Nelson the Commander

by Bennett, Geoffrey

  'Probably a more perfectly beautiful being than Emma Lyon never existed. . . . We owe to Romney . . . a vivid presentation of that marvellous beauty which swept . . . all the better feelings of [Nelson's] nature before the passionate longing to possess this splendid work of nature; which made him reckless of all moral restraint; and which has tarnished with an indelible stain an otherwise glorious career. Viewed in any light, one can but regret the fatality that threw Emma Hamilton in the path of Horatio Nelson, for not even the glorious close of his heroic life . . . can wash his memory clean of the infamy of his participation in the judicial murder of Caracciolo, or excuse his treatment of the Neapolitan political prisoners, whose lives . . . had [been] guaranteed, and whom he handed over to the tender mercies of Ferdinand and his sanguinary consort.' (Lord Ronald Sutherland Gower in George Romney.)

  A harsh verdict, yes, but one which is more honest than that of most of Nelson's biographers who have been bewitched into giving a false gloss to these two years of their hero's life; (5) and a verdict which is supported by the Admiralty's decision to recall him from the Mediterranean in 1800, discredited if not disgraced.

  Fortunately for him, and for Britain, Nelson had five more years to live; time enough for him to reveal again amidst the shoals of Copenhagen his greatness as a naval commander, such as he had shown in Aboukir Bay on 1 August 1798, as those who served under him believed him still to be:

  'My Lord [wrote the Barge's crew of the Foudroyant], it is with extreme grief that we find you are about to leave us. We have been along with you . . . in every engagement your Lordship has been in . . . and most humbly beg . . . of your Lordship to permit us to go to England as your boat's crew . . . in any way that may seem most pleasing. . . . Pardon the rude style of seamen who are but little acquainted with writing.'

  Perhaps James Froude has the words for all this: 'Duty means justice, fidelity, manliness, loyalty, patriotism; truth in the heart and truth in the tongue.'

  VIII To the Baltic 1800-1801

  The First Lord might so far disapprove of Nelson's conduct as to I recall him from his command; but to Britain's allies he was the victor of the Nile, the admiral who compelled the French fleet to relinquish its grip on the Mediterranean, the man who dispelled Bonaparte's Oriental dream, and helped to clear the Jacobins from Italy. His journey home across Europe with the Hamiltons was akin to a triumphal progress. They stayed for a month in Vienna where, wrote Lady Minto, 'the door of his house is always crowded with people, and even the street when his carriage is at the door; and when he went to the play he was applauded, a thing which rarely happens here'. The paeans of praise included a performance of 'Papa' Hadyn's D minor Mass, written two years before, with its flourish of trumpets and timpani accompanying the Benedictus inspired by the news from Aboukir Bay (now known as the Nelson Mass); and his forgotten cantata The Battle of the Nile, which Emma insisted on singing with the sixty-eight-year-old composer at the keyboard.

  Lady Minto, who had known Nelson in Corsica, did not 'think him altered in the least. He has . . . the same honest simple manners; but he is devoted to Emma, he thinks her quite an angel . . . and she leads him about like a keeper with a bear.' Lord Fitzharris feared the consequences of this infatuation: 'Nelson . . . is not changed; open and honest, not the least vanity about him . . . [but he] told me he had no thoughts of serving again.' He had already said as much to others: 'Lord Nelson is not yet arrived in England,' wrote Troubridge in September, 'and between ourselves I do not think he will serve again.'

  The trio followed the course of the Elbe by way of Prague and Dresden. But for all its pleasures, their dilatory journey was not without worries. Fitzharris might admire Nelson, but 'Lady Hamilton is without exception the most coarse, ill-mannered, disagreeable woman I ever met', and the Electress of Saxony refused to receive her, which raised the spectre of whether she would be persona grata at the Court of St James. (She was not, in the event, received by any of the royal family, except for the Prince of Wales and Prince Augustus.) Eventually, on 31 October 1800, they reached Hamburg to embark for a stormy passage across the North Sea. Six days later, two years and eight months after sailing from Spithead, Nelson landed at Yarmouth for the hero's welcome that popular opinion believed he deserved: on 10 November he attended the Lord Mayor's Banquet in Guildhall to receive an elegant sword from the Corporation of London.

  But he had also to face the moment of truth. Fanny had come from Roundwood to join her husband at Nerot's Hotel in King Street, St James's. (He had advised her not to meet him at Yarmouth.) For the past eighteen months she had forborne comment on the irregularity and brevity of his letters, for which he gave the mendacious excuse of pressure of work. She had ignored his repeated references to the Hamiltons - 'it is impossible for me to express the affectionate kindness Sir William and her Ladyship has [sic] shown me'. She had accepted his change of style, from, `My dearest Fanny,' to, 'My dear Fanny', and from, 'Your most affectionate husband', to, 'Your affectionate'. Her lengthy replies, though filled, as always, with domestic gossip rather than praise for his achievements, ended with such sentiments as, 'God bless you, my dear husband, and grant us a happy meeting'. She vented her displeasure only at his supposed lack of consideration for her beloved son, ignoring the reality that Nelson had gained for Josiah command of the frigate Thalia when his reprobate conduct justified court martial.

  But the resolution with which she hoped to retain her errant husband's affections was soon proved vain. With scant regard for her feelings, Nelson lost no time in taking her to dine with the Hamiltons; nor did he fail to give her other opportunities to see how real his devotion to Emma was.

  'His conduct to Lady Nelson,' wrote Sir William Hotham, 'was the very extreme of unjustifiable weakness, for he should at least have attempted to conceal his infirmities, without publicly wounding the feelings of a woman whose own conduct he well knew was irreproachable.' He was as callous in Emma's absence. 'When,' wrote Lady Spencer, 'the Nelsons dined with the First Lord, he treated his wife with every mark of dislike and even of contempt.'

  To gain relief from the quarrels which this conduct provoked, Nelson spent Christmas with the Hamiltons in William Beckford's folly at Fonthill. But although he subsequently rejoined Fanny at 17 Dover Street, a house which Davison had rented for him, their final parting was not long delayed. For reasons to be related, Nelson had to leave London for Torbay on 13 January. As he said goodbye he declared: 'I call God to witness, there is nothing in you or your conduct I wish otherwise' - but they never saw each other again. On 29 January Emma gave birth to a daughter, baptized Horatia, who must have been conceived during her cruise to Syracuse and Malta in the Foudroyant. A child of his own! Nelson had wanted one for so long, and Emma had succeeded where Fanny had failed. She had given him this 'clear pledge of love': henceforward - and Emma was as determined to ensure this as he was - there could be no woman in his life but her.

  Horatia was quickly placed with a foster-mother, the highly recommended Mrs Gibson, both to conceal her existence from Hamilton and to avoid the inevitable consequence if Emma had brought her up at home, that Hamilton must have become her de jure father. Nelson wanted the child to be his, not another's. So, too, did he take elaborate steps designed to ensure that on his death much of his property would go to Horatia instead of to Josiah. And, early in March, Fanny received these heartless words in what she called her husband's letter of dismissal:

  '. . . I have done all for him [Josiah] and he may again, as he has often done before, wish me to break my neck . . . but I have done my duty as an honest and generous man, and I neither want nor wish for anybody to care what become of me . . . seeing I have done all in my power for you. And if dead you will find I have done the same, (1) therefore my only wish is to be left to myself. . . . '

  Nonetheless, Fanny wrote to her husband a month later to express 'my thankfulness and happiness it hath pleased God to spare your life' in a 'victory . . . said to surpass Aboukir'. And although for reply she rec
eived no more than a further indication, through Davison, that Nelson wished 'to be left to myself, and without any enquiries from her', she wrote again in July to thank him for 'your generosity and tenderness . . . never more strongly shown than . . . the payment of your very handsome quarterly allowance'. But not until near the end of 1801 did she despair of recovering her husband: on 18 December she sent this pleading, forgiving letter:

  '. . . The silence you have imposed is more than my affections will allow me, and in this instance I hope you will forgive me in not obeying you. . . . I now have a . . . comfortable warm house. Do, my dear husband, let us live together. I can never be happy till such an event takes place. I have but one wish in the world, to please you. Let everything be buried in oblivion, it will pass away like a dream. I can now only entreat you to believe I am most sincerely and affectionately your wife. . . . '

  But the hour had already struck. With the same inhumanity that he had shown towards the unfortunate Caracciolo - and for the same reason, Emma - Nelson wrote finis to his union with Fanny. The letter was returned with this note by Davison appended: 'Opened by mistake by Lord Nelson, but not read.'

  He could hardly have said anything more cruel. His ageing father could only help to relieve Fanny's unhappiness by continuing to live with her until he died some four months later. The sorry fact is that marriage between a man so warm-blooded and high-spirited and a woman so frigid and neurotic was ill-starred from the beginning; and it was foredoomed when they failed to consummate it with a child. But Nelson could no more expect her to divorce him than Hamilton would wish to lose both him and Emma: wedded in law, Nelson and Fanny remained unto the end, whilst to Emma he wrote:

  'Now, my dear wife, for such you are in my eyes and in the face of heaven, I can give full scope to my feelings. . . . You know . . . that there is nothing in this world that I would not do for us to live together, and to have our dear little child with us. My longing for you . . . you may readily imagine. What must be my sensation at the idea of sleeping with you? It sets me on fire, even the thoughts, much more would be the reality. I am sure my love and desire are all for you. . . . Kiss and bless our dear Horatia.'

  Nelson's determination to be rid of Fanny, Horatia's birth and the difficulty in ensuring for her future, and his continued passion for Emma, despite the King's strong disapproval and such public criticism as Gillray's fierce cartoons, not to mention his jealousy at Emma's delight in the attentions paid to her by the Prince of Wales - all this subjected him to much emotional stress. He wanted the private life of the victor of the Nile to be as far above criticism as his conduct of that battle, but though the world might not worry about a man's immoralities, it would not have them brandished in its face. 'They all hate me and treat me ill. I cannot . . . recall . . . one real act of kindness, but all of unkindness', he wrote. Such bitterness kindled his rebellious spirit, sometimes corrupting his driving ambition and self-reliance into a distasteful vanity and arrogance. Whether it had a significant effect - for good or ill - on his role as naval commander is a question which the remainder of this book must try to answer.

  One thing is, however, certain. In his next command he would not be able to linger in port, enjoying the company of his mistress. Nor would he be tied by her ambition to a corrupt Court dominated by a tyrant Queen. Freed from the shackles which had bound him in the Mediterranean, he could go his own brilliant way, with the tremendous consequence that within three months he again climbed one of the high peaks of his unique career.

  Despite his expressed intention not to serve again, Nelson had no sooner arrived in London, than he reported to the Admiralty that his health was restored and that he desired a further appointment. In two months this wish was granted: St Vincent, who had succeeded Bridport in the Channel fleet in April 1800, wanted none but Nelson as his second-in-command. And with Troubridge among the Naval Lords to prompt him, Spencer had no mind to reject the Commander-in-Chief's request now that a year had elapsed since Nelson's reprehensible conduct in the Mediterranean. On 1 January 1801 Nelson was promoted vice-admiral of the blue: twelve days later, as already mentioned, he left London for Devon to hoist his flag in the San Josef (as the name of the three-decker which he had boarded at Cape St Vincent was anglicized), with Hardy as his flag captain.

  Nelson yielded to none in his admiration for St Vincent, who knew well how to handle and to use to best advantage his subordinate's special talents. Unfortunately, as soon as 5 February Destiny played an unexpected card. Because the King would not support Catholic emancipation, Pitt resigned; the new Prime Minister, Addington, appointed St Vincent to be his First Lord; and Admirals Cornwallis and Sir Hyde Parker were ordered to succeed him. This courted trouble. Nelson had seen how inadequately Parker handled his division in Hotham's actions in the Gulf of Genoa and off Hyeres, and had had a disagreement with him in the short interregnum between Hotham's departure and the then John Jervis's arrival in the Mediterranean. ('Hotham kept my squardron too small for its duty; and the moment Sir Hyde took command, he reduced it to nothing.') He had, therefore, as little respect for Parker as he had had for Keith. Nor was it long before events justified this.

  The Tsar had done more to disrupt the Second Coalition than withdraw Suvorov from the Alps and Ushakov from the Mediterranean. Further angered, after Valletta's surrender in September 1800, by Britain's refusal to yield Malta to his sovereignty as Grand Master of the Knights, Paul had followed up the French defeats of Austria in the field, notably at Hohenlinden (near Munich) on 3 December, by persuading Denmark, Sweden and Prussia to agree with Bonaparte's suggestion that they should join with him in reviving the Armed Neutrality of 1780. The treaty which they signed in St Petersburg on 16 December might not be a declaration of war, even though it extended to seizing some 300 British merchantmen which were then in Russian ports, but it was a direct threat to Britain's ability to continue, again alone except for faithful Portugal, her mortal struggle with France. By insisting on protecting their own trade whilst denying Britain access to Baltic timber and hemp, these countries could reduce her sea power near to impotence. The British Government was, therefore, in no doubt of the need for swift decisive action: the small risk that the French fleet might sortie from Brest must be accepted: the greater part of the British fleet in Home waters must be sent to the Baltic. Backed by such a show of force negotiations might dissolve the Armed Neutrality; but if negotiations failed, the Fleets of these powers must be destroyed.

  Parker and Nelson were ordered to go with this Baltic fleet, the former because he had been involved with planning a similar expedition in 1781 and because, as St Vincent put it, he was best fitted to do the talking, the latter because 'Nelson will act the fighting part very well'. In this respect the First Lord's judgement was to be proved sound, but there was another truth in Lady Malmesbury's comment: 'I feel very sorry for Sir Hyde . . . no man would ever have gone with Nelson, or over him, as he was sure to be [put] in the background.' Knowing that he must be destined for this shallow sea when he received orders to embark the 49th Regiment of Foot, under Lieutenant-Colonel the Hon. William Stewart, at Spithead, Nelson (after paying a hurried visit to London to see his newly born child) transferred his flag to the St George because this 98-gun ship drew less water than the San Josef. But on reaching Yarmouth on 6 March, he was dismayed to find his new Commander-in-Chief more interested in providing entertainment for the eighteen-year-old wife he had recently married than in his fleet and its mission. Without thought of how he himself had dallied with Emma at Naples and Palermo, Nelson promptly expressed his feelings in a note to St Vincent. Five days later he had the satisfaction of telling Troubridge: 'The signal is made to prepare to unmoor at 12 o'clock. 'Now he [Parker] can have no desire for staying; for her ladyship is gone, and the ball for Friday knocked up by yours and the Earl's [St Vincent's] unpoliteness to send gentlemen to sea instead of dancing with white gloves.'

  Fifteen ships-of-the-line and two 50s, with nearly 1,000 troops embarked, accompanied by
the usual frigates and smaller craft, sailed on 12 March. According to one of Nelson's letters: 'I know not that we are even going to the Baltic, except from the newspapers.' (2) Parker had been too 'sulky' to reveal his plans. According to another, 'Sir Hyde has not told me officially a thing': nonetheless, 'the St George is beginning to prepare for battle, and she shall be true to herself. . . . Nelson will be the first if he lives and . . . shall partake of all [the] glory.' For he had, in fact, gathered much of what was intended, since to Emma he boasted:

  'Reports say we are to anchor before we get to Kronborg . . . that our Minister at Copenhagen may negotiate. What nonsense! How much better could we negotiate was our fleet off Copenhagen, and the Danish Minister would seriously reflect how he brought the fire of England on his Master's fleet and capital; but to keep us out of sight is to seduce Denmark into a war. . . . If they are the plans of [our] Ministers, they are weak in the extreme. . . . If they originate with Sir Hyde, it makes him, in my mind as - but never mind, your Nelson's plans are bold and decisive - all on the grand scale. I hate your pen-and-ink men; a fleet of British ships of war are the best negotiators in Europe.'

  Parker, with his fleet augmented by three more ships-of-the-line, rounded the Skaw on 20 March 1801. Forty-eight hours later, he anchored in the Kattegat, eighteen miles from Kronborg, where the Sound (the channel between Sweden and Denmark) narrows to three miles to the north of Copenhagen. For one reason, Parker needed time to concentrate his force after it had been scattered by a North Sea gale. The other Nelson learned when he boarded Parker's flagship, the 98-gun London, even though 'there was not that degree of openness which I should have shown my second-in-command'. By virtue of her geography Denmark held the key to the Baltic. Addington hoped that she could be persuaded to allow the British fleet to pass Copenhagen without opposition, so that it might go on without loss and without substantial delay to deal with the Russian fleet. As Nelson put it, 'Paul was the enemy . . . of the greatest consequence for us to tumble.' He was also right in his belief that negotiations would fail: the frigate Blanche, which carried the Hon. Nicholas Vansittart of the Foreign Office to Copenhagen for talks with the Danish Government, rejoined the fleet on 23 March with the news that the British Minister had been handed his passports.