REDUCTION OF CORSICA BY THE BRITISH.--DEPARTURE OF LORD HOOD FOR
ENGLAND.--THE "AGAMEMNON" REFITTED AT LEGHORN.
JANUARY-DECEMBER, 1794. AGE, 35.
By the loss of Toulon the British fleet in the Mediterranean was left
adrift, without any secure harbor to serve as a depot for supplies and
a base for extended operations. Hood took his ships to Hyères Bay, a
few miles east of Toulon, a spot where they could lie safely at
anchor, but which was unsuitable for a permanent establishment,--the
shores not being tenable against French attack. He now turned his eyes
upon Corsica, whence the celebrated native chieftain, Paoli, who had
led the natives in their former struggle against France, had made
overtures to him, looking to the union of the island to the British
crown. Nelson in person, or, during his brief absence in Leghorn, his
division, had so closely invested the shores, that neither troops nor
supplies of any kind had been able to enter since the early part of
December, nor had the blockaded vessels been able to get out. The
thoroughness with which this work was done brought him, on the 6th of
January, 1794, yet further compliments from Hood, who wrote him that
"he looked upon these frigates as certain, trusting to my zeal and
activity, and knows, if it is in the power of man to have them, I will
secure them." At the same time he was instructed to enter into
communication with Paoli, and settle plans for the landing of the
troops. In attending to this commission his intermediary was
Lieutenant George Andrews, brother to the lady to whom he had become
attached at St. Omer, and who had afterwards been a midshipman with
him on board the "Boreas." "This business going through my hands," he
wrote with just pride, "is a proof of Lord Hood's confidence in me,
and that I shall pledge myself for nothing but what will be acceptable
to him." It was indeed evident that Hood was more and more reposing in
him a peculiar trust, a feeling which beyond most others tends to
increase by its own action. Nelson repaid him with the most unbounded
admiration. "The Lord is very good friends with me," he writes; "he is
certainly the best officer I ever saw. Everything from him is so clear
it is impossible to misunderstand him." "His zeal, his activity for
the honour and benefit of his country," he says at another time, "are
not abated. Upwards of seventy, he possesses the mind of forty years
of age. He has not a thought separated from honour and glory." The
flattering proofs of his superior's esteem, and the demand made upon
his natural powers to exert themselves freely, had a very beneficial
effect upon his health and spirits. It was not effort, however
protracted and severe, but the denial of opportunity to act, whether
by being left unemployed or through want of information, that wore
Nelson down. "I have not been one hour at anchor for pleasure in eight
months; but I can assure you I never was better in health."
Meanwhile a commission from the fleet arrived in Corsica. Sir Gilbert
Elliot, the representative of the British government in the island,
was at its head, and with him were associated two army officers, one
of whom afterwards became widely celebrated as Sir John Moore. A
satisfactory agreement being concluded, Hood sailed from Hyères Bay
with the ships and troops, and operations began against San Fiorenzo,
terminating in the evacuation of the place by the French, who upon the
19th of February retreated by land to Bastia. Nelson was not
immediately connected with this undertaking; but he had the
satisfaction of knowing that two of the four frigates, of whose
detention in the island he was the immediate cause, were here lost to
the enemy. He was during these weeks actively employed harrying the
coast--destroying depots of stores on shore, and small vessels laden
with supplies. These services were mainly, though not entirely,
rendered in the neighborhood of Bastia, a strongly fortified town,
which was to become the next object of the British efforts, and the
scene of his own exertions. There, also, though on a comparatively
small scale, he was to give striking evidence of the characteristics
which led him on, step by step, to his great renown.
When Hood himself took command at San Fiorenzo, he relieved Nelson
from that part of his charge, and sent him on the 7th of February to
blockade Bastia,--a strictly detached service, and one of the utmost
importance, as upon the intercepting of supplies the issue of the
siege largely turned. Three weeks later, on the 1st of March, Nelson
wrote: "We are still in the busy scene of war, a situation in which I
own I feel pleasure, more especially as my actions have given great
satisfaction to my commander-in-chief. The blocking up of Corsica he
left to me: it has been accomplished in the most complete manner, not
a boat got in, nor a soldier landed, although eight thousand men were
embarked at Nice;" and, he might have added, although a vessel was
said to sail from Nice every thirty-six hours. Nor was his activity
confined to blockading. He continually reconnoitered the town and the
works, in doing which on the 23d of February he engaged the batteries
at short range, with the "Agamemnon" and two frigates,--the action
lasting for nearly two hours. While it was at its height, the heads of
the British columns, coming from San Fiorenzo, only twelve miles
distant by land, were seen upon the heights overlooking Bastia from
the rear. "What a noble sight it must have been" to them! wrote Nelson
enthusiastically, in the ardor of his now opening career,--for it
must be remembered that this hero of a hundred fights was even then
but beginning to taste that rapture of the strife, in which he always
breathed most freely, as though in his native element.
Bastia, as he saw it and reported to Lord Hood, was a walled town with
central citadel, of some ten thousand inhabitants, on the east coast
of Corsica, and twenty miles south of Cape Corso, the northern
extremity of the island. The main fortifications were along the
sea-front; but there was, besides, a series of detached works on
either flank and to the rear. The latter not only guarded the
approaches from the interior, but also, being situated on the hills,
much above the town, were capable of commanding it, in case of an
enemy gaining possession. Nelson, while modestly disclaiming any
presumptuous dependence upon his own judgment, expressed a decided
opinion, based upon the engagement of the 23d, that the "Agamemnon"
and the frigates could silence the fire of the sea-front, batter down
the walls, and that then five hundred troops could carry the place by
assault. "That the works on the hills would annoy the town afterwards
is certain, but the enemy being cut off from all supplies--the
provisions in the town being of course in our possession--would think
of nothing but making the best terms they could for themselves." To
his dismay, however, and to the extreme annoyance of the admiral,
General Dundas, commanding the army, refused to move against Bastia,
condemning the attempt as visionary and rash. Meantime the French,
unmolested except by the desultory efforts of the insurgent Corsicans,
were each day strengthening their works, and converting the
possibilities Nelson saw into the impossibilities of the cautious
general.
Hood on the 25th of February came round from San Fiorenzo to Bastia;
but he purposely brought with him no captain senior to Nelson, in
order that the latter might remain in charge of the operations he had
begun so well. When Dundas retreated again to San Fiorenzo, Hood on
the 3d of March followed him there with the flagship, to urge his
co-operation; leaving Nelson with six frigates to conduct the blockade
and take such other steps as the opportunities might justify. By the
middle of March, nearly three months having elapsed since her last
hasty visit to Leghorn, the "Agamemnon" was wholly destitute of
supplies. "We are really," wrote Nelson to Hood, "without firing,
wine, beef, pork, flour, and almost without water: not a rope, canvas,
twine, or nail in the ship. The ship is so light she cannot hold her
side to the wind.... We are certainly in a bad plight at present, not
a man has slept dry for many months. Yet," he continues, with that
indomitable energy which made light of mere difficulties of material,
and conveys so impressive a lesson to our modern days, when slight
physical defects appear insurmountable, and ships not wholly up to
date are counted obsolete,--"yet if your Lordship wishes me to remain
off Bastia, I can, by going to Porto Ferrajo, get water and stores,
and twenty-four hours in Leghorn will give us provisions; and our
refitting, which will take some time, can be put off a little. My wish
is to be present at the attack of Bastia."
On the 18th of March Hood summoned him to San Fiorenzo. The difference
between him and Dundas had become a quarrel, and the latter had
quitted his command. Hood wished to strengthen the argument with his
successor, by a report of the observations made by Nelson; but the
latter records that, after expressing his opinion that eight hundred
troops with four hundred seamen could reduce the place, it was found
that all the army was united against an attack, declaring the
impossibility of taking Bastia, even if all the force were
united,--and this, notwithstanding that an engineer and an artillery
officer had visited the scene, and agreed with Nelson that there was a
probability of success. On the north side both they and he considered
the place weak, and at the same time found the ground favorable for
establishing the siege guns. Moreover, even during the winter gales,
he had succeeded in so closing the sea approaches, while the revolted
Corsicans intercepted those by land, that a pound of coarse bread was
selling for three francs. The spring equinox was now near at hand, and
with better weather the blockade would be yet more efficient. Between
actual attack and famine, he argued, the place must fall. "Not
attacking it I could not but consider as a national disgrace. If the
Army will not take it, we must, by some way or other."
If every particular operation of war is to be considered by itself
alone, and as a purely professional question, to be determined by
striking a balance between the arguments pro and con, it is probable
that the army officers were right in their present contention. In
nothing military was scientific accuracy of prediction so possible as
in forecasting the result and duration of a regular siege, where the
force brought to bear on either side could be approximately known.
But, even in this most methodical and least inspired of processes, the
elements of chance, of the unforeseen, or even the improbable, will
enter, disturbing the most careful calculations. For this reason, no
case must be decided purely on its individual merits, without taking
into account the other conditions of the campaign at large. For good
and sufficient reasons, the British had undertaken, not to conquer a
hostile island, but to effect the deliverance of a people who were
already in arms, and had themselves redeemed their country with the
exception of two or three fortified seaports, for the reduction of
which they possessed neither the materials nor the technical skill. To
pause in the movement of advance was, with a half-civilized race of
unstable temperament, to risk everything. But besides, for the mere
purpose of the blockade, it was imperative to force the enemy as far
as possible to contract his lines. Speaking of a new work thrown up
north of the town, Nelson said with accurate judgment: "It must be
destroyed, or the Corsicans will be obliged to give up a post which
the enemy would immediately possess; and of course throw us on that
side at a greater distance from Bastia." The result would be, not
merely so much more time and labor to be expended, nor yet only the
moral effect on either party, but also the uncovering of a greater
length of seaboard, by which supplies might be run into the town.
The strength of the place, in which, when it fell, were found
"seventy-seven pieces of ordnance with an incredible amount of
stores," was far superior to that estimated by the eye of Nelson,
untrained as an engineer. Not only so, but the force within the walls
was very much larger than he thought, when he spoke with such
confidence. "I never yet told Lord Hood," he wrote nearly a year
later, "that after everything was fixed for the attack of Bastia, I
had information given me of the enormous number of troops we had to
oppose us; but my own honour, Lord Hood's honour, and the honour of
our Country must have all been sacrificed, had I mentioned what I
knew; therefore you will believe what must have been my feelings
during the whole siege, when I had often proposals made to me by men,
now rewarded, to write to Lord Hood to raise the siege." "Had this
been an English town," he said immediately after the surrender, "I am
sure it would not have been taken by them. The more we see of this
place, the more we are astonished at their giving it up, but the truth
is, the different parties were afraid to trust each other." The last
assertion, if correct, conveys just one of those incidents which so
frequently concur to insure the success of a step rightly taken, as
that of Nelson and Hood in this instance certainly was. "Forty-five
hundred men," he continues, "have laid down their arms to under twelve
hundred troops and seamen. If proofs were wanting to show that
perseverance, unanimity, and gallantry, can accomplish almost
incredible things, we are an additional instance."
"I always was of opinion," he wrote in the exultation of reaction from
the weight of responsibility he had assumed by his secrecy,--"I always
was of opinion, have ever acted up to it, and never have had any
reason to repent it, that one Englishman was equal to three
Frenchmen." This curious bit of the gasconade into which Nelson from
time to time lapsed, can scarcely be accepted as a sound working
theory, or as of itself justifying the risk taken; and yet it
undoubtedly, under a grossly distorted form, portrays the temperament
which enabled him to capture Bastia, and which made him what he
was,--a man strong enough to take great chances for adequate ends.
"All naval operations undertaken since I have been at the head of the
government," said Napoleon, "have always failed, because the admirals
see double, and have learned--where I do not know--that war can be
made without running risks." It is not material certainty of success,
the _ignis fatuus_ which is the great snare of the mere engineer, or
of the merely accomplished soldier, that points the way to heroic
achievements. It is the vivid inspiration that enables its happy
possessor, at critical moments, to see and follow the bright clear
line, which, like a ray of light at midnight, shining among manifold
doubtful indications, guides his steps. Whether it leads him to
success or to failure, he may not know; but that it is the path of
wisdom, of duty, and of honor, he knows full well by the persuasion
within,--by conviction, the fortifier of the reason, though not by
sight, the assurance of demonstration. Only a man capable of incurring
a disaster like that at Teneriffe could rise to the level of daring,
which, through hidden perils, sought and wrought the superb triumph of
Aboukir Bay. Such is genius, that rare but hazardous gift, which
separates a man from his fellows by a chasm not to be bridged by
human will. Thus endowed, Nelson before the walls of Bastia showed,
though in a smaller sphere, and therefore with a lighter hazard, the
same keen perception, the same instant decision, the same unfaltering
resolve, the same tenacity of purpose, that, far over and beyond the
glamour of mere success, have rendered eternally illustrious the days
of St. Vincent, of the Nile, and of Copenhagen.
Of the spirit which really actuated him, in his unwavering support of
Lord Hood's inclination to try the doubtful issue, many interesting
instances are afforded by his correspondence. "I feel for the honour
of my Country, and had rather be beat than not make the attack. If we
do not try we can never be successful. I own I have no fears for the
final issue: it will be conquest, certain we will deserve it. My
reputation depends on the opinion I have given; but I feel an honest
consciousness that I have done right. We must, we will have it, or
some of our heads will be laid low. I glory in the attempt." "What
would the immortal Wolfe have done?" he says again, refreshing his own
constancy in the recollection of an equal heroism, crowned with
success against even greater odds. "As he did, beat the enemy, if he
perished in the attempt." Again, a fortnight later: "We are in high
health and spirits besieging Bastia; the final event, I feel assured,
will be conquest." When the siege had already endured for a month, and
with such slight actual progress as to compel him to admit to Hood
that the town battery had been "put in such a state, that firing away
many shot at it is almost useless till we have a force sufficient to
get nearer," his confidence remains unabated. "I have no fears about
the final issue," he writes to his wife; "it will be victory, Bastia
will be ours; and if so, it must prove an event to which the history
of England can hardly boast an equal." Further on in the same letter
he makes a prediction, so singularly accurate as to excite curiosity
about its source: "I will tell you as a secret, Bastia will be ours
between the 20th and 24th of this month"--three weeks after the date
of writing--"if succours do not get in." It surrendered actually on
the 22d. One is tempted to speculate if there had been any such
understanding with the garrison as was afterwards reached with Calvi;
but there is no other token of such an arrangement. It is instructive
also to compare this high-strung steadfastness of purpose to dare
every risk, if success perchance might be won thereby, with his
comment upon his own impulses at a somewhat later date. "My
disposition cannot bear tame and slow measures. Sure I am, had I
commanded our fleet on the 14th, that either the whole French fleet
would have graced my triumph, or I should have been in a confounded
scrape." Surely the secret of great successes is in these words.
The siege of Bastia was not in its course productive of striking
events. Having reasoned in vain with the two successive generals, Hood
demanded that there should be sent back to him a contingent of troops,
which had originally been detailed to serve as marines in the fleet,
but which he had loaned to the army for the operations against San
Fiorenzo. Having received these, he returned to Bastia, and on the 4th
of April, 1794, the besieging force, twelve hundred troops and two
hundred and fifty seamen, landed to the northward of the town. They at
once began to throw up batteries, while the Corsicans harassed the
landward approaches to the place. Nelson being with the troops, the
"Agamemnon" with some frigates was anchored north of the city, Hood
with his ships south of it. During the nights, boats from the fleet
rowed guard near to the sea-front, with such diligence that few of the
craft that attempted to run in or out succeeded in so doing. When
darkness covered the waters, British gunboats crept close to the
walls, and by an intermitting but frequent fire added much to the
distress of the enemy. On the 11th of April the garrison was formally
summoned, and, the expected refusal having been received, the British
batteries opened. There was not force enough, however, to bring the
place to terms as a consequence of direct attack, and after three
weeks Nelson, while betraying no apprehension of failure, practically
admitted the fact. "Although I have no doubt but even remaining in our
present situation, and by strict guard rowing close to the town, and
the Corsicans harassing them on the hills, and the gunboats by night,
but that the enemy must surrender before any great length of time,
yet, if force can be spared, a successful attack on the heights must
much facilitate a speedy capture. I own it will give me the highest
pleasure to assist in the attack."
It was by such an attack, or rather by the fear of it, coming upon the
long and exhausting endurance of cannonade and hunger, that Bastia
finally fell. "We shall in time accomplish the taking of Bastia,"
wrote Nelson on the 3d of May. "I have no doubt in the way we proposed
to attempt it, by bombardment and cannonading, joined to a close
blockade of the harbour." "If not," he adds, "our Country will, I
believe, sooner forgive an officer for attacking his enemy than for
letting it alone." On the 12th a large boat was captured coming out
from the port; and on her were found letters from the governor,
Gentili, confessing the annoyance caused by the British fire, and
saying that if relief did not arrive by the 29th, the place must be
looked upon as lost. Three nights later another boat was caught
attempting to enter. On board her was a brother of the Mayor of
Bastia. This man, while talking with Hood's secretary, expressed his
fears for the result to his relatives, if the town were carried by
assault. The secretary replied that Hood could not prevent those
evils, if the garrison awaited the attack, and gave the Corsican to
understand that it was imminent, troops being expected from San
Fiorenzo. At the urgent request of the prisoner, one of the seamen
taken with him was permitted to land with a letter, stating the
impending danger. By a singular coincidence, or by skilful
contrivance, the San Fiorenzo troops appeared on the heights upon the
evening, May 19, following this conversation. Flags of truce had
already been hoisted, negotiations were opened, and on the 22d the
French colors were struck and the British took possession. "When I
reflect what we have achieved," confessed the hitherto outwardly
unmoved Nelson, "I am all astonishment. The most glorious sight that
an Englishman can experience, and which, I believe, none but an
Englishman could bring about, was exhibited,--4,500 men laying down
their arms to less than 1,000 British soldiers, who were serving as
marines." As towards the French this account is perhaps somewhat less
than fair; but it does no more than justice to the admirable firmness
and enterprise shown by Hood and Nelson. As a question of Bastia only,
their attempt might be charged with rashness; but having regard to the
political and military conditions, to the instability of the Corsican
character, and to the value of the island as a naval station, it was
amply justified, for the risks run were out of all proportion less
than the advantage to be gained.
Thus the siege of Bastia ended in triumph, despite the prior
pronouncement of the general commanding the troops, that the attempt
was "most visionary and rash." These epithets, being used to Hood
after his own expressions in favor of the undertaking, had not
unnaturally provoked from him a resentful retort; and, as men are
rarely conciliated by the success of measures which they have
ridiculed, there arose a degree of strained relations between army and
navy, that continued even after the arrival of a new commander of the
land forces, and indeed throughout Hood's association with the
operations in Corsica.
During this busy and laborious period, despite his burden of secret
anxiety, Nelson's naturally delicate health showed the favorable
reaction, which, as has before been noted, was with him the usual
result of the call to exertion. His letters steadily reflect, and
occasionally mention, the glow of exultation produced by constant
action of a worthy and congenial nature. "We are in high health and
spirits besieging Bastia," he writes to his wife soon after landing;
and shortly before the fall of the place he says again: "As to my
health, it was never better, seldom so well." Yet, although from
beginning to end the essential stay of the enterprise, the animating
soul, without whose positive convictions and ardent support Lord Hood
could scarcely have dared so great a hazard, he was throughout the
siege left, apparently purposely, in an anomalous position, and was at
the end granted a recognition which, though probably not grudging, was
certainly scanty. No definition of his duties was ever given by the
commander-in-chief. He appears as it were the latter's unacknowledged
representative ashore, a plenipotentiary without credentials. "What my
situation is," he writes to a relative, "is not to be described. I am
everything, yet nothing ostensible; enjoying the confidence of Lord
Hood and Colonel Villettes, and the captains landed with the seamen
obeying my orders." A fortnight later he writes to Hood: "Your
Lordship knows exactly the situation I am in here. With Colonel
Villettes I have no reason but to suppose I am respected in the
highest degree; nor have I occasion to complain of want of attention
to my wishes from any parties; but yet I am considered as not
commanding the seamen landed. My wishes may be, and are, complied
with; my orders would possibly be disregarded. Therefore, if we move
from hence, I would wish your Lordship to settle that point. Your
Lordship will not, I trust, take this request amiss: I have been
struggling with it since the first day I landed."
Hood apparently gave him full satisfaction as regards his own view of
the situation. "I am happy," Nelson wrote, when acknowledging his
reply, "that my ideas of the situation I am in here so perfectly agree
with your Lordship's;" but he did not settle the matter by a decisive
order. His object, as he seems to have explained, was to bestow a
certain amount of prominence upon a young captain, Hunt, who had
recently lost his ship, and who, Hood thought, would be sooner
provided with another, if he appeared as in command at the guns.
Nelson acceded to this arrangement with his usual generosity. "Your
kind intention to Captain Hunt," he wrote, "I had the honour of
telling your Lordship, should be furthered by every means in my power;
and my regard for him, I assure you, is undiminished. He is a most
exceeding good young man, nor is any one more zealous for the service.
I don't complain of any one, but an idea has entered into the heads of
some under him, that his command was absolutely distinct from me; and
that I had no authority over him, except as a request." Unfortunately,
Hood, in his desire to serve Hunt, not only unduly but absurdly
minimized Nelson's relations to the whole affair. His despatch ran:
"Captain Nelson, of his Majesty's ship Agamemnon, who had the command
and directions of the seamen _in landing the guns, mortars and
stores_,[20] and Captain Hunt _who commanded at the batteries_,[20]
... have an equal claim to my gratitude." To limit Nelson's share in
the capture of Bastia to the purely subsidiary though important
function of landing the guns, was as unjust as it was unnecessary to
the interests of Hunt. The latter, being second in command ashore, and
afterwards sent home with the despatches, was sure to receive the
reward customarily bestowed upon such services.
The incident singularly and aptly illustrates the difference, which in
a military service cannot be too carefully kept in mind, between
individual expressions of opinion, which may be biassed, and
professional reputation, which, like public sentiment, usually
settles at last not far from the truth. Despite this curious inversion
of the facts by Lord Hood, there probably was no one among the naval
forces, nor among the soldiery, who did not thoroughly, if perchance
somewhat vaguely, appreciate that Nelson was the moving spirit of the
whole operation, even beyond Hood himself. As the Greek commanders
after Salamis were said to have voted the award of merit each to
himself first, but all to Themistocles second, so at Bastia, whatever
value individuals might place on their own services, all probably
would have agreed that Nelson came next.
The latter meantime was happily unconscious of the wrong done him, so
that nothing marred the pleasure with which he congratulated the
commander-in-chief, and received the latter's brief but hearty general
order of thanks, wherein Nelson's own name stood foremost, as was due
both to his seniority and to his exertions. When the despatch reached
him, he freely expressed his discontent in letters to friends; but
being, at the time of its reception, actively engaged in the siege of
Calvi, the exhilaration of that congenial employment for the moment
took the edge off the keenness of his resentment. "Lord Hood and
myself were never better friends--_nor, although his Letter does_,[21]
did he wish to put me where I never was--in the rear. Captain Hunt,
who lost his ship, he wanted to push forward for another,--a young man
who never was on a battery, or ever rendered any service during the
siege; if any person ever says he did, then I submit to the character
of a story-teller. Poor Serocold, who fell here,[22] was determined to
publish an advertisement, as he commanded a battery under my orders.
The whole operations of the siege were carried on through Lord Hood's
letters to me. I was the mover of it--I was the cause of its success.
Sir Gilbert Elliot will be my evidence, if any is required. I am not
a little vexed, but shall not quarrel." "I am well aware," he had
written to Mrs. Nelson a few days before, "my poor services will not
be noticed: I have no interest; but, however services may be received,
it is not right in an officer to slacken his zeal for his Country."
These noble words only voiced a feeling which in Nelson's heart had
all the strength of a principle; and this light of the single eye
stood him in good stead in the moments of bitterness which followed a
few months later, when a lull in the storm of fighting gave the sense
of neglect a chance to rankle. "My heart is full," he writes then to
his uncle Suckling, speaking not only of Bastia, but of the entire
course of operations in Corsica, "when I think of the treatment I have
received: every man who had any considerable share in the reduction
has got some place or other--I, only I, am without reward.... Nothing
but my anxious endeavour to serve my Country makes me bear up against
it; but I sometimes am ready to give all up." "Forgive this letter,"
he adds towards the end: "I have said a great deal too much of myself;
but indeed it is all too true." In similar strain he expressed himself
to his wife: "It is very true that I have ever served faithfully, and
ever has it been my fate to be neglected; but that shall not make me
inattentive to my duty. I have pride in doing my duty well, and a
self-approbation, which if it is not so lucrative, yet perhaps affords
more pleasing sensations." Thus the consciousness of duty done in the
past, and the clear recognition of what duty still demanded in the
present and future, stood him in full stead, when he failed to receive
at the hands of others the honor he felt to be his due, and which, he
never wearied in proclaiming, was in his eyes priceless, above all
other reward. "Corsica, in respect of prizes," he wrote to Mrs.
Nelson, "produces nothing but honour, far above the consideration of
wealth: not that I despise riches, quite the contrary, yet I would
not sacrifice a good name to obtain them. Had I attended less than I
have done to the service of my Country, I might have made some money
too: however, I trust my name will stand on record, when the
money-makers will be forgot,"--a hope to be abundantly fulfilled.
At the moment Bastia fell there arrived from England a new
commander-in-chief for the land forces, General Stuart, an officer of
distinguished ability and enterprise. Cheered by the hope of cordial
co-operation, Hood and Nelson resumed without delay their enthusiastic
efforts. Within a week, on the 30th of May, the latter wrote that the
"Agamemnon" was taking on board ammunition for the siege of Calvi, the
last remaining of the hostile strongholds. In the midst of the
preparations, at eleven P.M. of June 6, word was received that nine
French ships-of-the-line had come out of Toulon, and were believed to
be bound for Calvi, with reinforcements for the garrison. At seven the
next morning the squadron was under way; the "Agamemnon," which had
two hundred tons of ordnance stores to unload, sailing only half an
hour after her less encumbered consorts, whom she soon overtook.
Hood shaped his course for Calvi, being constrained thereto, not only
by the rumor of the enemy's destination, but also by the military
necessity of effecting a junction with the rest of his fleet. Admiral
Hotham, who commanded the British division of seven ships in front of
Toulon, instead of waiting to verify the report brought to him of the
enemy's force,--which was actually the same, numerically, as his
own,--bore up hastily for Calvi, intending, so wrote Nelson at the
time, to fight them there, rather than that they should throw in
succors. Whatever their numbers, thus to surrender touch of them at
the beginning was an evident mistake, for which, as for most mistakes,
a penalty had in the end to be paid; and in fact, if the relief of
Calvi was the object of the sortie, the place to fight was evidently
as far from there as possible. Off Toulon, even had Hotham been
beaten, his opponents would have been too roughly handled to carry out
their mission. As it was, this precipitate retirement lost the British
an opportunity for a combat that might have placed their control of
the sea beyond peradventure; and a few months later, Nelson, who at
first had viewed Hotham's action with the generous sympathy and
confident pride which always characterized his attitude towards his
brother officers, showed how clearly he was reading in the book of
experience the lessons that should afterwards stand himself in good
stead. "When 'Victory' is gone," he wrote, "we shall be thirteen sail
of the line [to the French fifteen], when the enemy will keep our new
Commanding Officer [Hotham] in hot water, who missed, unfortunately,
the opportunity of fighting them, last June." Ten years later, in his
celebrated chase of Villeneuve's fleet, he said to his captains: "If
we meet the enemy we shall find them not less than eighteen, I rather
think twenty, sail of the line, and therefore do not be surprised if I
should not fall on them immediately [he had but eleven]--_we won't
part_[23] without a battle;" and he expressed with the utmost decision
his clear appreciation that even a lost battle, if delivered at the
right point or at the right moment, would frustrate the ulterior
objects of the enemy, by crippling the force upon which they depended.
As will be seen in the sequel, Hotham, throughout his brief command as
Hood's successor, suffered the consequences of permitting so important
a fraction of the enemy's fleet to escape his grasp, when it was in
his power to close with it.
The British divisions met off the threatened port two days after
leaving Bastia, and two hours later a lookout frigate brought word
that the French fleet had been seen by her the evening before, to the
northward and westward, some forty miles off its own coast. Hood at
once made sail in pursuit, and in the afternoon of the 10th of June
caught sight of the enemy, but so close in with the shore that they
succeeded in towing their ships under the protection of the batteries
in Golfe Jouan, where, for lack of wind, he was unable to follow them
for some days, during which they had time to strengthen their position
beyond his powers of offence. Hotham's error was irreparable. The
"Agamemnon" was then sent back to Bastia, to resume the work of
transportation, which Nelson pushed with the untiring energy that
characterized all his movements. Arriving on the 12th, fifteen hundred
troops were embarked by eight the next morning, and at four in the
afternoon he sailed, having with him two smaller ships of war and
twenty-two transports. On the 15th he anchored at San Fiorenzo.
Here he met General Stuart. The latter was anxious to proceed at once
with the siege of Calvi, but asked Nelson whether he thought it proper
to take the shipping to that exposed position; alluding to the French
fleet that had left Toulon, and which Hood was then seeking. Nelson's
reply is interesting, as reflecting the judgment of a warrior at once
prudent and enterprising, concerning the influence of a hostile "fleet
in being" upon a contemplated detached operation. "I certainly thought
it right," he said, "placing the firmest reliance that we should be
perfectly safe under Lord Hood's protection, who would take care that
the French fleet at Gourjean[24] should not molest us." To Hood he
wrote a week later: "I believed ourselves safe under your Lordship's
wing." At this moment he thought the French to be nine
sail-of-the-line to the British thirteen,--no contemptible inferior
force. Yet that he recognized the possible danger from such a
detachment is also clear; for, writing two days earlier, under the
same belief as to the enemy's strength, and speaking of the expected
approach of an important convoy, he says: "I hope they will not
venture up till Lord Hood can get off Toulon, or wherever the French
fleet are got to." When a particular opinion has received the extreme
expression now given to that concerning the "fleet in being," and
apparently has undergone equally extreme misconception, it is
instructive to recur to the actual effect of such a force, upon the
practice of a man with whom moral effect was never in excess of the
facts of the case, whose imagination produced to him no paralyzing
picture of remote contingencies. Is it probable that, with the great
issues of 1690 at stake, Nelson, had he been in Tourville's place,
would have deemed the crossing of the Channel by French troops
impossible, because of Torrington's "fleet in being"?
Sailing again on June 16, the expedition arrived next day off Calvi.
Although it was now summer, the difficulties of the new undertaking
were, from the maritime point of view, very great. The town of Calvi,
which was walled and had a citadel, lies upon a promontory on the west
side of an open gulf of the same name, a semicircular recess, three
miles wide by two deep, on the northwest coast of Corsica. The western
point of its shore line is Cape Revellata; the eastern, Point Espano.
The port being fortified and garrisoned, it was not practicable to
take the shipping inside, nor to establish on the inner beach a safe
base for disembarking. The "Agamemnon" therefore anchored outside,
nearly two miles south of Cape Revellata, and a mile from shore, in
the excessive depth of fifty-three fathoms; the transports coming-to
off the cape, but farther to seaward. The water being so deep, and the
bottom rocky, the position was perilous for sailing-ships, for the
prevailing summer wind blows directly on the shore, which is steep-to
and affords no shelter. Abreast the "Agamemnon" was a small inlet,
Porto Agro, about three miles from Calvi by difficult approaches.
Here Nelson landed on the 18th with General Stuart; and, after
reconnoitring both the beach and the town, the two officers decided
that, though a very bad landing, it was the best available. On the
19th, at 7 A.M., the troops disembarked. That afternoon Nelson himself
went ashore to stay, taking with him two hundred and fifty seamen. The
next day it came on to blow so hard that most of the ships put to sea,
and no intercourse was had from the land with those which remained.
The "Agamemnon" did not return till the 24th. Lord Hood was by this
time in San Fiorenzo Bay, having abandoned the hope of attacking the
French fleet in Golfe Jouan. On the 27th he arrived off Calvi, and
thenceforth Nelson was in daily communication with him till the place
fell.
As the army in moderate, though not wholly adequate, force conducted
the siege of Calvi, under a general officer of vigorous character, the
part taken by Nelson and his seamen, though extremely important, and
indeed essential to the ultimate success, was necessarily subordinate.
It is well to notice that his journal, and correspondence with Lord
Hood, clearly recognize this, his true relation to the siege of Calvi;
for it makes it probable that, in attributing to himself a much more
important part at Bastia, and in saying that Hood's report had put him
unfairly in the background, he was not exaggerating his actual though
ill-defined position there. That Nelson loved to dwell in thought upon
his own achievements, that distinction in the eyes of his fellows was
dear to him, that he craved recognition, and was at times perhaps too
insistent in requiring it, is true enough; but there is no indication
that he ever coveted the laurels of others, or materially misconceived
his own share in particular events. Glory, sweet as it was to him,
lost its value, if unaccompanied by the consciousness of desert which
stamps it as honor. It is, therefore, not so much for personal
achievement as for revelation of character that this siege has
interest in his life.
Besides the defences of the town proper, Calvi was protected by a
series of outworks extending across the neck of land upon which it
lay. Of these the outermost was on the left, looking from the place.
It flanked the approaches to the others, and commanded the
communications with the interior. It was, by Nelson's estimate, about
twenty-two hundred yards from the town, and had first to be reduced.
By the 3d of July thirteen long guns, besides a number of mortars and
howitzers, had been dragged from the beach to the spot by the seamen,
who also assisted in placing them in position, and for the most part
worked them in battle, an artillerist from the army pointing. Nelson,
with Captain Hallowell, already an officer of mark and afterwards one
of distinction, took alternate day's duty at the batteries, a third
captain, Serocold, having fallen early in the siege. Fearing news
might reach his wife that a naval captain had been killed, without the
name being mentioned, he wrote to her of this sad event, adding
expressively: "I am very busy, yet own I am in all my glory; except
with you, I would not be anywhere but where I am, for the world." On
July 7th the first outwork fell. The attack upon the others was then
steadily and systematically prosecuted, until on the 19th all had been
captured, and the besiegers stood face to face with the town walls.
During this time Nelson, as always, was continually at the front and
among the most exposed. Out of six guns in the battery which he calls
"ours," five were disabled in six days. On the 12th at daylight, a
heavy fire opened from the town, which, he says, "seldom missed our
battery;" and at seven o'clock a shot, which on the ricochet cleared
his head by a hair's breadth, drove sand into his face and right eye
with such violence as to incapacitate him. He spoke lightly and
cheerfully of the incident to Lord Hood, "I got a little hurt this
morning: not much, as you may judge by my writing," and remained
absent from duty only the regular twenty-four hours; but, after some
fluctuations of hope, the sight of the eye was permanently lost to
him. Of General Stuart's conduct in the operations he frequently
speaks with cordial admiration. "He is not sparing of himself on any
occasion, he every night sleeps with us in the advanced battery. If I
may be allowed to judge, he is an extraordinary good judge of ground.
No officer ever deserved success more." At the same time he expresses
dissatisfaction with some of the subordinate army officers, to whose
inefficiency he attributes the necessity for undue personal exertion
on the general's part: "The General is not well. He fatigues himself
too much, but I can't help seeing he is obliged to do it. He has not a
person to forward his views,--the engineer sick, the artillery captain
not fit for active service; therefore every minute thing must be done
by himself, or it is not done at all."
The work was tedious and exhausting, and the malaria of the hot
Corsican summer told heavily on men's health and patience. The supply
of ammunition, and of material of war generally, for the army seems to
have been inadequate; and heavy demands were made upon the fleet, not
only for guns, which could be returned, but for powder and shot, the
expenditure of which might prove embarrassing before they could be
renewed. The troops also were not numerous enough, under the climatic
conditions, to do all their own duty. In such circumstances, when two
parties are working together to the same end, but under no common
control, each is prone to think the other behindhand in his work and
exacting in his demands. "Why don't Lord Hood land 500 men to work?"
said Colonel Moore, the general's right-hand man. "Our soldiers are
tired." Nelson, on the other hand, thought that Moore wanted over-much
battering done to the breach of a work, before he led the stormers to
it; and Hood, who was receiving frequent reports of the preparations
of the French fleet in Toulon, was impatient to have the siege pushed,
and thought the army dilatory. "The rapidity with which the French are
getting on at Toulon," he wrote confidentially to Nelson, "makes it
indispensably necessary for me to put the whole of the fleet under my
command in the best possible state for service; and I must soon apply
to the general for those parts of the regiments now on shore, ordered
by his Majesty to serve in lieu of marines, to be held in readiness to
embark at the shortest notice. I shall delay this application as long
as possible."
Nelson, being a seaman, sympathized of course with his own service,
and with Hood, for whom he had most cordial admiration, both personal
and professional. But at the same time he was on the spot, a constant
eye-witness to the difficulties of the siege, a clear-headed observer,
with sound military instincts, and fair-minded when facts were before
him. The army, he wrote to Hood, is harassed to death, and he notices
that it suffers from sickness far more than do the seamen. He repeats
the request for more seamen, and, although he seems to doubt the
reasonableness of the demand, evidently thinks that they should be
furnished, if possible. Hood accordingly sent an additional detachment
of three hundred, raising the number on shore to the five hundred
suggested by Moore. "I had much rather," he wrote, "that a hundred
seamen should be landed unnecessarily, than that one should be kept
back that was judged necessary." On the other hand, when the general,
after a work bearing on the bay had been destroyed, suggests that the
navy might help, by laying the ships against the walls, Nelson takes
"the liberty of observing that the business of laying wood before
walls was much altered of late," and adds the common-sense remark,
that "the quantity of powder and shot which would be fired away on
such an attack could be much better directed from a battery on shore."
This conversation took place immediately after all the outworks had
been reduced. It was conducted "with the greatest politeness," he
writes, and "the General thanked me for my assistance, but it was
necessary to come to the point whether the siege should be persevered
in or given up. If the former, he must be supplied with the means,
which were more troops, more seamen to work, and more ammunition."
Nelson replied that, if the requisite means could not be had on the
spot, they could at least hold on where they were till supplied from
elsewhere.
It will be noticed that Nelson was practically the intermediary
between the two commanders-in-chief. In fact, there appears to have
been between them some constraint, and he was at times asked to
transmit a message which he thought had better go direct. In this
particularly delicate situation, one cannot but be impressed with the
tact he for the most part shows, the diplomatic ability, which was
freely attributed to him by his superiors in later and more
influential commands. This was greatly helped by his cordial good-will
towards others, combined with disinterested zeal for the duty before
him; the whole illumined by unusual sagacity and good sense. He sees
both sides, and conveys his suggestions to either with a
self-restraint and deference which avert resentment; and he preserves
both his calmness and candor, although he notices in the camp some
jealousy of his confidential communication with his immediate
superior, the admiral. Though never backward to demand what he thought
the rights of himself or his associates, Nelson was always naturally
disposed to reconcile differences, to minimize causes of trouble, and
this native temperament had not yet undergone the warping which
followed his later wounds--especially that on the head received at the
Nile--and the mental conflict into which he was plunged by his
unhappy passion for Lady Hamilton. At this time, in the flush of
earlier enthusiasm, delighting as few men do in the joy of battle, he
strove to promote harmony, to smooth over difficulties by every
exertion possible, either by doing whatever was asked of him, or by
judicious representations to others. Thus, when Hood, impatient at the
disturbing news from Toulon, wishes to hasten the conclusion by
summoning the garrison, in the hope that it may yield at once, the
general objected, apparently on the ground that the statement of their
own advantages, upon which such a summons might be based, would be
prejudicial, if, as was most probable, the demand was rejected.
Whatever his reason, Nelson, though indirectly, intimates to Hood that
in this matter he himself agrees, upon the whole, with the general,
and Hood yields the point,--the more so that he learns from Nelson
that the outposts are to be stormed the next night; and sorely was the
captain, in his judicious efforts thus to keep the peace, tried by the
postponement of the promised assault for twenty-four hours. "_Such
things are_," he wrote to Hood, using a favorite expression. "I hope
to God the general, who seems a good officer and an amiable man, is
not led away; but Colonel Moore is his great friend."
The feeling between the land and sea services was emphasized in the
relations existing between Lord Hood and Colonel Moore, who
afterwards, as Sir John Moore, fell gloriously at Corunna. To these
two eminent officers fortune denied the occasion to make full proof of
their greatness to the world; but they stand in the first rank of
those men of promise whose failure has been due, not to their own
shortcomings, but to the lack of opportunity. Sir John Moore has been
the happier, in that the enterprise with which his name is chiefly
connected, and upon which his title to fame securely rests, was
completed, and wrought its full results; fortunate, too, in having
received the vindication of that great action at the hands of the
most eloquent of military historians. His country and his profession
may well mourn a career of such fair opening so soon cut short. But
daring and original in the highest degree as was the march from
Salamanca to Sahagun, it did not exceed, either in originality or in
daring, the purposes nourished by Lord Hood, which he had no
opportunity so to execute as to attract attention. Condemned to
subordinate positions until he had reached the age of seventy, his
genius is known to us only by his letters, and by the frustrated plans
at St. Kitts in 1782, and at Golfe Jouan in 1794, in the former of
which, less fortunate than Moore, he failed to realize his
well-grounded hope of reversing, by a single blow, the issues of a
campaign.
It is to be regretted that two such men could not understand each
other cordially. Hood, we know from his letters, was "of that frame
and texture that I cannot be indifferent,"--"full of anxiety,
impatience, and apprehension,"--when service seemed to him slothfully
done. Moore, we are told by Napier, "maintained the right with
vehemence bordering upon fierceness." Had he had the chief command on
shore, it is possible that the two, impetuous and self-asserting
though they were, might have reached an understanding. But in the most
unfortunate disagreement about Bastia,--wherein it is to a naval
officer of to-day scarcely possible to do otherwise than blame the
sullen lack of enterprise shown by the army,--and afterwards at Calvi,
Moore appeared to Hood, and to Nelson also, as the subordinate, the
power behind the throne, who was prompting a line of action they both
condemned. No position in military life is more provocative of trouble
than to feel you are not dealing with the principal, but with an
irresponsible inferior; and the situation is worse, because one in
which it is almost impossible to come to an issue. Moore's
professional talent and force of character naturally made itself felt,
even with a man of Stuart's ability. Hood and Nelson recognized this,
and they resented, as inspired by a junior, what they might have
combated dispassionately, if attributed to the chief. There was
friction also between Moore and Elliot, the viceroy of the island.
Doubtless, as in all cases where suspicion, not to say jealousy, has
been begot, much more and worse was imagined by both parties than
actually occurred. The apportionment of blame, or prolonged discussion
of the matter, is out of place in a biography of Nelson. To that it is
of moment, only because it is proper to state that Nelson, on the spot
and in daily contact,--Nelson, upon whose zeal and entire
self-devotion at this period no doubt is cast,--agreed in the main
with Hood's opinion as to what the latter called the San Fiorenzo
leaven, of which Moore was to them the exponent. It is true that
Nelson naturally sympathized with his profession and his admiral, whom
he heartily admired; but some corrective, at least, to such
partiality, was supplied by his soreness about the latter's omission
duly to report his services at Bastia, of which he just now became
aware. The estrangement between the two commanders-in-chief was
doubtless increased by the apparent reluctance, certainly the lack of
effort, to see one another frequently.
The principal work, called by Nelson the Mozelle battery, was carried
before daylight of July 19, and before dark all the outposts were in
the hands of the British. "I could have wished to have had a little
part in the storm," wrote Nelson, characteristically covetous of
strenuous action, "if it was only to have placed the ladders and
pulled away the palisadoes. However, we did the part allotted to us."
That day a summons was sent to the garrison, but rejected, and work
upon batteries to breach the town walls was then pushed rapidly
forward; for it was becoming more and more evident that the siege must
be brought to an end, lest the entire force of besiegers should become
disabled by sickness. On the 28th the batteries were ready, and
General Stuart sent in word that he would not fire upon the hospital
positions, where indicated by black flags. The besieged then asked for
a truce of twenty-five days, undertaking to lay down their arms, if
not by then relieved. The general and admiral refused, but were
willing to allow six days. This the garrison in turn rejected; and on
the night of the 30th four small vessels succeeded in eluding the
blockading frigates and entering supplies, which encouraged the
besieged. On the 31st the batteries opened, and after thirty-six
hours' heavy cannonade the town held out a flag of truce. An
arrangement was made that it should surrender on the 10th of August,
if not relieved; the garrison to be transported to France without
becoming prisoners of war.
No relief arriving, the place capitulated on the day named. It was
high time for the besiegers. "We have upwards of one thousand sick out
of two thousand," wrote Nelson, "and the others not much better than
so many phantoms. We have lost many men from the season, very few from
the enemy." He himself escaped more easily than most. To use his own
quaint expression, "All the prevailing disorders have attacked me, but
I have not strength enough for them to fasten upon. I am here the reed
amongst the oaks: I bow before the storm, while the sturdy oak is laid
low." The congenial moral surroundings, in short,--the atmosphere of
exertion, of worthy and engrossing occupation,--the consciousness, to
him delightful, of distinguished action, of heroic persistence through
toil and danger,--prevailed even in his physical frame over
discomfort, over the insidious climate, and even over his distressing
wound. "This is my ague day," he writes when the batteries opened; "I
hope so active a scene will keep off the fit. It has shaken me a good
deal; but I have been used to them, and now don't mind them much."
"Amongst the wounded, in a slight manner, is myself, my head being a
good deal wounded and my right eye cut down; but the surgeons flatter
me I shall not entirely lose the sight. It confined me, thank God,
only one day, and at a time when nothing particular happened to be
doing." "You must not think my hurts confined me," he tells his wife;
"no, nothing but the loss of a limb would have kept me from my duty,
and I believe my exertions conduced to preserve me in this general
mortality." In his cheery letters, now, no trace is perceptible of the
fretful, complaining temper, which impaired, though it did not
destroy, the self-devotion of his later career. No other mistress at
this time contended with honor for the possession of his heart; no
other place than the post of duty before Calvi distracted his desires,
or appealed to his imagination through his senses. Not even Lord
Hood's report of the siege of Bastia, which here came to his
knowledge, and by which he thought himself wronged, had bitterness to
overcome the joy of action and of self-contentment.
Not many days were required, after the fall of Calvi, to remove the
fleet, and the seamen who had been serving on shore, from the
pestilential coast. Nelson seems to have been intrusted with the
embarkation of the prisoners in the transports which were to take them
to Toulon. He told his wife that he had been four months landed, and
felt almost qualified to pass his examination as a besieging general,
but that he had no desire to go on with campaigning. On the 11th of
August, the day after the delivery of the place, he was again on board
the "Agamemnon," from whose crew had been drawn the greatest
proportion of the seamen for the batteries. One hundred and fifty of
them were now in their beds. "My ship's company are all worn out," he
wrote, "as is this whole army, except myself; nothing hurts me,--of
two thousand men I am the most healthy. Every other officer is
scarcely able to crawl." Among the victims of the deadly climate was
Lieutenant Moutray, the son of the lady to whom, ten years before, he
had been so warmly attracted in the West Indies. Nelson placed a
monument to him in the church at San Fiorenzo.
On the 10th of August the "Agamemnon" sailed from Calvi, and after a
stop at San Fiorenzo, where Hood then was, reached Leghorn on the
18th. Now that the immediate danger of the siege was over, Nelson
admitted to his wife the serious character of the injury he had
received. The right eye was nearly deprived of sight,--only so far
recovered as to enable him to distinguish light from darkness. For all
purposes of use it was gone; but the blemish was not to be perceived,
unless attention was drawn to it.
At Leghorn the ship lay for a month,--the first period of repose since
she went into commission, a year and a half before. While there, the
physician to the fleet came on board and surveyed the crew, finding
them in a very weak state, and unfit to serve. This condition of
things gave Nelson hopes that, upon the approaching departure of Lord
Hood for England, the "Agamemnon" might go with him; for he was loath
to separate from an admiral whose high esteem he had won, and upon
whom he looked as the first sea-officer of Great Britain. Hood was
inclined to take her, and to transfer the ship's company bodily to a
seventy-four. This he considered no more than due to Nelson's
distinguished merit and services, and he had indeed offered him each
ship of that rate whose command fell vacant in the Mediterranean; but
the strong sense of attachment to those who had shared his toils and
dangers, of reluctance that they should see him willing to leave them,
after their hard work together,--that combination of sympathy and tact
which made so much of Nelson's success as a leader of men,--continued
to prevent his accepting promotion that would sever his ties to them.
The exigencies of the war in the Mediterranean forbade the departure,
even of a sixty-four with a disabled crew. A full month later her
sick-list was still seventy-seven, out of a total of less than four
hundred. "Though certainly unfit for a long cruise," Nelson said, "we
are here making a show,"--a military requirement not to be neglected
or despised. He accepted the disappointment, as he did all service
rubs at this period, with perfect temper and in the best spirit. "We
must not repine," he wrote to his wife on the 12th of October, the day
after Hood sailed for England. "Lord Hood is very well inclined
towards me, but the service must ever supersede all private
consideration. I hope you will spend the winter cheerfully. Do not
repine at my absence; before spring I hope we shall have peace, when
we must look out for some little cottage." She fretted, however, as
some women will; and he, to comfort her, wrote more sanguinely about
himself than the facts warranted. "Why you should be uneasy about me,
so as to make yourself ill, I know not. I feel a confident protection
in whatever service I may be employed upon; and as to my health, I
don't know that I was ever so truly well. I fancy myself grown quite
stout." To his old captain, Locker, he admitted that he could not get
the better of the fever.
Corsica being now wholly in the power of its inhabitants, allied with
and supported by Great Britain, his attention and interest were
engrossed by the French fleet centring upon Toulon, the dominant
factor of concern to the British in the Mediterranean, where
Vice-Admiral Hotham had succeeded Hood as commander-in-chief. Nelson
realizes more and more the mistake that was made, when a fraction of
it was allowed to escape battle in the previous June. The various
reasons by which he had at first excused the neglect to bring it to
action no longer weigh with him. He does not directly blame, but he
speaks of the omission as an "opportunity lost,"--a phrase than which
there are few more ominous, in characterizing the closely balanced,
yet weighty, decisions, upon which the issues of war depend. Nothing,
he thinks, can prevent the junction of the two fragments,--then in
Golfe Jouan and Toulon,--one of which, with more resolution and
promptitude on Hotham's part, might have been struck singly at sea a
few months before; and if they join, there must follow a fleet action,
between forces too nearly equal to insure to Great Britain the
decisive results that were needed. The thought he afterwards
expressed, "Numbers only can annihilate," was clearly floating in his
brain,--inarticulate, perhaps, as yet, but sure to come to the birth.
"If we are not completely victorious,--I mean, able to remain at sea
whilst the enemy must retire into port,--if we only make a Lord Howe's
victory, take a part, and retire into port, Italy is lost." Criticism
clearly is going on in his mind; and not mere criticism, (there is
enough and to spare of that in the world, and not least in navies),
but criticism judicious, well considered, and above all fruitful. The
error of opportunity lost he had seen; the error of a partial
victory--"a Lord Howe's victory," another opportunity lost--he
intuitively anticipated for the Mediterranean, and was soon to see. He
was already prepared to pass an accurate judgment instantly, when he
saw it. May we not almost hear, thundering back from the clouds that
yet veiled the distant future of the Nile, the words, of which his
thought was already pregnant, "You may be assured I will bring the
French fleet to action the moment I can lay my hands upon them."
The year closed with the British fleet watching, as best it could, the
French ships, which, according to Nelson's expectation, had given the
blockaders the slip, and had made their junction at Toulon. There was
now no great disparity in the nominal force of the two opponents, the
British having fourteen ships-of-the-line, the French fifteen; and it
was quite in the enemy's power to fulfil his other prediction, by
keeping Hotham in hot water during the winter. In the middle of
November the "Agamemnon" had to go to Leghorn for extensive repairs,
and remained there, shifting her main and mizzen masts, until the 21st
of December. Nelson, who had endured with unyielding cheerfulness the
dangers, exposure, and sickliness of Calvi, found himself unable to
bear patiently the comfort of quiet nights in a friendly port, while
hot work might chance outside. "Lying in port is misery to me. My
heart is almost broke to find the Agamemnon lying here, little better
than a wreck. I own my sincere wish that the enemy would rest quiet
until we are ready for sea, and a gleam of hope sometimes crosses me
that they will." "I am uneasy enough for fear they will fight, and
Agamemnon not present,--it will almost break my heart; but I hope the
best,--that they are only boasting at present, and will be quiet until
I am ready." "It is misery," he repeats, "for me to be laid up
dismantled."
It was during this period of comparative inactivity in port, followed
by monotonous though arduous winter cruising off Toulon, which was
broken only by equally dreary stays at San Fiorenzo, that Nelson found
time to brood over the neglect of which he thought himself the victim,
in the omission of Lord Hood to notice more markedly his services in
Corsica. It is usually disagreeable to the uninterested bystander to
see an excessive desire for praise, even under the guise of just
recognition of work done. Words of complaint, whether heard or read,
strike a discord to one who himself at the moment is satisfied with
his surroundings. We all have an instinctive shrinking from the tones
of a grumbler. Nelson's insistence upon his grievances has no
exemption from this common experience; yet it must be remembered that
these assertions of the importance of his own services, and
dissatisfaction with the terms in which they had been mentioned, occur
chiefly, if not solely, in letters to closest relations,--to his wife
and uncle,--and that they would never have become known but for the
after fame, which has caused all his most private correspondence to
have interest and to be brought to light. As a revelation of character
they have a legitimate interest, and they reveal, or rather they
confirm, what is abundantly revealed throughout his life,--that
intense longing for distinction, for admiration justly earned, for
conspicuous exaltation above the level of his kind, which existed in
him to so great a degree, and which is perhaps the most
potent--certainly the most universal--factor in military achievement.
They reveal this ambition for honor, or glory, on its weak side; on
its stronger side of noble emulation, of self-devotion, of heroic
action, his correspondence teems with its evidence in words, as does
his life in acts. To quote the words of Lord Radstock, who at this
period, and until after the battle of Cape St. Vincent, was serving as
one of the junior admirals in the Mediterranean, and retained his
friendship through life, "a perpetual thirst of glory was ever raging
within him." "He has ever showed himself as great a despiser of riches
as he is a lover of glory; and I am fully convinced in my own mind
that he would sooner defeat the French fleet than capture fifty
galleons."
After all allowance made, however, it cannot be denied that there is
in these complaints a tone which one regrets in such a man. The
repeated "It was I" jars, by the very sharpness of its contrast, with
the more generous expressions that abound in his correspondence. "When
I reflect that I was the cause of re-attacking Bastia, after our
_wise_ generals gave it over, from not knowing the force, fancying it
2,000 men; that it was I, who, landing, joined the Corsicans, and with
only my ship's party of marines, drove the French under the walls of
Bastia; that it was I, who, knowing the force in Bastia to be upwards
of 4,000 men, as I have now only ventured to tell Lord Hood, landed
with only 1,200 men, and kept the secret till within this week
past;--what I must have felt during the whole siege may be easily
conceived. Yet I am scarcely mentioned. I freely forgive, but cannot
forget. This and much more ought to have been mentioned. It is known
that, for two months, I blockaded Bastia with a squadron; only fifty
sacks of flour got into the town. At San Fiorenzo and Calvi, for two
months before, nothing got in, and four French frigates could not get
out, and are now ours. Yet my diligence is not mentioned; and others,
for keeping succours out of Calvi for a few summer months, are
handsomely mentioned. _Such things are_. I have got upon a subject
near my heart, which is full when I think of the treatment I have
received.... The taking of Corsica, like the taking of St. Juan's, has
cost me money. St. Juan's cost near £500; Corsica has cost me £300, an
eye, and a cut across my back; and my money, I find, cannot be repaid
me."
As regards the justice of his complaints, it seems to the author
impossible to read carefully Hood's two reports, after the fall of
Bastia and that of Calvi, and not admit, either that Nelson played a
very unimportant part in the general operations connected with the
reduction of Corsica, with which he became associated even before it
was effectively undertaken, and so remained throughout; or else that
no due recognition was accorded to him in the admiral's despatches.
Had he not become otherwise celebrated in his after life, he would
from these papers be inferred to stand, in achievement, rather below
than above the level of the other captains who from time to time were
present. That this was unfair seems certain; and notably at Calvi,
where, from the distance of the operations from the anchorage, and the
strained relations which kept Hood and Stuart apart, he was
practically the one naval man upon whose discretion and zeal success
depended. It is probable, however, that the failure to do him justice
proceeded as much from awkward literary construction, phrases badly
turned, as from reluctance to assign due prominence to one subordinate
among several others.
How readily, yet how keenly, he derived satisfaction, even from
slight tributes of recognition, is shown by the simplicity and
pleasure with which he quoted to Mrs. Nelson the following words of
Sir Gilbert Elliot, the Viceroy of Corsica, then and always a warm
friend and admirer: "I know that you, who have had such an honourable
share in this acquisition, will not be indifferent at the prosperity
of the Country which you have so much assisted to place under His
Majesty's government." "Whether these are words of course and to be
forgotten," wrote Nelson, "I know not; they are pleasant, however, for
the time." Certainly his demands for praise, if thus measured, were
not extreme.
FOOTNOTES:
[20] The italics are the author's.
[21] The italics are Nelson's.
[22] Written at the siege of Calvi.
[23] Author's italics.
[24] Golfe Jouan; on the coast of France between Toulon and Nice.