Nelson: Britannia's God of War

by Andrew Lambert

  After the fleet was safely in the Tagus, Jervis detached Nelson with a small squadron to cover the approaches to Cadiz, hoping to intercept a rumoured treasure convoy, bring out the Spanish fleet, encourage the Portuguese court, and alarm the Spanish.12 This was Nelson’s reward for the battle that had helped to make Jervis Earl St Vincent. Although he found nothing, the impulse would ultimately lead to the attack on Tenerife.

  Cadiz was officially blockaded on 11 April. Confident the Spanish would not come out, Nelson handed over the task to Saumarez the following day,13 before heading back into the Mediterranean to attend to some unfinished business at Elba. His thoughts were turning to the ‘rich ships from La Vera Cruz and Havana’ that the Earl reported were on passage. Discussions with Troubridge led him to put forward a plan to capture the treasure galleons, although he added, ‘I do not reckon myself equal to Blake’.14 But success would ‘ruin Spain, and has every prospect of raising our Country to a higher pitch of wealth than ever she yet attained’. Military cooperation would be very useful, but he was prepared to make the attempt with the limited force then embarked on the fleet. Ultimately he knew the ‘risk and responsibility’ rested with Jervis.15

  The cruise to Elba was uneventful, because the ambush Nelson had anticipated was spotted off Minorca and avoided. The news from Italy was bad: the Austrians had been driven back to within 150 miles of Vienna by a vast French army under Bonaparte, seemingly unable to resist ‘these extraordinary people’. This only emphasised the need to strike at Tenerife.16 Although he hastened back to the fleet by early May, hearing rumours the Spanish would come out, the situation off Cadiz left little hope that the enemy would try their strength again. Jervis had been reinforced, and was now stronger than he had been on the famous 14 February.

  After repairing battle damage at Lisbon and sending home his prizes, Jervis led his fleet south to blockade his beaten foes in Cadiz, Spain’s southern naval base. The Spanish had changed their commander and begun to shake up the fleet. Initially Jervis expected they would offer battle, but by mid-June he accepted they were unlikely to move without a powerful inducement. He now faced the greatest challenge of the age: how to get an inferior fleet to leave the safety of a fortified arsenal and give battle at sea. On 19 May he made the blockade complete, including all commercial shipping. This would starve the local economy and the fleet, as both relied on sea transport. The stopper in the Spanish bottle would be a squadron of seventy-fours anchored in the harbour mouth, in sight of the town and only just out of gunshot from the walls. This tiresome command was given to Nelson, who had done the same job at Leghorn the previous year. None of the senior flag officers protested at this appointment – that would only come later. Instead the fleet were annoyed to find a detachment of the Channel fleet cruising in the track of the treasure ships, which they believed were their due.17

  Nelson was in signal distance of the fleet, sending Jervis any scraps of intelligence that he could glean from the shore, from conversation with local craft or observation of activity in the harbour. He even opened a polite correspondence with the Spanish admiral, warning him of a royal salute to be fired on the King’s birthday, fearing that it might alarm the ladies. Admiral Mazzaredo’s reply was both dignified and charming.18 While the economic life of the port was devastated the Spanish fleet would not come out. Instead the biggest threat to Jervis’s fleet was internal. While the Spithead mutiny was essentially a trade dispute about pay and conditions, it spread through the Navy and reached the Mediterranean fleet in a more politicised form. After a mutinous outbreak in June, four men from HMS St George were tried and hung the next day, a Sunday. Jervis blamed lax officers. He shifted Nelson and Miller into the worst-behaved ship in the squadron, with a leaven of his old followers in all ranks. Within a fortnight the men of the Theseus were devotees at the feet of their admiral, and a credit to the service.

  *

  Throughout June, Nelson and Jervis prepared for an attack on Tenerife, assembling scaling ladders, guns, stores and a few extra red coats to dazzle the Spanish. The target of the operation was money, and the situation at home gave it a particular significance. The war was making unprecedented demands on the British economy, enough to cause problems even for a fiscal expert such as Pitt. In the wake of failed peace negotiations in late 1796, the evacuation of the Mediterranean and the landing at Fishguard in February 1797, there was a run on the banks. Money was in short supply, and cash even more so. While the tax system needed reform, the coinage was in a ruinous condition with a limited stock of old and worn money, numerous tokens and other substitute and counterfeit items in circulation. To meet the problem Pitt suspended bank payments in gold and silver, introduced paper money and issued captured Spanish silver dollars as legal tender from March 1797. These were overstruck with the head of King George, leading one wit to rhyme:

  The Bank to make their dollars pass

  Stamped the head of a fool on the neck of an Ass.

  Nelson’s operation in Tenerife was intended to find treasure to meet the crisis. It would be difficult, but if successful, with ‘six or seven million pounds sterling … thrown into circulation in England, it would ensure an honourable peace’.19 It would also knock Spain out of the war. These were the stakes for which Nelson would gamble his life, and those of his men.

  In the mean time, however, there was always a risk that the new Spanish admiral, Gravina, would give battle once Nelson had left, so he paid minute attention to local intelligence. On 13 June the non-appearance of his regular vegetable boat persuaded him they were coming out,20 but still they did not come. Hoping to round off the season with the treasure ships, he retailed the latest congratulatory verses and seamen’s messages to Fanny. She must have begun to tire of phrases such as ‘The imperious call of honour to serve my country is the only thing which keeps me a moment from you’, especially when combined with the news that Jervis would be unwilling to let him go even in the autumn. He hoped for riches, but advised her not to bank on them when buying the ‘little cottage’ somewhere in Norfolk to which he hoped to return.21

  To keep the men occupied Jervis and Nelson agreed to bombard Cadiz, using their sole mortar vessel, the Thunder. After a sanguinary boat action on the night of 3 July, in which Nelson provided vital leadership when the British boats faltered, some damage was done. However, the means were altogether inadequate and with the Spanish fully alerted Jervis admitted defeat, withdrawing Nelson’s squadron on 14 July.

  As the bombardment had been abandoned it was time to seek out the Mexican treasure convoy. Nelson and Troubridge planned a combined operation with four thousand troops, similar in concept to the operation at Capraja. Their scheme was based on sound intelligence. Scouting and cutting-out operations around the Canary Islands encouraged Jervis to fall in with Nelson’s plan. He was given three seventy-fours, three frigates, a cutter, and a small mortar boat, and their captains were among the best of Jervis’s protégés – Troubridge, Hood, Bowen and Fremantle. Jervis didn’t bother to tell Spencer about the operation until early August, when he stressed there was no idea of keeping Tenerife.22

  Their target was a large merchant ship and her cargo, which Nelson thought might have been landed. Unfortunately the local defences were in good repair, and adequately manned by 800 professional soldiers, 110 French sailors and 700 local militia. The Commandant General of the Islands, Don Antonio Gutierrez, was an experienced officer, unlikely to collapse in face of British bravado.

  En route for Tenerife, Nelson called his captains to conference four times; he remained Lord Hood’s man at heart. His final plan, as at Capraja, was to land at a distance from the enemy, secure a commanding position and send in an ultimatum. Over nine hundred seamen and marines were to be put ashore in a carefully planned operation. The night landing on 22 July was hampered by heavy weather, and when the alarm was raised ashore Troubridge, in tactical command, hesitated and went back to consult Nelson just when he should have pushed on. It was a rare failure for so bold and
enterprising a man. A second attempt to capture higher ground in broad daylight left the men roasted by the sun, and then dismayed to find they had climbed the wrong hill. They retreated in bad humour.

  Now Nelson faced a hard decision: he could admit defeat and sail away, or try again. After a twenty-four-hour delay for bad weather and another Council of War, he elected to launch a frontal assault on a well-defended town at night, basing the decision on the report of a Prussian deserter and the local knowledge of Thomas Thompson, captain of the newly arrived Leander. All the officers knew this would be a desperate affair, and Nelson was not going to let anyone else lead it. Failure was possible, but not until he had tried himself. Knowing the risks were great, he deliberately burnt the letters from his wife.

  In attempting an assault on well-prepared shore defences from the sea, at night and with only small arms, the British were relying on surprise to unsettle the defenders. If the Spaniards stood to their guns and defended their positions until daybreak, the attack must fail. Around midnight the boats went in, planning to land on the Mole and storm the central castle. Inevitably strong currents dispersed the boats and the men came ashore in a variety of locations. Once roused, the Spaniards produced a terrific volume of fire that stalled the attack in all areas. The operation had failed.

  Nelson himself never reached the shore. As he was preparing to land from the Seahorse’s barge, a musket ball shattered his right arm just above the elbow. With a major artery cut through, he could have bled to death, but his stepson Josiah quickly staunched the flow and applied a tourniquet. This act, which Nelson acknowledged had saved his life, was heavily featured in Clarke and McArthur’s official life. It distracted attention from the failed attack, and ensured Fanny could give her son some credit.

  Although badly wounded Nelson remained perfectly calm, deliberately placing his uncle’s fighting sword in his left hand. The sword was a talisman that he always carried into battle, until he forgot to buckle it on on the fateful anniversary of Suckling’s triumph. The barge now carried Nelson back to the squadron. A small force that gathered on the Mole were pinned down by heavy fire. When the officers tried to lead them forward they were hit: Richard Bowen was killed, Fremantle and Thompson were wounded. The Spanish officers had placed their cannon well; at such short range, blasts of canister shot were devastatingly effective.

  While the landing force had been large enough, it had not arrived together, nor had the whole force actually landed. Some boats sheered off when faced with a rocky shoreline and heavy fire. As a result the attacks were on a small scale and easily broken up. After sunrise on 25 July Hood and Troubridge managed to extricate the force ashore from a desperate situation, but only by admitting defeat and promising not to come back.

  Josiah had taken Nelson back to the fleet, although the admiral insisted on stopping to rescue men from the cutter Fox, which sank suddenly. He also refused to board the Seahorse for treatment, as Fremantle’s wife was on board and he had no news of her husband. Arriving alongside the Theseus, he refused to be carried aboard, using his left arm to climb up to the companion way. Once there he told the surgeon to prepare his instruments, as he knew the arm must be amputated. ‘He underwent the operation with the same firmness and courage that have always marked his character’, reported midshipman Hoste – although that did not prevent Nelson recalling the terrible sensation of cold steel cutting into living flesh. Within an hour he was back at work, signing, with his left hand, a demand for the Spaniards to capitulate and surrender the Manilla galleon. It was never sent. Instead, the Theseus came under fire from the shore batteries, cut her cable and stood out to sea.

  Nelson’s state of mind at this point can hardly be imagined. Mutilated and in agony, he was uncertain of the situation ashore, but well aware that the signs were not good. As the shore party marched away with their arms Gutierrez allowed them to think they had been defeated by eight thousand troops, a neat piece of disinformation that would reinforce Hood’s promise not to return, and quickly became part of the Tenerife legend. Had the garrison been so large it must have been known before the attack, and condemned the operation as insane.

  Until the men were safely back afloat Nelson’s professional concern for duty masked his inner feelings, but once he had finished bolstering the morale of his juniors he gave way to the inevitable shock and depression. His first thoughts were to explain the failure to Jervis. Characteristically he made no mention of the Councils of War, or the advice of others, taking full responsibility while praising the heroism of his followers. This was greatness in adversity. It explains why so many men wanted to follow him. Under his guidance, they would be able to use their skill and contribute to the planning, without being held to blame, even in private, if things went wrong.

  To his report, he attached an early example of his left hand at work. ‘I am become a burthen to my friends and useless to my Country … When I leave your command I become dead to the world; I go hence and am no more seen.’23 It was not surprising that he should close with a paraphrase of Psalm 39, which had just been read over the dead at the burial service; it was a familiar refrain from the life of a clergyman’s son, and all the more affecting from the number of his closest friends who had been killed. Jervis’s protégé Bowen was a terrible loss, while one of Nelson’s own favourites, Lieutenant John Weatherhead, shot in the stomach, could not live.

  It took nearly three weeks to get back to the fleet off Cadiz, time that hung heavy on his mind. Desperate for moral support he turned to Jervis, who rose to the challenge, opening his reply with the matchless phrase, ‘Mortals cannot command success: you and your companions have certainly deserved it, by the greatest degree of heroism and perseverance that ever was exhibited.’ He added the promise of a ship home, promotion for Josiah and further rumours of imminent peace to lessen the blow of leaving.24 He took full responsibility for the attack in his public report, and wrote to Fanny to report that Nelson had added considerably to his laurels, while his wound was not dangerous.25 This was at once great and considerate.

  Four days later Nelson shifted across to join Fremantle and the other invalids on the Seahorse. He was going home for the first time in five long years. This was not how he had envisaged his homecoming – hero of the battle and commander of detached squadrons. He should have come back in glory, with prizes and plunder, not mutilated and surrounded by reminders of his greatest failure.26

  The last letter written by Nelson with his right hand, and (opposite) the first letter written with his left hand

  Having dealt with the professional consequences of defeat, Nelson wrote to Fanny, expressing the hope that she would be pleased by a left-handed letter, and a claim he was ‘never better’ – a phrase that hardly did justice to his physical or mental state. He praised Josiah’s actions, and trusted his country would not leave him without pecuniary reward. On reaching the fleet, he added a few lines to report that he was ‘perfectly well’, and that Jervis had promoted Josiah to the rank of Master and Commander. In reality he was deeply depressed, and in great pain.

  Nelson would have been comforted had he read Jervis’s correspondence with Spencer. The two Earls were already taking a dangerous pleasure in discussing their remarkable new admiral. St Vincent was anxious that the First Lord did not think Nelson had been permanently crippled: he had returned from Tenerife ‘in such health that nothing could prevent his coming on board the Ville de Paris … I have very good ground of hope that he will be restored to the service of his king and country.’27

  Dark as the horizon must have seemed, Tenerife had not harmed Nelson’s career: as long as he made a full recovery from his wound he could return to service. His days at the head of the boarding party were now past, but he would always find brave men to fill that role. It would be as a fleet commander and strategist that he would establish his reputation as Britain’s greatest admiral.

  *

  Landing at Portsmouth on 1 September, Nelson was immediately back in contact with his admi
rers. Commander in Chief Sir Peter Parker had made him a captain, while the cheering crowds testified to his fame. Arriving in Bath, he found that this phenomenon was not confined to the dockyard towns: civic greetings competed for his attention with glowing letters from Hood and Clarence. Within a month he was anxious to return to sea, but still suffering from the slow healing of his amputation. In constant pain, he required opium to sleep. Consequently, when Locker persuaded him to sit for a portrait, to meet popular demand, the face that Lemuel Abbott captured was ravaged by pain. It was also focused and powerful. This was no boyish enthusiast, it was a man of war, a man who had tasted victory and defeat, loss and suffering.28

  Although the amputation had been hurried, it was a silk ligature, tying off an artery, that caused the problem. These were meant to come away as the artery withered, and one of the two in Nelson’s wound did so; the other hung on far longer, possibly attached to a sinew, but the only cure for the pain it caused was time. When the rogue ligature finally came away in early December, Nelson requested that his local church make reference to his thanksgiving. He rewarded the young surgeon who had dressed his wound by making him surgeon of his flagship the following year.