, was in direct
sequence, as to training, to his handling of the "Triumph's" long-boat
in the lower waters of the Thames, and would naturally contribute to
increase that "confidence in himself among rocks and sands," which
was afterwards to be so "great a comfort" to him. In his later career
he had frequent and pressing need of that particular form of
professional judgment and self-reliance for which these early
experiences stood him in good stead. As he afterwards wrote to the
First Lord of the Admiralty, when pleading the cause of a daring and
skilful officer who had run his ship ashore: "If I had been censured
every time I have run my ship, or fleets under my command, into great
danger, I should long ago have been _out_ of the service, and never
_in_ the House of Peers." At the critical instants of the Nile and
Copenhagen, as well as in the less conspicuous but more prolonged
anxieties of the operations off Corsica and along the Riviera of
Genoa, this early habit, grafted upon the singularly steady nerve
wherewith he was endowed by nature, sustained him at a height of
daring and achievement to which very few have been able to rise.
The other incident recorded by him as happening while on board the
"Lowestoffe," he himself cites as illustrative of temperament. "Whilst
in this frigate, an event happened which presaged my character; and,
as it conveys no dishonour to the officer alluded to, I shall insert
it. Blowing a gale of wind, and a very heavy sea, the frigate captured
an American letter-of-marque. The first Lieutenant was ordered to
board her, which he did not do, owing to the very heavy sea. On his
return, the Captain said, 'Have I no officer in the ship who can board
the prize?' On which the Master ran to the gangway, to get into the
boat: when I stopped him, saying, 'It is my turn now; and if I come
back, it is yours.' This little incident," he continues, "has often
occurred to my mind; and I know it is my disposition, that
difficulties and dangers do but increase my desire of attempting
them." An action of this sort, in its results unimportant, gives
keener satisfaction in the remembrance than do greater deeds, because
more purely individual,--entirely one's own. It is upon such as this,
rather than upon his victories, that Nelson in his narrative dwells
caressingly. His personal daring at St. Vincent, and against the
gunboats off Cadiz, ministered more directly to his self-esteem, to
that consciousness of high desert which was dear to him, than did the
Battle of the Nile, whose honors he, though ungrudgingly, shared with
his "band of brothers."
When the "Lowestoffe" had been a year upon the station, it became very
doubtful whether Locker could continue in her, and finally he did go
home ill. It was probably due to this uncertainty that he obtained the
transfer of Nelson, in whom he had become most affectionately
interested, to the "Bristol," flagship of Sir Peter Parker, the
commander-in-chief. Here, under the admiral's own eye, warmly
recommended by his last captain, and with a singular faculty for
enlisting the love and esteem of all with whom he was brought into
contact, the young officer's prospects were of the fairest; nor did
the event belie them. Joining the "Bristol" as her third lieutenant,
not earlier than July, 1778, he had by the end of September risen "by
succession"--to use his own phrase--to be first; a promotion by
seniority whose rapidity attests the rate at which vacancies occurred.
Both Parker and his wife became very fond of him, cared for him in
illness, and in later years she wrote to him upon each of the
occasions on which he most brilliantly distinguished himself--after
St. Vincent, the Nile, and Copenhagen. "Your mother," said she after
the first, "could not have heard of your deeds with more affection;
nor could she be more rejoiced at your personal escape from all the
dangers of that glorious day;" and again, after the Nile, "Sir Peter
and I have ever regarded you as a son." The letter following the
victory at Copenhagen has not been published; but Nelson, whose heart
was never reluctant to gratitude nor to own obligation, wrote in
reply: "Believe me when I say that I am as sensible as ever that I
owe my present position in life to your and good Sir Peter's
partiality for me, and friendly remembrance of Maurice Suckling."
This last allusion indicates some disinterestedness in Parker's
patronage, and its vital importance to Nelson at that time. Captain
Suckling had died in July, 1778, and with him departed the only
powerful support upon which the young lieutenant could then count,
apart from his own merits and the friends obtained by them. There was
in those days an immense difference in prospects between the nephew of
the Comptroller of the Navy and a man unknown at headquarters. By what
leading principles, if any, Sir Peter Parker was guided in the
distribution of his favors, can scarcely now be ascertained; but that
he brought rapidly forward two men of such great yet widely differing
merit as Nelson and Collingwood, is a proof that his judgment was
sound and the station one where vacancies were frequent. Collingwood,
who was then a lieutenant on board a sloop-of-war, went to the
"Lowestoffe" in Nelson's place. When the latter, in December, 1778,
was made commander into the brig "Badger," the other was transferred
to the vacant room in the "Bristol;" and when Nelson, on the 11th of
June, 1779, became post-captain in the "Hinchinbrook" frigate,
Collingwood again followed him as commander of the "Badger." Finally,
when through a death vacancy a better frigate offered for Nelson,
Collingwood also was posted into the "Hinchinbrook;" this ship thus
having the singular distinction of conferring the highest rank
obtainable by selection, and so fixing the final position of the two
life-long friends who led the columns at Trafalgar, the crowning
achievement of the British Navy as well as of their own illustrious
careers. The coincidence at the earlier date may have been partly
factitious, due to a fad of the commander-in-chief; but it assumes a
different and very impressive aspect viewed in the light of their
later close association, especially when it is recalled that
Collingwood also succeeded, upon Nelson's death, to the Mediterranean
command, and was there worn out, as his predecessor fell, in the
discharge of his duty upon that important station, which thus proved
fatal to them both. Few historic parallels are so complete. Sir Peter
Parker, living until 1811, survived both his illustrious juniors, and
at the age of eighty-two followed Nelson's coffin, as chief mourner at
the imposing obsequies, where the nation, from the highest to the
lowest, mingled the exultation of triumph with weeping for the loss of
its best-beloved.
Of Nelson's exterior at this time, his early biographers have secured
an account which, besides its value as a portrait, possesses the
further interest of mentioning explicitly that charm of manner which
was one of his best birth-gifts, reflecting, as it did, the generous
and kindly temper of his heart. "The personal appearance of Captain
Nelson at this period of his life, owing to his delicate health and
diminutive figure, was far from expressing the greatness of his
intellectual powers. From his earliest years, like Cleomenes, the hero
of Sparta, he had been enamoured of glory, and had possessed a
greatness of mind. Nelson preserved, also, a similar temperance and
simplicity of manners. Nature, as Plutarch adds of the noble Spartan,
had given a spur to his mind which rendered him impetuous in the
pursuit of whatever he deemed honourable. The demeanour of this
extraordinary young man was entirely the demeanour of a British
seaman; when the energies of his mind were not called forth by some
object of duty, or professional interest, he seemed to retire within
himself, and to care but little for the refined courtesies of polished
life." No saving sense of humor seems to have suggested that the
profane might here ask, "Is this the British seaman?" "In his dress he
had all the cleanliness of an Englishman, though his manner of wearing
it gave him an air of negligence; and yet his general address and
conversation, when he wished to please, possessed a charm that was
irresistible."[2]
In June, 1779, when posted into the "Hinchinbrook," Nelson wanted
still three months of being twenty-one. By the custom of the British
Navy, then and now, promotions from the grade of Captain to that of
Admiral are made by seniority only. Once a captain, therefore, a man's
future was assured, so far as concerned the possibility of juniors
passing over his head,--neither favor nor merit could procure that;
his rank relatively to others was finally fixed. The practical
difficulty of getting at a captain of conspicuous ability, to make of
him a flag-officer, was met by one of those clumsy yet adequate
expedients by which the practical English mind contrives to reconcile
respect for precedent with the demands of emergency. There being then
no legal limit to the number of admirals, a promotion was in such case
made of all captains down to and including the one wanted; and Lord
St. Vincent, one of the most thorough-going of naval statesmen, is
credited with the declaration that he would promote a hundred down the
list of captains, if necessary, to reach the one demanded by the needs
of the country. Even with this rough-riding over obstacles,--for the
other officers promoted, however useful in their former grade, not
being wanted as admirals, remained perforce unemployed,--the advantage
of reaching post-rank betimes is evident enough; and to this chiefly
Nelson referred in acknowledging his permanent indebtedness to Sir
Peter Parker. With this early start, every artificial impediment was
cleared from his path; his extraordinary ability was able to assert
itself, and could be given due opportunity, without a too violent
straining of service methods. He had, indeed, to wait eighteen years
for his flag-rank; but even so, he obtained it while still in the very
prime of his energies, before he was thirty-nine,--a good fortune
equalled by none of his most distinguished contemporaries.[3]
A somewhat singular feature of this early promotion of Nelson is that
it was accorded without the claim of service in actual battle,--a
circumstance that seems yet more remarkable when contrasted with the
stormy and incessant warfare of his later career. While he was thus
striding ahead, his equals in years, Saumarez and Pellew, were
fighting their way up step by step, gaining each as the reward of a
distinct meritorious action, only to find themselves outstripped by
one who had scarcely seen a gun fired in anger. The result was mainly
due to the nature of the station, where sickness made vacancies more
rapidly than the deadliest engagement. But while this is true, and
must be taken into the account, it was characteristic of Nelson that
his value transpired through the simplest intercourse, and amid the
commonplace incidents of service. Locker and Parker each in turn felt
this. A little later, while he and Collingwood were still unknown
captains, the latter, usually measured and formal in his language,
wrote to him in these singularly strong words: "My regard for you, my
dear Nelson, my respect and veneration for your character, I hope and
believe, will never lessen." So, some years afterwards, but before he
became renowned or had wrought his more brilliant achievements, an
envious brother captain said to him, "You did just as you pleased in
Lord Hood's time, the same in Admiral Hotham's, and now again with Sir
John Jervis; it makes no difference to you who is Commander-in-chief."
This power of winning confidence and inspiring attachment was one of
the strongest elements in Nelson's success, alike as a subordinate and
when himself in chief command.
With his mind ever fixed upon glory, or rather upon honor,--the word
he himself most often used, and which more accurately expresses his
desire for fame; honor, which is to glory what character is to
reputation,--the same hard fortune persisted in denying to him, during
the War of the American Revolution, the opportunities for distinction
which he so ardently coveted. In the "Badger" and in the
"Hinchinbrook," during the year 1779, his service was confined to
routine cruising about Jamaica and along the Mosquito coast of Central
America. A gleam of better things for a moment shone upon him in
August of that year, when the French fleet, under Count D'Estaing,
appeared in Haiti, numbering twenty-two ships-of-the-line, with
transports reported to be carrying twenty thousand troops. All Jamaica
was in an uproar of apprehension, believing an attack upon the island
to be imminent; for its conquest was known to be one of the great
objects of the enemy. Nelson was at the time living on shore, the
"Hinchinbrook" seemingly[4] not having returned to the port since his
appointment to her, and he eagerly accepted the duty of commanding the
land batteries. The odds were great,--"You must not be surprised to
hear of my learning to speak French," he wrote, laughingly, to Locker
in England,--but if so, the greater the honor attendant, whether upon
success or defeat. D'Estaing, however, passed on to America to
encounter disaster at Savannah, and Nelson's hopes were again
disappointed.
In January, 1780, an opportunity for service offered, which ended in
no conspicuous or permanent result, but nevertheless conferred
distinction upon one who, to use his own expression, was determined to
climb to the top of the tree, and to neglect no chance, however
slight, that could help him on. War with Spain had then been about
seven months declared, and the British governor of Jamaica had
sagaciously determined to master Lake Nicaragua, and the course of the
river San Juan, its outlet to the Caribbean Sea. The object of the
attempt was twofold, both military and commercial. The route was
recognized then, as it is now, as one of the most important, if not
the most important, of those affording easy transit from the Pacific
to the Atlantic by way of the Isthmus. To a nation of the mercantile
aptitudes of Great Britain, such a natural highway was necessarily an
object of desire. In her hands it would not only draw to itself the
wealth of the surrounding regions, but would likewise promote the
development of her trade, both north and south, along the eastern and
western coasts of the two Americas. But the pecuniary gain was not
all. The military tenure of this short and narrow strip, supported at
either end, upon the Pacific and the Atlantic, by naval detachments,
all the more easily to be maintained there by the use of the belt
itself, would effectually sever the northern and southern colonies of
Spain, both by actual interposition, and by depriving them of one of
their most vital lines of intercommunication. To seek control of so
valuable and central a link in a great network of maritime interests
was as natural and inevitable to Great Britain a century ago, as it
now is to try to dominate the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal, which
fulfil a like function to her Eastern possessions and Eastern
commerce.
Preoccupied, however, with numerous and more pressing cares in many
quarters of the world, and overweighted in a universal struggle with
outnumbering foes, Great Britain could spare but scanty forces to her
West India Islands, and from them Governor Dalling could muster but
five hundred men for his Nicaraguan undertaking. Nelson was directed
to convoy these with the "Hinchinbrook" to the mouth of the San Juan
del Norte, where was the port now commonly called Greytown, in those
days a fine and spacious harbor. There his charge ended; but his
mental constitution never allowed him to look upon a military task as
well done while anything remained to do. In the spirit of his famous
saying, fifteen years later, "Were ten ships out of eleven taken, I
would never call it well done if the eleventh escaped, if able to get
at her," he determined to go with the troops. With his temperament it
was impossible to turn his back upon the little body of soldiers,
whose toilsome advance up the tropical stream might be aided and
hastened by his ready seamen.
The first objective of the expedition was Fort San Juan, a powerful
work controlling the river of the same name, and thereby the only
natural water transit between the sea and Lake Nicaragua. Upon the
possession of this, as a position of vantage and a safe depot for
supplies and reinforcements, Dalling based his hopes of future
advance, both west and south. Nelson took with him forty-seven seamen
and marines from his ship's company; the former, aided by some
Indians, doing most of the labor of forcing the boats against the
current, through shoal and tortuous channels, under his own constant
supervision and encouragement. A small outpost that withstood their
progress was by him intrepidly stormed, sword in hand, by sudden
assault; and upon reaching Fort San Juan he urgently recommended the
same summary method to the officer commanding the troops. The latter,
however, was not one of the men who recognize the necessity for
exceptional action. Regular approaches, though the slower, were the
surer way of reducing a fortified place, and entailed less bloodshed.
Professional rule commonly demanded them, and to professional rule he
submitted. Nelson argued that through delays, which, however incurred,
were now past discussion, the expedition had reached its destination
in April, at the end of the healthy, dry season, instead of shortly
after its beginning, in January. Consequently, owing to the fall of
the water, much additional trouble had been experienced in the
advance, the men were proportionately weakened by toil and exposure,
and the wet months, with their dire train of tropical diseases, were
at hand. Therefore, though more might fall by the enemy's weapons in a
direct attack, the ultimate loss would be less than by the protracted
and sickly labors of the spade; while with San Juan subdued, the force
could receive all the care possible in such a climate, and under the
best conditions await the return of good weather for further progress.
In military enterprises there will frequently arise the question, Is
time or life in this case of the greater value? Those regularly
ordered and careful procedures which most economize the blood of the
soldier may, by their inevitable delays, seriously imperil the objects
of the campaign as a whole; or they may even, while less sanguinary,
entail indirectly a greater loss of men than do prompter measures. In
such doubtful matters Nelson's judgment was usually sound; and his
instinct, which ever inclined to instant and vigorous action, was
commonly by itself alone an accurate guide, in a profession whose
prizes are bestowed upon quick resolve more often than upon deliberate
consultation. The same intuition that in his prime dictated his
instant, unhesitating onslaught at the Nile, depriving the French of
all opportunity for further preparation,--that caused him in the
maturity of his renown, before Copenhagen, to write, "every hour's
delay makes the enemy stronger; we shall never be so good a match for
them as at this moment,"--that induced him at Trafalgar to modify his
deliberately prepared plan in favor of one vastly more hazardous, but
which seized and held the otherwise fleeting chance,--led him here
also at San Juan, unknown, and scarcely more than a boy, to press the
policy of immediate attack.
The decision was not in his hands, and he was overruled; whereupon,
with his usual readiness to do his utmost, he accepted the course he
disapproved, and, without nursing a grievance, became at once active
in erecting batteries and serving the guns. "When unfortunate
contentions," says one dispassionate narrator, "had slackened the
ardour for public service, Captain Nelson did not suffer any narrow
spirit to influence his conduct. He did more than his duty: where
anything was to be done, he saw no difficulties." Great as his merits
were, he was never insensible to them; and, in the sketch of his
career, furnished by him to his chief biographers, he records his
exploits with naïve self-satisfaction, resembling the sententious
tablets of Eastern conquerors: "I boarded, if I may be allowed the
expression, an outpost of the enemy, situated on an island in the
river; I made batteries, and afterwards fought them, and was a
principal cause of our success." But this simple, almost childlike,
delight in his own performances, which continually crops out in his
correspondence, did not exaggerate their deserts. Major Polson,
commanding the land forces, wrote to Governor Dalling: "I want words
to express the obligations I owe to Captain Nelson. He was the first
on every service, whether by day or night. There was not a gun fired
but was pointed by him, or by Captain Despard, Chief Engineer."
Dalling, after some delay, wrote in the same sense to the Minister of
War in London, warmly recommending Nelson to the notice of the home
Government.
While the siege was in progress, Nelson received word of his
appointment to a better ship, the "Janus," of forty-four guns, and it
became necessary for him to join her. He left Fort San Juan only the
day before it surrendered, and returned to Jamaica; but his health now
gave way wholly, and his command of the "Janus," for the most part
merely nominal, soon came to an end altogether. Dalling had truly
said, "Captain Nelson's constitution is rather too delicate for
service in this northern ocean."[5] Before starting on the
expedition, he had himself written to his friend Locker: "If my health
is not much better than it is at present, I shall certainly come home
after this trip, as all the doctors are against my staying so long in
this country. You know my old complaint in my breast: it is turned out
to be the gout got there. I have twice been given over since you left
this country with that cursed disorder, the gout." In such weakness he
lived and worked through a month of a short campaign, in which, of the
"Hinchinbrook's" crew of two hundred, one hundred and forty-five were
buried in his time or that of his successor, Collingwood,--a mortality
which he justly cites as a further proof of the necessity for
expedition in such climates. But, though he survived, he escaped by
the skin of his teeth. Worn out by dysentery and fatigue, he was
carried ashore in his cot, and soon after taken to Sir Peter Parker's
house, where Lady Parker herself nursed him through. Her kindness to
him and his own debility are touchingly shown by a note written from
the mountains, where he was carried in his convalescence: "Oh, Mr.
Ross, what would I give to be at Port Royal! Lady Parker not here, and
the servants letting me lay as if a log, and take no notice." By
September, 1780, it was apparent that perfect restoration, without
change of climate, was impossible, and in the autumn, having been
somewhat over three years on the station, he sailed for home in the
"Lion," of sixty-four guns, Captain Cornwallis,[6] to whose careful
attention, as formerly to that of Captain Pigot, he gratefully
attributed his life. The expedition with which he had been associated
ended in failure, for although a part of the force pushed on to Lake
Nicaragua, sickness compelled the abandonment of the conquests, which
were repossessed by the Spaniards.
Arriving in England, Nelson went to Bath, and there passed through a
period of extreme suffering and tedious recovery. "I have been so ill
since I have been here," says one of his letters, "that I was obliged
to be carried to and from bed, with the most excruciating tortures."
Exact dates are wanting; but he seems to have been under treatment
near three months, when, on the 28th of January, 1781, he wrote to
Locker, in his often uncouth style: "Although I have not quite
recovered the use of my limbs, yet my inside is a new man;" and again,
three weeks later, "I have now the perfect use of all my limbs, except
my left arm, which I can hardly tell what is the matter with it. From
the shoulder to my fingers' ends are as if half dead." He remained in
Bath until the middle of March, latterly more for the mild climate
than because feeling the necessity of prosecuting his cure; yet that
his health was far from securely re-established is evident, for a
severe relapse followed his return to London. On the 7th of May, 1781,
he writes to his brother: "You will say, why does not he come into
Norfolk? I will tell you: I have entirely lost the use of my left arm,
and very near of my left leg and thigh." In estimating Nelson's
heroism, the sickly fragility of his bodily frame must be kept in
memory; not to excuse shortcomings of nerve or enterprise, for there
were none, but to exalt duly the extraordinary mental energy which
rather mocked at difficulties than triumphed over them.
While yet an invalid he had again applied for employment, and, as the
war was still raging, was appointed in August, 1781, to the
"Albemarle," a small frigate of twenty-eight guns. He was pleased with
the ship, the first commissioned by himself at home, with a long
cruise in prospect; and, together with his expressions of content with
her, there appears that manifestation of complete satisfaction with
his officers and crew, with those surrounding him as subordinates,
that so singularly characterized his habit of mind. "I have an
exceeding good ship's company. Not a man or officer in her I would
wish to change.... I am perfectly satisfied with both officers and
ship's company." Down to the month before Trafalgar, when, to the
bidding of the First Lord of the Admiralty to choose his own officers,
he replied, "Choose yourself, my lord; the same spirit actuates the
whole profession, you cannot choose wrong," there is rarely, it might
almost be said never, anything but praise for those beneath him. With
the "Agamemnon," "We are all well; indeed, nobody can be ill with my
ship's company, they are so fine a set." At the Nile, "I had the
happiness to command a band of brothers; therefore night was to my
advantage. Each knew his duty, and I was sure each would feel for a
French ship. _My friends_ readily conceived my plan." His ships in the
Mediterranean, in 1803, "are the best commanded and the very best
manned" in the navy. So his frequent praise of others in his
despatches and letters has none of the formal, perfunctory ring of an
official paper; it springs evidently from the warmest appreciation and
admiration, is heartfelt, showing no deceptive exterior, but the true
native fibre of the man, full of the charity which is kind and
thinketh no evil. It was not always so toward those above him. Under
the timid and dilatory action of Hotham and Hyde Parker, under the
somewhat commonplace although exact and energetic movements of Lord
Keith, he was restive, and freely showed what he felt. On the other
hand, around Hood and Jervis, who commanded his professional respect
and esteem, he quickly threw the same halo of excellence, arising from
his tendency to idealize, that colored the medium through which he
invariably saw the men whom he himself commanded. The disposition to
invest those near to him with merits, which must in part at least have
been imaginary, is a most noteworthy feature of his character, and
goes far to explain the attraction he exerted over others, the
enthusiasm which ever followed him, the greatness of his success, and
also, unhappily, the otherwise almost inexplicable but enduring
infatuation which enslaved his later years, and has left the most
serious blot upon his memory.
Though thus pleased with his surroundings, his own health continued
indifferent. He excuses himself for delay in correspondence, because
"so ill as to be scarce kept out of bed." In such a state, and for one
whose frame had been racked and weakened by three years spent in the
damp heat of the tropics, a winter's trip to the Baltic was hardly the
best prescription; but thither the "Albemarle" was sent,--"it would
almost be supposed," he wrote, "to try my constitution." He was away
on this cruise from October to December, 1781, reaching Yarmouth on
the 17th of the latter month, with a large convoy of a hundred and ten
sail of merchant-ships, all that then remained of two hundred and
sixty that had started from Elsinore on the 8th. "They behaved, as all
convoys that ever I saw did, shamefully ill; parting company every
day." After being several days wind-bound in Yarmouth Roads, he
arrived in the Downs on the first day of 1782. The bitter cold of the
North had pierced him almost as keenly as it did twenty years later in
the Copenhagen expedition. "I believe the Doctor has saved my life
since I saw you," he wrote to his brother. The ship was then ordered
to Portsmouth to take in eight months' provisions,--a sure indication
that she was intended for a distant voyage. Nelson himself surmised
that she would join the squadron of Sir Richard Bickerton, then
fitting out to reinforce the fleet in the East Indies. Had this
happened, he would have been on hand to hear much and perchance see
something of one of his own professional forerunners, the great French
Admiral Suffren, as well as of the latter's doughty antagonist, Sir
Edward Hughes; for Bickerton arrived in time to take part in the last
of the five pitched battles between those two hard fighters.
Unluckily, a severe accident had befallen the "Albemarle,"--a large
East Indiaman having dragged down upon her during a heavy gale in the
Downs. The injuries received by this collision were so extensive that
the ship was under repairs at Portsmouth for six weeks, during which
time Bickerton sailed.
While thus detained in one of the principal dockyards and naval
stations of the kingdom, another large detachment, belonging to the
Channel fleet, assembled before Nelson's eyes. It comprised twelve
sail-of-the-line, under Admiral Barrington; and among these was the
"Foudroyant," the most famous ship of her time, then commanded by
Captain John Jervis, with whom, as the Earl of St. Vincent, Nelson was
afterwards closely associated; but the young frigate captain did not
now come in contact with his stately superior, who in later years so
highly valued and loved him. It was for him still the day of small
things. Though thus thrown in the midst of the din and bustle of
extensive naval preparations, he had not the fortune to be directly
connected with them; and consequently no occasion arose for becoming
known to admirals who could recognize his worth, and give him the
opportunities without which distinction cannot be achieved. It is,
however, a significant and instructive fact that, while thus
persistently dissociated from the great operations then in progress,
and employed wholly in detached service, Nelson's natural genius for
war asserted itself, controlling the direction of his thoughts and
interests, and fixing them to that broad field of his profession from
which he was as yet debarred. "The height of his ambition," an
acquaintance of this period tells us, "was to command a line-of-battle
ship; as for prize money," for which frigates offered the best
chances, "it never entered his thoughts." A few months later, while
still in the "Albemarle," it was said of him by Lord Hood, the most
original tactician of the day, that he knew as much about naval
tactics as any officer in the fleet. When this high encomium was
bestowed, Nelson had barely passed his twenty-fourth birthday.
Meanwhile the "Albemarle" was again ordered upon convoy duty, this
time to Quebec. This destination also was distasteful on account of
the climate. "I want much to get off from this d----d voyage," he
wrote. "Mr. Adair," an eminent London surgeon, who the year before had
treated him for the paralysis of his limbs, "has told me that if I was
sent to a cold damp climate it would make me worse than ever." He
himself had scruples about applying for an exchange, and the efforts
of some friends who interfered proved useless. The "Albemarle" started
with a convoy of thirty-odd vessels on the 10th of April, 1782; and
after a short stop at Cork, anchored at St. John's, Newfoundland, on
May 27, whence she reached Quebec July 1. Three days later she again
sailed on a cruise that lasted over two months, spent chiefly about
Boston Bay and Cape Cod. During this time several enemy's vessels were
taken or destroyed; but, with the bad luck that so often followed
Nelson in the matter of prize-money, none of the captures reached
port, and the cruise was pecuniarily unprofitable. It afforded him,
however, an opportunity for displaying conduct and gaining deserved
reputation, which he valued more highly. On the 14th of August the
sudden lifting of a fog showed the "Albemarle" within gunshot of a
French squadron, of four ships-of-the-line and a frigate, that had
just come out of Boston. A close chase followed, lasting nine or ten
hours; but Nelson threw off the heavy ships by running among the
shoals of George's Bank, which he ventured to do, trusting to the cool
head and aptitude for pilotage acquired in earlier life. The frigate
followed warily, watching for a chance to strike at advantage; but
when the ships-of-the-line had been dropped far enough to be unable to
help their consort, the British vessel hove-to[7] in defiance, and the
enemy fell back upon his supports.
Shortly after this escape, so many of the ship's company fell ill
with scurvy that Nelson decided to go back to Quebec, where he arrived
on the 17th of September. "For eight weeks," he wrote, "myself and all
the officers lived upon salt beef; nor had the ship's company had a
fresh meal since the 7th of April." The fears for his health that he
had expressed before sailing from England had happily proved
groundless, and a month's stay in port which now followed, at the most
delightful and invigorating of the American seasons, wrought wonders
for him. His letters to Locker state that the voyage agreed with him
better than he had expected; while from the St. Lawrence he wrote to
his father, "Health, that greatest of blessings, is what I never truly
enjoyed until I saw _Fair_ Canada. The change it has wrought, I am
convinced, is truly wonderful." This happy result had been due, in
part at least, to surroundings that told favorably upon his sensitive
nervous system, and not to the bracing climate alone. He had been
actively occupied afloat, and had fallen desperately in love with a
fair Canadian, around whom his ardent imagination threw that glamour
of exaggerated charm in which he saw all who were dear to him, except
his wife. Her he seems from the first to have looked upon with
affection indeed, but without rapture or illusion. The Canadian affair
came near ending in an imprudent offer, from which he was with
difficulty deterred by a cool-headed friend. The story runs that, the
ship being ordered to New York and ready for sea, he had bidden her
good-bye and gone on board, expecting to sail next day; but that,
unable to bear the approaching separation, he returned to the city,
and was on his way to the lady's home when his friend met him.
Tearing himself away from his mistress by a violent effort, Nelson, on
the 20th of October, sailed for New York. Arriving on the 13th of
November, he found there a large part of the West India fleet, under
Lord Hood, who had been second in command to Rodney on the occasion
of the latter's celebrated victory over De Grasse in the previous
April. Rodney had since then been recalled to England, while Hood had
gone to Boston to look after a division of the beaten French fleet,
which was there refitting. He was now on his return to the islands,
where the enemy was expected to make a vigorous aggressive campaign
the following spring. Extensive preparations were in fact on foot for
the reduction of Jamaica, frustrated six months before by De Grasse's
mishap. Nelson thus found himself again in tantalizing contact with
the stirring circumstance that preludes hostilities, in which he
himself had little hope to share; for the "Albemarle" belonged to the
North American station, where all active naval operations had ceased
with the surrender of Cornwallis the year before. He went, therefore,
to Hood, and begged to be transferred to his squadron. In vain did
Admiral Digby, his own commander-in-chief, tell him that he was on a
good station for prize-money. "Yes," he replied, "but the West Indies
is the station for honour."
Digby was reluctant to part with a frigate, as all admirals were; but
Hood, either from an intuitive faculty for judging men, or from his
conversations with Nelson eliciting the latter's singular knowledge of
the higher part of his profession, wished to push an officer of so
much promise, and succeeded in obtaining the transfer of the
"Albemarle" to his squadron. "I am a candidate with Lord Hood for a
line-of-battle ship," wrote Nelson to Locker; "he has honoured me
highly, by a letter, for wishing to go off this station to a station
of service, and has promised me his friendship." A few months later he
wrote again: "My situation in Lord Hood's fleet must be in the highest
degree flattering to any young man. He treats me as if I were his son,
and will, I am convinced, give me anything I can ask of him." This was
really the beginning, the outstart, of Nelson's great career; for
Hood's interest in him, then aroused, and deepened by experience to
the utmost confidence and appreciation, made itself felt the instant
the French Revolutionary War began. Nelson then came at once under his
orders, went with him to the Mediterranean, and there speedily made
his mark, being transferred from admiral to admiral with ever-growing
tokens of reliance. Despite the lapse of time, and the long interval
of peace, it is no exaggeration to say that there is a direct
connection of cause and effect between his transfer to Hood's fleet,
in the harbor of New York, and the battle of Cape St. Vincent, in
1797, when he emerged from merely professional distinction to national
renown, standing head and shoulders above all competitors. In the four
days that followed his arrival in New York, Nelson took the tide at
the flood, and was borne on to fortune. Yet in this, as in many other
instant and happy decisions, we may not see the mere casting of a die,
the chance result of an irreflective impulse. The determination to
change into Hood's squadron, with its powerful, far-reaching effect
upon his future, was in necessary logical sequence to Nelson's whole
habit of thought, and wish, and previous preparation. He was swept
into the current that carried him on to fame by the irresistible
tendency of his own conscious will and cherished purpose. Opportunity
flitted by; he was ready, and grasped it.
At this turning-point the commendable diligence of his principal
biographers has again secured for us a striking description of the
young captain's personal appearance, and of the impression produced by
his manner upon an interested acquaintance, who afterwards became a
warm friend and admirer as well as a frequent correspondent. The
narrator--then Prince William Henry, afterwards King William IV.--gave
the following account, apparently at some period between 1805, when
Nelson fell, and 1809, when the first edition of Clarke and M'Arthur's
Life appeared. "I was then a midshipman on board the Barfleur," Lord
Hood's flagship, "lying in the Narrows off Staten Island, and had the
watch on deck, when Captain Nelson, of the Albemarle, came in his
barge alongside, who appeared to be the merest boy of a captain I ever
beheld; and his dress was worthy of attention. He had on a full-laced
uniform; his lank unpowdered hair was tied in a stiff Hessian tail, of
an extraordinary length; the old-fashioned flaps of his waistcoat
added to the general quaintness of his figure, and produced an
appearance which particularly attracted my notice; for I had never
seen anything like it before, nor could I imagine who he was, nor what
he came about. My doubts were, however, removed when Lord Hood
introduced me to him. There was something irresistibly pleasing in his
address and conversation; and an enthusiasm, when speaking on
professional subjects, that showed he was no common being." The
Countess of Minto, in her Life of Lord Minto, speaks of Nelson's
"shock head" at the time (1794) when he was a frequent visitor at the
house of Minto, then Sir Gilbert Elliott, and Viceroy of Corsica; a
trivial detail, but confirmatory, so far, of the picture drawn by the
prince. The latter continued: "Nelson, after this, went with us to the
West Indies, and served under Lord Hood's flag during his
indefatigable cruise off Cape François.... I found him warmly attached
to my father [King George III.], and singularly humane. He had the
honour of the King's service and the independence of the British navy
particularly at heart; and his mind glowed with this idea as much when
he was simply captain of the Albemarle, and had obtained none of the
honours of his Country, as when he was afterwards decorated with so
much well-earned distinction."
The war of 1778 was now fast drawing to its close; the preliminaries
of peace being signed in January, 1783, though not ratified till the
following September. Hood cruised off Cap François, a naval station of
the French at the west end of Haiti, to intercept the fleet from
Boston, which was understood to be on its way to the Caribbean; but
the enemy, learning his whereabouts, went through the Mona Passage,
east of the island, thus avoiding a meeting, and was next heard of by
the British as being off Curaçao far to the southward. Nelson,
therefore, had no opportunity to show his prowess in battle; and as
only three letters remain covering this uneventful period, little is
known of his movements, except that he made an abortive attempt to
recapture Turk's Island from the French with a small force of ships he
was able to gather at short notice. An interesting indication of the
spirit which animated him transpires in the first of the three letters
mentioned. He had received unexpected orders to wait in New York after
Hood's leaving. "I was to have sailed with the fleet this day, but for
some private reasons, when my ship was under sail from New York to
join Lord Hood, at Sandy Hook, I was sent for on shore, and told I was
to be kept forty-eight hours after the sailing of the fleet. It is
much to my private advantage," allowing more latitude for picking up
prizes, without having to share with the other ships, "but I had much
rather have sailed with the fleet." "Money," he continues, "is the
great object here," on the North American Station, "nothing else is
attended to,"--a motive of action which he always rejected with
disdain, although by no means insensible to the value of money, nor
ever thoroughly at his ease in the matter of income, owing largely to
the lavish liberality with which he responded to the calls upon his
generosity or benevolence. A year later he wrote in the same strain:
"I have closed the war without a fortune; but I trust, and, from the
attention that has been paid to me, believe, that there is not a speck
in my character. True honour, I hope, predominates in my mind far
above riches."
When news of the peace reached the West Indies, Hood was ordered to
return with his fleet to England. Nelson went home at the same time,
being directed first to accompany Prince William Henry in a visit to
Havana. The "Albemarle" reached Spithead on the 25th of June, 1783,
and was paid off a week later, her captain going on half-pay until the
following April. The cruise of nearly two years' duration closed with
this characteristic comment: "Not an officer has been changed, except
the second lieutenant, since the Albemarle was commissioned;
therefore, it is needless to say, I am happy in my ship's company."
And again he writes: "My ship was paid off last week, and in such a
manner that must flatter any officer, in particular in these turbulent
times. The whole ship's company offered, if I could get a ship, to
enter for her immediately." Nelson was keenly alive to the impolicy
and injury to the service involved in the frequent changes of officers
and men from ship to ship. "The disgust of the seamen to the Navy," he
wrote immediately after leaving the Albemarle, "is all owing to the
infernal plan of turning them over from ship to ship, so that men
cannot be attached to their officers, or the officers care twopence
about them." This element of personal attachment is never left out of
calculation safely.
Nelson was now nearly twenty-five. In direct achievement he had
accomplished little, and to most he was unknown; but he did not
deceive himself in believing that his reputation was established, and
his promise, as a capable man of action, understood by those who knew
him, and especially by the brilliant admiral under whom he had last
served. Within a week of his release from the ship Hood carried him to
Court, and presented him to the King,--an evident proof of his
approbation; and Nelson notes that the sovereign was exceedingly
attentive. The next few months were spent in London, or at his old
home in Norfolk, to which and to his family he was always fondly
attached. Toward the end of October he obtained a leave of absence, in
order to visit France and acquire the French language. His impressions
of that country, as far as he went,--from Calais to St. Omer,--are
given in lively enough style in a few letters; but they differ little
from what might be expected from any very young man deeply tinged with
insular prejudice. "I hate their country and their manners," he wrote,
soon after his return; and his biographers were quite right in saying
that he had been brought up in the old anti-Gallican school, with
prejudices not to be eradicated by a flying visit. He duly records his
disgust with two British naval captains, one of whom was afterwards
among his most valued and valuable friends, for wearing epaulettes, at
that time confined to the French service. "I hold them a little
_cheap_," he said, "for putting on any part of a Frenchman's uniform."
It is more interesting to notice that his impressionable fancy was
again taken by an attractive young Englishwoman, the daughter of a
clergyman named Andrews, living at St. Omer. "Two very beautiful young
ladies," he writes to Locker and to his brother; "I must take care of
my heart, I assure you." "My heart is quite secured against the French
beauties; I almost wish I could say as much for an English young lady,
the daughter of a clergyman, with whom I am just going to dine, and
spend the day. She has such accomplishments that, had I a million of
money, I am sure I should at this moment make her an offer of them."
"The most accomplished woman my eyes ever beheld," he repeats, a month
later. The sentimental raptures of a young man about a handsome girl
have in themselves too much of the commonplace to justify mention.
What is remarkable, and suggests an explanation of the deplorable
vagary of his later years, is that his attachment to his wife, even in
the days of courtship, elicited no such extravagance of admiration as
that into which he freely lapses in his earlier fancies, and yet more
in his last absorbing passion. Respect and tenderness for her he
certainly felt and expressed; but there is no indication that she ever
enkindled his ardent imagination, or filled for him the place of an
ideal, which his mental constitution imperatively demanded as an
object of worship. The present attachment went so far with him that he
wrote to his uncle William Suckling, asking for an allowance to enable
him to marry. "If nothing can be done for me," said he, gloomily, "I
know what I have to trust to. Life is not worth preserving without
happiness; and I care not where I may linger out a miserable
existence. I am prepared to hear your refusal, and have fixed my
resolution if that should happen.... I pray you may never know the
pangs which at this instant tear my heart." If, as is said by the
gentlemen into whose hands this letter passed, Suckling consented to
help him, as he certainly did at the time of his actual marriage, it
seems probable that the lady refused him.
FOOTNOTES:
[1] The precise date of Nelson's entering the Navy, which would be that of
his being rated upon the books of the "Raisonnable," is not stated.
Accepting the times during which he was borne upon the books of different
ships, as given by Sir Harris Nicolas (Letters and Despatches of Lord
Nelson, vol. i. p. 4, note), and with them calculating back from October
15, 1773, the day mentioned by Nelson himself as that on which he was paid
off from the "Carcass" (Nicolas, p. 5), the date of entry upon the books of
the "Raisonnable" would be November 27, 1770; unless, which is unlikely,
there were any lost days. The news of the Port Egmont business reached
England in October, 1770. Clarke and M'Arthur (Life of Nelson, vol. i. p.
14, note) infer January 1, 1771, for his entry upon the "Raisonnable's"
books; but this would not allow the times which Nicolas gives with minute
exactness. For his actually joining the "Raisonnable" they give, loosely,
the spring of 1771,--March or April. This is very possible, as rating back,
for the sake of gaining constructive time needed to qualify for promotion,
was tolerated by the practice of the day.
[2] Clarke and M'Arthur, vol. i. p. 31.
[3] Collingwood was nearly fifty when he got his flag. Howe was forty-five,
St. Vincent fifty-three, Saumarez forty-four, Exmouth (Pellew) forty-eight.
[4] This appears certain from his letters of July 28 and August 12, which
explicitly mention that ship's absence.
[5] The Caribbean was formerly thus styled in contradistinction to the
South Sea, the Pacific, which was so called because its first discoverers
saw it to the south from the Isthmus.
[6] Cornwallis was an officer of marked gallantry and conduct, who
distinguished himself on several occasions, as captain, during the War of
1778, and as admiral during the wars of the French Revolution. He was
brother to Lord Cornwallis, who surrendered at Yorktown, in 1781.
[7] That is, stopped.