Nelson the Commander

by Bennett, Geoffrey

  St Vincent might be against giving Nelson the opportunity to return so soon to his scandalous life with the Hamiltons, but he could not be other than sympathetic to pleas that were reinforced by the testimony of the bearer of his letter, that Nelson was far from well. In mid-June Vice-Admiral Sir Charles Pole arrived in the Baltic, and on the 19th Nelson sailed for home. Six weeks later brought proof that his request to be relieved was ruled by logic as well as emotion; that after Reval there was no scope in the Baltic for a man of his exceptional talents. As soon as the end of July 1801 the Government agreed that a British fleet no longer served any useful purpose there, and Pole was ordered home.

  IX Boulogne and Merton 1801-1803

  Having landed at Yarmouth on 1 July 1801, Nelson hurried to join the Hamiltons at the Burford Bridge posting inn (today a flourishing hotel) near Dorking, twenty-five miles to the south of London. But he did not enjoy the peace of this beauty spot under Surrey's Box Hill for very long. His wish to 'live a country life' with Emma could not be granted: St Vincent - and England - had need of him. As soon as 20 July he was summoned to Whitehall.

  Austria's defeat at Hohenlinden had left the Emperor Francis II with no alternative but to sue for peace. When the Treaty of Luneville ended the Second Coalition on 9 February 1801, Bonaparte had subdued all France's enemies except for two. He dealt with one of these by pressing Spain to declare war on Portugal, which forced her to sign a peace treaty at Badajoz as soon as 6 June. But Britain presented a problem of a different order; her sea power, which had wrested Malta from France's grasp, played a major part in dissolving the Armed Neutrality of the North, and seemed likely to compel the Armée d' Orient to surrender its hold on Egypt, appeared to be an insurmountable obstacle. How then could Bonaparte persuade the British to negotiate the peace he needed in order to consolidate his position at home against those whom he had antagonized by his arbitrary seizure of power - the Royalists who wished to restore the Bourbons, and the Jacobins to whom his autocratic regime was the antithesis of their revolutionary principles?

  France's resources were too strained for him to invade England, even if it were possible for his Fleet to escort an army across the Narrow Seas. The alternative was to threaten such an operation, in the hope of frightening the British into coming to terms. And to deceive them into supposing that he meant business, he moved troops into camps in northern France, and assembled a flotilla of small craft, supposedly to embark them, in Boulogne under Rear-Admiral Louis de Latouche-Treville, among the ablest of his flag officers. News of these preparations soon reached London - Bonaparte saw to that - where the Government ordered urgent counter-measures. These included the formation of a Squadron on a Particular Service - a force of frigates, gun-vessels, bombs, floating batteries, and other small craft 'for the defence against invasion of the coast of England', from Orfordness to Beachy Head. And to allay public alarm, the First Lord chose for its commander the nation's hero, the certain victor of the Nile and Copenhagen. (1)

  Nelson's reaction to this fresh call to duty was modest. 'I have seen Lord St Vincent,' he wrote to Addington, 'and submit to your and his partiality. Whilst my health will allow . . . every exertion of mine shall be used to merit the continuance of your esteem.' 'Exertion' was no idle word. On 25 July he completed a long memorandum from which these abridged extracts not only explain the task that faced him but illustrate his sure grasp of its solution:

  'The enemy's object ought to be getting on shore as speedily as possible. The dangers of a navigation of forty-eight hours appear to be an insurmountable objection to rowing from Boulogne to the coast of Essex. It is therefore most probable the French are coming from Boulogne, Calais and even Le Havre to land in Sussex, or the lower ports of Flanders to land in Essex or Suffolk. The enemy will also create a diversion by sailing her Combined Fleet [from Brest, etc.]; and either sailing, or creating an appearance of sailing, of the Dutch Fleet.

  Supposing that 40,000 men are destined for this attack; 20,000 will land on the west side of Dover, and the same number on the east side. Supposing 200 or even 250 craft are collected at Boulogne to carry them. In calm weather, they might row over in twelve hours. At the same instant, the same number of troops would be rowed out of Dunkirk, Ostend, etc. These are the great objects to attend to from Dover and the Downs. When the enemy row out, all our vessels and boats must meet them as soon as possible: if not strong enough for the attack, they must keep them company till a favourable opportunity offers. If a breeze springs up, our ships are to deal destruction; but should it remain calm, the moment the enemy touch our shore our flotilla must attack as much as they can. The bows of our flotilla will be opposed to their unarmed sterns, and British courage will never allow one Frenchman to leave the beach.

  A great number of Deal and Dover boats should be off Boulogne, to give notice of the direction taken by the enemy. Vessels in the Channel can signal intelligence to our shores. A flotilla of gun-boats and flat-boats should be stationed between Orfordness and North Foreland; and a third in Hollesley Bay. The floating batteries are stationed in the proper positions for defending the different channels, and the smaller vessels will have the support of the stationed [guard] ships.

  The moment of the enemy's movement from Boulogne is to be considered as the movement of the enemy from Dunkirk. Supposing it be calm, our flotillas are to be rowed, and the heavy craft towed, those near Margate three or four leagues to the north of North Foreland, those from Hollesley Bay a little approaching the centre division but keeping an eye towards Solebay, the centre division to advance half-way between the two. When the enemy's flotilla can be seen, our divisions to unite ready to execute such orders as may be necessary. For this purpose, men with confidence in each other should be looked for, that no jealousy may creep into any man's mind, but all be animated with the desire of preventing the descent of the enemy on our coasts.

  Floating batteries are not to be moved, for the tide may prevent their resuming the stations assigned to them. They are on no account to be neglected, even should the enemy surround them; they must rely on support, and reflect that their gallant conduct may prevent the mischievous designs of the enemy. The moment the enemy touch our coast, they are to be attacked by every man afloat and on shore: this must be perfectly understood. Never fear the event.

  These are the rude ideas of the moment for a sea plan of defence for London; but other parts may be menaced if the Brest fleet, and those from Rochefort and Holland put to sea. I feel confident that these will meet the same fate which has always attended them, yet their sailing will facilitate the passage of their flotilla as they will suppose our attention will be diverted to the fleets.'

  St Vincent approved this appreciation in time for Nelson to hoist his flag in the frigate Unite at Sheerness on the 27th. 'In the short time we were [there],' wrote Commander Edward Parker, 'he gave orders for thirty of the ships under his command, made everyone pleased, filled them with emulation, and set them all on the qui vive.' In forty-eight hours Nelson was on his way by road to Deal where in the Downs he hoisted his flag in the 32-gunned frigate Medusa. In her he was soon off Boulogne with some thirty bombs, reporting to St Vincent on 3 August:

  'I was in hopes that the wind could have . . . enabled . . . the bombs [to] have a good knock at the mole and vessels outside it, but the wind falling nearly to a calm . . . I called the bombs off after they had fired ten or twelve shells . . . without any effect. . . . But we have ascertained that we can bombard the vessels at proper times of tide . . . and wind . . . with great facility. . . . I hope the wind will come westerly, when we can . . . try the effect of shells. If it does not . . ., on Captain Nichols' arrival I shall leave this business to . . . him . . . and get back to our own coast and arrange our . . . defence, or . . . be ready to assault the scoundrels should they dare to come over.'

  Next day Nelson added:

  'The wind being at NE, the bombs anchored at half-past five abreast of the town. What damage has been done cannot be ascertained . .
. inside the [mole]. On the outside two large floating batteries are sunk, and one large gun-brig cut her cables and run on shore where she lies abandoned. . . . Boulogne is certainly not a very pleasant place this morning, but it is not my wish to injure the poor inhabitants, and the town is spared as much as the nature of the service will admit. Very little damage has been done to our bombs. . . . P.S. One or two more gun-vessels are destroyed since I finished my letter. (RA.10332.)

  Nelson returned to Margate on 12 August well assured that his own force 'is perfect and possesses so much zeal that I only want to catch that Bonaparte on the water'. Since 'our first defence is close to the enemy's ports', and because 'no embarkation of troops can take place in Boulogne . . . the ports of Flushing and Flanders are more likely places to embark men than Calais, Boulogne or Dieppe', he proposed an assault on Flushing for which he would need 5,000 troops. But St Vincent hesitated to agree because of the difficulties of navigating this mouth of the Scheldt. So Nelson decided to make a fresh attack on the Boulogne flotilla, not this time by a bombardment with only limited results but (in accordance with the philosophy, 'it is annihilation that the country wants, not merely a splendid victory') one in which 'the business is not to be considered as finished . . . until the whole flotilla be either taken or wholly annihilated, for there must not be the smallest cessation until their destruction is completely finished'.

  Arriving off the port on 15 August, all the boats from Nelson's force were ordered to assemble round the Medusa at 10.30 pm. Forty-eight of them, manned by picked officers and men armed with cutlasses, axes, grapnels and 'combustibles', were divided into four divisions under Commanders Edward Parker, Isaac Colgrave, Philip Somerville and Richard Jones. Eleven more, under Commander John Conn, mounted mortars. One hour later, at a signal from the flagship, all headed shorewards under muffled oars, for what was designed to be a simultaneous surprise assault, under covering mortar fire, around 1 am, which would cut out, or destroy Latouche-Treville's twenty-four gun-vessels which he had moored in line, secured bow to stern, to seaward of the mole and pier, and the flat-boats and other craft lying inside them.

  Why, after his disastrous failure at Santa Cruz did Nelson plan such an operation? To recall the success of Rodney's comparable attack on Le Havre in 1759 is no answer. As at Tenerife, he ignored the obstacles of darkness and a strong current; he imagined that the enemy would be asleep; he underestimated their determination to resist. Moreover, he did not know that Latouche-Treville had secured his vessels with chains instead of the usual ropes. To claim, as Nelson did, that it was all-important to seize any and every opportunity for attacking the enemy, is no excuse. In truth he was the victim of one of his great qualities. To be successful a naval commander must have confidence in himself and in his ships and men; he may, too, take calculated risks when a rich prize is at stake. But he must not fall into the traps of overconfidence, of discounting his enemy, of hazarding his force when, as in this case, the prize is known to be small since by now he realized that Bonaparte had no real intention of invading Britain. In all the circumstances it is, indeed, remarkable that Nelson did not, as at Santa Cruz, compound his errors by leading this assault on Boulogne himself, except that he may have felt that, with only one eye and one arm, he was no longer fitted for such a strenuous task.

  In the event, Parker gave a premature alarm by attacking the brigs Etna and Vulcan as early as 12.30 am: both were so stoutly defended that he was compelled to retire after his division had suffered sixty-three casualties. By the time Colgrave made his attack an hour later, the enemy was fully alert: his division was repulsed with five killed and twenty-nine wounded despite the covering fire provided by Conn's mortars. Somerville's boats were swept so far to the east that it was near dawn before they attacked and carried a French brig, only to find that, for lack of any appliance to cut her securing chains, they could not remove her before a hail of enemy fire forced them to withdraw with as many as eighteen killed and fifty-five wounded. As for Jones's division, this failed to reach the enemy at all before daylight obliged him to retire, albeit without loss.

  In addition to suffering forty-four killed and 126 wounded, the British lost twelve of their boats. No French craft was taken or sunk; they had, moreover, only ten killed and thirty wounded. In short, victory went to Latouche-Treville: Nelson suffered a bloody defeat.

  'I am sorry to tell you [St Vincent] that I have not succeeded in bringing out or destroying the enemy's flotilla moored in the . . . harbour of Boulogne. . . . The most astonishing bravery was evinced by many of our officers and men. . . . No person can be blamed for sending them to the attack but myself. . . . All behaved well, and it was their misfortune to be sent on a service which the precautions of the enemy rendered impossible.'

  In these words Nelson accepted full responsibility for his defeat, but he would have been more honest had he also admitted his failure to remember Tenerife which had, after all, lost him an arm, and all but cost him his life.

  Fortunately this defeat was of no real significance for Britain; nor, had the action been successful, would it have achieved much beyond, perhaps, angering Bonaparte to an extent that might have deflected his desire to negotiate peace. Nelson, though grieved, was not discouraged: Boulogne was only a side-show; he had not lost a vital action with the enemy's battle fleet. He again considered an attack on Flushing, reconnoitering its approaches on 24 August to see for himself whether St Vincent's doubts were justified. His subsequent report was underscored by his experience at Boulogne: 'I cannot but admire Captain Owen's zeal . . . to get at the enemy, but I am afraid it has made him overleap sandbanks and tides. . . . We cannot do impossibilities . . . and I think I can discriminate between the impracticable and the fair prospect of success.'

  By the end of August, Bonaparte's 'paper invasion' had achieved its purpose: Addington's envoys were negotiating peace. To avoid prejudicing the outcome Nelson could undertake no further offensive operations. From the crest of the wave of elation to which the prospects of action always carried him, inactivity now plunged him into the trough of depression. His thoughts were again dominated by Emma and his health: he asked to be relieved of his command. The First Lord replied that this was premature. Reluctant to think ill of St Vincent, Nelson supposed Troubridge to be the evil influence who required him to stay in the Downs rather than allow him to rejoin the Hamiltons. 'I have been so rebuffed, that my spirits are gone, and the great Troubridge has . . . cowed . . . Nelson. . . . I shall never forget it.' He was, in truth, jealous of an officer who, from being under his command in the Mediterranean, was now, as a Member of the Board, his superior. Nor was the friendship which the two men had once enjoyed destined to be renewed: when Troubridge left the Admiralty, it was to hoist his flag as Commander-in-Chief East Indies - where tragedy ended his career: in February 1807 his flagship, the Blenheim, foundered with all her crew.

  Since the Admiralty would not grant Nelson leave, the Hamiltons came to stay at an hotel in Deal. For the fortnight they were there in September he was happy: with Murray's chain of telegraph stations to bring him speedy warning of any threatening move by the French, he could safely relax ashore. But when they left for London on the 20th he wrote: 'No Emma. . . . My heart will break. I am in silent distraction. . . . My dearest wife, how can I bear our separation. . . . I am so low I cannot hold up my head.' He showed much emotion, too, when his friend Parker died of the wound inflicted on him in the attack on Boulogne. But this time of trial lasted for little more than a month. On 1 October Addington's envoys signed an armistice. The news reached Nelson on the 4th: 'Thank God, it is peace!' he exclaimed - although St Vincent would not grant him leave until hostilities were formally ended on the 22nd.

  That evening Nelson set out to join the Hamiltons at Merton, a village seven miles south of Charing Cross which has long since been absorbed into England's sprawling capital. For practical purposes this was the end of his command of a Squadron on a Particular Service, although his flag continued to fly unti
l 10 April 1802, a fortnight after a winter's anxiety over Bonaparte's real intentions was ended by the Treaty of Amiens signed on 25 March.

  This was 'a peace of which everyone was glad and nobody proud'. Of her hard-won conquests in a war that had lasted for all of eight years Britain retained only Trinidad and Ceylon: France kept the territory that is now Belgium, with the frontier of the Rhine. And Nelson was among those who had no illusions about the future:

  'We have made peace with the French despotism, and we will, I hope, adhere to it whilst the French continue in due bounds; but whenever they overstep that and usurp a power that would degrade Europe, then I trust we shall join Europe in crushing her ambition; then I would with pleasure go forth and risk my life to put down the detestable power of France.'

  He was to be allowed little more than a year after Amiens before being required to fulfil this pledge.

  Since this book is a study of Nelson as a naval commander, not a biography of the man, little need be written of the period from October 1801 to May 1803, of which he spent the first six months on extended leave and the rest on half-pay. Except for a summer tour in 1802 of Wales by way of Oxford, where Nelson received the City's freedom and the University's Doctorate of Civil Law, the tria juncta in uno lived in Merton Place, 'the Farm' as Nelson called it, which Emma had found to satisfy his longing for a country home of his own, but within easy reach of London, and which Davison helped him to buy in September 1801 with the generous loan needed by a man who had become accustomed to living beyond his means. Like his birthplace at Burnham Thorpe, time has long since failed to preserve Merton Place for posterity, but several contemporary accounts of how Nelson lived there with the Hamiltons have survived. According to Lord Minto: