Although the Tower of Mortella had to be bombarded into submission, (3) the port of San Fiorenzo was occupied by mid-February. But Dundas insisted that he must await reinforcements from Gibraltar before he crossed the twelve-mile neck of the peninsula to tackle the walled town of Bastia. For Hood, now lying close off this port in the Victory, this meant an intolerable delay, a view which Nelson shared: 'Army go so slow that seamen think they never mean to go forward'; but, he conceded, 'I dare say they act on a surer principle.' That was on 28 February: a month later he wrote: 'The Army say we cannot attack Bastia, it is too strong and defended by too many French troops. Lord Hood and those in whom he is pleased to give confidence, are of opinion that Bastia may possibly be taken, but certainly ought to be attacked.' What would the immortal Wolfe have done?' Nelson argued, 'A thousand men would to a certainty take Bastia. With 500 and Agamemnon, I would attempt it. . . . My seamen are now what British seamen ought to be . . . almost invincible. They really mind shot no more than peas.' When Dundas's successor, Brigadier-General D'Aubant, described this as 'most visionary and rash', Nelson contended that to do otherwise would be 'a national disgrace'. Since he was less than frank about the strength of the garrison - 'my own honour, Lord Hood's honour, and the honour of our Country, must have been sacrificed, had I mentioned what I know' - he won his point. Hood gave him 1,183 troops and marines under Lieutenant-Colonel Villettes and, with the addition of 250 seamen from the Agamemnon, authorized him to attack the town, whose defences mounted as many as seventy guns.
This puny force landed unmolested three miles north of Bastia during the night of 3-4 April. By noon next day it was encamped within 2,500 yards of the citadel, with eight of the Agamemnon's 24-pounders augmented by 10-inch and 13-inch mortars which Nelson had asked Hamilton to send him from Naples. Six days were needed for the seamen to drag half these weapons up on to the heights overlooking the town, and to mount them in two batteries. On 11 April these opened a steady fire which was returned by the citadel. Two days later Nelson went forward to reconnoitre a ridge nearer the town and received his first wound, 'a sharp cut in the back'. But this did not deter him from establishing two more batteries as close as 1,000 yards from the citadel by the 21st.
The French were, nonetheless, able to continue such a heavy fire for day after day that Nelson began to have doubts whether he would succeed with his chosen task. Moreover, since D'Aubant, with his seven regiments at San Fiorenzo, still refused to 'entangle himself in any cooperation' until reinforcements arrived, Nelson foresaw the possibility that the General would be able to take all the credit for the eventual capture of Bastia, when his ambition demanded a full share of it. Fortunately the siege was not destined to last so long. On 18 May Hood learned that the garrison was not only short of food and ammunition, but terrified of falling into the hands of the Corsican patriots, so that it wished to surrender. This allowed Nelson to lead his force into the town on the 22nd, one day ahead of D'Aubant's Grenadiers. 'I am all astonishment when I reflect on what we have achieved: 1,000 regulars, 1,500 national guards, and a large party of Corsican troops, 4,000 in all, laying down their arms to 1,200 soldiers, marines and seamen. I always was of opinion . . . that one Englishman was equal to three Frenchmen.'
But the bubble of his pride in this vindication of his determination to triumph over superior odds - 'our Country will, I believe, sooner forgive an officer for attacking his enemy than for letting it down' - and a microcosm of so much that he achieved later in the war, was soon pricked. Hood's despatch credited him only with 'the command and direction of the seamen in landing guns, mortars and stores'. Captain Anthony Hunt was named as 'commander of the batteries'. Since, according to Commander Walter Serocold, 'this young man . . . never was on a battery, or even rendered any service during the siege', it is not surprising that Nelson should write: 'There is nothing like kicking down the ladder a man rises by.' But Hood was wiser than Nelson gave him credit for. Hunt was an 'exceeding good young man, zealous for the Service' who had had the misfortune to lose his ship through no fault of his own: his ego needed a boost. Nelson's ego was so strong that his services were best acknowledged in another way, if early success was not to go to his head and spoil his chances of achieving greater things. As Nelson acknowledged after he had discussed the despatch with the Admiral: 'Lord Hood and myself were never better friends, nor, although his letter does, did he wish to put me where I never was - in the rear.'
The Admiral was quick to demonstrate this faith. 'I [Nelson] may truly say that [Bastia] has been a naval expedition': his next task presented the greater challenge of a combined operation. He was appointed commander of the naval component of a force with which General the Hon. Charles Stuart intended to capture the strongly fortified port of Calvi at the northwest corner of Corsica. Unlike the discord which has characterized relations between the naval and military commanders of so many similar operations undertaken by British forces, right down to the Narvik campaign of 1940, Nelson and the enterprising Stuart quickly proved that they could work as well together as Saunders and Wolfe. On 17 June 1784 the Agamemnon, with the smaller Dolphin and Lutine, escorted sixteen transports, victuallers, and storeships to an anchorage three miles west of Calvi. Covered by Hood's fleet against an attack by a force of nine French ships-of-the-line which had recently slipped out of Toulon past Hotham's blockading squadron, Nelson and Stuart began landing troops and seamen, guns, ammunition and stores at Port Agra.
Despite a gale that required Nelson's ships to proceed to sea for five days when this task was only half-completed, his seamen dragged their guns over the intervening mountains, which the enemy supposed to be impassable, to positions from which they commanded the town's outworks. `By computation we may be supposed to have dragged one 26-pounder with its ammunition and every requisite for making a battery upwards of 80 miles, 17 of which up a very steep mountain.' On 4 July the British opened fire; and Nelson wrote to Fanny : 'I am so busy, but I own in all my glory. Except with you, I would not be anywhere but where I am, for any consideration.' He was to express this relish for action in much the same words on many future occasions. With Hood's Bastia despatch in mind, he added: 'I am well aware my poor services will not be noticed . . . but however service may be received, it is not right for an officer to slacken his zeal for his Country.' For all his personal ambition, Nelson put Country first:
'Corsica, in respect of prizes, produced nothing but honour, far above the consideration of wealth: not that I despise riches, quite the contrary, yet I would not sacrifice a good name to obtain them. Had I attended less than I have done to the service of my Country, I might have made some money, too: however, I trust my name will stand on record when the money-makers will be forgot.'
Nor did he seek to steal the credit that was due to others: 'no officer ever deserved success more', was but one of his tributes to his partner in this operation, General Stuart.
A heavy price was, however, exacted for the physical courage that took him to the forefront of every engagement, first shown during the abortive Nicaraguan expedition. The enemy was not slow to reply to the British batteries, and whilst watching the bombardment from one of them on 12 July, Nelson was struck by splinters of stone which cut deep into his right brow, penetrating the eye, a wound of which more will be said shortly.
Calvi proved a tougher nut than Bastia. Though the besiegers continued their bombardment by day and night, they were unable to make a sufficient breach in the French defences for Stuart to attempt an assault. So he tried other tactics; on the 19th he 'sent a flag of truce to the town to know if they had any terms to propose. Their answer was . . . "Civitas Calvis semper fidelis".' Notwithstanding this defiant reply, Stuart kept his guns silent; on the one hand he hoped to starve the French into surrender; on the other he and Nelson needed a respite to prepare for a more vigorous assault, a task which led Stuart's chief of staff, the future General Sir John Moore of Corunna fame, to complain: 'Why don't Lord Hood land 500 men to work? Our soldiers are tire
d.' Nelson, who found Moore a difficult man to work with - as did others including the Viceroy, Sir Gilbert Elliot - answered for his own Service: 'We will fag ourselves to death before any blame shall lie at our doors.'
On 28 July the French Governor sent a letter 'to say that if no succour arrived in 25 days . . . they would enter upon terms for the surrender of the town'. But if by now the besieged faced a shortage of supplies, the besiegers faced a more deadly enemy. With, to quote Nelson, 'our troops and seamen getting sickly' with malaria, Stuart could not afford to wait for so long. 'He went onboard Lord Hood and it was determined to give the garrison to 10 August when, if no succour arrived, we were to be put in full possession of the town.' Unfortunately for this plan, 'in the night four small vessels got in. The garrison gave three cheers which will probably end our negotiations.' And so they did: at 1 pm on the 30th the French rejected Stuart's terms, and at 5 pm the guns of both sides reopened fire.
This proved, however, to be no more than a last brave gesture. The four vessels that had slipped through Hood's blockade had brought no ammunition to replenish the garrison's near empty magazines. On 1 August they 'hung out a flag of truce and demanded the same time 10 August, which General Stuart thought proper to grant without consulting Lord Hood . . . or even sending to Lord Hood to sign the capitulation', an apparent criticism which is well explained by the next entry in Nelson's Journal of the Siege: 'Every hour our troops and seamen falling ill and dying.' By the l0th, 'not 400 soldiers were fit for duty'. But his fears that malaria would deprive the besieging force of the success for which he had striven so tirelessly, were groundless. On that day 'the garrison . . . marched out with two pieces of cannon and the honours of war and laid down their arms'. Whilst Stuart occupied the town, Nelson seized 'the most beautiful frigate I ever saw', his old opponent, the Melpomène, together with another, the 32-gun Mignonne.
But against this satisfaction, he had to set a disappointment. Stuart took all the credit for the capture of Calvi: Nelson was not so much as mentioned in his despatch.
'One hundred and ten days I have been actually engaged, at sea and on shore, against the enemy; three actions against ships, two against Bastia in my ship, four boat actions, and two villages taken, and twelve sail of vessels burnt. I do not know that any one has done more. I have had the comfort to be always applauded by my Commander-in-Chief, but never to be rewarded; and, what is more mortifying, for services in which I have been wounded, others have been praised who, at the same time, were actually in bed, far from the scene of action. They have not done me justice.'
Nelson was, however, sufficiently consoled by Hood's assurance that he would apprise the First Lord of the magnitude of Stuart's injustice, to add the prophetic comment: 'But never mind, some day I'll have a gazette of my own.'
Nelson's other problem was his wound. He had made light of this at the time, describing it in his evening report to Hood as, 'a little hurt . . . not much, as you may judge from my writing', and twenty-four hours later: 'My eye is better and I hope not entirely to lose my sight.' But by the time the Agamemnon left Calvi for Leghorn, to refit and to restore the health of her crew, Nelson knew that, far from regaining his sight, his eye had been irreparably damaged. Never again would it do more than distinguish light from dark. Because the retina retained this degree of sensitivity, he suffered pain if it was exposed to bright sunlight. To protect it under such conditions, he wore a green eye-shield. Hence the misconception that after the siege of Calvi he wore a black shade over his right eye. (Careless artists also make the mistake of portraying Nelson as blind in his left eye.)
Fortunately, this defect was not one which debarred an officer from service afloat. But in a book whose aim is to assess Nelson's stature as a naval commander, something more needs to be said of his injury than this. First, the wound itself. He must have suffered excruciating pain; yet he was able to ignore it as soon as the blood had been wiped away and the cut dressed by a doctor. Such stoicism is indicative of exceptional strength of will: without it Nelson could not have endured, in the years to come, not only another crippling wound, but the recurring bouts of fever, the seasickness and the other afflictions he so often suffered. Secondly, and as at the siege of Bastia, Nelson was wounded because he insisted on being in the forefront of the attack. For the majority of men fear is a natural emotion; courage is the ability to overcome it, which fighting men achieve by discipline and by an instilled loyalty to their country, to their ship or regiment, and to their comrades. There are, however, a fortunate few who feel no fear, in whom physical courage is an inborn trait. And Nelson was one of these who, like Shakespeare's Caesar, could say:
'It seems to me most strange that men should fear,
Seeing that death, a necessary end,
Will come when it will come.'
As he wrote to Fanny, 'a brave man dies but once, a coward all his life long'. (4)
The consequences were two-fold. He often risked his own person, sometimes to a foolhardy extent; and it was this indifference to danger, first shown in his boyhood encounter with a polar bear, which led him to an untimely grave - albeit in St Paul's Cathedral. But it also gave him the fighting spirit with which he placed his own ship to the fore in every action; and which, when he commanded a fleet, spurred him to seek not just victory over the enemy but annihilation.
In October the ageing Hood was granted leave to return to England to restore his health, leaving the worthy but uninspiring Hotham in command of the Mediterranean fleet. There was talk of Nelson going too, but both he and Fanny were disappointed. 'We must not repine . . .' he wrote on the 12th. 'The Service must ever supersede all private considerations. . . . Before spring I hope we shall have peace, when we must look out for some little cottage.' But with her fretful reply he showed less sympathy: 'Why you should be uneasy about me, so as to make yourself ill, I know not.' She would never understand her husband as well as Lord Radstock, one of Hotham's junior admirals, when he wrote that 'a perpetual thirst of glory was ever raging within him'. Nelson would not willingly miss the now growing possibilities of bringing the French Toulon fleet to battle, even though he doubted Hotham's capacity to gain a decisive result. 'If we are not completely victorious - I mean, able to remain at sea whilst the enemy must retire into port - if we only make a Lord Howe's victory [the Glorious First of June], take a part, and retire into port, Italy is lost.'
But Christmas and the winter gales passed without the fulfilment of his hopes. 'We have had three gales of wind in thirteen days. Neither sails, ships or men can stand it. In the Channel the fleet [blockading Brest] goes instantly into Torbay, here we always keep the sea.' 'There has been a most diabolical report . . . of our being captured and carried into Toulon (owing to my running into the harbour's mouth); I hope it has not reached England. . . . Rest assured that the Agamemnon is not to be taken easily.' And: 'I wish most devoutly Lord Hood may get me sent home; I am tired . . . of our present conduct and situation.' Not until March 1795 did Providence smile again on Nelson.
The 8th brought news that fifteen ships-of-the-line, under Rear-Admiral Pierre Martin, had left Toulon on a course for Corsica, which the French were planning to invade and regain. Hotham sailed at once from Leghorn with one less than this number, the Agamemnon being in his van squadron. British frigates were in touch with the enemy that evening, but the winds were too light and variable for Hotham's main body to sight their opponents before the morning of the 12th. Even so, they could not get closer than three miles before nightfall. Next morning, with the wind south-west and squally, Hotham ordered a general chase. The French ran for it in some confusion, and at 8 am the 84-gun Ça Ira, third from their rear, was in collision with her next ahead, losing her fore and main top-masts and dropping astern. This was Nelson's chance: the Agamemnon being one of the leading British ships, he headed for this more powerfully gunned lame duck. By the time he came up with her, she had been taken in tow by a French frigate, and two ships-of-the-line, the Sans Culotte and Jean Bart, (5) wer
e closing her. Such opposition did not deter Nelson: 'Seeing plainly from the situation of the two fleets the impossibility of [my] being supported; and in case any accident happened to our masts, the certainty of being severely cut up, I resolved to fire as soon as I thought we had a certainty of hitting.'
This fearless decision paid him well: the Sans Culotte and Jean Bart hauled off and left the Ça Ira to her fate. For more than two hours 'scarcely a shot [from the Agamemnon] seemed to miss [her]: the instant all [guns of a broadside] were fired [I] braced up after yards, put the helm hard-a-port, and stood after [her] again . . . never allowing the Ça Ira to get a single gun from either [broad]side to fire on us'. (Nelson thus contrived to use his own guns whilst avoiding all but the few at the stern of his stronger but unmanoeuvrable opponent.) (6) By 1 pm the French battleship was 'a perfect wreck' and must soon have struck her colours. But the cautious Hotham delayed the kill: seeing the French Admiral turn his main body towards the Ça Ira, and fearing that his own van ships, especially the Agamemnon, might be cut off before he could come up with them, he hoisted the recall, which on this occasion Nelson did not hesitate to obey.
Nelson the Commander Page 5
