The War for All the Oceans

by Roy Adkins

  The British intelligence was not wrong, and the French ship was spotted on the morning of 30 March. A chase ensued that lasted the rest of the day, and in the early hours of the next morning a fierce battle began as the British ships gradually caught up. The Guillaume Tell had on board Rear-Admiral Decrès, who was later to become Minister of Marine, and the crew put up a dogged resistance until the vessel had lost every mast and was almost a wreck. The British ships were also badly damaged, and there were many casualties on both sides, as revealed by Midshipman Parsons of the Foudroyant:

  Down came the tri-coloured flag, and ‘Cease firing!’ resounded along our decks; but one of our lower deck guns gave tongue, and killed their first lieutenant, much praised and lamented by the prisoners, his brother officers. The slaughter on board the Guillaume Tell was about four hundred, and in our ship alone eighty, taking in the wounded [counting both dead and wounded]. Never was any ship better fought, or flag hoisted by a more gallant man than Rear-Admiral Decrès. Our captain [Sir Edward Berry] received his sword, and took it to the commodore20 [Sir Manly Dixon], wearing half a cocked hat, the other half having been carried off by that impudent shot that dyed his cabin with the blood of two seamen . . . ‘Good God! How did you save your head?’ said the commodore. ‘The hat was not on it,’ replied our chief.19

  The capture of the Guillaume Tell completed the task begun at Aboukir Bay eight months before, and it also provided information about the siege at Malta. The ship had come from the capital, Valetta, and Parsons learned that ‘famine prevailed in the town to such an extent, that the only thing found in La Guillaume Tell was the leg of a mule, hung for safety and his especial use over the admiral’s stern-gallery’.20 In British ships, too, it was sometimes the practice to hang food, particularly relatively fresh meat, from the stern to preserve it from the rats.

  Nelson was still not fit, and in early April he applied to the Admiralty for leave in England to improve his health. On the 24th, with the damage to the Foudroyant repaired and while he awaited permission to return home, Nelson joined the blockading ships around Malta. This was something of a farewell cruise, as he took with him a party of guests including William and Emma Hamilton. On the way the ship was hit by bad weather. ‘During the passage,’ Midshipman Parsons recalled, ‘we encountered a thunderstorm, and the electric fluid struck away our foretopmast, killing one man and wounding fourteen. The Principo Real, a Portuguese ship of the line, lost her mainmast that night from the same cause, with several men killed.’21 Lightning strikes were a constant hazard for sailing ships, because electricity was not properly understood - and would not be for decades to come. A treatise on thunderstorms published in 1843 provided an analysis:In one hundred and fifty cases [of lightning strikes], the majority of which occurred between the years 1799 and 1815, nearly one hundred lower masts of line-of-battle ships and frigates, with a corresponding number of topmasts and smaller spars, together with various stores were wholly or partially destroyed. One ship in eight was set on fire in some part of the rigging or sails; upwards of seventy seamen were killed, and one hundred and thirty-three wounded, exclusive of nineteen cases in which the number of wounded is returned as ‘many’ or ‘several’. In one-tenth of these cases the ships were completely disabled.22

  Some ships were fitted with lightning conductors, but these did not always work, and in many cases the lightning conductor was not a permanent fixture, but was hauled up the mast when it was thought to be needed. In the East Indies, the frigate Resistance blew up after being struck by lightning, and only two crew members survived, to be picked up by a Malayan ship. Without their rescue, the Resistance would have been added to the list of ships that mysteriously disappeared. This frigate was lost in July 1798, just a few days before the Battle of the Nile took place. Shortly after taking part in the battle, Midshipman Elliot of the Goliath was struck by lightning:We were reefing for a squall, and I was on the mizen topsail yard-arm, the outer person, and about ten yards from the main top, when a flash passed between the top and me - a man in the top facing me was injured as nearly as possible to the same extent that I was - the next man to me was stupefied and blind for a short time, and the rest only blinded for the moment. I had no knowledge how I got in from the yard arm, or down on deck . . . I was placed in the dark cockpit, and though my sight returned in a few days I had my eyes bandaged, and was kept out of a stronger light on the lower deck for several days.23

  Elliot remained very nervous of lightning, even though he recovered: ‘There was no mark on my skin as if the lightning had struck me. My right eye was worst being next the flash, the left being perhaps sheltered by the nose. I do not remember suffering any pain. I never was a year in the Mediterranean without the ship being struck, but without serious injury to any of the crew.’24

  At Malta, Nelson’s flagship Foudroyant with the Hamiltons on board anchored at a point out of range of the French guns, but, as Midshipman Parsons recalled, ‘a breeze unexpectedly came in from the sea, and the ship dragged her anchor’.25 The mate reported it to the officer of the watch, and he woke Captain Berry, who, unconcerned, replied: ‘Very well, Mr. Bolton, we will shift our berth at daylight.’26 Parsons observed that at dawn the situation suddenly became serious:Hunger, I suppose, kept the Frenchman waking, and at peep of day he made us a target for all his sea batteries to practise on. ‘All hands up’ - ‘Anchor ahoy!’ resounded fore and aft, and we hove short [the anchor cable] to the music of the shot, some of them going far over us. Lord Nelson was in a towering passion, and Lady Hamilton’s refusal to quit the quarter-deck did not tend to tranquilise him. When short-a-peak [just before the anchor was raised], the breeze failed, leaving only a disagreeable concomitant - a swell.27

  With the Foudroyant bobbing about on the choppy sea, an easy target for the French guns, it was only when a shot hit one of the masts that Lady Hamilton finally consented to go below. Eventually the ship was towed out of range by boats. It would take another five months of blockade before the French garrison on Malta finally surrendered to the British.

  Returning to Palermo, Nelson found his request to return to England was accepted, but Admiral Keith would not allow him to sail back in his flagship, and so he decided to travel overland through Europe. His last voyage in the Foudroyant was from Palermo to Leghorn, accompanied by the Hamiltons (because Sir William had been replaced as ambassador) and also by the Queen of the Two Sicilies, who was travelling to Vienna with some of her children to visit her family.

  Nelson and his party arrived at Leghorn on 15 June 1800, the day after Napoleon won the Battle of Marengo against Austria. As Marengo was just north of Genoa in northern Italy, they realised that their direct overland route to England was blocked, and so were forced to travel to Ancona, then sail to Trieste and take a more roundabout route, swinging north through Austria. Wherever they stopped, Nelson was fêted as a celebrity, and the journey became a triumphal progress. Nelson and the Hamiltons eventually landed at Great Yarmouth on 6 November, and their travelling companion Cornelia Knight recorded that ‘Lord Nelson was received with all due honours, which were rendered still more interesting to the good people of the town from his being a native of Norfolk. He was drawn in his carriage to the hotel (the Wrestlers’ Arms) by the populace21, and the Mayor and Corporation came to present him with the freedom of the city. At his own request public service was performed in the church, to return thanks for his safe return to his native country, and for the many blessings which he had experienced. As he entered the church the organ struck up “See the Conquering Hero comes.”’28

  The lengthy overland journey had greatly improved Nelson’s health, and he was already longing to go back to sea. Despite having to cope with the admiring crowds, he found time to write to the Secretary of the Admiralty: ‘I beg you will acquaint their Lordships [of the Admiralty] of my arrival here this day, and that my health being perfectly re-established, it is my wish to serve immediately; and I trust that my necessary journey by land from the Mediterranean w
ill not be considered as a wish to be [for] a moment out of active service.’29 Three days after landing at Great Yarmouth, Nelson reached London, in the wake of a severe storm, and was celebrated here just as he had been across Europe. His expectedarrival had been heralded in the newspapers for days before, and comments were given on every last detail of the entourage, down to the presence of Emma’s black servant. This was Fatima, a Nubian girl not yet twenty years old, bought by Nelson in Egypt. Slavery was then legal in Britain, but the vast majority of slaves owned by the British never set foot in the country: they were shipped straight from Africa to work on plantations in the West Indies. Although she had been bought and may technically have been a slave, Fatima was part of the Hamilton household, working as Emma’s maid, and later was given the name Fatima Emma Charlotte Nelson Hamilton when she was baptised into the Anglican church.

  In London, Nelson went directly to the Admiralty. ‘The gallant Hero,’ The Times reported, ‘wore the Stars of the different Orders with which he has been invested for his achievements at Aboukir.’30 Nelson’s eagerness to return to sea seems inexplicable, especially with Emma being in an advanced state of pregnancy with their daughter Horatia. The problems that would inevitably stem from his continuing relationship with Emma, though, may have driven his decision. While the newspaper gossip columnists worked overtime, Nelson had to face the fact that his marriage to Frances was over. A difficult situation was not made any easier by Frances herself, who, entirely blameless and bewildered by Nelson’s attitude, made strenuous efforts to reclaim her husband. Nelson left London on 13 January 1801 after two months of public acclaim and private chaos. A new threat to Britain’s trade and security was looming, and the Admiralty was quick off the mark to take steps to counter it. Nelson was on his way to join his new flagship in Plymouth - and would never see Frances again.

  With no censorship of the press in Britain, information was frequently published that was useful to the enemy. Even confidential material rapidly found its way into the newspapers, because politicians, senior civil servants, admirals and generals gossiped at social gatherings, and some deliberately passed information to journalists. Nelson’s destination was supposed to be secret, but a week before he left London The Times carried a report about his mission: ‘The Public will learn, with great satisfaction, that Lord NELSON is about to be employed on a SECRET EXPEDITION, and will hoist his flag in the course of a very few days. His instructions will not be opened till he arrives in a certain latitude. We shall only permit ourselves to observe, that there is reason to believe his destination is to a distant quarter, where his Lordship’s personal appearance alone would preponderate over the influence or the intrigues of any Court in Europe.’31 Although not obvious to a casual reader, to the diplomats and spies in Britain the mention of ‘intrigues’ indicated the Baltic, where negotiations were under way to form a League of Armed Neutrality.

  Denmark was in dispute with Britain over the right to search neutral ships. As a neutral country, Denmark claimed the right to trade with any country and the colonies of any country, and to transport any goods except for a narrow range defined as specific war materials; neutral ships should not be stopped and searched by the British Navy, and they would ignore any blockade treaties unless warships stopped them entering a port. If neutral vessels were not to be searched, they could break the British blockade of enemy ports at will. Britain therefore wanted a wider definition of the goods forbidden to be carried by neutral ships, and crucially the power to search ships to enforce blockades. For Britain this policy was a matter of stopping French expansion and ultimately the very survival of the British Isles; for Denmark it meant money. Because of the war, neutral ships were in huge demand and the Danish merchant fleet was making massive profits. Many cargoes supposedly destined for Denmark were actually carried to France and French allies, and the situation was made worse by ships of other nations sailing under the Danish flag as a cover for similar trading ventures.

  Before the Battle of the Nile, the British Navy had been on the defensive, with little spare capacity to deal with neutral ships, but Nelson’s victory had changed all that. The Mediterranean was now under the control of the British Navy, which was trying to enforce a tight blockade of French and Spanish ports. What, for the Danes, had been merely profiteering now became a point of political principle. Britain maintained the right to search Danish ships, while Denmark denied that right. Danish convoys were escorted by warships, but these were often outnumbered by British warships, so from Denmark’s point of view the answer was an alliance with other neutral nations to actively protect their merchant ships from being stopped. This was the League of Armed Neutrality - a change from passive, defensive neutrality to an aggressive assertion of the demand to carry on unrestricted trade.

  The League was actually instigated by Russia, having been prompted to do so by Denmark. This was a dangerous political game for Denmark, though, as Tsar Paul was insane and his actions unpredictable. Tsars were autocrats, often tyrannical, who held total control over everything and everyone in Russia, in contrast to many other Continental monarchies where, at the very least, the king listened to advice from his ministers. Denmark had a stark choice: bow to British pressure or join the Armed Neutrality. Gambling that Britain would not dare take action, Denmark joined Russia, Prussia and Sweden in the hope that with the backing of these allies, it could force favourable negotiations with Britain to provide free trade for Danish ships. The Danes were to be hoist with their own petard. Barely a month after the Tsar received the invitation from Denmark to head the League, he had made secret approaches to Napoleon.

  The treaty that the Danes eventually signed with Russia was more militaristic than they would have wished, but as they were in a weak negotiating position they accepted the clauses requiring them to fit out extra warships. If war broke out between Russia and Britain, Denmark would be forced to take Russia’s side. The treaty was ratified in Copenhagen on 4 November 1800, two days before Nelson’s return to England. On the same day in St Petersburg, Tsar Paul placed an embargo on all British ships in Russian ports and arrested all British citizens. Tsar Paul’s objective was an alliance to enable joint Russian and French domination of the Continent, using Denmark and Sweden as buffer states against Britain. While the Tsar was deluded with a vision of a European empire, Napoleon played him like a puppet and, Bourrienne observed, ‘gained such a hold over the mind of Paul that he reached the point of doing without the cabinet of St Petersburg . . . English ships were seized in all the ports, and, at the insistent urging of the Tsar, a Prussian army threatened Hanover [part of George III’s territory]. Bonaparte lost no time, and, profiting from the friendship shown towards him . . . endeavoured to make him carry out the far-reaching plan which he had devised: he wished to undertake an expedition by land against the English colonies in the East Indies.’32 While the Tsar dreamed of Europe, Napoleon was still dreaming of the East.

  With the League members now effectively enemies of Britain, it was no longer just a question of preventing neutral ships from being searched. Access to trade with the Baltic states, which provided the British Navy with essential supplies such as hemp for ropes and fir wood for spars, would now be blocked, because Russia, Sweden and above all Denmark were in a position to control the trade route and capture merchants ships that passed through their waters. As the situation slipped towards war, the Danes refused all diplomatic overtures from Britain, despite knowing that their country was likely to be the first target of British hostility. They had left themselves without a choice: defiance of Britain might mean heavy casualties, bombardment of coastal settlements and even the loss of their fleet, but defiance of Russia could prompt a Russian invasion and the loss of everything.

  On the day that Nelson had started out from London for Plymouth, the British government decided on its response to the crisis. Those Danish, Swedish and Russian ships already in British ports would be detained, while any encountered at sea would be captured. Danish and Swedish co
lonies in India and the West Indies would be occupied, and a British fleet was to be sent to the Baltic to ensure that British trade continued. Although Russia was seen as the main aggressor, its ports were further north and were still icebound when the thaw freed Danish ports - its geographical position determined that Copenhagen would be the first target.

  This was warship diplomacy on a grand scale, and to head the mission the Admiralty chose Admiral Sir Hyde Parker. Sixty-one years old, Parker was from an old naval family, and had spent the latter part of his career in the West Indies, becoming rich from his share of the prize money that his subordinate captains brought in. Parker was considered politically sound and was chosen to conduct the diplomacy. As his second-in-command, Nelson provided the threat to back up the diplomacy. His reputation was well known to the Danes, and in theory this was the ideal combination of commanders - the embodiment of the carrot-and-stick approach. Inevitably, the partnership was doomed to failure. The two men were utterly different in approach and temperament. From the outset, Nelson was pressing the need for urgency, because strategically the Danish and Swedish fleets had to be neutralised before the Russian ships could join them, yet Parker’s instinct for correctness and caution caused constant delays.