Nelson the Commander

by Bennett, Geoffrey

  Next morning, 14 March, the Ça Ira was seen to be in tow of the 74-gun Censeur, both being much astern and to leeward of the rest of their fleet. Two British 74s, the Captain and the Bedford, stood down to attack them, but were roughly handled and eventually crippled. The French Admiral reversed course to support his separated ships before Hotham's main body could come up with them. But though the latter's centre and rear lagged behind in a tricky wind, the French lacked the resolution to prevent the British van passing between them and the Ça Ira in tow of the Censeur. 'The enemy's fleet kept this southerly wind,' wrote Nelson, 'which enabled them to keep their distance, which was very great. At 8 am they began to pass our line to windward, and the Ça Ira and Censeur were on our lee side; therefore the Illustrious, Courageux, Princess Royal and Agamemnon were obliged to fight on both sides of the ship'. Though the leading British ships lost their main and mizzen masts, worse befell the French; the Ça Ira was completely dismasted, the Censeur lost her mainmast, and at 10.05 am, after a most gallant defence, both ships struck their colours.

  As the rest of the enemy fleet turned off to the west, Nelson 'went onboard Admiral Hotham [whose flagship, the Britannia, was next astern of the Agamemnon] . .. to propose to him leaving our two crippled ships, the two prizes, and four frigates, to themselves, and to pursue the enemy; but he is much cooler than myself and said, "We must be contented. We have done very well," but had we taken ten sail, and allowed the eleventh to have escaped if possible to have been got at, I could never have called it well done.'

  In one sense, Hotham had 'done very well': Corsica was saved and two French sail-of-the-line had been captured. And Nelson was not blind to Hotham's difficulties when the wind was so tricky: 'Had we only a breeze, I have no doubt we should have given a destructive blow to the enemy's fleet.' But he also wrote: 'Had our good Admiral followed the blow, we should probably have done more, but the risk was thought too great.' And more forcibly: 'Sure I am that had I commanded our fleet on the 14th, that either the whole French fleet would have graced my triumph, or I should have been in a confounded scrape.' This was the spirit that was to win the Nile, Copenhagen and Trafalgar - but for the moment Nelson had to be content with the reflection that in this, his first fleet action, it was his Agamemnon that had so successfully engaged a larger and more powerful opponent; and that against 750 casualties in the Ça Ira and Censeur, his ship's company had suffered no more than thirteen wounded - a service for which he received his first official compliment, the honorary rank of Colonel of Marines.

  Hotham was satisfied with writing that the enemy's 'intentions are for the present frustrated'. And Nelson was not insensitive to the Admiral's position: he 'had much to contend with, a fleet half-manned, and in every respect inferior to the enemy; Italy calling him to her defence, our newly acquired kingdom [Corsica] calling might and main, our reinforcements and convoy hourly expected; and all to be done without a force by any means adequate to it'. Yet, to quote Mahan's apt verdict, 'as one scans this list of troubles . . . it is scarcely possible not to see that each and every difficulty could have been solved by a crushing pursuit of the beaten French'.* In short, 'a man who . . . [failed] to realize that the destruction of the enemy's fleet is the one condition of permanent safety to his cause',* deserved the judgment which Hamilton expressed to Nelson: 'I can, entre nous, perceive that my old friend Hotham is not quite awake enough for such a command as that of the King's fleet in the Mediterranean.' The Minister at the Neopolitan Court understood that 'to destroy the French fleet was the one thing for which the British fleet was there, and the one thing by . . . which it could decisively affect the war,' (Mahan in his Life of Nelson) just as Nelson did when he boarded the Britannia immediately the Ça Ira and Censeur had struck - and as he was to express it to Lord St Vincent four years later: 'The best defence for his Sicilian Majesty's dominions is to place myself alongside the French.'

  For the moment, however, Nelson had to rest content with being able to say: 'The enemy must now be satisfied (or we are ready to give them further proof) that England yet reigns Mistress on the Seas.' The French were, indeed, sufficiently impressed with Nelson's conduct for their pamphleteers to give him a mistress, the goddess Bellona. And despite Hotham's preference for 'skulking in port', and the appointment of Lord Spencer to supersede Chatham as First Lord ('Now he is out, all hopes will be done away'), he determined to stay in the Mediterranean 'till the autumn, or another action takes place'.

  June brought dismaying news. The French Toulon fleet having been strengthened by six sail-of-the-line from Brest in April, the British Mediterranean fleet needed reinforcement. The Admiralty sent nine ships-of-the-line, making a total of twenty-two. Hood, when about to return to his command, remonstrated so strongly that this was wholly insufficient to counter a French force numbering twenty when so many British ships were in need of large repair that he was ordered to strike his flag. 'Oh, miserable Board of the Admiralty,' wrote Nelson. 'They have forced the first officer in our Service from our command.' He could not foresee that in their Lordships' choice of a successor to Hood, Providence would smile on him again.

  Before that he was again in action. Hotham's intelligence was so faulty that on the afternoon of 6 July the Agamemnon, accompanied by four frigates, fell in unexpectedly with an enemy fleet of seventeen ships-of-the¬line, under Martin who was now a vice-admiral, midway between Nice and Genoa. The French immediately gave chase, and Nelson's force only just eluded disaster before next morning reaching the safety of San Fiorenzo Bay, where Hotham's fleet was watering. By the time that the British Admiral could leave this harbour early on the 8th with thirteen of his twenty-two sail-of-the-line, the enemy had gone; and it took him four days to find them again, by which time they were off Hyeres, with Toulon in sight.

  At 8 am on 13 July Hotham signalled a general chase in the hope of cutting the enemy off from their base. By noon the Agamemnon and half-a-dozen other British ships were in action with the rearmost three of the enemy. The 74-gunned Alcide soon struck her colours, then caught fire and blew up. Yet, to quote Nelson, 'thus ended our second meeting with these gentry. In the forenoon we had every prospect of taking every ship . . . and at noon it was almost certain we should have had the six rear ships.' But, because such wind as there was then changed to the eastward, giving the weather gage to the French, it was 'impossible to close'. Moreover, Hotham, whose flagship had fallen eight miles astern, decided that 'those of our ships which were engaged had approached so near to the shore that I judged it proper to call them off'. He signalled his fleet to retire and, when he saw Captain Bartholomew Rowley in the Cumberland trying to join the Agamemnon in renewing the action, compelled compliance with this order. To quote the verdict of one of the Victory's officers: 'Had the British fleet only put their heads the same way as the enemy's and stood inshore . . . the whole of the French line might have been cut off . . . taken or destroyed.'

  Such was Nelson's second experience of a naval battle. If he did not acquit himself so spectacularly as in the Gulf of Genoa, he had again been in the van of the chase, and one of the few British ships actually engaged with the French. As noteworthy is another feature: neither on this occasion, nor in the Gulf of Genoa, did the enemy become engaged with more than a small part of the British fleet, whence Nelson learned that if the enemy was to be brought to decisive action, they must somehow be prevented from escaping - a lesson he was to demonstrate with considerable effect in less than a year. That, however, was after the consequences of Hotham's second failure to destroy the French fleet had become apparent; when the British fleet had been compelled to abandon the Mediterranean, and Spain had executed a volte face into the arms of France.

  First, Nelson had another task. The Admiral selected him for command of a squadron ordered to Vado Bay, near Genoa, where the Austrians had their headquarters. From there he was to stop all enemy vessels, and all neutrals trading with the Genoese coast, so as to cut one of the main French supply routes, and facilitate an Austrian a
dvance - not without result. To quote Buonaparte, 'by intercepting the coasters from Italy, it has suspended our commerce, stopped the arrival of provisions, and obliged us to supply Toulon from the interior of the Republic'. But dealing with neutral vessels gave Nelson an anxious time - one false step and he could be sued by their owners for heavy damages. Added to trouble with his good eye, this took such toll of his health that the doctors recommended a period of rest ashore. But a small action on 26 August made him 'feel better every way': descending upon Alassio, the Agamemnon and six frigates captured the corvette Resolve, two galleys, a gunboat and seven vessels carrying provisions and ammunition to this enemy occupied port.

  Nelson spent the following months conducting similar inshore operations to help the Austrian army resist the French, but to little avail. 'Our admirals will have, I believe, much to answer for in not giving me that force which I so repeatedly called for . . . two 74-gun ships and eight or ten frigates and sloops to ensure safety to the army . . . and for . . . leaving me with Agamemnon alone . . . with only one frigate and a brig.' In truth, Hotham was no more capable of taking the offensive afloat than was the Austrian General de Vins willing to do so ashore: both were more concerned to avoid losses than with inflicting them on the enemy. The former allowed Rear-Admiral Joseph de Richery to slip out of Toulon on 14 September with six ships-of-the-line and three frigates to operate off Newfoundland, and Commodore Honoré Ganteaume to do likewise a fortnight later with seven sail to raise the British blockade of Smyrna. De Vins reaped the wild wind in December, the 4th bringing Nelson news of Massena's victory at Loano.

  'The French, half-naked, were determined to conquer or die. General de Vins, from ill-health, as he says, gave up the command in the middle of the battle, and from that moment not a soldier stayed at his post. . . . The Austrians ran eighteen miles without stopping. Since the campaign is finished by the defeat of the Austrians, and the French are in possession of Vado Bay . . . I am on my way to Leghorn to refit.'

  From this ignominious end of the Allies' attempt to frustrate French ambitions in northern Italy, Nelson was one of the few who emerged with credit. All with whom he came into contact gained a strong impression of unusual zeal and efficiency, coupled with the soundest of judgments, a willingness to cooperate with others, and a determination to overcome all difficulties. The Foreign Secretary, Lord Grenville, went so far as to write to the Admiralty: 'I esteem it an act of justice to that officer, to inform Your Lordships that His Majesty has been graciously pleased entirely to approve of the conduct of Commodore Nelson in all his transactions with the Republic of Genoa.'

  Nelson was at Leghorn when Hood's successor, the sixty-three-year-old Admiral Sir John Jervis, reached Gibraltar, 'to the great joy of some, and sorrow to others'. The new Commander-in-Chief's record stood high, but the standards of discipline and efficiency that he demanded are epitomized in the rebuke, 'an officer who marries is damned to the Service'. Nelson had met him only once, a chance encounter many years before: they had never served together. Now they were not long in company before he realized that the British battle fleet would no longer spend much of its time at anchor in San Fiorenzo Bay. As soon did Jervis appreciate Nelson's worth. The Agamemnon was helping to maintain a close blockade of Toulon in a blizzard in February 1796, when her captain wrote: 'Sir John . . . does not wish me to leave this station. He seems . . . to consider me as an assistant more than a subordinate. . . . He asked me if I had heard any more of my promotion. [Nelson was now very near the top of the captain's list.] I told him no. His answer was, "You must have a larger ship for we cannot spare you, either as admiral or captain." '

  On the day that Buonaparte, having been appointed at the age of twenty-seven to command the Armée d'Italie, issued his first inspiring order ('Soldiers! you are naked, ill-nourished. . . . I will lead you into the most fertile plains in the world, where you shall find great towns, rich provinces, within your grasp.'), Midshipman William Hoste, who was himself to earn fame at the battle of Lissa in 1811, (7) noted:

  'Our squadron . . . consists of two sail-of-the-line and four frigates, but is to be increased in the summer, when we shall not want for amusement . . . as our Commodore does not like to be idle. I suppose your curiosity is excited by the word Commodore Nelson. . . . Our good Captain has had this . . . distinction conferred upon him, which . . . his merit really deserves.'

  The British Mediterranean fleet still had more to do than watch Toulon: there was Corsica to be guarded, trade with the Levant to be protected and help given to the Austrians with their continued efforts to clear the French Army from the passes into Italy through the Maritime Alps. And Jervis was not slow to take advantage of Nelson's well-proven experience in the last of these tasks. On 30 May the Commodore captured Buonaparte's siege train from under the guns of Oneglia, when it was being carried in five transports, and escorted by two gunboats, to join him at Mantua, after his victories over the Austrians at Montenotte, Dego, and Lodi, and his triumphant entry into Milan.

  Nelson's broad pendant did not, however, fly in the Agamemnon for long. June brought Admiralty orders that the ship-of-the-line most in need of overhaul was to escort a homebound convoy from the Mediterranean. Jervis was in no doubt about the wretched condition of Nelson's ship, and her Commodore would have gone in her but for the poor health of Captain J. S. Smith of HMS Captain, and Nelson's own wish, conveyed to his Commander-in-Chief: 'I cannot bear the thought of leaving your command.' On 11 June 1796, he was ordered to transfer to the Captain; and it was from the quarterdeck of this 74 - he had moved to a larger ship at last - that he watched the Agamemnon - 'old and worn-out', he supposed, though he was to see her again on a very different occasion in nine years' time - make all sail and head for Gibraltar, just three years and three weeks since he had first conned her out of Spithead.

  IV The Fleet In Which He Served

  This chapter is by way of being a necessary digression. Up to the age of thirty-eight Nelson was involved in three actions on the high seas in each of which he played a conspicuous part. But the first was no more than a fight between his own ship-of-the-line and several frigates; the others were partial engagements, without decisive results. Jervis's arrival in the Mediterranean brought more changes than the transfer of Nelson's broad pendant to HMS Captain: in his new flagship he was soon involved in a major action between two battle fleets. And if his outstanding conduct in this engagement is to be appreciated - more important, if his tactics in subsequent actions are to be properly assessed - something must be said of the state of the Royal Navy in the years 1793 to 1805. No man-at-arms can be judged without a knowledge of the weapons with which he fights.

  This, then, is a survey of the Fleet in which Nelson served; of the ships with which Britain asserted her maritime supremacy against Napoleon and his allies, of the weapons with which they were armed, how they were manned, and how they were fought. A word must be said, too, of the enemy Fleets which Nelson engaged, for no naval commander is to be ranked among the Great Captains unless he has defeated a worthy opponent, an enemy whose ships, weapons, men and methods were akin to his own. (1)

  However, the reader to whom technical details are anathema, may pass to the next chapter without losing the thread of Nelson's meteoric progress to the summit of his career.

  1. 'His Majesty's Ships and Vessels'

  The principle type of war vessel in Nelson's time was the full-rigged sailing Ship. Evolved by English shipwrights to mount King Henry VII's 'great guns', broad of beam with bluff bows, these proved their superiority over Spain's finer lined galleons and galleasses in the time of Queen Elizabeth I before being copied by the Dutch in the Stuart era, and improved by France's naval architects in the first half of the eighteenth century. HMS Victory, launched at Chatham in 1765 and forty years old when she led Nelson's line at Trafalgar, was no more than a sophisticated version of the 100-gunned Sovereign of the Seas, built by Phineas Pett for King Charles I back in 1637, except for the omission of the carved and gilde
d stern favoured by Stuart monarchs. With hulls of seasoned English oak (the largest class of ship required 3,000 loads of timber, as much as can be grown on 40 acres of land in l00 years) (2), copper sheathed below water as protection against the destructive teredo worm, and masts and yards of Scandinavian and Russian pine after the loss of Britain's American Colonies stopped that source of supply (hence the importance attached to Baltic convoys) (3), these Ships were classed according to their armament. The largest, mounting 100-120 guns, were first rates: those with 90-98 guns second rates: those with 64-84 guns third rates. In all three classes, equipped with 80 guns or more, these were distributed between three decks; hence the term three-decker. The rest, including third rates with 64 guns (such as Nelson's Agamemnon) and with 74 guns (such as Nelson's Captain) which were the most numerous class of Ship in service, were two-deckers. All were sufficiently well armed, and stout enough to withstand damage, as to be able to engage an enemy Ship of the largest size. (In the Franco-Spanish wars that stretched from 1689 to 1815 the French and Spaniards lost six three-deckers in action with British two-deckers.)

  First, second and third rates formed the hard core of a navy, termed its battle fleet; and since, for reasons discussed in Section 5, this was required to fight in the formation known as line ahead, these were referred to as ships-of-the-line (or sometimes as sail-of-the-line, or line-of-battle ships, whence the term battleship when steel and steam replaced oak and sail).