Transcriber’s Note: Boldface text is enclosed in =equals signs=;
italics text is enclosed in _underscores_.
THE STORY
OF NELSON
_Uniform with this Volume_
THE STORY OF NAPOLEON
By HAROLD F. B. WHEELER, F.R.Hist.S. With 16 full-page Illustrations.
FAMOUS VOYAGES OF THE GREAT DISCOVERERS
By ERIC WOOD. With 16 full-page Illustrations.
THE STORY OF THE CRUSADES
By E. M. WILMOT-BUXTON, F.R.Hist.S. With 16 full-page Illustrations
by M. MEREDITH WILLIAMS.
STORIES OF THE SCOTTISH BORDER
By Mr and Mrs WILLIAM PLATT. With 16 full-page Illustrations by M.
MEREDITH WILLIAMS.
[Illustration: The “Belleisle” went into action at Trafalgar with the
words “Victory or Death” chalked on her guns
Frank Craig, from a sketch by C. W. Cole
_Fr._]
THE BOYS’
NELSON
_BY_
HAROLD F. B. WHEELER F.R.Hist.S.
MEMBER OF THE HISTORICAL ASSOCIATION
JOINT-AUTHOR OF
‘NAPOLEON AND THE INVASION OF ENGLAND’ AND
‘THE WAR IN WEXFORD 1798’
AUTHOR OF
‘THE MIND OF NAPOLEON’ ‘THE BOYS’ NAPOLEON’ AND
‘THE MAXIMS OF NAPOLEON’
‘_He is the only man who has ever lived
who, by universal consent, is without a peer_’
ADMIRAL SIR CYPRIAN BRIDGE G.C.B.
NEW YORK
THOMAS Y. CROWELL COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
_Printed by Turnbull & Spears, Edinburgh_
DEDICATED TO
MY FATHER AND MOTHER
Foreword
The career of the little one-eyed, one-armed man who frustrated
Napoleon’s ambitious maritime plans for the subjugation of England,
who is to sailors what Napoleon is to soldiers, who represented in
his person all that sea power meant when the very existence of our
forefathers was threatened in the latter days of the eighteenth century
and the first half-decade of its successor, must ever appeal to those
for whom Great Britain means something more than a splash of red on a
coloured map.
I do not wish to suggest that his fame is insular. On the contrary, it
is universal. Other lands and other peoples share in our admiration
of him. We must not forget that it was an American naval officer,
Admiral Mahan, who first gave us a really great book about this truly
great man. In his “Life of Nelson,” we have the hero’s career reviewed
by an expert whose knowledge of tactics has not blinded him to the
more romantic aspects of Nelson’s forty-seven years of life. Before
its appearance readers were dependent upon the facts and fancies of
the biography by Clarke and McArthur, the “Memoirs” of Pettigrew,
or the stirring but often inaccurate pictures of Southey. The seven
substantial tomes of “Nelson’s Letters and Despatches,” edited with
indefatigable industry by Sir Harris Nicolas, were not compiled for the
general public, although they have furnished much material for later
historians and must necessarily be the foundation of every modern book
on Nelson.
On our own side of the Atlantic there is no more eminent authority
than Sir J. Knox Laughton, Litt.D., Professor of Modern History at
King’s College, London. He has not only epitomised Nicolas’s work,
but added to our knowledge by his excellent “Nelson” (English Men of
Action Series), “Nelson and his Companions in Arms,” and “From Howard
to Nelson.” His numerous miscellaneous contributions to the subject are
also of great interest to the serious student.
Although there is no Nelson cult like that which is associated with the
memory of Napoleon, England’s great sailor has inspired a considerable
literature, as even the shelves of my own library bear witness. There
are works on his career as a whole, the campaigns associated with his
name, his relations with Lady Hamilton, and so on. The only excuse I
can offer for adding to the list is, I hope, a valid one. It seems to
me that Nelson’s life, told in his own words as much as possible, would
specially appeal to the young, and there is, so far as I am aware, no
book which does this in the simple manner which I deem to be necessary.
For help in carrying out my plan of writing a volume of the kind
indicated I am particularly indebted to Nicolas’s “Letters” and Prof.
Sir J. Knox Laughton’s edition of them.
For good or evil the name of Emma, Lady Hamilton, is inextricably
associated with that of Nelson. Many and varied have been the attempts
to whitewash the character of her whom he regarded as “one of the
very best women in the world.” While it is difficult to associate the
possessor of the beauty which appealed with such irresistible force to
such painters as Romney, Reynolds, Lawrence, and Madame Vigée Le Brun,
with “a most inherent baseness,” it is an indisputable fact that she
exercised an adverse influence on Nelson’s career. Her humble origin,
her loveliness, her poses, her attempts at statecraft, above all, her
connection with the great sailor, have made her the subject of almost
innumerable volumes. For those who wish to read an impartial study I
would recommend Mr Walter Sichel’s “Emma, Lady Hamilton.”
Nelson’s written communications are not studied literary efforts, but
spontaneous expressions of his inmost thoughts. For these reasons they
are of inestimable value in an attempt to sum up his life and aims.
The kindest of men, he sometimes chose to mix vitriol with his ink. He
wrote what he meant, and it was always very much to the point. Less
eminent folk have sometimes disguised what they thought and written
what they imagined would please. Such was never Nelson’s way.
“This high man with a great thing to pursue,”[1] was never a trifler.
He recognised the importance of a supreme navy and the supreme
importance of its _personnel_. He watched the health of his men as a
loving mother watches that of her children. Proof of this is furnished
in a Report of the Physician to the Fleet, dated the 14th August
1805.[2] In it Dr Leonard Gillespie says that “the high state of
health” was “unexampled perhaps in any fleet or squadron heretofore
employed on a foreign station.” He attributes this to such causes as
the attention paid to the victualling and purveying for the ships;
a sane system of heating and ventilation; lack of idleness and
intemperance, due to “the constant activity and motion in which the
fleet was preserved”; the promotion of cheerfulness by means of music,
dancing, and theatrical amusements; comfortable accommodation of the
sick; and by the serving of Peruvian bark, mixed in wines or spirits,
to men “employed on the service of wooding and watering,” which
obviated any ill effects.
Nelson was quite able to “stand on his dignity,” to use a colloquial
and comprehensive phrase, and several instances will be discovered by
the reader as he peruses the following pages, but it is quite wrong
to think that he was in the least a martinet. For instance, during
the trying period when he was hungering for the French fleet to leave
Toulon, he wrote to an officer: “We must all in our several stations
exert ourselves to the utmost, and not be nonsensical in saying, ‘I
have an order for this, that, or the other,’ if the king’s service
clearly marks what ought to be done.” Everyone has heard how Nelson
referred to his captains and himself as “a band of brothers.” You have
only to turn to the memoirs of these gallant officers to learn the
truthfulness of this remark. They loved him: that is the only term that
exactly meets the case.
What of the humbler men who worked the ships? Read the following,
which was sent home by a rough but large-hearted sailor of the _Royal
Sovereign_, Collingwood’s flagship at Trafalgar, when he heard that the
Master Mariner lay cold in the gloomy cockpit of the _Victory_: “Our
dear Admiral is killed, so we have paid pretty sharply for licking ’em.
I never set eyes on him, for which I am both sorry and glad; for to be
sure I should like to have seen him--but then, all the men in our ship
who have seen him are such soft toads, they have done nothing but blast
their eyes and cry ever since he was killed. God bless you! Chaps that
fought like the Devil sit down and cry like a wench.”
This spontaneous and perhaps unconscious tribute is worth more than the
encomiums of all modern historians and biographers put together.
In studying the life of one who has played a leading rôle on the stage
of history there are always a number of subsidiary authorities which
will repay perusal. The memoirs of the men who were associated with
him, of those of his contemporaries who occupied official or high
social positions, even of much humbler folk who have transferred their
opinions to paper or had it done for them, are oftentimes extremely
important. To print a bibliography of the works of this kind which
I have consulted would be inadvisable in such a volume as this,
necessarily limited as it is to a certain number of pages. I need only
say that the nooks and crannies have been explored besides the main
thoroughfare.
In the Foreword to my companion volume upon Napoleon, I endeavoured
to show that periods of history are merely make-believe divisions for
purposes of clearness and reference. I wish to still further emphasise
this extremely important point, because I find that one of our most
cherished delusions is that history is largely a matter of dates.
Nothing of the kind! Those who think thus are confusing history with
chronology--in other words, mistaking one of the eyes for the whole
body. Dates are merely useful devices similar to the numerals on the
dial of a clock, which enable us to know the hour of the day without
abstruse calculations. The figures 1805 help us to memorise a certain
concrete event, such as the battle of Trafalgar, but they do not tell
us anything of the origin of that event any more than a clock defines
the meaning of time.
The age in which Nelson lived was not conspicuous for its morals. This
is a factor which must be taken into consideration when we attempt to
sum up his character. The standards of 1911 are scarcely the standards
of over a century ago. The code of virtue varies, although the law does
not. The grave of Nelson’s moral reputation was dug in Sicily, where he
had every provocation, but he certainly never attempted to extricate
himself from the pit into which he had fallen. “_De mortuis nil nisi
bonum_” is a good maxim for the Gospel of Things as they Ought to Be,
but cannot apply to the Testament of Things as they Were. The vanity
of both Nelson and Lady Hamilton contributed to their downfall, the
sordid story of which is necessarily referred to in later pages of this
work. I am of opinion that the lack of sympathy shown to the Admiral,
particularly during Pitt’s administrations, was largely due to Court
influence. George III. was a man of frigid austerity, and Nelson’s
private life was too well known for the King to countenance it by
showing him favours. He recognised the value of the man’s services, but
preferred to take as little notice as possible of the man himself. In
this he was unjust.
Although Nelson hated the French so vehemently, I cannot help thinking,
after a prolonged study of his career, that he had many of their
characteristics. His vivacity, his imagination, his moods tend to
confirm me in this. A less typical specimen of John Bull would be
difficult to find.
A word or two concerning Nelson’s crowning victory and then I must
bring my lengthy introduction to a conclusion. It has a literature all
its own. A wordy warfare, which was indulged in the correspondence
columns of the _Times_ from July to October 1905, made one almost
believe that it is easier to fight a battle than to describe it
accurately. To use Prof. Sir J. Knox Laughton’s terse phrase, “the
difficulty is that the traditional account of the battle differs, in
an important detail, from the prearranged plan.” The late Admiral
Colomb held a brief for the theory that the two columns of the British
fleet moved in line abreast, or in line of bearing, as against the
old supposition of two columns, line ahead. In this contention, he is
supported by Admiral Sir Cyprian Bridge, G.C.B., whose ideas are set
forth in a pamphlet issued by the Navy Records Society, an institution
which is doing excellent work in rescuing historical documents relating
to the service from ill-deserved oblivion. To add further to the
discussion would probably serve no useful purpose. The second volume of
“Logs of the Great Sea-fights (1794-1805),” and “Fighting Instructions,
1530-1816,” both published by the Society already mentioned, will be
found extremely useful to those who would pursue the subject in detail.
Tennyson’s “Mighty Seaman” has been apotheosised in poetry as well as
in prose,
“_For he is Britain’s Admiral
Till setting of her sun,_”
to quote Meredith’s superb lines. Wordsworth, Scott, Rossetti, Henley,
Swinburne, Newbolt and others have said noble things of the Man of
Duty, while Nelson looms large in Thomas Hardy’s magnificent epic, “The
Dynasts.” No one who has read it is likely to forget:
“_In the wild October night-time, when the wind raved round the land,
And the Back-Sea met the Front-Sea, and our doors were blocked with
sand,
And we heard the drub of Deadman’s Bay, where the bones of thousands
are,
We knew not what the day had done for us at Trafalgar._
(ALL) _Had done,
Had done,
For us at Trafalgar!_
* * * * *
_The victors and the vanquished then the storm it tossed and tore,
As hard they strove, those worn-out men, upon that surly shore;
Dead Nelson and his half-dead crew, his foes from near and far,
Were rolled together on the deep that night at Trafalgar._
(ALL) _The deep,
The deep,
That night at Trafalgar!_”
Contents
PAGE
FOREWORD 7
CHAP.
I. BOYHOOD AND FIRST YEARS AT SEA 19
II. A HERO IN THE MAKING 29
III. PLEASURE IN FRANCE AND WORK IN THE WEST INDIES 42
IV. THE BEGINNING OF THE GREAT WAR 52
V. “I WISH TO BE AN ADMIRAL” 66
VI. NELSON’S FIRST GREAT FIGHT: THE BATTLE OF CAPE ST VINCENT 74
VII. FROM TRIUMPH TO FAILURE: THE ATTEMPT ON SANTA CRUZ 87
VIII. IN CHASE OF THE FRENCH FLEET 96
IX. THE BATTLE OF THE NILE 102
X. THE NEAPOLITAN COURT AND LADY HAMILTON 112
XI. THE NEAPOLITAN REBELS AND THEIR FRENCH ALLIES 125
XII. NELSON IN TEMPORARY COMMAND 139
XIII. DISOBEDIENCE TO ORDERS 148
XIV. THE CAMPAIGN OF THE BALTIC 162
XV. THE BATTLE OF COPENHAGEN 171
XVI. THE THREATENED INVASION OF ENGLAND 182
XVII. THE VIGIL OFF TOULON 195
XVIII. TWELVE WEARY MONTHS IN THE MEDITERRANEAN 207
XIX. THE CRISIS 215
XX. NELSON’S LAST COMMAND 225
XXI. THE ROUT IN TRAFALGAR BAY 232
Illustrations
PAGE
THE “BELLEISLE” AT TRAFALGAR (_Frank Craig_) _Frontispiece_
NELSON AND THE BEAR (_Stephen Reid_) 26
“HE HAD THE ILL-LUCK TO FALL UPON HARD STONES”
(_Stephen Reid_) 44
COMPARISON OF THE “VICTORY” WITH THE “HERCULES” 64
“I’LL NOT LOSE HARDY!” (_H. C. Seppings Wright_) 76
NELSON WOUNDED AT SANTA CRUZ (_R. Caton Woodville_) 90
“THE FLAME THAT LIT THE BATTLE’S WRECK” (_Chas. Dixon, R.I._) 106
THE EXECUTION OF CARACCIOLO (_Stephen Reid_) 136
LADY HAMILTON (_Romney_) 156
NELSON LANDING AT YARMOUTH (_Stephen Reid_) 160
“I REALLY DO NOT SEE THE SIGNAL” (_Stephen Reid_) 172
LORD NELSON 192
HOISTING THE FAMOUS SIGNAL (_C. M. Padday_) 234
NELSON AND COLLINGWOOD CUTTING THE ENEMY’S LINES
(_H. C. Seppings Wright_) 238
THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR (_W. L. Wyllie, A.R.A._) 242
HOW THE NEWS OF TRAFALGAR WAS CARRIED TO LONDON
(_Frank Dadd, R.I._) 246
_For ages past our admirals brave
Pre-eminent have stood;
And, spite of all the world, have held
The mast’ry of the flood,
Howe, Duncan, Hood,
And Collingwood,
Long triumphed o’er the main;
While Nelson’s name,
So dear to Fame!--
We may never see their like again_
[Illustration: The headpiece, a sketch by Mr W. L. Wyllie, R.A., is
printed by permission of the Art Union of London, 112 Strand.]
Chapter I--Boyhood and First Years at Sea (1758-1773)
Thus[3] runs one of the verses of a song dear to the British sailor
for many a long year. Nelson, dead over a century, is still revered in
the King’s Navy. To the landsman there is no more popular hero. The
_Victory_, riding at anchor in the placid waters of the Solent and in
view of the cobble-covered sally port through which the Hero walked
to his barge, still flies an admiral’s flag. One of the most modern
battleships in the service bears his name, the most famous of London’s
many columns is crowned by his effigy. Canvas sails have given place
to steam turbines, the days of oak and hemp are gone, but the memory
of “the greatest sea captain of all time” is at once an incentive and
an inspiration to every true patriot. His ashes lie in the crypt of St
Paul’s Cathedral; his spirit lives in the nation for whom he sacrificed
his life. Perhaps we should not be far wrong in venturing the apparent
paradox that the further we recede from his life and times the more
clearly we understand his consummate genius and appreciate the value
of his achievements. There is no sunset, only an added glory with the
passing of the years.
Horatio Nelson was born in the quaint old parsonage house of Burnham
Thorpe, a Norfolk Sleepy Hollow, on the 29th September 1758. His
father, the Rev. Edmund Nelson, M.A., was rector of the parish, and as
a clergyman was following the profession of his immediate ancestor.
His mother, Catherine Nelson, was the daughter of the Rev. Dr Maurice
Suckling, Rector of Wooton, Norfolk, Prebendary of Westminster, and
grandnephew of Sir John Suckling, whose name is known to all students
of English literature and of history. Galfridus Walpole, another of
Mrs Nelson’s relatives, had displayed considerable bravery in an
engagement with the French in Vado Bay in 1711. It was through Captain
Maurice Suckling, Nelson’s uncle, that the young son of the parsonage
eventually entered the Navy. In addition, his mother was a grandniece
of Sir Robert Walpole, the famous Whig statesman, and could therefore
boast a distinguished lineage.
Horatio was the sixth child of a constantly growing family, and early
caused anxiety owing to his delicate constitution. In later years his
letters and despatches teem with reference to his ill-health, which
was accentuated, of course, by injuries which he received in the
performance of his duty. However, he breathed deeply of the North Sea
air which wafted through his native village, was tenderly cared for
by loving parents, and became sufficiently robust to be sent to the
High School at Norwich. The venerable building, endowed by Edward VI.,
stands within the cathedral precincts. It is now fronted by a statue of
its illustrious scholar. Later he attended a school at North Walsham,
now one of the yachting centres of the Norfolk Broads, where the
curious will find a brick on which the letters H. N. are scratched.
It is somewhat remarkable that so few boys who become great men
ever attract sufficient notice during their early scholastic career
for their comrades to remember anecdotes about them likely to be of
assistance to the biographer. Few anecdotes of Nelson in his younger
days have been handed down to posterity, but the following have
probably some basis of fact.
When quite a small boy he stayed for a time with his grandmother. On
one occasion he did not return at the accustomed dinner-hour, thereby
causing the good dame considerable anxiety, especially as gipsies
were in the neighbourhood and kidnapping was by no means unknown. He
was eventually found seated on the banks of a brook examining with
considerable interest a number of birds’ eggs he had secured in company
with a chum. “I wonder, child, that fear did not drive you home!” the
old lady said when the missing Horatio was restored to her. “Fear,
grandmamma!” he replied in a tone of disgust, “I never saw fear--what
is it?”
There you have the secret of Nelson’s life summed up in a single
pregnant sentence. His total lack of fear carried him through many a
trying ordeal, enabled him at times to defy the command of a senior
officer when he was convinced that his own plan of operations was
better, and helped him to bear the heat and burden of the day when his
physical energy was almost exhausted.
On another occasion he was “dared” by some companions to visit the
graveyard unattended at night. As a token of good faith he was to
bring a twig from a certain yew tree at the south-west corner of All
Saints’ Church. The uncanny task was successfully accomplished. From
thenceforth he was a hero, as he deserved to be.
A further instance of Nelson’s early lack of fear is afforded us. His
master at North Walsham was particularly proud of a certain pear-tree,
and his scholars were equally covetous of the delicious fruit which
it bore. Each preferred the other in the task of picking any of the
pears because of the speedy retribution which they knew would follow.
One night Horatio volunteered the task. His friends tied several sheets
together and lowered him from the dormitory to the garden. He swarmed
up the tree, secured the forbidden and therefore much prized fruit, and
was hauled up again. On distributing the booty, he justified his action
in his own mind by assuring the recipients that he had only taken the
pears “because every other boy was afraid.” Few hours passed before
the schoolmaster found that his tree had been plundered. It redounds
to the credit of the boys that they refused to “split” on their
comrade, although it is said that a tempting reward was offered for the
discovery of the culprit.
One winter morning Horatio and his brother William set out for school
on their ponies. They had not gone very far before they found the snow
so deep as to be almost impassable. They returned to the Parsonage and
told their father of the great drifts. He persuaded them to try again,
adding that he left it to their honour not to turn back unless it was
absolutely necessary.
The snow was falling in heavy flakes when they made their second
attempt. William’s heart soon failed him. He suggested that they had
sufficient reason to return. Horatio was as adamant. “Father left it
to our honour. We must go forward,” he replied, and in due course they
arrived at the school.
William, who was the elder by seventeen months, had the greatest
affection and esteem for his brother. In later years he was his
constant correspondent, and after Horatio’s death he was created Earl
Nelson of Trafalgar. Like his father and grandfather, William became a
clergyman, in which profession he rose to the dignity of Prebendary and
Vice Dean of Canterbury.
It was during the Christmas vacation of 1770 that Nelson casually
picked up a newspaper and read of Captain Maurice Suckling’s
appointment to the _Raisonnable_, a ship of sixty-four guns. The
announcement seems to have had an instant effect upon Horatio. “Oh,
William,” he exclaimed to his brother, who was standing near, “do, _do_
write to father, and tell him that I want to go to sea with uncle!”
The Rev. Edmund Nelson was staying at Bath owing to ill-health. When he
received his son’s letter he was inclined to dismiss the proposition
as a mere boyish whim. On thinking it over a little more carefully he
decided that perhaps the youngster really desired what he asked, and
he accordingly consulted his brother-in-law on the matter. The officer
replied in the easy-going manner of sailors, “Well, let him come and
have his head knocked off by the first cannon-ball--that will provide
for him.” He was afraid Horatio would never be able to stand the
rough-and-ready life, but he had the good sense to know that there is
nothing like putting a theory to a practical test.
The Navy was not then the skilfully-organised machine it has since
become. It was one of the privileges of a captain that he might take
two or three lads to sea with him as midshipmen or to serve in some
subordinate position. Captain Suckling accordingly sent for Horatio,
and we find his name on the ship’s books under date of the 1st January
1771. The _Raisonnable_ was then anchored in the Medway.
The lad’s father accompanied his twelve-year-old son as far as London,
put him into the Chatham stagecoach, and then left him to his own
resources. It was neither a pleasant journey in the rambling old
carriage, nor were the streets of Chatham particularly inviting when
he set foot in them. Nobody met the adventurer, and for some time he
wandered about until he met an officer who directed him to the ship
which was to be his temporary home. When he was safely on board it was
to find that his uncle had not arrived.[4]
The _Raisonnable_ was one of the vessels commissioned when hostilities
between Great Britain and Spain appeared imminent owing to trouble
respecting the Falkland Islands, a group in the South Atlantic. In
1770 Spain had insulted the British colonists there by compelling the
garrison at Fort Egmont to lower their flag. The matter was settled
amicably, for the all-sufficient reason that Spain did not feel strong
enough to come to blows with Great Britain unless she was assisted
by France, and as the support of that Power was not forthcoming, she
climbed down. Consequently Nelson was not introduced to the horrors of
naval warfare at this early stage, and the cannon-ball which his uncle
prophesied would knock off the lad’s head did not leave the cannon’s
mouth.
When the _Raisonnable_ was paid off Captain Suckling was given command
of the guard-ship _Triumph_ (74), stationed in the Medway, and
recognising that no good could come to his nephew by staying on such a
vessel, he secured a position for him shortly afterwards in a merchant
ship bound for the West Indies. This was not a difficult matter,
because the Master was John Rathbone, who had served with Suckling
on the _Dreadnought_ during part of the Seven Years’ War, that great
struggle in which Louis XV. of France had been forced to cede Canada to
Great Britain.
Nelson seems to have enjoyed the experience. In a sketch of his life,
which he wrote several years later for the _Naval Chronicle_, he says:
“From this voyage I returned to the _Triumph_ at Chatham in July 1772;
and, if I did not improve in my education, I returned a practical
seaman, with a horror of the Royal Navy, and with a saying, then
constant with the seamen, ‘Aft the most honour, forward the better
man!’ It was many weeks before I got in the least reconciled to a
man-of-war, so deep was the prejudice rooted; and what pains were taken
to instil this erroneous principle in a young mind! However, as my
ambition was to be a seaman, it was always held out as a reward, that
if I attended well to my navigation, I should go in the cutter and
decked longboat, which was attached to the commanding officer’s ship
at Chatham. Thus by degrees I became a good pilot, for vessels of that
description, from Chatham to the Tower of London, down the Swin, and to
the North Foreland; and confident of myself amongst rocks and sands,
which has many times since been of the very greatest comfort to me.
In this way I was trained, till the expedition towards the North Pole
was fitted out; when, although no boys were allowed to go in the ships
(as of no use), yet nothing could prevent my using every interest to
go with Captain Lutwidge in the _Carcass_; and, as I fancied I was to
fill a man’s place, I begged I might be his coxswain: which, finding my
ardent desire for going with him, Captain Lutwidge complied with, and
has continued the strictest friendship to this moment. Lord Mulgrave,
who I then first knew, continued his kindest friendship and regard to
the last moment of his life. When the boats were fitted out to quit the
two ships blocked up in the ice, I exerted myself to have the command
of a four-oared cutter raised upon, which was given me, with twelve
men; and I prided myself in fancying I could navigate her better than
any other boat in the ship.”
In this cold, matter-of-fact way, Nelson dismisses a phase of his life
fraught with peril and adventure. When the majority, if not all, of his
former school-fellows were reading of the doings of gallant seamen and
brave soldiers he was undergoing actual experiences. The expedition in
question had been suggested by the Royal Society, and was commanded
by Captain Constantine John Phipps, eldest son of Lord Mulgrave. The
_Racehorse_ and _Carcass_, heavy ships known as bombs because they
mounted one or more mortars for use in bombardments when on ordinary
service, sailed from the Nore on the 4th June 1773. All went well
until the 31st July, when the ice closed upon the vessels, and further
progress became impossible.
[Illustration: Nelson and the Bear
Stephen Reid]
“The following day,” says Colonel J. M. Tucker in his “Life and Naval
Memoirs of Lord Nelson,” “there was not the smallest opening, the
ships were within less than two lengths of each other. The ice, which
the day before had been flat, and almost level with the water’s edge,
was now in many places forced higher than the mainyard by the pieces
squeezing together. A day of thick fog followed; it was succeeded by
clear weather; but the passage by which the ships had entered from
the westward was closed, and no open water was in sight, either in
that or any other quarter. By the pilot’s advice, the men were set to
cut a passage and warp[5] through the small openings to the westward.
They sawed through pieces of ice twelve feet thick; and this labour
continued the whole day, during which their utmost efforts did not move
the ships above three hundred yards, while they were driven together,
with the ice, far to the north-east and east by the current. Sometimes
a field of several acres square would be lifted up between two larger
islands, and incorporated with them; and thus these larger pieces
continued to grow by cohesive aggregation. Another day passed, and
there seemed no probability of getting the ships out, without a strong
east or north-east wind.
“The season was far advanced, and every hour lessened the chance of
extricating themselves. Young as he was, Nelson was appointed to
command one of the boats which were sent out to explore a passage into
the open water. It was the means of saving a boat belonging to the
_Racehorse_ from a singular but imminent danger. Some of the officers
had fired at, and wounded, a walrus.... The wounded animal dived
immediately, and brought up a number of its companions; and they all
joined in an attack upon the boat. They wrested an oar from one of the
men; and it was with the utmost difficulty that the crew could prevent
them from staving or upsetting her, till the _Carcass’s_ boat, under
Nelson, came up. The walrusses, finding their enemies thus reinforced,
dispersed.
“A short time after this occurrence, young Nelson exposed himself
in a more daring manner. One night, during the mid-watch, he stole
from the ship with one of his comrades, taking advantage of a rising
fog, and set out over the ice in pursuit of a bear. Nelson, in high
spirits, led the way over the frightful chasms in the ice, armed with
a rusty musket, as was his companion. It was not, however, long before
the adventurers were missed by those on board; and, as the fog had
much increased, the anxiety of Captain Lutwidge and his officers for
them was very great. Between three and four in the morning, the mist
having nearly dispersed, the hunters were discovered at a considerable
distance, attacking a large bear. The signal for their return was
instantly made; but it was in vain that Nelson’s companion urged him
to obey it. He was at this time divided by a rent in the ice from his
shaggy antagonist, which probably saved his life; for the musket had
flashed in the pan, and their ammunition was expended. ‘Never mind,’
exclaimed Horatio, ‘do but let me get a blow at this devil with the
butt end of my musket, and we shall have him.’ His companion, finding
that entreaty was in vain, left him, and regained the ship. The
Captain, seeing the young adventurer’s danger, ordered a gun to be
fired to terrify the enraged animal; this had the desired effect; but
Nelson was obliged to return without his bear. Captain Lutwidge, though
he could not but admire so daring a disposition, reprimanded him rather
sternly for such rashness, and for conduct so unworthy of the situation
he occupied; and desired to know what motive he could have for hunting
a bear. ‘Sir,’ he replied, pouting his lip, as he was wont to do when
agitated, ‘I wished to kill a bear, that I might carry its skin to my
father.’”
Towards the middle of August the two ships were able to forge their way
through the ice, although not without considerable difficulty, and duly
sailed for home waters.