Nelson: Britannia's God of War

by Andrew Lambert

  Nelson was further angered by a new Admiralty complaint, alleging that he had not kept them fully informed of events. In response, he reminded the Board that he lacked the secretarial staff and extra pay of a regular Commander in Chief, and yet dealt with the greatest naval and political correspondence that fell to any senior officer. He never relaxed before 8 p.m. and rarely went ashore.17 The dishonest conduct of Austria, Russian ambition and the hopeless sloth of Naples were making his task almost impossible: ‘I am nearly blind, but things go so contrary to my mind out of our profession, that truly I care not how soon I am off the stage.’18

  To make matters worse, just when he wanted to focus on Malta, Nelson had to respond to the complete failure of the Russian fleet to secure trade or cooperate with the allied army on the Tuscan coast. Despite the fact that the Admiralty had so reduced his force that there were no spare ships, Nelson had to ensure a British presence.19 With ships and troops committed to the siege of Malta Nelson detached a squadron to the Tuscan coast. Henry Blackwood was sent in the frigate Penelope to watch for the Combined Fleet between Cape Spartel and Cape St Vincent. If the fleet was sighted he was to retreat, informing Gibraltar, Minorca and Malta.20

  Minorca was the appointed rendezvous for the newly re-introduced Italian convoys.21 Once Leghorn, the greatest market for naval stores in the Mediterranean, was recovered Nelson directed the Port Mahon naval yard to buy stores.22There were too few ships for the tasks in hand, while those that were available were almost all in need of refit. His best hope was that the new Consulate in France would mean peace.23 This news followed the escape of Bonaparte from Egypt, which Nelson regretted. In a total war it was necessary that the French should all die in Egypt. Similar strategic concerns underpinned his views on belligerent rights at sea, an issue he would have occasion to fight over in less than eighteen months.

  I should be very sorry to see the doctrine established that free ships make free goods. Last war the circumstances of our situation forced us to acquiesce; but this war we take enemy property, wherever we find it.24

  Such property provided the only good news of the month, rich prizes had been taken off Cape Finisterre by a frigate squadron at least in part under his orders. Davison was to press his claim.25 It would take years, and two court cases, before St Vincent, who had hauled down his flag long before the action, would pay up.

  In his anxiety to get on at Malta Troubridge put the Culloden ashore again, but Nelson was more concerned to exploit the latest intelligence haul, which showed how desperate the French Egyptian army had become for money and ammunition, and that their ships hugged the North African coast. It also indicated another sortie by the Combined Fleet.26 Writing home he excused Troubridge’s error, and hoped pressure from the land side would force the French squadron to leave Valletta.27 Although the newly appointed Commander in Chief Lord Keith shared much of his analysis, he was unduly pessimistic.28

  Once again Nelson relied on Troubridge to infuse some energy into the critical point of the campaign, and he did not disappoint. Finding promised Neapolitan food supplies for the Maltese were not forthcoming, Sir Thomas could not stand back while men starved. Attributing Neapolitan inaction to treachery, he had grain ships seized from a Sicilian harbour on 5 January. Nelson had tried to help, but he could not cut through the obfuscation of Palermo with the same weapons that Troubridge deployed. While admitting ‘nothing is well done in this country’, he begged Troubridge to be more discreet: perhaps he could restrict his seizures to the open seas?29 The Neapolitans were told that Troubridge had merely anticipated their King’s orders.30 Troubridge’s agitated state of mind and hatred of the Neapolitans were reflected when he begged Emma not to spend so much time playing cards, as rumours were already reaching the fleet, to the detriment of Nelson’s good name.31

  Aware that Keith was coming to take command, Nelson briefed him on the key issues: lack of seaworthy ships, with only two battleships fit to face the winter, and the pressing need to get Ferdinand back to Naples. He stressed that the key to the theatre was the loyalty of King Ferdinand. He also stressed that he expected to remain on station, ‘as I have been particularly placed here for the service of the King of Naples’.32 On 16 January Foudroyant sailed for Leghorn, arriving on the 20th to meet Keith.

  By stressing his particular relationship with the Bourbon court, Nelson had prepared his case for an early return to England if he was thwarted. While Keith was his superior in rank, he lacked the human and professional qualities that Nelson so admired in great admirals like Hood and St Vincent. Because Keith so obviously lacked the political courage and naval judgement to be his superior officer, Nelson found his demotion hard to bear. It also broke the link with Hamilton, who was no longer privy to his movements, because they were no longer Nelson’s to determine.33 He could not even go ashore on his own authority.34 Nelson was attracted by the prospect of rejoining St Vincent’s flag: the old Earl was now fully restored to health, with almost suspicious speed, and in command of the Channel fleet. St Vincent, too, hoped that Nelson would soon return to England, along with Troubridge, who was to be Captain of the Fleet.35

  On his arrival at Palermo, Keith took a rather more robust line with the King, promising to come back only after Ferdinand had returned to Naples, as Palermo ‘lay out of our way’.36 It sounded clever, but did no good. Nelson, Keith and the squadron sailed from Palermo with reinforcements for Malta on 12 February. No sooner had they arrived than Nelson ignored Keith’s orders, following his own opinion that the best position in which to intercept a French relief force was off the Barbary coast. He promptly fell in with the enemy flagship, the seventy-four Le Genereux which was being pursued by other ships. Nelson exploited the superior sailing of his flagship to catch her off Cape Passaro on the Sicilian coast on 18 February. The French, demoralised by the death of their admiral, surrendered after firing a single broadside for the sake of honour.37

  To Nelson’s astonishment, Keith did not betray a flicker of emotion on hearing of this success, and promptly put the young Scots nobleman Lord Cochrane into the prize. Nelson sent Admiral Perree’s flag to the Neapolitan Prince Leopold, destined for a naval career, and the French ensign to the City of Norwich, to join the sword sent after Cape St Vincent.38

  Conscious that his disobedience might be another cause for censure, he sent his journal to Spencer – both to demonstrate that without his unilateral action the French ship would have escaped,39 and in the hope that this new success would secure Maurice’s promotion.40

  Nelson’s immediate reward was the command of the Malta blockade, issued with the offensive instruction that Syracuse, or almost anywhere other than Palermo, must be his base. With this proviso, he was left to his own devices.41 Keith clearly had no man management skills: he had garnished a severe demotion with a personal insult. Nelson knew far better than Keith that Palermo was not the best base for the Malta operation. He had used it under very different circumstances, while serving as theatre commander. Evidently Keith had been influenced by the gossip about Nelson’s infatuation with Emma, and the deleterious effect this was having on the service.

  If Keith’s actions were inept, then Nelson did not help his own case with his response. Ill and exhausted, he requested a few weeks of leave in Palermo with his friends, while the Foudroyant had a refit. He pointedly promised to leave Troubridge, his own choice for the post, in command off Malta.42 By naming Palermo, Nelson gave the impression that he was anxious to get back into Emma’s boudoir. In reality, he was only using the opportunity of Keith’s arrival to release himself from the exhaustion and tension that had been exacerbated by the impossibility of delegating his authority. And where else was he supposed to go to get the rest he had so handsomely earned than to the house of his only friends in the Mediterranean? This much was obvious from his letter to Hamilton the following day.43

  It was clear to all concerned that Nelson’s ailments had their origin in chagrin. Hamilton, who had lived with him for the past seventeen month
s, stressed that he had been deeply upset by Keith’s orders, ‘but he had wisdom enough to swallow the pill for the good of the service of his King and Country … I never met with his equal’. Ball knew Nelson had earned his rest: ‘we shall not meet such another – such rare qualities seldom combine in one person.’44 Nelson explained the prolem to an old professional friend in more practical terms. Being superseded had taken ‘from me all opportunity of my rewarding merit and obliging my friends’.45 Consequently he was ill – but he assured Spencer he would answer the call to battle.46

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  On 18 March, while on passage to Palermo, Nelson experienced chest pains that convinced him he was close to death. Since there were no physical symptoms evident when his organs were examined, the ailment was almost certainly psychosomatic.47 However, this did not prevent him from venting his feelings in bitterly ironic and somewhat melodramatic terms: he was ready to die at his post, if the Combined Fleet returned, ‘but we of the Nile are not equal to Lord Keith in his estimation, and ought to think it an honour to serve under such a clever man’.48 Despite his self-diagnosis, however, he did not plan to outstay his leave, and his flagship went back to Malta with orders to return to Palermo on 6 April.

  No sooner had the Foudroyant rejoined the blockade of Malta than she completed the task begun eighteen months before in Aboukir bay. The eighty-gun Guillaume Tell, the last French battleship left from Brueys’ fleet, was preparing to escape from Malta. She sailed at midnight on 29 March, keeping tight to the shore, but that consummate frigate captain Henry Blackwood took up the chase in HMS Penelope. When the chase began Foudroyant had been the most distant ship of the small squadron off the harbour, and Berry did not respond until given a direct order. Yet she made up the distance in the next six hours, demonstrating her speed, and Berry’s skilful ship-handling.

  By daybreak the Guillaume Tell had lost two topmasts and the mainyard to Blackwood’s skilful harassing fire, allowing the sixty-four HMS Lion to engage. Captain Dixon fired into her bow, but he did not risk engaging the much larger and more powerful ship broadside to broadside, while the ‘prodigious fire of musketry’ from her 1,200-man crew made close combat impossible. As Lion dropped back to repair her rigging Berry brought Foudroyant into action with that unique combination of courage and folly that marked his career. It was not without reason that Nelson, who valued him as a friend and an ardent warrior, called him a ‘blockhead’. Berry ran close alongside the French vessel and, without firing, summoned Rear Admiral Decrès to surrender. As Foudroyant ranged past, however, Decrès replied with two broadsides that reduced her rigging to the same state as his own. A chastened Berry then wore round and poured in two broadsides of double-headed shot before dropping back to repair his rigging and leaving Lion and Penelope to keep the French admiral busy. When Foudroyant returned, again at very close range, the battle continued for another ninety minutes, only ending when the French lost their foremast. Powerless to escape, Decrès surrendered. Foudroyant had lost eight killed, while the sixty wounded included Berry; the French, meanwhile, had lost two hundred men on the crowded ship.49 Admiral Decrès lived to play a further part in Nelson’s life, becoming Napoleon’s Navy Minister in 1804.

  In reporting the victory, Berry stressed how the ship’s company had wished their admiral present: ‘how we prayed for you, God knows’.50 Ball was anxious Nelson might be upset at missing the end of the French fleet. He need not have worried: Nelson was characteristically generous.51 He confessed that ‘I am vain enough to feel the effects of my school’, before complimenting ‘his’ ship: ‘I love her as a fond father, and glory in her deeds.’52 He was full of praise for Blackwood, too:

  My dear Blackwood,

  is there a sympathy which ties men together in the bonds of friendship without having a personal knowledge of each other? If so, (and, I believe it was so to you,) I was your friend and acquaintance before I saw you. Your conduct on the late glorious occasion stamps your fame beyond the reach of envy: it was like yourself.53

  On 4 April Nelson applied to the Admiralty for leave to return to England to regain his health.54 He was sick, and felt disgusted at the ingratitude of his own country and betrayed by the Neapolitan ministers. Moreover, Hamilton too would be leaving: twenty-nine-year-old Arthur Paget had been sent out, at very short notice, to replace the ageing minister. Rather than troubling himself to learn about Naples or cultivate its ministers, Paget relied on Consul Lock, lending further credence to the ‘Black Legend’ that had gained currency from Charles James Fox’s speech in the House of Commons in February. When Nelson learnt what Fox had said he was furious that his honour as a British officer had been impugned. Collecting the relevant papers to show that there had been no breach of faith, he sent them to Davison, with instructions to show them to George Rose, or some other minister, ‘and if you think right, you will put them in the [news]papers’.55

  On 24 April Nelson rejoined his ship, her battle damage repaired, and took passage for Malta via Syracuse. The Hamiltons were his guests and it was almost certainly on board, in late April, that his daughter Horatia was conceived – perhaps this is the meaning of his enigmatic communication to Fanny in June: ‘My health at times is better but a quiet mind and to give content is necessary for me. A very difficult thing for me to enjoy. I could say much but it would only distress me and be useless.’56 The squadron off Malta was delighted to see their talisman; Ball obviously spoke more than he knew when he told Emma that Nelson’s symptoms were ‘brought on by anxiety of mind, I therefore rejoice at your being on board, as I am sure you will exert your powers to keep up his spirits, and the worthy Sir William will contribute much to it.’ Despite his friendship with Emma, Ball had missed quite how intimate she and Nelson had become.57

  Back in London, meanwhile, Spencer had finally realised that Nelson was ill: he had secured royal authority in early May for Nelson to come home, fearful his ‘indifferent health’ would not be helped by staying at Palermo.58 He stressed to Nelson that he was not being recalled; indeed, Spencer would prefer that he stayed until Malta fell, but if this were not possible, he should recover his health in London rather ‘than in an inactive situation at a foreign court’.59 Nelson was quick to see the slight, intentional or otherwise, in Spencer’s choice of phrase. ‘I trust you and all my friends will believe, that mine cannot be an inactive life, although it may not carry all the outward parade of much ado about nothing.’60

  Exhausted by seven years of war, Nelson had hoped to go home in his flagship, which was also in need of repair. However, Lord Keith, under strict instructions from the Admiralty not to send any ships of the line home, ordered Nelson to leave her behind. Nelson had planned one last visit to Malta, before he departed the stage with the Hamiltons, escorting the Queen of Naples to Leghorn for a royal visit to Vienna.61 Keith, though, was concerned less with such diplomatic pleasantries than with the sudden shifts of fortune of the war in northern Italy: on 6 June Genoa fell to the allies after a long siege, but eight days later Bonaparte rendered the result irrelevant with his stunning, if fortunate victory at Marengo. The efforts of the Russians, Austrians and British over the past year were reduced to nothingness in a matter of hours. The Russians left the coalition, and the defeated Austrians signed an armistice and evacuated Piedmont, Liguria, the western half of Lombardy, Tuscany and Ancona. The brief period of Anglo-Austrian cooperation, and any hope of victory, was over. Even if Austria did not make peace, she would not resume the offensive. The rejection of Bonaparte’s peace offer began to look like a mistake. Having belatedly developed a real Mediterranean strategy, the ministers learnt in late June that it was all over.62

  While all this was unfolding, Nelson was on passage from Palermo to Leghorn, where he arrived on 15 June. Rather than oblige Nelson’s wish to go home in his flagship, Keith ordered every available unit to help the evacuation of Genoa. After they had left the Foudroyant, Nelson and the Hamiltons waited until the Queen set off overland on 10 July, following her route via Ancona
on the 12th. Far from relapsing into inactivity Nelson remained on duty to the day he landed.63

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  Nelson went home overland, which at least allowed him to accompany Emma, who was anxious to avoid a sea passage owing to her pregnancy. After a fraught and adventurous journey from Leghorn to Ancona, Nelson and the Hamiltons boarded a Russian frigate for a stormy passage to Trieste, which confirmed Nelson’s opinion of Russian ships and seamen. Once in Austrian territory the journey became a triumphal procession, through Slovenia and on to Vienna, where Nelson became the centre of attention: everyone was desperate to see him and to touch his garments. He became a public spectacle.

  The wealth, taste and sophistication that Nelson encountered in the Austrian capital cast the Court of Naples in a provincial light. Joseph Haydn had written a powerful ‘Mass in Time of Fear’ in D major in August 1798, which was first performed shortly after news of Nelson’s victory reached Austria. Another performance on the Esterházy estate at Eisenstadt in early September 1800, given in the presence of the hero, seems to have cemented its identification as the ‘Nelson Mass’. If it was not inspired by Nelson, the re-dedication was well earned, for Nelson had done so much to relieve the fear that prompted Haydn to produce one of his most powerful works. Haydn also set some English verses on the battle to music, and accompanied Emma when she sang them; this was probably more to Nelson’s taste than a Catholic mass.64

  Despite such entertainments, Nelson was subdued: the triumphal tour was, in reality, a rest cure for his shattered frame and exhausted mind. He wrote little and was happy to leave the performing to Sir William and the remarkable Emma, who fascinated everyone, including Haydn. For those whose ideas about public dignity were formed in the eighteenth century, there was something vulgar about the Nelson entourage, and about Emma’s dominating, expanding presence – to which some critics made pointed reference, not that they suspected she was pregnant. The whole procession seemed showy, and inappropriate. But the world had moved on since 1793: nations that wanted to mobilise their people needed heroes, and Nelson was the only contemporary hero to win his fame defeating the French. He could be lauded in the Habsburg lands because, as an admiral, his triumph did not threaten the fragile self-esteem of the insecure Emperor or his nervous court. Consequently, popular adulation greeted him in every town and city.