FROM THE INCURSION OF THE FRENCH FLEET UNDER BRUIX TO THE RESTORATION
OF THE ROYAL AUTHORITY AT NAPLES.--THE CARACCIOLO EXECUTION.--NELSON'S
DISOBEDIENCE TO ADMIRAL LORD KEITH.
MAY-JULY, 1799. AGE, 40.
The intention of the French to send a fleet into the Mediterranean had
transpired some time before, and the motive--to retrieve the
destruction of their naval power in that sea by the Battle of the
Nile--was so obvious that the attempt was regarded as probable. As far
back as the 7th of January, Nelson had written to Commodore Duckworth,
commanding the detachment of four ships-of-the-line at Minorca, that
he had received notification of the force expected from Brest. If they
got into the Mediterranean, he was confident they would go first to
Toulon, and he wished to concert beforehand with Duckworth, who was
not under his orders, the steps necessary to be taken at once, if the
case arose. He did not think, so he wrote to Ball, that they would
venture a squadron to Malta or Alexandria, in view of the certain
destruction which in the end must befall it, even if successful in
reaching the port.
Both remarks show that he did not look for the number of ships that
were sent--nineteen, as the first news said, twenty-five, as was
actually the case. An emergency so great and so imminent drew out all
his latent strength, acute judgment, and promptitude. The brig that
brought the news was sent off the same night to Naples, with orders to
proceed from there to Minorca and Gibraltar, and to notify Duckworth
and St. Vincent what Nelson intended to do. A cutter sailed at the
same time for Malta. Troubridge and Ball were both directed to send or
bring all their ships-of-the-line, save one each, to Minorca, there to
unite with Duckworth. Troubridge's ships were to call off Palermo for
further instructions, but not to lose time by coming to anchor there.
Expresses were sent to the different ports of Sicily, in case any
Russian or Turkish ships had arrived, to put them on their guard, and
to request co-operation by joining the force assembling off Minorca,
where Nelson reasoned Lord St. Vincent also would repair. To the
latter he wrote: "Eight, nine, or ten sail of the line shall, in a few
days, be off Mahon, ready to obey your orders (not in the port);" for
his intention was that they should remain outside under sail. "You may
depend upon my exertion, and I am only sorry that I cannot move[81] to
your help, but this island appears to hang on my stay. Nothing could
console the Queen this night, but my promise not to leave them unless
the battle was to be fought off Sardinia."
The next day he wrote again in similar terms, seeking to reconcile his
promise to the Queen with his impulses, and, it may be said safely,
with his duty. "Should you come upwards without a battle, I hope in
that case you will afford me an opportunity of joining you; for my
heart would break to be near my commander-in-chief, and not assisting
him at such a time. What a state I am in! If I go, I risk, and more
than risk, Sicily, and what is now safe on the Continent; for we know,
from experience, that more depends on _opinion_ than on acts
themselves. As I stay, my heart is breaking; and, to mend the matter,
I am seriously unwell."
That evening, the 13th, at nine o'clock, a lieutenant arrived, who had
been landed to the westward of Palermo by a sloop-of-war, the
"Peterel," she not being able to beat up to the city against the east
wind prevailing. From him Nelson learned that the French fleet had
passed the Straits, and had been seen off Minorca. The next day, the
"Peterel" having come off the port, he went alongside, and sent her on
at once to Malta, with orders to Ball to abandon the blockade,
bringing with him all his ships, and to proceed off Maritimo, a small
island twenty miles west of Sicily, where he now proposed to
concentrate his squadron and to go himself. Troubridge, having already
orders to come to Palermo, needed no further instructions, except to
bring all his ships, instead of leaving one at Naples. Every
ship-of-the-line in the squadron, including the Portuguese, was thus
summoned to join the Flag, in a position to cover Palermo and the
approaches to the eastern Mediterranean. To these necessary
dispositions was owing that the senior officer left at Naples was
Captain Foote, who afterwards signed the articles of capitulation with
the insurgents, which gave such offence to Nelson, and have occasioned
much controversy in connection with his subsequent action.
Troubridge, having sailed at once on receipt of his first orders,
arrived on the 17th with three British ships and one Portuguese. A
heavy gale prevented Nelson getting to sea till the 20th, when he
sailed, and was joined the next morning by the fourth ship from
Naples. The same day came a Portuguese corvette from Gibraltar and
Mahon, with letters from St. Vincent and Duckworth. The former
announced that the French had passed the Straits, and that he was
about to start in pursuit. Duckworth, who also was asked to join off
Maritimo, declined to do so, saying that he must await the
commander-in-chief. Nelson had of course immediately communicated to
the latter his change of plan. He hoped to collect ten
sail-of-the-line, which, "if Duckworth reinforce me, will enable me to
look the enemy in the face"--fourteen ships to nineteen; "but should
any of the Russians or Turks be off Malta, I hope to get a force of
different nations equal to the enemy, when not a moment shall be lost
in bringing them to battle."
On the 23d of May he was off Maritimo with seven ships, Ball not
having joined yet. His spirits were fast rising, as in thought he drew
near the enemy. "Duckworth means to leave me to my fate," he wrote to
Lady Hamilton. "Never mind; if I can get eleven sail together, they
shall not hurt me." "I am under no apprehension for the safety of his
Majesty's squadron," he said in a circular letter to his scattered
vessels, designed to heighten their ardor; "on the contrary, from the
very high state of discipline of the ships, I am confident, should the
enemy force us to battle, that we shall cut a very respectable figure;
and if Admiral Duckworth joins, not one moment shall be lost in my
attacking the enemy." It must be mentioned that St. Vincent had
expressed his opinion that the French were bound for Malta and
Alexandria, and Nelson, when he wrote these words, was hourly
expecting to see their sails appear on the horizon. He did not know
yet, however, that they were twenty-five, instead of nineteen, of the
line. To St. Vincent he expressed himself with the sober, dauntless
resolution of a consummate warrior, who recognized that opportunities
must be seized, and detachments, if need be, sacrificed, for the
furtherance of a great common object. "Your Lordship may depend that
the squadron under my command shall never fall into the hands of the
enemy; and before we are destroyed, I have little doubt but the enemy
will have their wings so completely clipped that they may be easily
overtaken"--by you. In this temper he waited. It is this clear
perception of the utility of his contemplated grapple with superior
numbers, and not the headlong valor and instinct for fighting that
unquestionably distinguished him, which constitutes the excellence of
Nelson's genius. This it was which guided him in the great Trafalgar
campaign, and the lack of which betrayed Villeneuve at the same
period to his wretched shortcomings. Yet, as has before been remarked,
mere insight, however accurate and penetrating, ends only in itself,
or at best falls far short of the mark, unless accompanied by Nelson's
great power of disregarding contingencies--an inspired blindness,
which at the moment of decisive action sees, not the risks, but the
one only road to possible victory.
Whilst thus expecting an engagement which, from the disparity of
numbers, could be nothing short of desperate, he drew up a codicil to
his will, making to Lady Hamilton a bequest, in terms that show how
complete were the infatuation and idealization now in possession of
his mind: "I give and bequeath to my dear friend, Emma Hamilton, wife
of the Right Hon. Sir William Hamilton, a nearly round box set with
diamonds, said to have been sent me by the mother of the Grand Signor,
which I request she will accept (and never part from) as token of
regard and respect for her very eminent virtues (for she, the said
Emma Hamilton, possesses them all to such a degree that it would be
doing her injustice was any particular one to be mentioned) from her
faithful and affectionate friend." During this short cruise he wrote
her almost daily, and at some length, in addition to the more official
communications addressed to Hamilton. At this same period he was
excusing himself to his wife for the shortness and infrequency of his
letters: "Pray attribute it to the true cause--viz., that in truth my
poor hand cannot execute what my head tells me I ought to do."
On the 28th of May Nelson received letters from St. Vincent, dated the
21st, off Minorca, which put him in possession of the movements of the
enemy up to that date. The French fleet, under the command of Admiral
Bruix, had appeared on the 4th of the month off Cadiz. It was then
blowing a half-gale of wind, and the French admiral did not care,
under that condition, to engage the fifteen British ships-of-the-line
which were cruising off the harbor, under Lord Keith, who had come out
from England the previous autumn to be St. Vincent's second in
command. The intended junction with the Spanish squadron in Cadiz
being thus thwarted, Bruix passed the Straits on the 5th, and Lord St.
Vincent, having recalled Keith, followed on the 12th with sixteen
ships. On the 20th he joined Duckworth, and learned that the enemy,
when last seen, were heading for Toulon. Keith's removal had uncovered
Cadiz, and St. Vincent fully expected that the Spanish fleet would
leave there for the Mediterranean, which it did, and on the 20th
entered Cartagena, to the number of seventeen of the line, but much
crippled from a stormy passage. This Nelson did not yet know, nor that
Bruix had reached Toulon on the 14th of May, and sailed again on the
26th for the eastward.
Satisfied that the enemy would not at once come his way, and knowing
that a vessel had passed up the Mediterranean from St. Vincent to put
Sidney Smith on his guard, Nelson ordered Ball to resume the blockade
of Malta with two ships-of-the-line. The rest of his squadron he kept
massed, and took to Palermo, where he arrived May 29th. Lookout ships
were stationed off the north end of Corsica and west of Sardinia. "My
reason for remaining in Sicily," he wrote St. Vincent, "is the
covering the blockade of Naples, and the certainty of preserving
Sicily in case of an attack, for if we were to withdraw our ships, it
would throw such a damp on the people that I am sure there would be no
resistance."
On the 6th of June Duckworth arrived at Palermo from the main fleet,
with four ships-of-the-line, among them the "Foudroyant," eighty. This
ship had been designated originally for Nelson's flag, and he shifted
to her from the "Vanguard" on the 8th. Duckworth brought a report that
St. Vincent was about to give up the command and go home, on account
of ill-health. This at once aroused Nelson's anxiety, for he had long
felt that few superiors would have the greatness of mind to trust him
as implicitly, and humor him as tenderly, as the great admiral had
done. It is not every one that can handle an instrument of such
trenchant power, yet delicate temper, as Nelson's sensitive genius.
The combination in St. Vincent of perfect professional capacity with
masterful strength of character, had made the tactful respect he
showed to Nelson's ability peculiarly grateful to the latter; and had
won from him a subordination of the will, and an affection, which no
subsequent commander-in-chief could elicit. He wrote to him:--
MY DEAR LORD,--We have a report that you are going home. This
distresses us most exceedingly, and myself in particular; so
much so, that I have serious thoughts of returning, if that
event should take place. But for the sake of our Country, do not
quit us at this serious moment. I wish not to detract from the
merit of whoever may be your successor; but it must take a
length of time, which I hope the war will not give, to be in any
manner a St. Vincent. We look up to you, as we have always found
you, as to our Father, under whose fostering care we have been
led to fame.... Give not up a particle of your authority to any
one; be again our St. Vincent, and we shall be happy.
Your affectionate NELSON.
This letter did not reach St. Vincent before he carried his purpose
into effect; but Nelson never quite forgave the abandonment of the
command at such a moment. In after years he spoke bitterly of it, as a
thing he himself could not have done; failing, perhaps, to realize the
difference in staying power between forty-five and sixty-five.
On the 2d of June, being then seventy miles southwest of Toulon, St.
Vincent turned over to Keith the command of the twenty
ships-of-the-line then with him, and went to Port Mahon. For the
moment he retained in his own hands the charge of the
station,--continued Commander-in-chief,--with headquarters at Minorca,
and two divisions cruising: one of twenty ships, with Keith, between
Toulon and Minorca, and one of sixteen, including three Portuguese,
under Nelson in the waters of Sicily. Friction between these two began
at once. Lord Keith was an accomplished and gallant officer,
methodical, attentive, and correct; but otherwise he rose little above
the commonplace, and, while he could not ignore Nelson's great
achievements, he does not seem to have had the insight which could
appreciate the rare merit underlying them, nor the sympathetic
temperament which could allow for his foibles. Nelson, exasperated at
the mere fact of the other's succession to the command, speedily
conceived for him an antipathy which Keith would have been more than
mortal not to return; but it is to the honor of the latter's
self-command that, while insisting upon obedience from his brilliant
junior, he bore his refractoriness with dignified patience.
After St. Vincent left him, Keith continued to stand to the northward
and eastward. On the 5th of June he received certain information that
the French fleet, now twenty-two ships-of-the-line, was in Vado Bay.
This word he at once sent on to Nelson. Next day his division was so
close in with the Riviera, off Antibes, that it was fired upon by the
shore batteries; but the wind coming to the eastward, when off Monaco,
did not permit it to pass east of Corsica, and, fearing that the
French would take that route and fall upon Nelson, Keith detached to
him two seventy-fours, which joined him on the 13th of June.
At the moment of their arrival Nelson had just quitted Palermo for
Naples, taking with him the whole squadron. The King of Naples had
formally requested him to afford to the royal cause at the capital the
assistance of the fleet, because the successes of the royalists
elsewhere in the kingdom rendered imminent an insurrection in the
city against the republican party and the French, which held the
castles; and such insurrection, unless adequately supported, might
either fail or lead to deplorable excesses. Lady Hamilton, whose
irregular interference in State concerns receives here singular
illustration, strongly urged this measure in a letter, written to the
admiral after an interview with the Queen. Nelson consented, took on
board seventeen hundred troops, with the Hereditary Prince, who was to
represent the King,--the latter not wishing to go,--and was already
clear of Palermo Bay when the two ships from Keith appeared. Gathering
from their information that the French were bound for Naples or
Sicily, in which his own judgment coincided, he returned at once into
port, landed the Prince and the troops, and then took the squadron
again off Maritimo, where he expected Ball and the two ships off Malta
to join him without delay. "The French force being twenty-two sail of
the line," he wrote in suppressed reproach to Keith, "four of which
are first rates, the force with me being only sixteen of the line, not
one of which was of three decks, three being Portuguese, and one of
the English being a sixty-four, very short of men, I had no choice
left but to return to Palermo."
With this incident of the insufficient reinforcement sent, began the
friction with Keith which appears more openly in his correspondence
with others. To St. Vincent, still commander-in-chief, he wrote: "I
send a copy of my letter to Lord Keith, and I have only stated my
regret that his Lordship could not have sent me a force fit to face
the enemy: but, as we are, I shall not get out of their way; although,
as I am, I cannot think myself justified in exposing the world (I may
almost say) to be plundered by these miscreants. I trust your Lordship
will not think me wrong in the painful determination I conceived
myself forced to make," that is, to go back to Palermo, "for agonized
indeed was the mind of your Lordship's faithful and affectionate
servant."
Nelson appears to have felt that the return to Palermo, though
imperative, in view of the relative forces of himself and the French,
would not only postpone and imperil the restoration of the royal
family, but would bring discredit upon himself for not seeking and
fighting the enemy's fleet. "I shall wait off Maritimo," he wrote
Keith, "anxiously expecting such a reinforcement as may enable me to
go in search of the enemy's fleet, when not one moment shall be lost
in bringing them to battle; for," he continues, with one of those
flashes of genius which from time to time, unconsciously to himself,
illuminate his writings, "I consider the best defence for his Sicilian
Majesty's dominions is to place myself alongside the French." "My
situation is a cruel one," he wrote to Hamilton, "and I am sure Lord
Keith has lowered me in the eyes of Europe, for they will only know of
18 sail, [Ball having joined], and not of the description of them; it
has truly made me ill." But, although not justified in seeking them,
he had off Maritimo taken a strategic position which would enable him
to intercept their approach to either Naples or Sicily, "and I was
firmly resolved," he wrote with another of his clear intuitions, "they
should not pass me without a battle, which would so cripple them that
they might be unable to proceed on any distant service." "On this you
may depend," he had written to Lady Hamilton, on the first cruise off
Maritimo, three weeks before, "that if my little squadron obeys my
signal, not a ship shall fall into the hands of the enemy; and I will
so cut them up, that they will not be fit even for a summer's cruise."
On the 20th of June, off Maritimo, he received a despatch from St.
Vincent that a reinforcement of twelve ships-of-the-line from the
Channel was then approaching Port Mahon, and that Keith, having
returned thither, had left again in search of Bruix, whose
whereabouts remained unknown. He was also notified that St. Vincent
had resigned all his command, leaving Keith commander-in-chief. Nelson
was convinced--"I knew," was his expression--that the French intended
going to Naples. He determined now to resume his enterprise against
the republicans in the city; a decision which caused him great and
unexplained mental conflict. "I am agitated," he wrote Hamilton the
same day, in a note headed "Most Secret," "but my resolution is fixed.
For Heaven's sake suffer not any one to oppose it. I shall not be gone
eight days. No harm can come to Sicily. I send my Lady and you Lord
St. Vincent's letter. I am full of grief and anxiety. I must go. It
will finish the war. It will give a sprig of laurel to your
affectionate friend, Nelson." The cause of this distress can only be
surmised, but is probably to be found in the fears of the Queen, and
in the differences existing at the time between herself and the King.
Possibly, too, Lady Hamilton's sympathy with the Queen, in a present
fear for Sicily, may have led her, contrary to the request so lately
made for the admiral to go to Naples, to second an entreaty that the
island should not now be exposed; and to refuse her may have caused
him pain. On the 21st he was at Palermo, and after two hours'
consultation with their Majesties and Acton, the Prime Minister, he
sailed again, accompanied in the "Foudroyant" on this occasion by Sir
William and Lady Hamilton, but not by the Hereditary Prince, nor the
Sicilian troops. On the 24th, at 9 P.M., he anchored in the Bay of
Naples. Flags of truce were at that moment flying on the castles of
Uovo and Nuovo, which were in the hands of the Neapolitan republicans,
and upon the frigate "Seahorse," whose commander had been the senior
British officer present, before Nelson's own appearance.
On the passage from Palermo, Nelson had received information that the
royalists,--with whom were co-operating some detachments of Russians
and Turks, as well as the British naval forces, under Captain Foote,
of the "Seahorse,"--had concluded an armistice with the French and
their Neapolitan allies, who were in possession of the castles. The
terms of the armistice, thus rumored, were that the castles, if not
relieved within twenty-one days, should then be surrendered; the
garrisons to march out with the honors of war, and to be transported
to Toulon in vessels to be furnished by the King of Naples. This
report was erroneous in important particulars, especially as to the
period of twenty-one days. What really had happened was, that a
capitulation had been concluded, which provided that the Neapolitan
insurgents should evacuate the two castles held by them--Uovo and
Nuovo--as soon as the transports were ready to take them to Toulon,
but not before. The French, in the castle of St. Elmo, were not
included in the arrangement, their only part being that it required
the ratification of their commander before becoming operative. This
ratification was given, and, when Nelson's squadron came in sight,[82]
the treaty had received the signature of all the parties interested;
the flags of truce indicating a cessation of hostilities until the
terms of the capitulation were carried into effect.
Nelson had been given full power by the King of the Two Sicilies to
act as his representative. He was also, as commander of the fleet, the
representative of the King of Great Britain among the allied forces,
which were acting in support of the royalist cause. The double
function introduces great confusion into the subsequent transactions,
especially as there are on record no formal credentials investing him
with the authority he claimed to have from the King of Naples. The
omission probably arose from the extreme shortness of his stay in
Palermo on the 21st--only two hours and a half elapsing, by the
"Foudroyant's" log, between the entering of the ship and her sailing
again; a time sufficient for an interview and a clear understanding,
but scarcely for drawing up a regular commission. The fact rests upon
his own statement, adequately supported, however, by inferences
reasonably to be drawn from expressions in letters to him, both from
the King and from Acton, the Prime Minister. That his power went so
far as to authorize him to remove Cardinal Ruffo, up to that time the
King's representative, would alone confirm the assertion of a man
habitually truthful. Sir William Hamilton also, writing to Greville,
and alluding to his official despatch by the same mail, says, "We had
full powers." It may be accepted that Nelson himself was entirely
satisfied that he was authorized at the time to act for the King, when
emergency required; and it is certain that letters were speedily sent,
empowering him to appoint a new government, as well as to arrest Ruffo
and to send him to Palermo in a British ship.
Seeing the flags of truce flying, from the two castles and the
"Seahorse," and being under the impression that has been stated as to
the terms of an armistice, which he called "infamous," Nelson
immediately made a signal annulling the truce, "being determined," he
wrote to Keith, "never to give my approbation to any terms with
Rebels, but that of unconditional submission." As the execution of the
capitulation depended upon the embarkation of the garrisons in the
transports which were to be provided, Nelson was entirely master of
the situation, so far as force went. Next morning, June 25th, he moved
his fleet of eighteen sail nearer in, mooring it in a close line of
battle before the city, and at the same time sent for twenty-two gun
and mortar vessels, then lying at the islands, with which he flanked
the ships-of-the-line. In this imposing array, significant at once of
inexorable purpose and irresistible power, he sent to Ruffo his
"opinion of the infamous terms entered into with the rebels," and also
two papers, to be by him forwarded to the insurgents and to the
French. From the latter, who had not treated, was required simply an
unconditional surrender; but the message to the insurgents, sent,
singularly enough, not from the representative of the King of Naples
but from the British admiral, ran as follows:--
His Britannic Majesty's Ship Foudroyant, Naples Bay, 25th June,
1799.
Rear Admiral Lord Nelson, K.B., Commander of His Britannic
Majesty's Fleet in the Bay of Naples, acquaints the Rebellious
Subjects of His Sicilian Majesty in the Castles of Uovo and
Nuovo, that he will not permit them to embark or quit those
places. They must surrender themselves to His Majesty's royal
mercy.
NELSON.
Ruffo refused to send the papers in, and said decisively that, if
Nelson saw fit to break the armistice then existing, between the
signature of the capitulation and its execution, he would aid neither
with men nor guns. Finally, he went on board the "Foudroyant;" but
after an animated discussion, which rose nearly to an altercation,
neither party yielded his ground. "I used every argument in my power,"
wrote Nelson, "to convince him that _the Treaty and Armistice was at
an end by the arrival of the fleet"_, and this therefore may be taken
to summarize his own position. He then gave the Cardinal a written
opinion that the treaty was one that "ought not to be carried out
without the approbation of His Sicilian Majesty." Neither his powers
nor Ruffo's, he argued, extended to granting such a capitulation.
Ruffo, indeed, had been expressly forbidden to do so; a fact which
rendered the paper void from the first. "Under this opinion," reported
Nelson to Keith, "the Rebels came out of the Castles;" "_as they
ought_," he wrote to his friend Davison, "and as I hope all those who
are false to their King and Country will, _to be hanged_, or otherwise
disposed of, as their sovereign thought proper." They were then placed
in transports, which were anchored under the guns of the fleet; and in
the end many of them were put to death.
For his action in this case Nelson has been severely blamed. The point
at issue is perfectly simple, however it may be decided. Disregarding
subordinate considerations, of which there are many, such as the
motives which induced Ruffo and Foote to grant terms, and the question
whether they would have been justified, which Nelson denied, in
conceding them under any conditions, the matter reduces itself to
this: When an agreement has been made, one of the parties to which is
acting only as a representative, not as a principal, nor accredited
for the specific purpose, has the principal, in person or by proxy, a
right to annul the agreement, provided, as in this case, it has not
passed into execution, either total or partial? Nelson admitted that
the persons of the insurgents would have been entitled to the immunity
stipulated, if they had already delivered up the castles. They had not
done so; the flags of truce marked only a cessation of hostilities,
not the completion of the transaction. By the terms, the evacuation
and embarkation were to be simultaneous: "The evacuation shall not
take place until the moment of embarkation." The status of the
opponents was in no wise altered by a paper which had not begun to
receive execution. The one important circumstance which had happened
was the arrival of the British squadron, instead of Bruix's fleet
which all were expecting. It was perfectly within Nelson's competence
to stop the proceedings at the point they had then reached.
[After writing the above, the author, by the courtesy of the Foreign
Office, received a copy of Sir William Hamilton's despatch of July 14,
1799, giving his account of the events happening after June 20th, the
date when Nelson left Palermo for Naples. In this occurs a statement
which would seriously modify, if not altogether destroy, the
justification of Nelson's conduct in annulling the capitulation, which
rests upon the condition that it had not received any substantial
execution. Hamilton says: "_When we anchored in this Bay the 24th of
June the capitulation of the castles had in some measure taken
place_.[83] Fourteen large Polacks or transport vessels _had taken on
board_ out of the castles the most conspicuous and criminal of the
Neapolitan Rebels, that had chosen to go to Toulon, the others had
_already_ been permitted with their property to return to their own
homes in this kingdom, and hostages selected from the first royalist
nobility of Naples had been sent into the castle of St. Elmo that
commands the city of Naples, and where a French garrison and the flag
of the French Republic was to remain until the news of the arrival of
the Neapolitan Rebels at Toulon.... There was no time to be lost, _for
the transport vessels were on the point of sailing for Toulon_, when
Lord Nelson ordered all the boats of his squadron to be manned and
armed, and to bring those vessels, with all the Rebels on board,
directly under the sterns of his ships, and there they remain, having
taken out and secured on board His Majesty's ships the most guilty
chiefs of the rebellion."
Occurring in an official despatch, from a minister of Nelson's
sovereign, his own warm personal friend and admirer, closely
associated with him throughout the proceedings, and his colleague and
adviser in much that was done, the words quoted, if they could stand
accepted as an accurate statement of occurrences, would establish that
Nelson had secured the persons of men who had surrendered on the faith
of a treaty, and had held them, subject to the tender mercies of the
King of the Two Sicilies. They were in his power (accepting Hamilton's
statement), only because the King's Vicar-General, his representative
so far as they knew, had guaranteed their safety if they came out of
the castles. The least they were entitled to, in such case, was to be
restored to the castles--not yet evacuated--to be placed as they were
before surrendering. It is true that, as the terms of the treaty made
embarkation and evacuation coincident, and as the latter had certainly
not taken place, it may be argued that they had no claim to immunity
when they had precipitated their action, and left the castle of their
own motion before the formal evacuation and embarkation; but one would
prefer not to rest on such a technical plea the justification of a
character generally so upright in his public acts as Lord Nelson.
Fortunately for his fame, there is adequate reason to believe--to be
assured--that Hamilton's despatch is very inaccurate in details, and
specifically in this one, so damaging as it stands. The incident of
arming the boats and bringing out the vessels took place, according to
the log of the "Foudroyant," not when the fleet moored, on the morning
of June 25th, or even shortly afterwards, but on the morning of the
28th; two days after the castles, as shown by the logs of both the
"Foudroyant" and "Seahorse," surrendered and were taken possession of.
Miss Helen Maria Williams, whose account of the affair was strongly
tinged with sympathy for the revolutionists, says: "While the two
garrisons, to the number of fifteen hundred, _were waiting for the
preparing and, provisioning of the vessels_ which were to convey them
to France, Lord Nelson arrived with his whole fleet in the Bay of
Naples [June 24-25]. On the evening of the twenty-sixth of June, the
patriots evacuated their forts, and embarked on board the transports
prepared for their conveyance to France. _The next day_ [June 27], the
transports were moored alongside the English fleet, each under the
cannon of an English vessel."[84] These several witnesses may be
confidently accepted, and prove that the embarkation and removal of
the garrisons took place after Nelson's declaration to them, dated
June 25th, in which he said "he would not permit them to embark or
quit those places. They must surrender themselves to His Majesty's
Royal mercy." Captain Foote, who had signed the capitulation that
Nelson condemned, affords evidence which, though not conclusive, is
corroborative of the above. Writing to Nelson at 7 A.M. of the 24th of
June, fourteen hours before the fleet anchored, but only eight before
he knew of its approach, he says: "the Republicans are about to
embark," and again, "when the Capitulation is put into effect;" both
which expressions show that up to that moment the agreement had not
begun to receive execution. On the 22d of June Ruffo wrote to Foote
that there were no vessels in Naples on which to embark the
revolutionists, and requested him to furnish them; a request that
Foote referred to Count Thurn, the senior Neapolitan naval officer,
for compliance. It is therefore antecedently probable that the vessels
could not have been collected from other ports, and prepared for an
unexpected voyage of at least a week's duration, before Nelson
arrived, forty-eight hours later.
Hamilton's despatch contains another mistake, affecting the order of
events, so circumstantial that, taken with the one just discussed, it
shows his accuracy on such points was more than doubtful. "Admiral
Caracciolo," he says, was hanged, "the day after the King's squadron
came to Naples;" the fact being that the squadron arrived on the night
of June 24-25, and that Caracciolo was executed on the evening of the
29th. This error was not a slip of the pen, for he characterizes the
alleged fact as "so speedy an act of justice" as to elicit loud
applause from the concourse of spectators surrounding the ship in
boats.
Hamilton was not only nearly seventy, but he was worn out in health
and constitution. Writing a fortnight after the events, and having
passed that time in the turmoil and confusion attending the
re-establishment of order in Naples, it is not wonderful that he ran
together incidents that happened in rapid succession, and failed to
realize the importance which might afterwards attach to the date of
their occurrence. "I am so worn out," he tells Greville, "by the long
despatch I have been obliged to write to-day to Lord Grenville that I
can scarcely hold my pen;" and again, "My head is _so confused_ with
long writing on this subject that I must refer you to my letter to
Lord Grenville.... You will find me much worn and am little more than
skin and bone, as I have very little stomach."
Although they were on board ship together, Nelson cannot have seen
Hamilton's despatch, or he must have corrected a misstatement which
directly contradicted his own account of June 27 to Lord Keith, as
well as that he was sending by the same messenger, in a private letter
to Earl Spencer. The latter ran thus: "Your Lordship will observe my
Note (No. 1), and opinion to the Cardinal (No. 2). _The Rebels came
out of the Castles with this knowledge_, without any honours, and the
principal Rebels were seized and conducted on board the ships of the
squadron. The others, embarked in fourteen polacres, were anchored
under the care of our ships."
Hamilton's statement remaining uncorrected, and being so
circumstantial, though erroneous, has made necessary a fuller
discussion of the evidence on this point than otherwise might have
been required.
Although, in the author's judgment, Nelson acted within his right in
disallowing the capitulation, it is essential to note that a fortnight
later, when fully cognizant of all the circumstances, he characterized
it in a letter to Lord Spencer as "infamous." "On my fortunate arrival
here I found a most infamous treaty entered into with the Rebels, in
direct disobedience of His Sicilian Majesty's orders."[85] Such an
adjective, deliberately applied after the heat of the first moment had
passed, is, in its injustice, a clear indication of the frame of mind
under the domination of which he was. Captain Foote with his feeble
squadron, and the commanders of the undisciplined mob ashore known as
the Christian army, expected, as did Nelson himself, the appearance of
the French fleet at Naples. In view of that possibility, it was at the
least a pardonable error of judgment to concede terms which promised
to transfer the castles speedily into their own hands. The most
censurable part of the agreement was in the failure to exact the
surrender of St. Elmo, which dominates the others. It is to be
regretted that Captain Foote, who naturally and bitterly resented the
word "infamous," did not, in his "Vindication," confine himself to
this military argument, instead of mixing it up with talk about mercy
to culprits and Nelson's infatuation for Lady Hamilton.]
On the 27th of June, the day following the surrender of Uovo and
Nuovo, Troubridge landed with thirteen hundred men to besiege the
French in St. Elmo, an undertaking in which he was joined by five
hundred Russians and some royalists. Forty-eight hours later Nelson
felt called upon, as representative of the King of the Two Sicilies,
to take action more peremptory and extreme than anything he had
hitherto done.
On the 29th of June, Commodore Francesco Caracciolo, lately head of
the Republican Navy, was brought on board the "Foudroyant," having
been captured in the country, in disguise. This man had accompanied
the royal family in their flight to Palermo; but after arrival there
had obtained leave to return to Naples, in order to avert the
confiscation of his property by the Republican government. He
subsequently joined the Republicans, or Jacobins, as they were called
by Nelson and the Court. His reasons for so doing are immaterial;
they were doubtless perfectly sound from the point of view of apparent
self-interest; the substantial fact remains that he commanded the
insurgent vessels in action with the British and Royal Neapolitan
navies, firing impartially upon both. In one of these engagements the
Neapolitan frigate "Minerva" was struck several times, losing two men
killed and four wounded. Caracciolo, therefore, had fully committed
himself to armed insurrection, in company with foreign invaders,
against what had hitherto been, and still claimed to be, the lawful
government of the country. He had afterwards, as the republican cause
declined, taken refuge with the other insurgents in the castles. When
he left them is uncertain, but on the 23d of June he is known to have
been outside of Naples, and so remained till captured.
It is not easy to understand in what respect his case differed from
that of other rebels who surrendered unconditionally, and whom Nelson
did not try himself, but simply placed in safe keeping until the
King's instructions should be received, except that, as a naval
officer, he was liable to trial by court-martial, even though martial
law had not been proclaimed. It was to such a tribunal that Nelson
decided instantly to bring him. A court-martial of Neapolitan officers
was immediately ordered to convene on board the "Foudroyant," the
precept for the Court being sent to Count Thurn, captain of the
"Minerva," who, because senior officer in the bay, was indicated by
custom as the proper president. The charges, as worded by Nelson, were
two in number, tersely and clearly stated. "Francisco Caracciolo, a
commodore in the service of His Sicilian Majesty, stands accused of
rebellion against his lawful sovereign, and for firing at his colours
hoisted on board his Frigate, the Minerva." The court assembled at
once, sitting from 10 A.M. to noon. The charges being found proved,
sentence of death was pronounced; and Caracciolo, who had been brought
on board at 9 A.M., was at 5 P.M., by Nelson's orders, hanged at the
foreyard-arm of the "Minerva." He was forty-seven years old at the
time of his death.
The proceedings of the court-martial were open, but the record, if any
was drawn up, has not been preserved. It is impossible, therefore, now
to say whether the evidence sustained the charges; but the acts
alleged were so simple and so notorious, that there can be little
doubt Caracciolo had fairly incurred his fate. Even in our milder age,
no officer of an army or navy would expect to escape the like
punishment for the same offence; if he did, it would be because mercy
prevailed over justice. As regards the technicalities of the
procedure, it would seem probable that Nelson's full powers,
especially when committed to a military man, included by fair
inference, if not expressly, the right of ordering courts-martial;
whereas he had not at hand the machinery of judges and civil courts,
for proceeding against the civilians who had joined in the
insurrection. Despite his fearlessness of responsibility, he was
always careful not to overpass the legal limits of his authority,
except when able to justify his action by what at least appeared to
himself adequate reasons. The Portuguese squadron, for instance, was
absolutely under his orders, so far as its movements went; but, when a
case of flagrant misconduct occurred, he confined himself to
regretting that he had not power to order a court. Anomalous as his
position was in the Bay of Naples, before the arrival of the King, and
regrettably uncertain as is the commission under which he acted, there
is no ground for disputing that he had authority to order a
court-martial, and to carry its sentence into execution, nor that
Caracciolo came within the jurisdiction of a court-martial properly
constituted. Having regard, therefore, to the unsettled conditions of
things prevailing, no fatal irregularity can be shown either in the
trial or execution of this prisoner.
But, while all this is true, the instinctive aversion with which this
act of Nelson's has been regarded generally is well founded. It was
not decent, for it was not necessary, that capture should be followed
so rapidly by trial, and condemnation by execution. Neither time nor
circumstances pressed. The insurrection was over. Except the siege of
St. Elmo, hostilities near Naples were at an end. That Caracciolo's
judges were naval officers who had recently been in action with him
would be, with average military men, rather in the prisoner's favor
than otherwise; but it was very far from being in his favor that they
were men in whom the angry passions engendered by civil warfare, and
licentious spoliation, had not yet had time to cool. Neither the
judges nor the revising power allowed themselves space for reflection.
Nelson himself failed to sustain the dispassionate and magnanimous
attitude that befitted the admiral of a great squadron, so placed as
to have the happy chance to moderate the excesses which commonly
follow the triumph of parties in intestine strife. But, however he
then or afterwards may have justified his course to his own
conscience, his great offence was against his own people. To his
secondary and factitious position of delegate from the King of Naples,
he virtually sacrificed the consideration due to his inalienable
character of representative of the King and State of Great Britain. He
should have remembered that the act would appear to the world, not as
that of the Neapolitan plenipotentiary, but of the British officer,
and that his nation, while liable like others to bursts of unreasoning
savagery, in its normal moods delights to see justice clothed in
orderly forms, unstained by precipitation or suspicion of perversion,
advancing to its ends with the majesty of law, without unseemly haste,
providing things honest in the sight of all men. That he did not do
so, when he could have done so, has been intuitively felt; and to the
instinctive resentment thus aroused among his countrymen has been due
the facility with which the worst has been too easily believed.
Commander Jeaffreson Miles of the British Navy, writing in 1843, was
one of the first, if not the very first, to clear effectually Nelson's
reputation from the stigma of treachery, and of submission to unworthy
influences, at this time. He has sought also to vindicate his hasty
action in Caracciolo's case, by citing the swift execution of two
seamen by Lord St. Vincent, at a time when mutiny was threatening. It
cannot be denied that, for deterrent effect, punishment at times must
be sudden as well as sharp; but the justification in each case rests
upon attendant circumstances. In the instances here compared, we have
in the one a fleet in which many ships were seething with mutiny, and
the preservation of order rested solely upon the firmness of one
man,--the commander-in-chief,--and upon the awe inspired by him. In
the other, we see rebellion subdued, the chief rebels in confinement,
the foreign enemy, except three small isolated garrisons, expelled
beyond the borders of the kingdom six weeks before, and a great
British fleet in possession of the anchorage. Punishment in such case,
however just, is not deterrent, but avenging. True, Nelson was
expecting the appearance of Bruix's fleet; but he himself
characterized as "infamous" the capitulation granted by Ruffo and
Foote, to which they were largely moved by the same expectation, when
wielding a much smaller force than he did. The possible approach of
the French fleet did not necessitate the hasty execution of a
prisoner.
That Nelson yielded his convictions of right and wrong, and
consciously abused his power, at the solicitation of Lady Hamilton, as
has been so freely alleged, is not probably true,--there is no proof
of it; on the contrary, as though to guard against such suspicion, he
was careful to see none but his own officers during Caracciolo's
confinement. But it is true that he was saturated with the prevalent
Court feeling against the insurgents and the French, which found
frequent expression in his letters. After living in the Hamiltons'
house for four months, during which, to use his own expression, "I
have never but three times put my foot to the ground, since December,
1798," in daily close contact with the woman who had won his
passionate love, who was the ardent personal friend of the Queen,
sharing her antipathies, and expressing her hatred of enemies in terms
which showed the coarseness of her fibre,[86] Nelson was steeped in
the atmosphere of the Court of Naples, and separated from that of the
British fleet, none of whose strongest captains were long with him
during that period. The attitude more natural to men of his blood is
shown in a letter signed by the officers of the "Leviathan,"
Duckworth's flagship. Coming from Minorca, they were out of touch with
Neapolitan fury, and they addressed Lady Hamilton, interceding for a
family engaged in the rebellion; a fact which shows the prevailing
impression--whether well founded or not--of the influence in her power
to exert. "We all feel ourselves deeply impressed with the horrid
crime of disaffection to one's lawful sovereign, ... but when we
consider the frailty of human nature," &c. "Advise those Neapolitans
not to be too sanguinary," wrote Keith to Nelson, apparently
immediately after receiving the news of Caracciolo's hanging.
The abrupt execution of Caracciolo was an explosion of fierce
animosity long cherished, pardonable perhaps in a Neapolitan royalist,
but not in a foreign officer only indirectly interested in the issues
at stake; and hence it is that the fate of that one sufferer has
aroused more attention and more sympathy than that of the numerous
other victims, put to death by the King's command after ordinary
processes of law. It stands conspicuous as the act of an English
officer imbued with the spirit of a Neapolitan Bourbon official.
"Could it ever happen," he wrote to Acton, some months after this,
"that any English minister wanted to make me an instrument of hurting
the feelings of His Sicilian Majesty, I would give up my commission
sooner than do it.... I am placed in such a situation--a subject of
one King by birth, and, as far as is consistent with my allegiance to
that King, a voluntary subject of His Sicilian Majesty--that if any
man attempted to separate my two Kings, by all that is sacred, I
should consider even putting that man to death as a meritorious
act."[87] On the other hand, it must be considered that Nelson, though
humane, tended even in his calmest moments to severity towards
military offenders. Writing with reference to a captain convicted of
misbehavior before the enemy, he said, "If a man does not do his
utmost in time of action, I think but one punishment ought to be
inflicted;" and it may be inferred that he would have approved Byng's
execution, where cowardice was not proved, but grave military
dereliction was.
On the 10th of July the King of the Two Sicilies arrived from Palermo
in the Bay of Naples, and went on board the "Foudroyant," which, for
the whole time he remained,--about four weeks,--became practically his
seat of government. There the royal standard was hoisted, there the
King held his levees, and there business of State was transacted. In
and through all moved the figures of Sir William and Lady Hamilton,
the latter considering herself, and not without cause, the
representative of the Queen. The latter had remained in Palermo, being
out of favor with the Neapolitans, and with her husband, who
attributed to her precipitancy the disasters of the previous December.
The two women corresponded daily; and, if the minister's wife deceived
herself as to the amount and importance of what she effected, there is
no doubt that she was very busy, that she was commonly believed to
exert much influence, and that great admiration for one another was
expressed by herself, Hamilton, and Nelson, the _"Tria juncta in uno"_
as the latter was pleased to style them. "I never saw such zeal and
activity in any one as in this wonderful man [Nelson]," wrote she to
Greville. "My dearest Sir William, thank God! is well, and of the
greatest use now to the King." "Emma has been of infinite use in our
late very critical business," said Hamilton to the same correspondent.
"Ld. Nelson and I cou'd not have done without her. It will be a
heart-breaking to the Queen of N. when we go"--back to England, as was
then expected. "Sir William and Lady Hamilton are, to my great
comfort, with me," wrote Nelson to Spencer; "for without them it would
have been impossible I could have rendered half the service to his
Majesty which I have now done: their heads and their hearts are
equally great and good."
The execution of Caracciolo was shortly followed by another very
singular incident, which showed how biassed Nelson had become towards
the interests of the Neapolitan Court, and how exclusively he
identified them--confused them, would scarcely be too strong a
word--with the essential interests of the Allied cause and the duties
of the British Navy. On the 13th of July the castle of St. Elmo was
surrendered by the French, the whole city of Naples thus returning
under the royal authority. On the same day, or the next, Troubridge,
with a thousand of the best men that could be sent from the squadron,
marched against Capua, accompanied by four thousand troops. A letter
had already been received from the Commander-in-chief, Keith, to
Nelson, intimating that it might be necessary to draw down his vessels
from Naples to the defence of Minorca. "Should such an order come at
this moment," wrote Nelson to the First Lord, forecasting his probable
disobedience, "it would be a cause for some consideration whether
Minorca is to be risked, or the two Kingdoms of Naples and Sicily? I
rather think my decision would be to risk the former;" and he started
Troubridge off with a detachment that seriously crippled the squadron.
Capua is fifteen to twenty miles inland from Naples.
On the 13th--it is to be presumed after closing his letter to Spencer
just quoted--an order reached him from Keith, in these words: "Events
which have recently occurred render it necessary that as great a force
as can be collected should be assembled near the island of Minorca;
therefore, if your Lordship has no detachment of the French squadron
in the neighbourhood of Sicily, nor information of their having sent
any force towards Egypt or Syria, you are hereby required and directed
to send such ships as you can possibly spare off the island of Minorca
to wait my orders." The wording was so elastic, as regards the numbers
to be sent, as to leave much to Nelson's judgment, and he replied
guardedly the same day: "As soon as the safety of His Sicilian
Majesty's Kingdoms is secured, I shall not lose one moment in making
the detachment you are pleased to order. At present, under God's
Providence, the safety of His Sicilian Majesty, and his speedy
restoration to his kingdom, depends on this fleet, and the confidence
inspired even by the appearance of our ships before the city is beyond
all belief; and I have no scruple in declaring my opinion that should
any event draw us from the kingdom, that if the French remain in any
part of it, disturbances will again arise, for all order having been
completely overturned, it must take a thorough cleansing, and some
little time, to restore tranquillity."
When Keith wrote this first order, June 27, he was at sea somewhere
between Minorca and Toulon, trying to find Bruix's fleet, of which he
had lost touch three weeks before, at the time he sent to Nelson the
two seventy-fours, whose arrival caused the latter's second cruise of
Maritimo. He had lost touch through a false step, the discussion of
which has no place in a life of Nelson, beyond the remark that it was
Keith's own error, not that of Lord St. Vincent, as Nelson afterwards
mistakenly alleged; querulously justifying his own disobedience on the
ground that Keith, by obeying against his judgment, had lost the
French fleet. What is to be specially noted in the order is that Keith
gave no account of his reasons, nor of the events which dictated them,
nor of his own intended action. No room is afforded by his words for
any discretion, except as to the number of ships to be sent by Nelson,
and, though the language of the latter was evasive, the failure to
move even a single vessel was an act of unjustifiable disobedience. To
Keith he wrote privately, and in a conciliatory spirit, but nothing
that made his act less flagrant. "To all your wishes, depend on it, I
shall pay the very strictest attention."
Conscious of the dangerous step he was taking, Nelson wrote on the
same day, by private letter,[88] to the First Lord of the Admiralty.
"You will easily conceive my feelings," he said, "but my mind, your
Lordship will know, was perfectly prepared for this order; and more
than ever is my mind made up, that, at this moment, I will not part
with a single ship, as I cannot do that without drawing a hundred and
twenty men from each ship now at the siege of Capua, where an army is
gone this day. I am fully aware of the act I have committed; but,
sensible of my loyal intentions, I am prepared for any fate which may
await my disobedience. Do not think that my opinion is formed from the
arrangements of any one," an expression which shows that he was aware
how talk was running. "_No;_ be it good, or be it bad, it is all my
own. It is natural I should wish the decision of the Admiralty and my
Commander-in-chief as speedily as possible. To obtain the former, I
beg your Lordship's interest with the Board. You know me enough, my
dear Lord, to be convinced I want no screen to my conduct."
On the 9th of July, Keith wrote again, from Port Mahon, a letter which
Nelson received on the 19th. He said that he was satisfied that the
enemy's intentions were directed neither against the Two Sicilies, nor
to the reinforcement of their army in Egypt; that, on the contrary,
there was reason to believe they were bound out of the Straits. "I
judge it necessary that all, or the greatest part of the force under
your Lordship's orders, should quit the Island of Sicily, and repair
to Minorca, for the purpose of protecting that Island during the
necessary absence of His Majesty's squadron under my command, or for
the purpose of co-operating with me against the combined force of the
enemy, wherever it may be necessary." The commander-in-chief, in
short, wished to mass his forces, for the necessities of the general
campaign, as he considered them. Nelson now flatly refused obedience,
on the ground of the local requirements in his part of the field.
"Your Lordship, at the time of sending me the order, was not informed
of the change of affairs in the Kingdom of Naples, and that all our
marines and a body of seamen are landed, in order to drive the French
scoundrels out of the Kingdom, which, with God's blessing will very
soon be effected, when a part of this squadron shall be immediately
sent to Minorca; but unless the French are at least drove from Capua,
I think it right not to obey your Lordship's order for sending down
any part of the squadron under my orders. I am perfectly aware of the
consequences of disobeying the orders of my commander-in-chief." It
cannot be said that the offensiveness of the act of disobedience is
tempered by any very conciliatory tone in the words used. The reason
for disobedience makes matters rather worse. "As I believe the safety
of the Kingdom of Naples depends at the present moment on my detaining
the squadron, I have no scruple in deciding that it is better to save
the Kingdom of Naples and risk Minorca, than to risk the Kingdom of
Naples to save Minorca." When he thus wrote, Nelson knew that Bruix
had joined the Spanish fleet in Cartagena, making a combined force of
forty ships, to which Keith, after stripping Minorca, could oppose
thirty-one.
None of Nelson's letters reached Keith until long after he had left
the Mediterranean, which probably prevented the matter being brought
to a direct issue between the two, such as would have compelled the
Admiralty to take some decisive action. On the 10th of July the
commander-in-chief sailed from Port Mahon for Cartagena, following on
the tracks of the allied fleets, which he pursued into the Atlantic
and to Brest, where they succeeded in entering on the 13th of August,
just twenty-four hours before the British came up. The narrow margin
of this escape inevitably suggests the thought, of how much
consequence might have been the co-operation of the dozen ships
Nelson could have brought. It is true, certainly, as matters turned
out, that even had he obeyed, they could not have accompanied Keith,
nor in the event did any harm come to Minorca; but there was no
knowledge in Nelson's possession that made an encounter between the
two great fleets impossible, nor was it till three days after his
former refusal to obey, that he knew certainly that Keith had given up
all expectation of a junction with himself. Then, on the 22d of July,
he received two letters dated the 14th, and couched in tones so
peremptory as to suggest a suspicion that no milder words would
enforce obedience--that his Commander-in-chief feared that nothing
short of cast-iron orders would drag him away from the Neapolitan
Court. "Your Lordship is hereby required and directed to repair to
Minorca, with the whole, or the greater part, of the force under your
Lordship's command, for the protection of that island, as I shall, in
all probability, have left the Mediterranean before your Lordship will
receive this. Keith." The second letter of the same date ended with
the words: "I therefore trust the defence of Minorca to your Lordship,
and repeat my directions that the ships be sent for its protection."
On the receipt of these, though Capua had not yet surrendered, Nelson
at once sent Duckworth with four ships-of-the-line to Minorca,
detaining only their marines for the land operations.
It seems scarcely necessary to say that, while an officer in
subordinate command should have the moral courage to transcend or
override his orders in particular instances--each of which rests upon
its own merits, and not upon any general rule that can be
formulated--it would be impossible for military operations to be
carried on at all, if the commander-in-chief were liable to be
deliberately defied and thwarted in his combinations, as Keith was in
this case. It does not appear that Nelson _knew_ the circumstances
which Keith was considering; he only _knew_ what the conditions were
about Naples, and he thought that the settlement of the kingdom might
be prevented by the departure of several of his ships. In this
opinion, in the author's judgment, his views were exaggerated, and
colored by the absorbing interest he had come to take in the royal
family and their fortunes, linked as these were with the affections of
a particular woman; but, even granting that his apprehensions were
well founded, he was taking upon himself to determine, not merely what
was best for the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, but what was best for
the whole Mediterranean command. It was not within his province to
decide whether Minorca or Naples was the more important. That was the
function of the commander-in-chief. Had the latter, while leaving
Nelson's force unchanged, directed him to follow a particular line of
operations in the district committed to him, it is conceivable that
circumstances, unknown to his superior, might have justified him in
choosing another; but there was nothing in the conditions that
authorized his assumption that he could decide for the whole command.
And this is not the less true, because Nelson was in the general a man
of far sounder judgment and keener insight than Keith, or because his
intuitions in the particular instance were more accurate, as they
possibly were. He defended his course on the ground, so frequently and
so erroneously taken, that his intentions were right. "I am so
confident," he wrote to the Admiralty, "of the uprightness of my
intentions for his Majesty's service, and for that of his Sicilian
Majesty, which I consider as the same, that, with all respect, I
submit myself to the judgment of my superiors." Four years later, in
1803, he used the following singular expressions concerning his
conduct at this period: "I paid more attention to another sovereign
than my own; therefore the King of Naples' gift of Bronté to me, if it
is not now settled to my advantage, and to be permanent, has cost me a
fortune, and a great deal of favour which I might have enjoyed, and
jealousy which I should have avoided. I repine not on those accounts.
I did my duty, to the Sicilifying my own conscience, and I am
easy."[89] "As I have often before risked my life for the good cause,"
he told his old friend the Duke of Clarence, "so I with cheerfulness
did my commission: for although a military tribunal may think me
criminal, the world will approve my conduct." With such convictions,
he might, if condemned, as he almost inevitably must have been, have
met his fate with the cheerfulness of a clear conscience; but no
military tribunal can possibly accept a man's conscience as the test
of obedience.
The Admiralty, who had sent Keith out knowing that St. Vincent, after
three arduous years, meant soon to retire, could not of course
acquiesce in Nelson's thus overriding the man they had chosen to be
his commander-in-chief. "Their Lordships do not, from any information
now before them, see sufficient reason to justify your having
disobeyed the orders you had received from your Commanding Officer, or
having left Minorca exposed to the risk of being attacked, without
having any naval force to protect it." To this measured rebuke was
added some common-sense counsel upon the pernicious practice of
jeopardizing the _personnel_ of a fleet, the peculiar trained force so
vitally necessary, and so hard to replace, in petty operations on
shore. "Although in operations on the sea-coast, it may frequently be
highly expedient to land a part of the seamen of the squadron, to
co-operate with and to assist the army, when the situation will admit
of their being immediately re-embarked, if the squadron should be
called away to act elsewhere [as Keith had called it], or if
information of the approach of an enemy's fleet should be
received,--yet their Lordships by no means approve of the seamen being
landed to form a part of an army to be employed in operations at a
distance from the coast, where, if they should have the misfortune to
be defeated, they might be prevented from returning to the ships, and
the squadron be thereby rendered so defective, as to be no longer
capable of performing the services required of it; and I have their
Lordships' commands to signify their directions to your Lordship not
to employ the seamen in like manner in future."
It was evident that the Admiralty did not fully share Nelson's
attachment to the royal house of Naples, nor consider the service of
the King of the Two Sicilies the same as that of the King of Great
Britain. Earl Spencer's private letter, while careful of Nelson's
feelings, left no room to doubt that he was entirely at one with his
colleagues in their official opinion. Nelson winced and chafed under
the double rebuke, but he was not in a condition to see clearly any
beams in his own eye. "I observe with great pain that their Lordships
see no cause which could justify my disobeying the orders of my
commanding officer, Lord Keith;" but the motives he again alleges are
but the repetition of those already quoted. He fails wholly to realize
that convictions which would justify a man in going to a martyr's fate
may be wholly inadequate to sap the fundamental military obligation of
obedience. "My conduct is measured by the Admiralty, by the narrow
rule of law, when I think it should have been done by that of common
sense. I restored a faithful ally by breach of orders; Lord Keith lost
a fleet by obedience against his own sense. Yet as one is censured the
other must be approved. Such things are." As a matter of fact, as
before said, it was by departing from St. Vincent's orders that Keith
lost the French fleet. Nor did Nelson's mind work clearly on the
subject. Thwarted and fretted as he continually was by the too common,
almost universal, weakness, which deters men from a bold initiative,
from assuming responsibility, from embracing opportunity, he could not
draw the line between that and an independence of action which would
convert unity of command into anarchy. "Much as I approve of strict
obedience to orders, yet to say that an officer is never, for any
object, to alter his orders, is what I cannot comprehend." But what
rational man ever said such a thing? "I find few think as I do,--but
to obey orders is all perfection! What would my superiors direct, did
they know what is passing under my nose? To serve my King and to
destroy the French I consider as the great order of all, from which
little ones spring, and if one of these little ones militate against
it, I go back to obey the great order." There is so much that is sound
in these words, and yet so much confusion might arise in applying
them, that scarcely any stronger evidence could be given that each
case must rest on its own merits; and that no general rule can
supplant the one general principle of obedience, by which alone unity
and concentration of effort, the great goal of all military movement,
can be obtained.
During this period of agitation and excitement, Nelson's health did
not show the favorable symptoms that usually attended a call to
exertion. Much may be attributed to a Mediterranean summer, especially
after the many seasons he had passed in that sea; but it can readily
be believed that such exceptional responsibilities as he had just
assumed could not but tell, even upon his resolute and fearless
temper. "I am really sorry," wrote Troubridge to him, from the siege
of St. Elmo, "to see your Lordship so low-spirited, all will go well;"
and a few days later, "Your Lordship must endeavour to fret as little
as possible--we shall succeed. His Majesty's arrival will relieve your
Lordship; and if he punishes the guilty, the people will be happy."
The day after he had refused to obey Keith's order, he wrote to him,
"I am truly so very unwell that I have not the power of writing so
much as I could wish;" and the next day, to the Admiralty, he makes
the same excuse, adding, "I am writing in a fever, and barely possible
to keep out of bed." "My dear friend," he tells Locker, "I am so ill
that I can scarcely sit up; yet I will not let the courier go off
without assuring you that all your kindnesses to me are fresh in my
memory.... May God Almighty grant you, my revered friend, that health
and happiness which has never yet been attained by your affectionate,
grateful friend, Nelson." It cannot but be surmised that he did not
feel that profound conviction of right, which had sustained him on
previous occasions. The disquiet indicated resembles rather that
attending the uncertainties of the Nile campaign. As Colonel Stewart
noticed, two years later, "With him mind and health invariably
sympathized."
FOOTNOTES:
[81] That is, in person.
[82] The commandant of St. Elmo signed on the 3d Messidor, June 21. Ruffo,
with the Russian and Turkish representatives, had already signed. The paper
was then sent to Foote, who signed and returned to Ruffo on the 23d of
June. The "Foudroyant" came in sight on the afternoon of the 24th.
[83] All italics in the quotations from this despatch are the author's.
[84] Nicolas, vol. iii. p. 511. Author's italics.
[85] Nicolas, vol. iii p. 406.
[86] Mr. Pryse Lockhart Gordon, who was in Palermo in January, 1799, tells
the following anecdote of Lady Hamilton. He had been dining at the
ambassador's, and after dinner a Turkish officer was introduced. In the
course of the evening he boasted that he had put to death with his own
sword a number of French prisoners. "'Look, there is their blood remaining
on it!' The speech being translated, her Ladyship's eye beamed with
delight, and she said, 'Oh, let me see the sword that did the glorious
deed!' It was presented to her; she took it into her fair hands, covered
with rings, and, looking at the encrusted Jacobin blood, kissed it, and
handed it to the hero of the Nile. Had I not been an eye-witness to this
disgraceful act, I would not have ventured to relate it." (Gordon's
Memoirs, vol. i. p, 210.) The author, also, would not have ventured to
adduce it, without first satisfying himself, by inquiry, as to the probable
credibility of Mr. Gordon, and likewise testing his narrative. It bears
marks of the inaccuracy in details to which memory is subject, but the
indications of general correctness are satisfactory.
[87] Nelson to Acton, November 18, 1799. (Nicolas.)
[88] Much confusion has been introduced into the times, when Keith's
several orders were received by Nelson, by the fact that the original of
this private letter to Earl Spencer is dated the 19th (Nicolas, vol. vii.
p. clxxxv); while the secretary, copying it into the letter-book, wrote
July 13th. (Nicolas, vol. iii. p. 408.) Nicolas considered the former
correct, probably because it came last into his hands. The author considers
the 13th correct, because the official letter to Keith bears that date, and
reads, "I have to acknowledge the receipt of your Lordship's letter of June
27." (Nicolas, vol. iii. p. 408.)
The date of Troubridge's marching against Capua is similarly brought into
doubt by these letters. The author believes it to have been July 13 or 14,
from another official letter to Keith of the 13th. (Nicolas, vol. iii. p.
404.) "Captains Troubridge and Hallowell ... march against Capua to-morrow
morning." The odd Sea-Time of that day, by which July 13 began at noon,
July 12, of Civil Time, also causes confusion; writers using them
indiscriminatingly. The capitulation of St. Elmo was certainly signed on
July 12. (Clarke and M'Arthur, vol. ii. p. 294.)
[89] Nicolas, vol. v. p. 160.
END OF VOL. I.