Nelson: Britannia's God of War

by Andrew Lambert

  Villeneuve, meanwhile, had initially headed west for a rendezvous with the Rochefort squadron, but the presence of British cruisers, false news of a fleet nearby and numerous neutral ships reporting the British in strength to the north quickly changed his mind. He set course for Cadiz; the invasion plans of Bonaparte were over, his fleet was demoralised, her admiral already beaten and the allies bickering over who was to blame.

  Arriving off Cadiz on 19 August, the Combined Fleet found Collingwood, forewarned from Lisbon, with three battleships and a frigate. Collingwood neatly stepped aside to allow them into Cadiz while covering the Straits. Once the enemy was in port he resumed his station, denying them access to food, naval stores and even sea-based intelligence. This was bold, but entirely in character. Bickerton sent his ships from off Cartagena: they arrived on 28 August, and Calder joined with eighteen more two days later. The enemy were now in a worse position than they had been in April. There were close on forty ships at Cadiz, but little food, and few stores. They were trapped by a force perfectly capable of knocking back any sortie, and demoralised from top to bottom.

  Had Nelson, Barham, and the sound doctrine of the service defeated the most ambitious attempt ever made to invade England, or exposed the most outrageous bluff in the history of war? Bonaparte would assert both arguments on different occasions: the verdict on the real nature of the French schemes must remain open.

  *

  Never one to waste a scrap of information, Nelson continued to make notes on winds and currents as he headed north. When he reached the Grand Fleet, Cornwallis was expecting him, and sent word that he was not to stop, or to think of boarding the flagship so late in the day. ‘I am truly sorry that you have not had your accustomed good luck in falling in with the enemy. I believe that was all that anyone wished for, being perfectly satisfied what the consequence would be.’13 Victory and Superb were ordered to Spithead, while the rest of the squadron stayed with the Grand Fleet. Another old friend, Thomas Fremantle, commanding the ninety-eight-gun Neptune, understood what Nelson needed:

  You will, on your arrival in England find everyone disposed to do you entire credit, and at no period according to my judgement did you ever stand higher in the estimation of the public, and indeed we are much in want of all the ability the country canfind.14

  The combination of friendly words and the high praise appearing in the press must have speeded Nelson’s recovery. His ailments were produced by stress and anxiety, not physical illness. He was relieved of anxiety about his reception at home, and knew that the enemy had not escaped. He trusted Cornwallis and Collingwood to finish the job, if he could not. It would be a far happier man who stepped off the Victory at Portsmouth.

  On leaving for home Nelson thanked the officers and men of the squadron that had served him so well. He did not criticise Calder, but paraphrased the line St Vincent had sent him after Tenerife and Boulogne, that ‘men cannot command success’.15 Once he had been through the papers, they went across to Keats, with an invitation to dine. The two ships reached Spithead on 18 August, and went into quarantine the following day. The crews were in excellent health, requiring only vegetables and other refreshments to remove the scurvy. Nelson arrived at Merton early on20 August, and was immediately summoned to London.16 The day was occupied by meetings at the Admiralty, at Downing Street and at his prize agents, to see how his various outstanding cases were progressing.

  News of Nelson’s return spread quickly. Clarence called on 22 August, while old Lord Hood praised his handling of the campaign, and predicted he would soon be back at sea. Keats passed on his assessment of the public mood: ‘all classes unite in one sentiment of admiration for your Lordship’s judicious and persevering conduct’.17 Nelson in turn praised Keats’ judgement and courage, and reported that the ministers looked on him as some sort of conjuror. Despite the public acclaim, Nelson remained uncertain of his future: he was a Commander in Chief on leave, and the likelihood of his going back increased by the day.18 Hood, still a confidant of Pitt, was convinced the enemy had gone to the Mediterranean, or to Cadiz. If so, Nelson would soon be back at sea.19

  Although Pitt and Secretary for War Lord Castlereagh were anxious to see Nelson, Lord Barham was more reserved. He had not seen much of the hero since the 1780s, and was only won over when he read the journal of his campaign. The Admiralty required flag officers to keep a journal of proceedings, in which both their actions and their reasons were laid out. Barham recognised the breadth and penetration of Nelson’s intellect, the wisdom of his decisions, the infinite pains he had taken to catch the enemy and his political insight. Discussions with Pitt and Castlereagh went so well that the Prime Minister, exhausted and burdened by the demands of the war as he was, considered riding over from Wimbledon to visit Merton. The West India merchant community was equally pleased, and requested an opportunity to present their vote of thanks in person. While Nelson emphasised that he had only been doing his duty, and praised the high state of the local military and militia forces, it was still a fine compliment, fit to stand alongside those from the East India Company, the Levant merchants and the City of London.20 Nor was the Church unmoved. The Bishop of Exeter, a clerical friend of brother William, added: ‘I ought also to congratulate my country upon the safe return of (underHeaven) its ablest protector, who is now ready at hand to defend us from the threatened attack of our vaunting enemy.’21

  Yet despite the acclaim of great men, it was the effect he produced on the public that was simply astonishing. Minto was with him in a crowd:

  It is really quite affecting to see the wonder and admiration and love and respect of the whole world; and the genuine expression of all these sentiments at once, from the gentle and simple the moment he is seen. It is beyond anything represented in a play or a poem of fame.22

  To be in his presence, to touch the hem of his garment, just to see him was enough. It was all too reminiscent of the final days of the Christian redeemer, and few missed the growing presentiment of triumph and tragedy.

  In the brief period when Nelson was ashore, Bonaparte finally recognised that the Anglo-Russian coalition contained the seeds of a disaster. Austria would join, and even half-hearted Prussia seemed ready to make common cause. The failure of his grand naval strategy was obvious, Villeneuve had gone south, Ganteaume had been driven back into Brest, and the Rochefort squadron was simply lost. The key to the situation lay in the south, where the small British army that had cost Nelson so much anxiety was ready to land at Naples. It would link up with the Russians and the Austrians for a campaign to recover Italy.

  By 23 August Bonaparte was satisfied that he could wait no longer: next spring there would be too many enemies, too widely dispersed. He must strike now. Decrès made it clear that any chance of invading Britain had passed, if it had ever existed. The army at Boulogne would move east, front-line units being replaced by depot battalions, although the Emperor himself remained to lend colour to the deception of Austria. On 1 September Bonaparte learnt that Villeneuve was at Cadiz.

  Captain Henry Blackwood arrived at Spithead the same day with the same news, and posted up to the Admiralty. It was no mere courtesy that saw him stop off at Merton as he passed early the next morning. The fact that he found Nelson awake and fully dressed at 5 a.m. suggests the admiral had not thrown off the habits of shipboard life, and may have been expecting just such a call. Blackwood recognised that his news must bring Nelson back to the Mediterranean. Had Nelson lived anywhere else, the information would have taken days to reach him. Merton had proved its value as the home of a devoted public servant – on the right axis for naval intelligence, and an easy commute into town.

  Later the same day, Nelson was at the Admiralty, Downing Street and the Colonial Office, discussing the strategic situation with the Prime Minister, the First Lord and Secretary for War. He persuaded the doubters that Cadiz, now blockaded by Calder and Collingwood, was the key to success. If the Combined Fleet had not already met Cornwallis or Calder it had to be destro
yed, or at worst completely neutralised, both to secure the Mediterranean elements of the coalition war plan and to ensure the invasion threat, now waning, was not suddenly revived just as when Britain was sending her regular troops abroad. Nelson was clearly the man for the job: his return from leave would be hastened, his forces increased, and his theatre extended, as he expressly desired, to Cape St Vincent.23

  Now Nelson could really influence the British response to Bonaparte’s complex combinations. He had the opportunity to discuss the Mediterranean with ministers who were, albeit temporarily, anxious to listen. His emphasis on the need to secure Sardinia was quickly accepted, although his advice that General Mack was ‘a rascal, a scoundrel, and a coward’ came too late to prevent the catastrophe at Ulm. On 4 September Nelson was back at the Admiralty to settle his orders with Barham.24 He showed them to Minto that night.25 Fresh instructions went to Collingwood: Victory had been detailed to join Cornwallis on 30 September, but was reserved while Hardy reported himself fit for service.

  Nelson would go to Portsmouth when his flagship was ready to sail, although his clothes, papers and furniture left Merton on 5 September.26 Orders for Vice Admiral Sir Charles Cotton to take command off Cadiz were cancelled, and Calder was recalled to account for failing to renew his action. News that the camp at Boulogne was breaking up arrived the same day. The scene was shifting to the south: the best that Britain could do to aid her partners was to act quickly in the Mediterranean, open the sea-lanes for Russian and Austrian troops, and secure the key islands. Nelson would command from Istanbul and Suez to Cape St Vincent, with wide latitude to act. His instructions were to prevent the enemy putting to sea and protect trade – everything else was left to his judgement.

  By 6 September the new orders were nearly ready at the Admiralty, but there were still details to settle. Hydrographer Alexander Dalrymple and ‘Bounty’ Bligh provided new charts and other intelligence for his station; John McArthur sent his new book on courts martial; Nile hero Saumarez, now commanding off Guernsey, sent in Nelson’s wine; while the Foreign Secretary promised to place a British consul on Sardinia, and found £40,000 to help Nelson secure the island.27 With every minute a precious resource, Nelson cannot have been pleased by the bombardment of begging letters from friends, relatives, old shipmates and complete strangers, though he managed to answer many of the letters, and pressed Barham to appoint worthy men like Berry. His main concerns, however, were to secure enough ships to annihilate the enemy, and to keep Collingwood as his second.28

  Nelson and Emma dined at James Craufurd’s on 10 September, providing Whig circles with an opportunity to understand a hero they had affected to discount. Craufurd was a denizen of Devonshire House, the Whig social centre, and his guests included Lady Elizabeth Foster, mistress of the Duke and confidante of his wife, Georgiana, and her sister Harriet, Lady Bessborough. Lady Bessborough retailed the story to her lover:

  So far from appearing vain and full of himself, as one had always heard, he was perfectly unassuming and natural. Talking of Popular Applause and his having been Mobbed and Huzzaed in the city, Lady Hamilton wanted him to give an account of it, but he stopped her. ‘Why’, said she, ‘you like to be applauded –you cannot deny it.’ ‘I own it’, he answered; ‘popular applause is very acceptable and grateful to me, but no Man ought to be too much elated by it; it is too precarious to be depended upon, and it may be my turn to feel the tide set as strong against me as ever it did for me.’ Everybody joined in saying they did not believe that could happen to him, but he seemed persuaded it might, but added: ‘Whilst I live I shall do what I think right and best; the Country has a right to that from me, but every Man is liable to err in judgement.29

  The final thought expresses, as well as a civilian audience could understand, the terrible pressures of fleet command, and the awesome responsibility he took when making the great decisions of 1805. He knew that one wrong choice could ruin his reputation.

  Lady Bessborough’s well-drawn portrait of Nelson demonstrates that he was aware of his vanity, but kept it under control. Emma’s part in the little exchange presages the part that she would play in the years to come, embellishing a particular version of the man she loved, but clearly did not understand. Nelson was no fool, even in smart society. He won over Lady Elizabeth by promising to deliver a letter to her son, serving with the fleet. It was a charge he executed with his customary consideration.30 The significance of the dinner was not merely social, however. The inter-party struggle for power in the autumn of 1805, as both Pitt’s ministry and his health began to falter, was intense. A projected Pitt-Fox coalition had been blocked by the King and every scrap of success was vital political capital. As a national asset of the highest importance, the opposition might need Nelson.

  On 11 September Nelson went up to London again, calling at the White House in Richmond Park to see Addington, now Lord Sidmouth, where he explained and drew on a dusty table his concept of the ideal battle, cutting the enemy line in two places.31 There was also another purpose to his visit, but Sidmouth refused the offer of his proxy vote.32 Nelson was still interested in politics, and trusted this rather colourless figure above the great men of the age.

  The following day he took his leave of Pitt, pressing him to ensure the fleet was adequate to the real need, to annihilate the enemy. Pitt undertook to do this, and when Nelson departed, he rose and accompanied him to his carriage: a gesture of admiration and respect that gratified Nelson’s craving for recognition.33 He called at the Admiralty on his way out of town, to ensure that the new edition of Sir Home Popham’s signal code was sent to the fleet. This important addition to the signalling capabilities of ships and fleets had been devised by Popham a few years earlier, and tested in service. It enabled ships to signal specific information, rather than general predetermined statements, and was a major step forward in ship-to-ship communication. Nelson’s concern to have the code for his fleet was typical: he had already used it, and could see that it would be of enormous value for the future. He took fifty copies with him when he sailed south.

  During his last visit to the Colonial Office, on 12 September, he met his one-time Indian correspondent General Sir Arthur Wellesley in the Minister’s anteroom. According to Wellesley’s account, this famous meeting of heroes began with Nelson rambling on about himself, in a vainglorious style more suited to public occasions. But everything changed once he discovered he was talking not just to a young major-general, but to a man he knew by reputation and correspondence –who had fought and won battles that did as much to keep India British as the Nile. Now Nelson changed tack: with astonishing swiftness, the conversation turned into a brilliant, incisive discussion of war, politics and strategy, between two professional, reflective warriors. Thirty years later Wellesley, by now the hero of Waterloo and Prime Minister, observed, ‘I don’t know that I ever had a conversation that interested me more.’34

  The same morning – typifying the incessant demands on Nelson’s time – he was summoned to Carlton House to meet his new ‘friend’, the Prince of Wales.35 After the alarms of 1801 the Prince had not occupied much of Nelson’s attention, but George, already descending into the opium-fuelled delusions that would dominate his later life, was anxious to touch the hand of glory, although his father had denied him any role in the war. The call, though it showed royal support to the national hero at the appropriate moment, the King being at Weymouth for sea-bathing, was quite unnecessary. Nelson had the admiration of the country, the love of the people, the respect of the political classes, and the acclaim of his profession. What need had he of Princes?

  The Prince delayed Nelson and Emma’s return to Merton, where they found their dinner guests Lord Minto, and neighbours James Perry and his wife, had already arrived. After a quiet evening with his friends and his mistress Nelson spent the following day, Friday 13 th, at home. He took a chaise for Portsmouth around 10.30 p.m., arriving shortly before dawn. As he left, his thoughts and prayers were with his daughter, taking a last ch
ance to entrust her soul to his God as she slept. He entrusted his own fate to divine providence, and if his life were cut short he relied on his God to ‘protect those so dear to me’.

  The next morning he walked through Portsmouth, took a boat out and hoisted his flag on the Victory. He was accompanied by two of Pitt’s confidants, George Canning, Treasurer of the Navy, and George Rose, Vice-President of the Board of Trade. The crowd pressed in, touching his coat, kneeling, praying, crying and cheering: the short walk to the beach was later written up as the redeemer’s entry into Jerusalem. Whether Nelson picked up that impression, he was certainly moved, turning to Hardy and observing: ‘I had their huzzas before, I have their hearts now!’ Only now did he realise quite how popular he was.

  Notes – CHAPTER XIV

  1 Desbrière, Projets et tentatives de débarquement aux Iles Britanniques 1792–1805, 5 vols. Paris 1900–2

  2 Nelson to Emma 4.4.1805; Morrison II p. 256

  3 Nelson to Ball 6.4.1805; Nicolas VI p. 399

  4 This chapter is largely based on Julian Corbett’s brilliant survey, The Campaign of Trafalgar, a text developed through his teaching on the Naval War Course. Aside from a few errors in footnotes, and the occasional heavy hint to his high-ranking pupils that they would face similar problems, and might profit from the example, it remains a compelling work.