Nelson: Britannia's God of War
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The formation of the Armed Neutrality threatened to have an early and serious impact on naval stores, especially hemp, which would ‘make it necessary to economise our stores as much as possible’. Spencer issued a Circular order to economise, anxious to get the fleet in good order for the spring ‘when it is not improbable that we may have a more extended naval war on our hands than we have ever yet had’.8 St Vincent, meanwhile, was quick to recommend an admiral for the situation:
Should the Northern Powers continue their menacing posture, Sir Hyde Parker is the only man you have to face them. He is in possession of all the information obtained during the Russian armament [of 1791, when he was Hood’s chief of staff], more particularly that which relates to the navigation of the Great Belt; and the Victory will be a famous ship for him being by far the handiest I ever set my foot in, sailing remarkably fast and being of easy draft of water.9
The recently expelled British Minister in St Petersburg, Lord Whit-worth, reported that the Russian fleet totalled forty-five battleships, but only seven or eight were in tolerably good order: some had broken backs, and the rest were hardly seaworthy, needing serious repairs.10
By the New Year the issue had come to a head. Secretary for War Henry Dundas feared for the West Indies, and requested the Admiralty watch for Scandinavian ships leaving the Baltic.11 The situation was complicated by a shift in the Russian position. For the Tsar, Malta was the key: after the Russians had been excluded from the occupation, he embargoed British shipping, and by December Bonaparte was flattering Paul, who was treating for peace with France. The Russian shift alarmed Denmark and Sweden, whose diplomats proposed a compromise settlement of the neutral rights issue, but Foreign Secretary Grenville was prepared to use force to uphold the British interpretation. To concede anything would be a sign of weakness that could not be afforded by a nation standing alone against France and relying on seapower for her security and success: ‘if we give way to them we may as well disarm our navy at once.’ On 16 December, Grenville declared that it was better to fight, and ‘though some temporary alarm will arise as to our commerce, we shall give more animation to the feelings of the Country, and go on, upon the whole, quite as easily as we should without it’.12 This message was conveyed to the ministers of the neutral courts at Berlin on 28 December 1800, and three days later the King’s speech at the opening of Parliament made the issue public:
If it shall become necessary to maintain against any combination, the honour and the independence of the British Empire, and those maritime rights and interests on which both our prosperity and our security must always essentially depend, I entertain no doubt either of the success of those means which, in such an event, I shall be enabled to exert, or of the determination of My Parliament and My People to afford Me a support proportioned to the importance of the interests which We have to maintain.13
By then it was too late. The neutrals had signed a convention in St Petersburg on 16-17 December, and this was ratified in early January. Their action was confirmed in London on 13 January 1801 by the Danish minister. Britain had to respond vigorously. Secretary for War Henry Dundas reviewed the Cabinet papers, and sent his thoughts on the situation to the Admiralty. His view of the Baltic was conditioned by the wider problems of the war.
We must all agree that [we] have now the greatest stake to contend for that ever called forth the exertions of this country … the great trial of strength must be in the course of the ensuing summer, but that as to all Baltick operations the game is lost, which alone can make success certain, if we are not able to have a powerful fleet there the moment it is accessible, with the professed object of annihilating the confederacy of the North by the capture or destruction of the Danish Fleet.
He was well aware that the French armies were largely unemployed, and could be used to attack British interests anywhere in Europe; they might even be shipped to the Cape of Good Hope, the West Indies and Minorca. He called for a redistribution of naval forces to meet the danger. The French and Spanish battleships at Brest would be covered by St Vincent with sixteen three-deckers and eighteen seventy-fours, ‘leaving two eightys and ten seventy-fours for the service of the Baltick and the North Sea’. This would be enough, by early March,
to capture or destroy the whole of the Danish fleet. That accomplished the contest is over, and we will then have the power of transmitting ... the knowledge of this splendid truth, that Great Britain contending for its maritime rights is a match for the whole naval force of the world combined against them ... In our Baltick operations we stand in a different predicament from that we do in every other. In others we are upon the defensive and our force will be sufficient if we are able to cripple the efforts of our enemy so as to baffle their hostile attempts, but in the Baltick we must act with vigor on the offensive, for it is on such an exertion that the whole contest turns ... the force for the Baltick should havethe first preference, and be of a nature so commanding as to leave no room for doubts of success.
To hasten preparations, the Admiralty was advised to use ships not thoroughly repaired, as they only had to last the summer.14
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The fleet for the Baltic campaign had to be drawn from St Vincent’s Channel fleet, which was reduced to meet the emergency, despite the presence of over forty French and Spanish ships at Brest. This also freed both Nelson and Admiral Sir Hyde Parker to join the campaign. St Vincent had recommended Parker as Commander in Chief largely to get him out of the Channel, though his rank and experience of fleet command, backed by Captain of the Fleet William Domett’s mastery of fleet administration, promised a solid base for the campaign.15 The old Earl was royally hoist on his own petard, however, when he became First Lord of the Admiralty before the fleet sailed: he ended up relying on a man he did not respect to execute the most demanding mission that had fallen to a British admiral. Nelson was ordered to hoist his flag at Plymouth on 9 January.16
Nelson had served under Hyde Parker before, in the brief period between Hotham going ashore and Jervis arriving, and he had not enjoyed the experience. In the intervening period, Sir Hyde had commanded in the West Indies and made his fortune. He had earned a reputation for energy and skill in his youth, but these qualities had not survived into middle age, while he was never overblessed with strategic insight or political courage. At sixty-one, Parker was a fussy, rather old-fashioned man; his mercurial subordinate was forty-two. The older man belonged to the limited wars of the eighteenth century, the younger to the total conflicts of the freshly opened nineteenth. Nelson was an obvious choice for the Baltic campaign, but in case the Baltic nations decided to avoid the blow – as they had as recently as August 1800, when Denmark backed down – he would be kept in reserve, behind the more conciliatory Parker.
The choice of officers and ships for the fleet was influenced by the requirement for local knowledge and smaller, older ships. Parker’s flagship HMS London had been in service nearly fifty years, while the bulk of the seventy-fours dated back to the last war. These ships drew between one and two feet less water than the new, larger ships then serving in the Channel. This would be critical to effective operations against Baltic harbours like Revel and Copenhagen; and since a direct attack on such fortified places would be costly, it also helped that they were expendable. Regular units were supported by odd packets like the ex-East India merchant ships Glatton and Ardent, Human resources were very tight: the increased demands made by this extra squadron, and the consequent need for the existing North Sea fleet to keep the Dutch squadron covered, became evident when Rear Admiral Totty’s short-handed flagship, the seventy-four Invincible, ran onto a shoal off Yarmouth and was lost with over half her crew.
During this period the Admiralty, prompted by Hyde Parker, selected a stream of captains and junior officers with local knowledge. George Murray had navigated the Great Belt, so he had to leave the large new seventy-four Achilles for the small, old Edgar17 while officers like Nicholas Tomlinson and Frederick Thesiger who had Russian experience volu
nteered for the campaign. Spencer consulted a number of officers about the demands of the theatre, receiving a very thorough reply from Hyde Parker. Leaving the Admiralty to determine how many battleships would be required, from the latest intelligence, Parker urged the need for a powerful flotilla, and six floating batteries to support smaller ships like gunboats and bomb vessels in shoal water, or attack ‘low batteries or ships in a mole, or confined navigation’.18 He also required six or eight good sailing armed cutters or luggers as dispatch boats, or as beacons on rocks and shoals. ‘With these assistants I cannot but conceive the fleet will be able to make its way against every opposition the enemy can throw.’19 Lieutenant Thesiger stressed the need for flotilla craft to deal with an enemy galley fleet, and to anchor over shoals. He was confident fireships could be used at Revel, where the harbour was made of wood, while Cronstadt was exposed to attack by bomb vessels.20
On 17 January Nelson and St Vincent, now First Lord of the Admiralty, discussed the prospect of the Baltic campaign at Plymouth. Anxious not to lose his new flagship, or the chance of the Mediterranean command, Nelson called for ten thousand troops to seize the Danish arsenal.21 On the same day, Nelson was moved into the small three-decker HMS St George and placed under Parker’s orders; the following day he was ordered to Spithead.22 St Vincent, declaring that ‘Lord Nelson will act the fighting part well’,23 was anxious to have him back in the Channel –‘the moment the business at Copenhagen is finished, the rest will be children’s play.’24
While Nelson conducted his duties with his usual enthusiasm, hisprivate thoughts were in turmoil. He had been happy to escape to sea, and was determined not to go back to Fanny. ‘She is a great fool,’ he told Emma; ‘and, thank God, you are not the least bit like her.’25 In truth Nelson was the fool: Emma was playing on his emotions by suggesting that the Prince of Wales was interested in adding her to his list of mistresses. The combination of joy at the birth of his daughter, and fear that he might lose his muse, prompted a daily ritual of letter writing that had been expressly forbidden by Fleet Physician Dr Trotter, who was trying to cure his ophthalmia.26 He swore before heaven that he would make her his wife as soon as it was possible and begged, ‘Let us be happy, that is in our power.’27 His agony continued, though: ‘Do not, I beseech you risk being at home. Does Sir William want you to be a whore to the rascal (The Prince of Wales)?’ For his part, Nelson declared ‘I might be trusted with fifty virgins naked in a dark room.’ He was not going to change his mind whatever happened.28
His mood improved only when he found more immediate concerns to occupy his mind. On 27 January the appointments of Hyde Parker and Nelson were made public, and by the end of the month, bomb vessels, flat boats and other minor war vessels were being prepared. Ships set aside for the Baltic were ordered to stay close to home, and Parker was released from the Channel fleet.29 The Foreign Office reported Danish opinion that Russia wanted to dominate the Baltic, while the Swedish fleet was old, but remained effectives.30 Nelson was quick to gather intelligence on Danish defences from General Simcoe, who had given a good deal of thought to the subject.31 However, Parker did not share his intelligence, treating Nelson with a degree of high-handed disdain that offended his sense of how the service should be conducted, as well as his concept of politeness. The relationship only began to thaw when Parker found he needed Nelson’s unique talents.
Someone else was looking to these talents to solve a problem. St Vincent was less confident about the campaign than he claimed in public: unless Hyde Parker had twenty thousand good troops under a proven general, he feared, ‘he will do nothing. You know as well as I do that shells thrown from ships are impotent weapons, and will be laughed at when the first consternation is over.’32 He was beginning to have second thoughts about Parker. The new Admiralty Board was sworn in on 20 February, and met immediately. St Vincent and Troubridge were the key players, while the Admiralty Secretary Sir Evan Nepean had been St Vincent’s secretary back in the 1770s. Nelson used his privileged relationship with the Earl and Troubridge to hasten the assembly of the fleet, and get it sent to sea.33 The Board thanked Simcoe for his information, but there were nowhere near enough troops for him to be appointed. Instead the War Office detailed 781 officers and men of the 49th regiment and 114 from the Rifle company, under Lieutenant Colonel William Stewart, for this‘highly important expedition’.34
By late February the Foreign Secretary admitted that the Northern courts were refusing to recognise the ancient rights of the British Flag. The King was anxious to avoid the necessity of war, but with Denmark and Sweden actively preparing, Britain could wait no longer. The fleet would be sent to support the negotiation ‘& to bring it to a speedy and satisfactory conclusion’. If the Danes rejected British demands, ‘then assert and vindicate without further delay the rights and dignity of His Crown, & if practicable to capture and to destroy the Navy and weaken as much as possible the maritime resources of Denmark in the Port of Copenhagen, or wherever they may be found and can be attacked.’ It would require no fewer than twenty battleships, and smaller craft in proportion, ‘to destroy the Arsenal of Copenhagen with the whole of the shipping in that Port.’ Parker could accept the surrender of the fleet, shipping and arsenal in lieu of an attack.35
Nelson secured three days’ leave in London, which he used to see his daughter, while Hyde Parker left London for Great Yarmouth on 26 February, and continued collecting charts, local experts, pilots and flotilla craft. Nelson went back to Spithead to hurry the fleet round to the rendezvous.36 ‘Time, my dear Lord, is our best Ally, and I hope we shall not give her up, as all our Allies have given us up.’ He found Parker nervous about dark nights and fields of ice, but took comfort from St Vincent’s approval. On 2 March Nelson left for Yarmouth with the bulk of the squadron and the troops. He had finally settled his private affairs, writing to Emma as ‘My own dear wife, for such you are in my eyes and in the face of heaven’. Three days later he told Fanny that he wished to be left alone, and though he continued to fret about the prospect of princely interest in his ‘wife’ duty quickly became the main focus of his attention.37 A despairing letter to St Vincent, speaking of this being his last campaign, prompted an upbeat reply from a master of man-management: ‘every public act of your life has been the subject of my admiration’.38
Once at sea, however, Nelson focused his penetrating intellect on the campaign ahead. He had no doubt the Baltic navies lacked tactical skill, and reckoned he would beat them with no more than two thirds of their force. Arriving at Yarmouth on 7 March, Nelson was horrified to find Hyde Parker planning a ball: his letters to Troubridge and St Vincent generated a stinging rebuke for the Commander in Chief. St Vincent demanded that he leave immediately, both to refute rumours that he was delaying over trifles, which would create an ‘irreparable injury’ to his reputation, and because ‘there are many, very many important questions that must be determined entirely by the prompt and vigorous execution of your orders’.39 Hyde Parker sailed the next morning, missing his ball.40 Anxious to master the issues, Nelson was appalled to find Parker would not share intelligence on the Copenhagen defences with him, and was reduced to begging Nepean to let him have Baltic charts.41 He quickly identified the Captain of the Fleet, Domett, and Flag Captain Otway as cautious and unimpressive men who exacerbated Parker’s indecision.42 Nor was he amused to be given command of the van, with a pair of feeble sixty-fours to support his flagship.43
Two days later, fresh instructions from the Secretary of State for War shifted the focus eastward. Mild weather would allow the Baltic fleet to proceed sooner, and it was to head for the ports of Russia (particularly Revel) as soon as the current service would admit. Whether the Danish negotiations ended in peace or war, Parker was to proceed to Revel as soon as he had finished work at Copenhagen, locate the Russian division, and ‘make an immediate and vigorous attack upon the same, provided this measure … would afford a reasonable prospect of success in destroying the arsenal or in capturing and/or destroyin
g the ships without exposing to too great a risk the fleet under his command’. He was then to act successively against Cronstadt and the other ports of Russia, capture and destroy ships and annoy the enemy as far as possible, given usages of war. If the Swedes persisted he was to attack them also.44 Sent on 15 March, the instructions reached Parker on the 24th, in the midst of a crisis about his route and purpose.45
Hyde Parker had favoured waiting for the Baltic fleets to come out into the Skaw for a battle, while Nelson was anxious to get at the Russians, whom he saw as head and heart of the conspiracy – he understood Russian aims and their seamanship from his time in the Mediterranean. Nelson pressed Parker to move. Time was of the essence, and he was in no doubt that the fleet should pass the Sound, anchor before Copenhagen and support the efforts of the diplomats to find a peaceful solution. War or peace, it must be quick.46 The diplomatic mission of Nicholas Vansittart and William Drummond was not going well, however. The Danish Foreign Minister Count Bernstorff, whom they met on 14 March, proved immovable, despite their promises and threats: ‘The Count answered that the appearance of a British Fleet would make no difference in their resolutions.’47 He also refused to accept their credentials unless the British embargo of Danish trade was removed. Their mission ended with Bernstorff’s note of 16 March, so offensive in language and principles ‘as to leave little doubt of the hostile determinations of the Danish Government ’.48