Nelson the Commander

by Bennett, Geoffrey

  'The whole establishment and way of life are such as to make me angry, as well as melancholy; but . . . I do not think myself obliged to quarrel with him for his weakness, though nothing shall ever induce me to give the smallest countenance to Lady Hamilton. She looks ultimately to the chances of marriage, as Sir William will not be long in her way, and she probably indulges a hope that she may survive Lady Nelson. . . . Meanwhile she and Sir William . . . are living with him at his expense. She is in high looks, but more immense than ever. The love she makes to Nelson is not only ridiculous but disgusting. . . . The whole house . . . [is] covered with nothing but pictures of her and him . . . and . . . of his naval actions, coats-of-arms, pieces of plate in his honour, the flagstaff of the Orient, etc. - an excess of vanity. . . . If it was Lady Hamilton's house there might be a pretence for it; to make his own house a mere looking glass to view himself all day is bad taste.'

  In sharp contrast, Nelson's nephew, George Matcham, without attempting to 'defend his one great error', described him as 'remarkable for a demeanour quiet, sedate and unobtrusive, anxious to give pleasure to anyone about him. . . . He delighted in quiet conversation, through which occasionally ran an undercurrent of pleasantry, not unmixed with caustic wit. At his table he was the least heard among the company, and so far from being the hero of his own tale, I never heard him voluntarily refer to any of [his] great actions. . . . A man of more temperate habits could not . . . have been found. . . . He always looked what he was - a gentleman. . . . He was, it is true, a sailor, and one of a warm and generous disposition . . . [but] he was not ''a rude and boisterous captain of the sea''.'

  And this favourable portrait is echoed by Miss Lancaster, the Vicar of Merton's daughter:

  'I cannot refrain from informing you of his [Nelson's] unlimited charity and goodness. . . . His frequently expressed desire was, that none . . . should want or suffer affliction that he could alleviate; and this . . . he did with a most liberal hand, always desiring that it should not be known from whence it came. His residence at Merton was a continued course of charity and goodness, setting such an example of propriety and regularity that there are few who could not be benefited by following it.'

  Despite their contradictions both pictures are true. Minto was among those who could never forgive 'the shocking injury done to Lady Nelson': Miss Lancaster was of the pure to whom all things are pure. And many a lesser man than Nelson, with religious convictions as strong, has striven through charity to reconcile himself with God for his inability to obey His most difficult commandment.

  The reality was, perhaps, best expressed by Hamilton:

  'I have passed the last forty years of my life in the hurry and bustle . . . attendant on a public character. I am arrived at the age when some repose is . . . necessary and I promised myself a quiet home . . . [sensibly admitting] when I married that I should be superannuated when my wife would be in her full beauty and vigour. . . . That time is arrived and we must make the best of it for the comfort of both parties. Unfortunately our tastes . . . are very different. I by no means wish to live in solitary retreat, but to have seldom less than twelve or fourteen at table . . . is coming back to what was become so irksome to me in Italy. . . . The whole attention of my wife is given to Lord N. . . but I know how very uncomfortable it would make his Lordship, our best friend, if a separation should take place and am therefore determined to do all in my power to prevent such an extremity, which would be essentially detrimental to all parties, but would be more sensibly felt by our dear friend than by us. . . . Therefore let us bear and forbear for God's sake.' (2)

  At Merton, on 26 April 1802, Nelson mourned the death of his ailing father, whose last months were saddened by his son's desertion of the neurotic Fanny - but declined to attend the funeral for fear of meeting her there. The ageing Hamilton died almost a year later, on 6 April 1803. 'The world never lost a more upright and accomplished gentleman', wrote Nelson - nor, be it added, one of more generous spirit, judged by this last codicil to his will: 'Madame Le Brun's picture of Emma (3) . . . I give to my dearest friend Lord Nelson . . . the most virtuous, loyal and truly great character I ever met with. God bless him, and shame fall on those who do not say Amen.' But Nelson was under no illusion that he deserved such a tribute: he expressed this note to his neighbour, Mr Perry, who was editor of the Morning Chronicle:

  'Our dear Sir William left this world at ten minutes past ten this morning in Lady Hamilton's and my arms. Her attentions to him to the last, and altogether for near twelve years, have been such as to call forth all our admiration for this excellent woman. As I should wish neither to have too much nor too little said in your paper on this occasion, I entreat that I may see you as soon as possible.' (4)

  The italicized sentence reflects his concern that the newspapers would seize the occasion to rekindle criticism of his illicit passion. He had so far swallowed the unhappy truth, that no public figure can leave his wife and flaunt a mistress in her place without putting his entire reputation and career in jeopardy, to the extent of ensuring that his and Emma's visits to Mrs Gibson, to see his adored Horatia, were shrouded in secrecy. Such discretion stilled the waves of censure for so long as Hamilton lived; but whether he could have survived the fury of the storm that must have been unleashed had he continued to live with her after her husband's death is another matter. Fortunately, this situation did not arise: within the month he was given an appointment which took him away from Emma for all but one brief period two years later.

  At Merton Nelson did much more than enjoy entertaining his many friends in some style amid the peace of the Surrey countryside. He remembered those who had fought with him at Copenhagen: in a prolonged correspondence with Addington, with St Vincent, and with the Lord Mayor of London, he contended that their services deserved to be rewarded with a special medal such as had been struck for those who were with him at the Nile. He argued in vain: a Copenhagen medal would have to be awarded to the Commander-in-Chief, and Parker had done nothing to deserve this honour. Nelson showed his anger at this decision by refusing to accept the thanks of the City of London in June 1802, for defending the country against invasion, and three months later declined an invitation to dinner with these words: 'Never, till the City of London think justly of the merits of my brave companions of 2 April, can I . . . receive any attention from the City of London.'

  More important, Nelson did not drive into London, to spend a night or more in the Hamilton's town house in Piccadilly, only to visit Horatia. As early as 29 October 1801, he took his seat in the House of Lords, thereafter speaking whenever opportunity offered on both naval affairs and foreign policy. Under the first head he repaid Saumarez, now a rear-admiral, for his loyal support during the Nile campaign with a generous eulogy for his two hard won actions against Rear-Admiral the Comte de Linois' more powerful squadron off Algeciras on 6 and 12 July 1801. Under the latter head he seconded the Address from the Throne on 16 November 1802, with this clarion call:

  'I, my Lords, have in different countries, seen much of the miseries of war. I am, therefore, in my inmost soul, a man of peace. Yet I would not, for the sake of any peace, consent to sacrifice one jot of England's honour. Our honour is inseparably combined with our general interest. Hitherto there has been nothing greater known on the Continent than the faith, the untainted honour, the generous public sympathies, the high diplomatic influence, the commerce, the grandeur, the resistless power, the unconquerable valour of the British nation. . . . The advantages of such a reputation are not to be lightly brought into hazard. . . . As the nation was pleased with that sincere spirit of peace with which the late treaty [of Amiens] was negotiated, so, now that a restless and unjust ambition in those with whom we desired sincere amity has given a new alarm, the country will rather prompt the Government to assert its honour, than need to be roused by such measures of vigorous defence as the exigency of the times may require.'

  Churchillian in their eloquence, such sentiments are those of a great leader who had
come to terms with his chief weakness, who was no longer 'aflame with passion' (5) for a woman who had so easily claimed a heart sickened by Fanny's complaining and reproach.

  The Treaty of Amiens had gained for Bonaparte more than a peace that sealed France's dominant position in Europe: his personal prestige was so much enhanced that in August 1802 he was nominated Consul for life. But he was content with neither: two and a half years were to elapse before he satisfied his lust for personal power, before France, which had suffered so much to be rid of a king, acquired an emperor; but he showed his other ambition, to extend his country's control of other lands, as soon as August 1802 when he annexed the island of Elba. Nor was this all: in the next month he incorporated Piedmont into France without compensating the King of Sardinia; in October he ordered an invasion of Switzerland which brought that country under his domination in February 1803; and, a direct threat to Britain, he annexed the Netherlands.

  Realizing that a Neapolitan garrison would provide no safeguard for the freedom of the Knights of St John, a prudent Pitt persuaded Addington to delay implementing the clause in the treaty that required British troops to be withdrawn from Malta. This impediment to his rapacity so incensed Bonaparte that, to quote Thiers, 'he was mastered by a patriotic and at the same time personal wrath, and from now on to conquer, humiliate, trample down and annihilate England became the passion of his life'. On 11 March 1803 he ordered the construction of an armada of landing craft to form invasion flotillas at Dunkirk and Cherbourg, and toldDecrès, who was still his Minister of Marine: 'I want a memorandum on how we can inflict the greatest damage on British commerce in the event of a naval war now.' Two days later the French Fleet was ordered to make ready for sea. Two more uneasy months and the threat to Britain's continued existence as a sovereign independent state, and to her overseas trade and territories, was clear. On 12 May Lord Whitworth, British Ambassador in Paris, demanded the withdrawal of French troops from the Netherlands and Switzerland and claimed the right to garrison Malta for the next ten years. When Bonaparte replied that the island must be ceded to the Tsar, as titular Grand Master, Whitworth left France; and on 16 May 1803 Britain declared war. She was to stand alone for more than two years, until the autumn of 1805, with her fleet the only bastion against Bonaparte's ambition to gain dominion of the world.

  Like France Britain had two months to plan for this renewal of hostilities. As early as 8 March Nelson heard the King ask Parliament to adopt measures to counter the military preparations which were reported from ports across the Narrow Seas. As of old he immediately answered the call of duty, with its chance for further glory; his doubts about his health and his yearning for a quiet country life with Emma were thrust aside. `Whenever it is necessary, I am your Admiral', he scribbled to Addington. St Vincent chose him to succeed Rear-Admiral Sir Richard Bickerton in the Mediterranean. Since the Admiralty could make immediately available to Admiral the Hon. William Cornwallis commanding the Channel fleet, only ten ships-of-the-line to watch the thirty-four French sail in Brest and its neighbouring ports, there was no immediate possibility of reinforcing the nine British ships-of-the-line east of the Straits to counter the same number in Toulon, now under the redoubtable Latouche-Treville, except by sending 'an officer of splendour', whose reputation was in itself worth at least two ships-of-the-line.

  Nelson sought no greater honour. 'The Government cannot be more anxious for my departure than I am, if war, to go', he told St Vincent. His commission as Commander-in-Chief was, however, delayed until the actual declaration. He left immediately for Portsmouth where, on 18 May, Hood's old flagship, the 100-gunned Victory hoisted the blue ensign at her stern and broke Nelson's flag as Vice-Admiral of the Blue at the fore. Two days later Captain Samuel Sutton, 'a good man but not so active as Hardy', made all plain sail and, with Hardy's frigate Amphion in company, headed out of Spithead for a rendezvous with the Channel fleet, where Nelson was to transfer the Victory to Cornwallis's command. But off Ushant on the 22nd Nelson found no sign of his superior, who had been blown from his station by a gale. For twenty-four hours he waited fretting at the delay; then he transferred his flag to the Amphion and pressed on, leaving the Victory to await Cornwallis's return.

  He reached Gibraltar on 3 June, to stay for only twenty-four hours before heading east for Malta where he arrived on the 15th. He expected to find his fleet in Valletta's Grand Harbour; he learned instead that Bickerton had 'very judiciously' sailed for Toulon. But though Nelson steered for the Straits of Messina as soon as the 17th, light and contrary winds delayed his meeting with Bickerton until 8 July. Not until then did he assume effective command of his fleet, the 80-gun Gibraltar and Canopus, the Belleisle, Donegal, Kent, Renown, Superb and Triumph, which were 74s, and the Monmouth, 64 - nine ships-of-the-line in all - plus a handful of frigates and other cruising vessels; and with this small force which was no stronger than Latouche-Treville's, begin the most arduous task of his career.

  X A Long Watch and a Long Chase 1803-1805

  The British reader may suppose the Mediterranean to have been a peaceful sea in which trade flowed unhindered during the period October 1801 to May 1803. The American reader will know otherwise. George Washington, and his successor John Adams, managed to steer the fledgling United States on a neutral course after the outbreak of war in Europe in 1793, except for a few months in 1798. Talleyrand's tactless treatment of Adams' envoys then provoked a series of naval actions in which a newborn United States Fleet was sufficiently successful to induce Bonaparte, on gaining supreme power as First Consul, to open negotiations to avert more general hostilities. But four smaller countries, Morocco, Algeria, Tunis and Tripoli, were not so tractable. Their rulers exacted 'presents' from nations trading in the Mediterranean in return for freedom from piracy by these Barbary States. But, as with other blackmailers, they could not rest content with their bargains; from time to time they demanded more.

  The United States was so threatened by the Pasha of Tripoli in 1801. Failing to obtain satisfaction, this despot declared a war in which his neighbours joined. And this conflict in which America's powerful frigates won the spurs which the British Navy found so sharp in 1812, lasted until August 1805. Thus, for the whole of the time that Nelson was in the Mediterranean, the United States Navy did him the service of ensuring that he was not seriously distracted from his prime enemy, the French (unlike Hood's experience with the Bey of Tunis in 1793), by having also to deal with the Barbary States.

  The Tsar's lack of enthusiasm for the war also eased Nelson's task. The greater part of the Russian fleet was kept within the Black Sea. The single frigate sent to guard the Ionian Islands in 1803 could be ignored. And when she was reinforced by several ships-of-the-line in July 1804, after Alexander I's delayed declaration of war on Britain, Nelson correctly appreciated that Rear-Admiral Sorokin would be no more active as an enemy than Ushakov had been as an ally. He was not, therefore, tempted to weaken his battle fleet by sending a detachment into the eastern Mediterranean.

  America and Russia thus coincidentally enabled Nelson to concentrate on his prime purpose, to thwart Bonaparte's insatiable appetite for conquest. He must safeguard Malta, now 'a most important outwork to India, that . . . will ever give us great influence in the Levant, and indeed all the southern parts of Italy. . . . I hope we shall never give it up', and Gibraltar, whose importance as a base was accentuated now that Portugal denied Britain use of the Tagus, especially against the day when Spain, reduced to virtual vassalage of France by the previous conflict, might drop her pretence of neutrality and join the war. He had to prevent a French army of 15,000 men which, in addition to occupying the northern half of Italy, had penetrated down the Adriatic coast as far as Brindisi and Taranto, from overrunning the remainder of the Two Sicilies.

  For two of these tasks Nelson's fleet supported existing British garrisons. For the third he asked for 10,000 British troops to help Neapolitan resistance in Calabria, 'though we must not risk Sicily too far in trying to save Naples'. But n
o such force was available: Abercromby's army had already returned from Egypt to England where every man was needed to protect the homeland against Bonaparte's threatened invasion. This left Nelson with the French fleet as his 'first objective . . . ever to be [kept] in check; and if they put to sea to have force enough to annihilate them. That would keep the Two Sicilies free from any attack by sea.' And since his fleet was no stronger than Latouche-Treville's, he had to keep it together. He spared only one ship-of-the-line to lie in Naples Bay for King Ferdinand's protection. But this was never his own flagship; without the Hamiltons - without Emma (to whom he wrote, when passing 'dear Naples', that 'the view of Vesuvius calls so many circumstances to my mind that it almost overpowers my feelings') - his judgement was not betrayed by a belief that he must himself ensure the safety of Queen Maria Carolina. Otherwise, for the protection of trade against privateers, and to guard the Straits of Messina and the entrance to the Adriatic, he deployed only cruisers based on Malta and Gibraltar.

  Even so, the British fleet was at a serious disadvantage. The French lay in one of their principal ports, backed by all the resources of a dock-yard. The ships that Nelson inherited from Bickerton had been long away from home. 'As far as outside show goes,' he told St Vincent, '[they] look very well; but they complain of their bottoms and are very short of men' - by as many as a hundred in each ship-of-the-line. 'They are distressed for almost every article. They have entirely eaten up their stores. . . . I have applications . . . for surveys on most of their sails and running rigging, which cannot be complied with, as there is neither cordage nor sails to replace [them].' But though he pressed for fresh vessels to be sent from England, it was some time before enough could be manned for any to be spared for the Mediterranean; before he was joined by the Canopus, flying the flag of Rear-Admiral George Campbell, and the 100-gun Royal Sovereign. Nelson did, however, regain his proper flagship before this; as soon as 30 July he was able to return to the Victory (taking Hardy from the Amphion to be her captain), Sutton having learned that Cornwallis did not require her.