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-APRIL, 1798. AGE, 39.
Too much success is not wholly desirable; an occasional beating is
good for men--and nations. When Nelson wrote the words with which the
preceding chapter ends, he was on the eve of a sharp reverse, met in
attempting an enterprise that had occupied his thoughts for more than
three months. While cruising for the Viceroy of Mexico, before Jervis
left Lisbon with the fleet, he had considered the possibility of the
enemy's treasure-ships, warned of their danger, taking refuge in the
Canary Islands, which belong to Spain. Meditating upon the
contingency, he had formed a project of seizing them there, and
probably had already suggested the matter to Jervis, taking advantage
of the freedom permitted him by the latter in advancing opinions.
However that be, immediately before he started to meet the Elba
convoy, the commander-in-chief asked for his plan, which he submitted
in writing, after talking it over with Troubridge, his intimate
friend, upon whose judgment Jervis also greatly relied. Regarded as a
purely naval expedition, Nelson pointed out that it was subject to
great uncertainties, because, the land being very high, the wind could
not be depended on. It might blow in from the sea, but if so it would
be by daylight, which would deprive the attack of the benefits of a
surprise; while at night the land wind was too fitful and unreliable
to assure the ships reaching their anchorage before the enemy could
discover them, and have time for adequate preparation against assault.
For these reasons, certainty of success would depend upon co-operation
by the army, and for that Nelson suggested that the Elba troops, over
three thousand strong, already in transports and on their way, would
provide a force at once available and sufficient. Save a naval dash by
Blake, more than a century before, Teneriffe had never been seriously
attacked. Probably, therefore, the heights commanding the town of
Santa Cruz had not been fortified, and could be easily seized by the
detachment designated; besides which, the water supply was exposed to
interruption by an outside enemy. If only General De Burgh could be
persuaded, Nelson was sure of success, and offered himself to command
the naval contingent. Failing the consent of De Burgh, whom he and
Jervis both thought deficient in moral courage to undertake
responsibility, could not the admiral get assistance from O'Hara, the
governor of Gibraltar, who would have at his disposal one thousand to
fifteen hundred men? More would be better, but still with that number
success would be probable. "Soldiers," regretted Nelson
characteristically, "have not the same boldness in undertaking a
political measure that we have; we look to the benefit of our Country
and risk our own fame [not life merely] every day to serve her: a
soldier obeys his orders and no more." But he thought O'Hara an
exception, and then--could not the substantial advantages move him?
The public treasure of Spain that might be seized would be six or
seven millions sterling. Think what that sum would be, "thrown into
circulation in England!" where specie payments had just been
suspended. It was nearly a year's value of the subsidies which Great
Britain was lavishing on the general war. Whatever the merits of
Nelson's judgment upon the soldiers of his day, this avowal of
readiness, for the nation's sake, to risk fame--reputation--which was
in his eyes the dearest of possessions, should not be overlooked. It
was the best he had to give; to hazard life was but a vulgar thing
compared to it. His career, both before and after, fully bore out the
boast.
While on the return with the Elba troops, in a despatch sent ahead of
the convoy, he jogs Jervis's memory about O'Hara, having doubtless
ascertained that De Burgh, as they expected, would not deviate from
his orders to proceed to Lisbon. "I hope you will press General O'Hara
about Teneriffe. What a strike it would be!" In a copy of this letter
forwarded to the Admiralty, presumably by Jervis for its general
information, these words were omitted. Possibly he had already sounded
O'Hara, and found him unwilling, for he was not optimistic; possibly
Jervis himself thought that the fitting conditions had not yet
obtained, and did not care to let the idea get abroad before the hour
for execution arrived. For the time, the commander-in-chief preferred
to keep his fleet concentrated before Cadiz, and to try to worry the
enemy out to battle; for which object, indisputably the most
advantageous to be pursued, he also naturally wished to use his most
active and efficient subordinate. Both blockade and bombardment having
failed to provoke the enemy to action, and intelligence having been
received that a treasure-ship from Manila had put into Teneriffe, it
was decided in July to make the attempt, which had only been
postponed--never abandoned. In words written by Nelson on the 18th of
June, the conditions determining Jervis's course are clearly
indicated. "I wish these fellows would come out, and then, with the
good ships we have left [after a general engagement], we might be a
little at liberty to make dashes. I hope your design about Teneriffe
will not get wind, by making inquiries at the present moment. Whenever
I see it," he added characteristically, "ten hours shall decide its
fate." Although unable to obtain the troops upon which he considered
certainty to depend, he felt little fear for the result. Two hundred
additional marines must be given, and certain specified artillery and
ammunition in excess of what he had. With these, "I have no doubt of
doing the job as it ought to be, the moment the ships come in sight."
"Under General Troubridge ashore, and myself afloat, I am confident of
success."
[Illustration: SKETCH OF SANTA CRUZ AND SURROUNDINGS. (_From Nelson's
Journal._)]
On the 14th of July he received his orders, which were to seize Santa
Cruz, the chief town, and hold the island to ransom, unless all public
treasure were surrendered to his squadron, in which case the
contribution on the inhabitants should not be levied. "God bless and
prosper you," wrote Jervis, who, although he considered the enterprise
promising, was less sanguine than his junior. "I am sure you will
deserve success. To mortals is not given the power of commanding it."
On the 15th Nelson sailed, having under his command three
seventy-fours, a fifty-gun ship, three frigates, and a cutter. Towards
sundown of the 20th the Peak of Teneriffe was sighted, distant fifty
or sixty miles. The following morning the landing-party, a thousand
strong, under the command of Captain Troubridge, was transferred to
the frigates. The intention was to keep the line-of-battle-ships out
of sight, while the frigates, whose apparent force would carry no
impression of menace, approached near enough to make a dash during the
night. It was hoped that thus the assault might be so far a surprise
as to enable the British to storm from the rear a fort on the heights,
to the northeast of the town, and commanding it. Santa Cruz was then
to be summoned. In the meantime the ships-of-the-line would be coming
in from the sea, and upon arrival would support the shore movement by
bringing their broadsides to bear upon the walls.
By midnight the frigates were within three miles of the landing-place;
but there strong wind and contrary current delayed them, and before
they could get within a mile the day dawned. Thus discovered, the hope
of surprise was lost. At 6 A.M., when the squadron approached,
Troubridge went on board the "Theseus" and told Nelson that he
thought, if the heights over the fort, in its rear, could be seized,
he could yet compel it to surrender. The landing-party was therefore
put on shore at nine, but could not dispossess the enemy, who had
recognized the importance of the position indicated by Troubridge, and
had occupied it in force. The ships-of-the-line endeavored to get
within range of the fort, to batter it, but could not come nearer than
three miles. They were unable even to reach anchoring-ground, and, as
it was blowing very fresh, they struck their topgallantmasts and stood
off and on. At night Troubridge re-embarked his men on board the
frigates, which had remained where they were. The following morning,
July 23d, Nelson abandoned the attempt upon the fort, recalling the
frigates; and, as the wind did not yet serve to approach the shore, he
continued under sail during that day and the next. The members of the
landing-party rejoined their proper ships.
Troubridge's failure to act at once upon his own judgment, and seize
the heights above the fort, instead of waiting until he could
communicate with the admiral, whereby were lost more than three
invaluable hours, excites surprise, in view of the extremely high
value set upon him as an officer by St. Vincent and Nelson; and is the
more singular because the latter, in certain "Recommendations," dated
July 17, had indicated the heights, as well as the fort, among the
objects to be secured. It is, of course, possible that these
Recommendations were not given out; but even so, the formal orders
issued gave ample discretion. This hesitation was wholly contrary to
Nelson's own readiness to assume responsibility, and probably accounts
for his subsequent remark, in a private letter, that had he himself
been present this first attempt would not have failed. Occurring in an
officer of Troubridge's high standing, and contrasted with Nelson's
action at St. Vincent, as well as on many other occasions, the
incident serves to bring out forcibly the characteristic eminence of
the latter,--the distinction between a really great captain and the
best type of a simply accomplished and gallant officer. It may safely
be said that had Nelson been in the frigates that morning, and thought
as Troubridge thought, he would either have had the heights without
waiting for orders, or, to use his own words on a former occasion,
would have "been in a confounded scrape."
His first plan having miscarried, Nelson was nevertheless unwilling to
forsake the enterprise wholly, without attempting a direct assault
upon the town itself. Meantime the enemy was not idle, but employed
the delay caused by the wind to collect a greater force, and to
develop further the preparations to repel attack. At half-past five in
the evening of July 24 the squadron reached an anchorage two or three
miles north of Santa Cruz, and all boats were ordered prepared for a
night expedition. Captain Freemantle, of the frigate "Seahorse," had
with him his wife, whom he had lately married; and with them Nelson,
who intended to lead the attack in person, supped that evening. He was
conscious of the imminent danger to which he was about to expose
himself and his followers; it is indeed scarcely possible that he
could, in undertaking the adventure, have expected to succeed, except
through some happy accident skilfully improved,--the deserved good
fortune which had so often attended him. It was not so much the hope
of victory that moved him, as the feeling that to retreat baffled,
without a further effort, would be worse than defeat. This in fact was
the reason which he afterwards gave. "Although I felt the second
attack a forlorn hope, yet the honour of our Country called for the
attack, and that I should command it. I never expected to return."
"Your partiality will give me credit," he wrote to Jervis, "that all
has hitherto been done which was possible, but without effect: this
night I, humble as I am, command the whole, destined to land under the
batteries of the town, and to-morrow my head will probably be crowned
with either laurel or cypress. I have only to recommend Josiah Nisbet
[his stepson] to you and my Country." He urged Nisbet not to go in the
boats, on the ground that his mother should not run the risk of losing
both husband and son in one night, and that in the absence of Captain
Miller, who was going in charge of a division of men, Nisbet's duties
with the ship demanded his remaining. Nisbet steadily refused, and his
presence was the immediate means of saving the admiral's life.
At eleven P.M. the boats shoved off, carrying a thousand men. The
orders were for all to land at the mole, the intention being to storm
it, and the batteries covering it, in a body, and to fight their way,
thus massed, to the great square, which was designated as the place
for rallying. A considerable sea was running and the night dark, so
that the Spaniards did not discover the assailants till they were
within half gunshot. The bells of the place then began to ring, and a
heavy fire opened, amid which the British pushed vigorously forward.
Many, however, missed the mole. Nelson's own boat reached it with four
or five besides, and the parties from these succeeded in carrying the
mole itself, advancing to its head and spiking the guns; but there
they were met with such a sustained fire of musketry and grape from
the citadel and the neighboring houses, that they could get no
farther. Many were killed and wounded, and the rest after a struggle
had to retreat.
Troubridge, with a number of others who missed the mole, landed amid a
heavy surf, which stove the boats on a rocky beach and tumbled the men
into the water, whereby most of the ammunition was spoiled. In the
midst of the turmoil the cutter "Fox" was struck by a shot under
water, and went down, taking with her her commander and ninety-seven
men. Although the scaling-ladders had all been lost in the general
upset, those who here got on shore succeeded in climbing over the
walls, and forced their way to the place of rendezvous in the great
square. There Troubridge, having assembled between three and four
hundred men, held his ground, awaiting Nelson and the party that might
have entered by way of the mole.
It was in vain. Nelson had been struck by a grapeshot in the right
elbow, as, with sword drawn, he was stepping from the boat to the
landing. Bleeding profusely and faint, but clinging with his left hand
to the sword, which had belonged to his uncle Maurice Suckling, he
fell back into the arms of Josiah Nisbet, who managed with
considerable presence of mind to bind up the shattered limb and stop
the flowing of the blood. A few men being got together, the boat
pushed off to take the admiral back to the ship. At this moment
occurred the sinking of the "Fox;" upon which much delay ensued,
because Nelson refused to abandon the men struggling in the water, and
insisted upon looking personally to their being saved. At last the
"Seahorse" was reached; but here again he would not go on board,
saying that he would not have Mrs. Freemantle alarmed by seeing him in
such a condition and without any news of her husband, who had
accompanied the landing. When he got to the "Theseus," he declined
assistance to climb to the deck. "At two in the morning," wrote Hoste,
one of her midshipmen, who had been with him continuously since the
"Agamemnon" left England, "Admiral Nelson returned on board, being
dreadfully wounded in the right arm. I leave you to judge of my
situation, when I beheld our boat approach with him, who I may say has
been a second father to me, his right arm dangling by his side, while
with the other he helped himself to jump up the ship's side, and with
a spirit that astonished every one, told the surgeon to get his
instruments ready, for he knew he must lose his arm, and that the
sooner it was off the better."
At daylight Troubridge, who had collected some ammunition from Spanish
prisoners, started from the square to try what could be done without
ladders against the citadel; but, finding every approach blocked by
overwhelming force, he had to retreat. Having neither powder nor
provisions, and no boats with which to return to the ship, he sent a
flag of truce to the governor to say that he was prepared to burn the
place down with means at his disposal, but, being most reluctant to do
so, was willing to treat, upon condition of the whole party being
permitted to return to the ships, free and with their arms. One
scarcely knows which most to admire, Troubridge's cool audacity in
making such a demand, or the chivalrous readiness with which these
honorable terms were at once granted to a man whose gallant bearing
compelled the esteem of his enemies. Don Juan Gutierrez had repulsed
the various attempts with such steadiness and watchfulness, had
managed his business so well, that he could afford to be liberal. He
agreed that Troubridge's men should withdraw, carrying off with them
all British equipments, even to such boats as had been taken by the
Spaniards, but could still swim. On the other hand, it was stipulated
that no further attempt upon the town should be made by Nelson's
squadron. Prisoners on both sides were to be given up. This
arrangement having been concluded, the governor directed that the
British wounded should be at once received into the hospitals, while
the rest of the party, with their colors flying, marched to the mole,
and there embarked.
Troubridge dwelt with evident pride upon his part in this night's
work,--a pride that was shared then by his superiors, and will be
justified in the eyes of military men now. "The Spanish officers
assure me they expected us, and were perfectly prepared with all the
batteries, and the number of men I have before mentioned [8,000],
under arms: with the great disadvantage of a rocky coast, high surf,
and in the face of forty pieces of cannon, though we were not
successful, will show what an Englishman is equal to." His conduct
affords for all time an example of superb courage in the face of
extraordinary and unexpected difficulty and danger, and especially of
single-minded energy in carrying through one's own share of an
enterprise, without misplaced concern about consequences, or worry as
to whether the other parties were prospering or not. Had Nelson
reached the square he would have found Troubridge there, and that was
the one thing about which the latter needed to care. Nelson's own
words recur to mind: "I have not a thought on any subject separated
from the immediate object of my command,"--a maxim eminently suited to
the field and to the subordinate, though not necessarily so to the
council chamber or to the general officer. Troubridge that night
proved himself invaluable as a subordinate, though the conduct of the
previous attempt seems to show a lack of that capacity to seize a
favorable moment, although in the presence of a superior, of which
Nelson himself had given so brilliant an example at Cape St. Vincent.
The squadron remained off Teneriffe for three days after the assault,
intercourse with the shore for the purpose of obtaining fresh
provisions being permitted by the governor, between whom and the
admiral were exchanged complimentary letters and presents of courtesy.
On the 27th Nelson sailed for Cadiz, and on the 16th of August
rejoined the commander-in-chief, now become Earl St. Vincent. The
latter received him with generous sympathy and appreciation, which
leave little doubt as to what his verdict would have been, had the
gallant initiative taken by his junior at St. Vincent ended in
disaster, instead of in brilliant success. Nelson's letters, sent
ahead of the squadron by a frigate, had shown the despondency produced
by suffering and failure, which had reversed so sharply the good
fortune upon which he had begun to pride himself. "I am become a
burthen to my friends and useless to my Country. When I leave your
command, I become dead to the world; I go hence and am no more seen."
"Mortals cannot command success," replied St. Vincent. "You and your
companions have certainly deserved it, by the greatest degree of
heroism and perseverance that ever was exhibited." Nelson had asked
for his stepson's promotion, implying that he himself would not
hereafter be in a position of influence to help the boy--for he was
little more. "He is under obligations to me, but he repaid me by
bringing me from the mole of Santa Cruz." "He saved my life," he said
more than once afterwards. St. Vincent immediately made him a
commander into the vacancy caused by the death of Captain Bowen, who
had fallen in the assault. "Pretty quick promotion," wrote his
messmate Hoste, who probably knew, from close association, that Nisbet
had not the promising qualities with which he was then credited by
his stepfather, from whom in later years he became wholly estranged.
On the 20th Nelson received formal leave to return to England in the
"Seahorse," and on the 3d of September his flag was hauled down at
Spithead. On the way home he suffered much. After amputation the
ligature had been awkwardly applied to the humeral artery. As he would
not allow the surgeon to examine the stump during the passage, this
was not then discovered, but the intense spasms of pain kept him
irritable and depressed. It is likely, too, that his discouragement
was increased by brooding over the failure of his enterprise;
believing, as he did, that had he been with the landing-party, the
first attempt would have succeeded. He could scarcely fail now to see
that, although it was strictly in accordance with service methods for
the senior to remain with the ships, the decisive point in the plan,
as first formed, was the seizure of the heights, and that there,
consequently, was the true place for the one in chief command. Any
captain, Troubridge especially, could have placed the ships as well as
Nelson. It is self-accusation, and not fault-finding merely, that
breathes in the words: "Had I been with the first party, I have reason
to believe complete success would have crowned our efforts. _My pride
suffered_."
Whatever his mental distress, however, he always, from the time of
receiving the wound, wrote to his wife with careful cheerfulness. "As
to my health, it never was better; and now I hope soon to return to
you; and my Country, I trust, will not allow me any longer to linger
in want of that pecuniary assistance which I have been fighting the
whole war to preserve to her. But I shall not be surprised to be
neglected and forgot, as probably I shall no longer be considered as
useful. However, I shall feel rich if I continue to enjoy your
affection. I am fortunate in having a good surgeon on board; in short,
I am much more recovered than I could have expected. I beg neither
you or my father will think much of this mishap: my mind has long been
made up to such an event."
Immediately after quitting the "Seahorse" he joined his wife and
father at Bath. For a time the wound seemed to be progressing
favorably, but the unlucky complication of the ligature threw him
back. "Much pain and some fever," he wrote to a friend soon after his
arrival; and while he kept up fairly before his wife, who spoke of his
spirits as very good, he confessed to St. Vincent, on the 18th of
September, that he was then not the least better than when he left the
fleet. "I have suffered great misery." This letter was dated in
London, whither he had gone a few days before to be invested with the
Order of the Bath, which was formally done by George III. in person on
the 27th of September. He was graciously received by the King, who
conversed with him after the ceremony, and by his manner throughout
made a lasting impression upon the mind of Nelson, whose loyalty was
intense. The Order of the Bath remained the most highly prized among
his many decorations. At the same time was awarded him a pension of
£1,000 a year.
He remained in London till near Christmas. Sir Gilbert Elliot, the
late Viceroy of Corsica, who about this time became Lord Minto, saw
him not long after his arrival there, as did also Colonel Drinkwater.
Elliot found him looking better and fresher than he ever remembered
him, although the continued pain prevented sleep, except by use of
opium. He was already impatient to go to sea again, and chafed under
the delay of healing, concerning the duration of which the surgeons
could give him no assurance. The ligature must be left to slough away,
for it was two inches up the wound, and if, in attempting to cut it,
the artery should be cut, another amputation would be necessary higher
up, which would not be easy, for the stump was already very short.
There was consequently nothing for it but endurance. To his suffering
at this time an accomplished surgeon, who sailed with him shortly
before Trafalgar, attributed a neuralgic predisposition under which he
then labored, and which produced serious effects upon his general
health.
A singular exhibition of his characteristic animation and temperament
was elicited by Drinkwater's visit. The colonel saw him shortly before
the naval battle of Camperdown, fought on the 11th of October. "One of
the first questions which Nelson put to me was whether I had been at
the Admiralty. I told him there was a rumour that the British fleet
had been seen engaged with that of Holland. He started up in his
peculiar energetic manner, notwithstanding Lady Nelson's attempts to
quiet him, and stretching out his unwounded arm,--'Drinkwater, said
he, 'I would give this other arm to be with Duncan[59] at this
moment;' so unconquerable was the spirit of the man, and so intense
his eagerness to give every instant of his life to the service."
Until the 4th of December his agony continued. On that day the
ligature came away, giving instant and entire relief. In a letter to a
friend, apologizing for delay in replying, he said: "Truly, till last
Monday, I have suffered so much, I hope for your forgiveness. I am now
perfectly recovered, and on the eve of being employed." On Friday, the
8th, he wrote to Captain Berry, who had led the boarders to the "San
Nicolas" at Cape St. Vincent, and was designated to command the ship
in which the admiral's flag should next be hoisted, saying that he was
well; and the same day, with that profound recognition of a personal
Providence which was with him as instinctive as his courage, he sent
to a London clergyman the following request: "An officer desires to
return thanks to Almighty God for his perfect recovery from a severe
wound, and also for the many mercies bestowed upon him. (For next
Sunday.)"
As the close attention of the skilled surgeons in whose hands he had
been was now no longer needed, he returned to Bath to await the time
when his flagship should be completely equipped. St. Vincent had asked
that the "Foudroyant," of eighty guns, should be prepared for him;
but, after his sudden recovery, as she was not yet ready, there was
substituted for her the "Vanguard," seventy-four, which was
commissioned by Berry at Chatham on the 19th of December. In March she
had reached Portsmouth, and Nelson then went up to London, where he
attended a levee on the 14th of the month and took leave of the King.
On the 29th his flag was hoisted, and on the 10th of April, after a
week's detention at St. Helen's by head winds, he sailed for Lisbon.
There he remained for four days, and on the 30th of the month, off
Cadiz, rejoined St. Vincent, by whom he was received with open arms.
The veteran seaman, stern and resolved as was his bearing in the face
of danger, was unhopeful about the results of the war, which from the
first he had not favored, and for whose ending he was eager. Now, at
sixty-four, his health was failing, and the difficulties and dangers
of the British cause in the Mediterranean weighed upon him, with a
discouragement very alien from the sanguine joy with which his ardent
junior looked forward to coming battles. His request to be relieved
from command, on the score of ill health, was already on file at the
Admiralty. "I do assure your Lordship," he wrote to Earl Spencer,
"that the arrival of Admiral Nelson has given me new life; you could
not have gratified me more than in sending him; his presence in the
Mediterranean is so very essential, that I mean to put the "Orion" and
"Alexander" under his command, with the addition of three or four
frigates, and send him away, to endeavour to ascertain the real
object of the preparations making by the French." These preparations
for a maritime expedition were being made at Toulon and the
neighboring ports, on a scale which justly aroused the anxiety of the
British Cabinet, as no certain information about their object had been
obtained.
Nelson's departure from England on this occasion closes the first of
the two periods into which his career naturally divides. From his
youth until now, wherever situated, the development has been
consecutive and homogeneous, external influences and internal
characteristics have worked harmoniously together, nature and ambition
have responded gladly to opportunity, and the course upon which they
have combined to urge him has conformed to his inherited and acquired
standards of right and wrong. Doubt, uncertainty, inward friction,
double motives, have been unknown to him; he has moved freely in
accordance with the laws of his being, and, despite the anxieties of
his profession and the frailty of his health, there is no mistaking
the tone of happiness and contentment which sounds without a jarring
note throughout his correspondence. A change was now at hand. As the
sails of the "Vanguard" dip below the horizon of England, a brief
interlude begins, and when the curtain rises again, the scene is
shifted,--surroundings have changed. We see again the same man, but
standing at the opening of a new career, whose greatness exceeds by
far even the high anticipations that had been formed for him. Before
leaving England he is a man of distinction only; prominent, possibly,
among the many distinguished men of his own profession, but the steady
upward course has as yet been gradual, the shining of the light, if it
has latterly shot forth flashes suggestive of hidden fires, is still
characterized by sustained growth in intensity rather than by rapid
increase. No present sign so far foretells the sudden ascent to fame,
the burst of meridian splendor with which the sun of his renown was
soon to rise upon men's eyes, and in which it ran its course to the
cloudless finish of his day.
Not that there is in that course--in its achievements--any
disproportion with the previous promise. The magnitude of the
development we are about to witness is due, not to a change in him,
but to the increased greatness of the opportunities. A man of like
record in the past, but less gifted, might, it is true, have failed to
fill the new sphere which the future was to present. Nelson proved
fully equal to it, because he possessed genius for war, intellectual
faculties, which, though not unsuspected, had not hitherto been
allowed scope for their full exercise. Before him was now about to
open a field of possibilities hitherto unexampled in naval warfare;
and for the appreciation of them was needed just those perceptions,
intuitive in origin, yet resting firmly on well-ordered rational
processes, which, on the intellectual side, distinguished him above
all other British seamen. He had already, in casual comment upon the
military conditions surrounding the former Mediterranean campaigns,
given indications of these perceptions, which it has been the aim of
previous chapters to elicit from his correspondence, and to marshal in
such order as may illustrate his mental characteristics. But, for
success in war, the indispensable complement of intellectual grasp and
insight is a moral power, which enables a man to trust the inner
light,--to have faith,--a power which dominates hesitation, and
sustains action, in the most tremendous emergencies, and which, from
the formidable character of the difficulties it is called to confront,
is in no men so conspicuously prominent as in those who are entitled
to rank among great captains. The two elements--mental and moral
power--are often found separately, rarely in due combination. In
Nelson they met, and their coincidence with the exceptional
opportunities afforded him constituted his good fortune and his
greatness.
The intellectual endowment of genius was Nelson's from the first; but
from the circumstances of his life it was denied the privilege of
early manifestation, such as was permitted to Napoleon. It is,
consequently, not so much this as the constant exhibition of moral
power, force of character, which gives continuity to his professional
career, and brings the successive stages of his advance, in
achievement and reputation, from first to last, into the close
relation of steady development, subject to no variation save that of
healthy and vigorous growth, till he stood unique--above all
competition. This it was--not, doubtless, to the exclusion of that
reputation for having a head, upon which he justly prided
himself--which had already fixed the eyes of his superiors upon him as
the one officer, not yet indeed fully tested, most likely to cope with
the difficulties of any emergency. In the display of this, in its many
self-revelations,--in concentration of purpose, untiring energy,
fearlessness of responsibility, judgment sound and instant, boundless
audacity, promptness, intrepidity, and endurance beyond all
proof,--the restricted field of Corsica and the Riviera, the
subordinate position at Cape St. Vincent, the failure of Teneriffe,
had in their measure been as fruitful as the Nile was soon to be, and
fell naught behind the bloody harvests of Copenhagen and Trafalgar.
Men have been disposed, therefore, to reckon this moral energy--call
it courage, dash, resolution, what you will--as Nelson's one and only
great quality. It was the greatest, as it is in all successful men of
action; but to ignore that this mighty motive force was guided by
singularly clear and accurate perceptions, upon which also it
consciously rested with a firmness of faith that constituted much of
its power, is to rob him of a great part of his due renown.
But it was not only in the greatness of the opportunities offered to
Nelson that external conditions now changed. The glory of the hero
brought a temptation which wrecked the happiness of the man. The loss
of serenity, the dark evidences of inward conflict, of yielding
against conviction, of consequent dissatisfaction with self and
gradual deterioration, make between his past and future a break as
clear, and far sharper than, the startling increase of radiancy that
attends the Battle of the Nile, and thenceforth shines with
undiminished intensity to the end. The lustre of his well-deserved and
world-wide renown, the consistency and ever-rising merit of his
professional conduct, contrast painfully with the shadows of
reprobation, the swerving, and the declension, which begin to attend a
life heretofore conformed, in the general, to healthy normal standards
of right and wrong, but now allowed to violate, not merely ideal
Christian rectitude, but the simple, natural dictates of upright
dealing between man and man. It had been the proud boast of early
years: "There is no action in my whole life but what is honourable."
The attainment of glory exceeding even his own great aspirations
coincides with dereliction from the plain rules of honor between
friends, and with public humiliation to his wife, which he allowed
himself to inflict, notwithstanding that he admitted her claims to his
deferential consideration to be unbroken. In this contrast, of the
exaltation of the hero and the patriot with the degradation of the
man, lie the tragedy and the misery of Nelson's story. And this, too,
was incurred on behalf of a woman whose reputation and conduct were
such that no shred of dignity could attach to an infatuation as doting
as it was blamable. The pitiful inadequacy of the temptation to the
ruin it caused invests with a kind of prophecy the words he had
written to his betrothed in the heyday of courtship: "These I trust
will ever be my sentiments; if they are not, I do verily believe it
will be my _folly_ that occasions it."
The inward struggle, though severe, was short and decisive. Once
determined on his course, he choked down scruples and hesitations,
and cast them from him with the same single-minded resolution that
distinguished his public acts. "Fixed as fate," were the remorseless
words with which he characterized his firm purpose to trample
conscience under foot, and to reject his wife in favor of his
mistress. But although ease may be obtained by silencing
self-reproach, safety scarcely can. One cannot get the salt out of his
life, and not be the worse for it. Much that made Nelson so lovable
remained to the end; but into his heart, as betrayed by his
correspondence, and into his life, from the occasional glimpses
afforded by letters or journals of associates, there thenceforth
entered much that is unlovely, and which to no appreciable extent was
seen before. The simple _bonhomie_, the absence of conventional
reticence, the superficial lack of polish, noted by his early
biographers, and which he had had no opportunity to acquire, the
childlike vanity that transpires so innocently in his confidential
home letters, and was only the weak side of his noble longing for
heroic action, degenerated rapidly into loss of dignity of life, into
an unseemly susceptibility to extravagant adulation, as he succumbed
to surroundings, the corruptness of which none at first realized more
clearly, and where one woman was the sole detaining fascination. And
withal, as the poison worked, discontent with self bred discontent
with others, and with his own conditions. Petulance and querulousness
too often supplanted the mental elasticity, which had counted for
naught the roughnesses on the road to fame. The mind not worthily
occupied, and therefore ill at ease, became embittered, prone to
censure and to resent, suspicious at times and harsh in judgment,
gradually tending towards alienation, not from his wife only, but from
his best and earliest friends.
During the short stay of seven months in England, which ended with the
sailing of the "Vanguard," the record of his correspondence is
necessarily very imperfect, both from the loss of his arm, and from
the fact of his being with his family. Such indications as there are
point to unbroken relations of tenderness with his wife. "I found my
domestic happiness perfect," he wrote to Lord St. Vincent, shortly
after his arrival home; and some months later, in a letter from Bath
to a friend, he says jestingly: "Tell--that I possess his place in Mr.
Palmer's box; but he did not tell me all its charms, that generally
some of the handsomest ladies in Bath are partakers in the box, and
was I a bachelor I would not answer for being tempted; but as I am
possessed of everything which is valuable in a wife, I have no
occasion to think beyond a pretty face." Lady Nelson attended
personally to the dressing of his arm; she accompanied him in his
journeys between Bath and London, and they separated only when he left
town to hoist his flag at Portsmouth. The letters of Lady Saumarez,
the wife of one of his brother captains then serving with Lord St.
Vincent, mention frequent meetings with the two together in the
streets of Bath; and upon the 1st of May, the day before leaving the
fleet off Cadiz for the Mediterranean, on the expedition which was to
result in the Nile, and all the consequences so fatal to the happiness
of both, he concludes his letter, "with every kind wish that a fond
heart can frame, believe me, as ever, your most affectionate husband."
On the 2d of May the "Vanguard" quitted the fleet for Gibraltar, where
she arrived on the 4th. On the 7th Nelson issued orders to Sir James
Saumarez, commanding the "Orion," and to Captain Alexander Ball,
commanding the "Alexander," both seventy-fours, to place themselves
under his command; and the following day the "Vanguard" sailed, in
company with these ships and five smaller vessels, to begin the
memorable campaign, of which the Battle of the Nile was the most
conspicuous incident.
FOOTNOTES:
[59] The British admiral in command of the fleet which fought at
Camperdown.