Nelson

by John Sugden

  Hughes touched a raw spot and Nelson dashed off a short but fierce reply the same day. He resented the suggestion that he would request a new anchor lightly as a slur on his professionalism. ‘I am very sorry you should have so bad an opinion of my conduct as to suppose that every effort had not and would not be made to sweep the anchor,’ he told Hughes on 12 January. ‘I knew if the weather was moderate we could get it with ease, but at the same time I thought it my duty to demand another anchor and cable that no accident might happen to His Majesty’s ship [in the meantime] through my neglect.’ The cable on his anchor was, in any case, ‘so very bad that I must request you will be pleased to order another for us.’ In other words, if a mishap befell the Albemarle for the want of an anchor, it would be on Hughes’s head.9

  Nelson got his ballast and his anchor and cable, but Hughes neither apologised for nor referred to the perceived insult. He had not intended to offend Nelson, or to charge him with incompetence, and should have said so. He was probably embarrassed and angered by Nelson’s rebuke, and tried to hurry the incident by, but he had created a lasting bad impression in the younger officer’s mind.

  However, for the time being Hughes was banished from Nelson’s thoughts by a new round of storms that lashed the Downs anchorage. A Dutch ship ran upon the treacherous Goodwin Sands on 21 January, and at eight in the morning of the 26th a savage squall descended from the north. The Kite, captained by Wilfred Collingwood, brother of the Cuthbert Collingwood whom Nelson had known in the West Indies, was driven against another ship and damaged her gunwale and mainmast gaff. Even worse befell the Albemarle. An East India store ship, the Brilliant, ran upon the Albemarle’s hawse and swung the two ships together with a grinding crash. The damage, done in a mere five minutes, ran the length of Nelson’s frigate, from bowsprit, bow, bumpkins and larboard cathead at the head to the quarter gallery on the stern. Two holes were stoved into the larboard hull, and her sheet, or supplementary, anchor was torn away with fathoms of cable. Aloft the ship lost her foremast head, fore topsail, topgallant yards, main yard, mizzen gaff and spanker boom, and much of the wreckage crashed down to hang precariously over the side, dangerously destabilising a ship that was already top-heavy.

  Never had the Albemarle been in greater danger. ‘What a change!’ Nelson noted, ‘but yet we ought to be thankful we did not founder.’ Fortunately, as the swell rose and the wind freshened, he had taken precautions against being capsized. Axemen stood by, ready to hack away the mainmast if needs be. According to an account Nelson gave the Admiralty, his ship ‘laid so much down on her broadside that there was much fear she would be overset, although the yards and topgallant masts were struck’. But his axemen leapt forward to clear the wreckage, and the carpenter, Samuel Innes, turned in a bravura performance. Working like a fury he single-handedly put replacement jury masts in place within twenty-four hours.10

  Clarke and McArthur, Nelson’s official biographers, published a dramatic account of this incident in 1809. According to them the captain was ashore when the storm struck:

  Captain Nelson immediately ran to the beach, and with his wonted contempt of danger, when any duty called for his exertions, employed every method he could devise to return on board, fearing lest the Albemarle might drive on the Goodwin Sands; but the dreadful surf and increasing violence of the gale, made even the skilful mariners of Deal regard the attempt as utterly impracticable. At length some of the most intrepid offered to make the trial for fifteen guineas; this produced a competition, and Nelson, to the astonishment of all beholders, was long seen struggling with a raging and mountainous surf, in which the boat was continually immerged. After much difficulty he got on board his ship, which lost her bowsprit and foremast.11

  Like many of the stories of Clarke and McArthur, this is less than the truth. The admiring biographers misdated the incident, rolled two stories into one and magnified the sum. It is true that Nelson went ashore at Deal, for we have a letter he wrote there to his brother William. But it was dated 25 January, the day before the storm, and we can be fairly sure that Nelson did not stay overnight because he specifically said that he had but ‘half an hour on dry land’. Nelson returned to the ship, therefore, before and not during the storm of the following morning. No doubt the water was pretty choppy on the 25th too, under what the ship’s log called ‘fresh breezes’, but somehow his journey was confused with the subsequent storm and transformed into the dramatic wild boat ride described after his death.12

  When Nelson’s new orders arrived they sent him to Portsmouth with seven East Indiamen, but the collision with the Brilliant ended his hopes of taking them out to the Indian Ocean. Instead, on 12 February he had to dock his frigate in Portsmouth for repairs, lashing it to the Launceston hulk. The delay irritated, and it may have been at this time that Nelson unsuccessfully applied to the Admiralty for a larger frigate. However, perhaps it also had its uses. The men had been ‘very uneasy’ over arrears of pay, and Nelson had urged the naval commissioner at Chatham to solve the problem. He understood that the loyalty and respect of the men depended upon his willingness to advocate their just grievances, and the days at Portsmouth may have helped to satisfactorily wind the matter up.13

  In addition there were other distractions.

  3

  Portsmouth, more than anywhere else, was the home of the British fleet, with its battery of slips and jetties, dockyard, marine barracks, naval college and hospital flanked on both sides by powerful fortifications. Nearby was Spithead, where the principal shield of the realm, the Channel fleet, was accustomed to anchor between the mainland and the Isle of Wight, while St Helens acted as a forward base for any ships waiting for a wind to sail. Ashore, in a maze of dirty, ill-lit streets, taphouses, shops and lodging houses offered services of every kind. During the two months that Nelson spent in the town there was much to see and report to Captain Locker, still his greatest professional confidant. He missed Boyles by one day, but found other good friends to dine with and worry and write about, among them Captain Robinson, Major General Dalling, who came from Jamaica on the Ranger, and Charles Pole, for whom he was developing an almost brotherly affection. Nelson was able to inform Locker both of Pole’s departure (‘I wish he was safe back. I think he runs great risk of going to Cadiz’) and his return as the captor of an enemy frigate (‘I am exceedingly happy at his success’), and marvelled that ‘no man in the world’ was ‘so modest in his account of it’ as Pole himself. And amidst the comings and goings of ships and squadrons, Nelson extended his acquaintances, attempting to assess the worth of each. Sarcastically he decided that Sir Richard Bickerton, who headed a force for the East Indies, was ‘a great man’ who seemed ‘to carry it pretty high with his captains,’ but in Vice Admiral Samuel Barrington there was a kindred soul. ‘He is in very good spirits,’ Nelson told Locker. ‘He gets amongst all the youngsters here, and leaves out the old boys.’14

  Believing he was about to be posted abroad, Nelson also thought of home. The previous November his first nieces, twin girls Jemima and Katherine, were born to his eldest sister, Susanna. In February Susanna decided to go to Ostend, where her husband was transferring his trading business, and Nelson persuaded William to release some family money in aid of their venture. As for William himself, he was bidding for a living at Newton, and Nelson wrote to him on 8 February:

  I wish I could congratulate you upon a rectory instead of a vicarage. It is rather awkward wishing the poor man [present incumbent] dead, but we all rise by deaths. I got my rank by a shot killing a post-captain, and I most sincerely hope I shall, when I go, go out of [the] world the same way. Then we go all in the line of our profession, a parson praying, a captain fighting. I suppose you are returned from Hilborough before this, and taken Miss Ellen and the living. As Miss Bec takes so much notice of my respects to her, tell her I think myself honoured by being in her favour. Love to Mrs Bolton [Susanna] and Mun [his brother Edmund], not forgetting little Kate [his youngest sister].15

  At least for t
he time being William appeared to harbour no further ideas of going to sea.

  One story that seems to belong to this period is somewhat removed from the no doubt scrupulously upright dalliances of the clerical brother, for it suggests that Horatio himself was not inexperienced with women. He was now twenty-three and had spent most of his life in the company of men and boys, but he had mixed with women at the houses of colleagues and friends, women such as Lady Parker, and apparently respected them and enjoyed their company. He had also seen, both on board ship and about seedy waterfront taverns and lodging houses, women of the loosest kind in most of the ports he had known.

  The naval service, which took men far from their homes for long periods of time, naturally generated interest in women. Nelson had seen boatloads of them, many prostitutes and some devoid of the refinements he associated with the sex, rowed out to the ships, where they were allowed gross fraternisation with the ratings while they were in port.

  Officers could be more discreet. Some even took wives and sweethearts to sea with them, and the distinctions between the married and unmarried were not always clear. Others took advantage of ports, where commissioned officers at least could usually arrange some leave and access services of most kinds. Prostitutes interested in the wealthier clients used side boxes in pleasure gardens, theatres and opera houses to make contacts. Some even advertised. John Harris’s List of Covent Garden Ladies, for example, gave regular updates of the names, addresses and characteristics of such paramours in London. Among the women bluntly offering their favours in its pages were several touting specifically for naval officers, who at least promised few long-term encumbrances. Thus, the ‘port’ of Miss Devonshire of Queen Ann Street was ‘said to be well guarded by a light brown chevaux-de-freize’, but ‘once’ entered offered ‘very good riding’. Moreover, she was ‘ever ready for an engagement, cares not how soon she comes to close quarters, and loves to fight yard arm and yard arm, and be briskly boarded’.16

  There were Miss Devonshires in all large ports, and Nelson knew officers who boasted of the mistresses awaiting them in different havens. On twenty-two occasions between 1750 and 1800 the commissioners issuing pensions to the widows of commissioned officers were confronted with applications from two women seeking the same pension. The ease with which temporary sexual partners were found was illustrated by Prince William Henry, the third son of King George III, and shortly a naval officer of Nelson’s acquaintance. The prince was every bit as licentious as his older brothers, and happy to regale them with his amorous adventures in port. ‘I was on shore there but once,’ he said of Yarmouth when a newly promoted lieutenant, ‘and had no opportunity of getting hold of a girl. My next excursion was in Yorkshire, where I was going on horseback from Burlington [Bridlington] Bay to Hull and intended to lay two in a bed that night.’ If the shore leave of this officer was consumed in romps and loose living, he was far from alone in such diversions.17

  Of a more sober cast and the son of a clergyman, Horatio Nelson was less focused on sexual gratification, but it is unreasonable to suppose that a young man of his age had not experimented amid so much opportunity and temptation. Indeed, since we know that he later kept two mistresses after his marriage, we should not be surprised to consider the possibility of other liaisons before. There is one little-known and obscure piece of evidence that suggests that Nelson was no virgin when he found himself beached in Portsmouth early in 1782.

  Curiously enough, it is to be found in a tract on the subject of dentistry, published in 1797. Since its purpose was to instruct rather than titillate, and it appeared in Nelson’s lifetime though before he became famous, the pamphlet is entitled to some credit. Proudly outlining several of his techniques for treating teeth, the Chevalier Bartholomew Ruspini, at one time dentist to the Prince of Wales, recalled that ‘some years since’ he ‘accidentally’ met ‘Captain Nelson of the Royal Navy’ in Portsmouth. The captain complained of a ‘fleshy excrescence’ on his gums that pained him whenever he shaved. ‘He applied to one of the surgeons of the hospital [at Portsmouth], who assured him the case was venereal, and had prepared him to go through a mercurial course. I gave my opinion of the complaint, and the surgeon, upon a consultation having no objection to its being extirpated, I removed it with a bisto[u]ry, and the cure was completed in a few days without any other application than the tincture. I saw this gentleman [Nelson] two years afterwards, when his perfect state of health confirmed my prognostic, and convinced the hospital surgeon of his mistake.’18

  This information is revealing. The diagnosis that his complaint was venereal proved to be incorrect, but that the captain thought it plausible and prepared himself to undergo treatment on that basis is evidence that by that time he had already had sexual relations. Our difficulty lies in dating the incident. Ruspini says that he met Nelson in Portsmouth, and saw him again two years later. An examination of the occasions on which Nelson visited the town would suggest that the first meeting occurred between February and April 1782, and the second in April 1784. If this deduction is correct, Horatio Nelson was not entirely an inexperienced lover when he left for Canada in the Albemarle.

  4

  Painful teeth or otherwise, Nelson worried more about his wider health. In March he received the instructions for which he had been waiting, but they were not to his liking. He was ordered to Cork to pick up a convoy bound for Quebec. In Ireland he would place himself under the command of Captain Thomas Pringle of the Daedalus, no stranger to the Canadian run.

  Nelson shuddered at the ‘damned voyage’. He did not rate Pringle, and surmised that the man’s main motive for going to Canada was the money he could make out of shipping specie. ‘See what it is to be a Scotchman,’ Nelson grumbled. ‘I hope their times are over.’ Even worse, he knew how the winter had already scourged his frail constitution, and dreaded spending the spring in a damp and cold country. Listening to his complaints, friends suggested he apply to the Admiralty for another ship. There was a new first lord at the Admiralty, Augustus Keppel, and it just happened that he was brother-in-law to Nelson’s doctor, Mr Adair. Adair, to whom Nelson made a flying visit in March, was hoping to put the captain to rights before sailing. Friends pressed Nelson to use Adair to persuade the Admiralty ‘that in such a country’ as Canada he would be ‘laid up’ sick, but in the end Nelson declined to complain. It seemed improper to grumble to one First Lord about the orders of another and he held his peace. Captain Locker did speak up but failed to get Nelson’s orders changed.19

  Fully repaired, the Albemarle sailed from Spithead on 7 April 1782, and braving bad weather made Cork on the 17th. There the men had fun helping to haul His Majesty’s ship Jason off a shoal at the entrance to the harbour, and for some reason Nelson’s second lieutenant, Osborne, switched to the Preston. Nelson was not displeased because it enabled him to promote Bromwich acting lieutenant on the 24th. The preferment increased Bromwich’s claim to any prize money, but Horatio thought he did ‘his duty exceedingly well’ and dearly wanted to get his commission confirmed; in return he received unswerving loyalty.20

  On 26 April the Atlantic voyage began. The Daedalus and Albemarle ushered thirty-five more or less disobedient merchantmen through gales and fogs. One passage from Nelson’s log is enough to indicate the tenor of the month’s travail:

  At 1 PM [10 May 1782] bore down to the Jane. Fired a shot at her for her to make more sail. At midnight dark and cloudy. Convoy in company. At 3 AM up topgallant masts and yards. At 6 made the signal for the Jane to make more sail, which she paid no attention to. Brought to, spoke her, and ordered she would set her fore topgallant sails, stay sails and studding sails. She [master, William Henderson] answered she had no main topmast or middle stay sails. After much delay she set fore topgallant sail and fore topmast studding sail. At noon three sail in company.

  Ships being damaged and lagging . . . one man falling overboard from the Albemarle and drowning . . . murky North Atlantic rain and fog. One problem succeeded another, and the convoy
split as it approached Canada. On 27 May Nelson anchored in St John’s, Newfoundland, ‘a disagreeable place’, and assembled up to half a dozen merchantmen, while the Daedalus groped its way into nearby Capelin Bay with most of the others. Reuniting with his senior officer, and reinforced by the Leocadia and Aeolus, Nelson eventually helped push the convoy up the St Lawrence through more thick weather until he reached the Isle of Bic, below Quebec, on the evening of 1 July. There, where a naval squadron under James Worth of the Assistance was stationed, he conceived his mission complete and relinquished both his charges and letters and packets he had brought for Quebec.21

  Like most naval officers, Nelson disliked convoy work, but it had not been as bad a trip as he feared. He realised that he had misjudged Captain Pringle, whom he would soon pronounce ‘my particular friend, and a man of great honour’. Furthermore, contrary to his expectations, his health had actually improved, and now there suddenly loomed an opportunity for prize-taking – something not to be squandered in these final years of the war. Coming from Newfoundland, Nelson had discovered that American privateers were active in the Gulf of St Lawrence, and he persuaded Worth to allow him to return downriver to hunt for them before proceeding to Quebec. On 4 July the Albemarle was on its way back to the open sea in search of the 22 enemy.