Nelson

by John Sugden

  In the distant past Nelson had innocently assumed that due credit was usually paid to meritorious officers, but experience had taught him otherwise. He still brooded over those dismissive notices of his service in Corsica, and was determined that this – his finest achievement – would not be buried likewise. Back in 1793, flushed with the excitement of his first naval action, Horatio had sent his brother Maurice an account for the newspapers. Without waiting to see what Sir John Jervis was putting in his official dispatch of the battle, Nelson decided to revive the tactic and prepare his own narrative for the press, though he acknowledged the right of his admiral to send the first account.43

  As early as 16 February, when Jervis was writing one of the least informative accounts of a victory ever penned by a commander-in-chief, Nelson and Miller were also at work, using the logs of the Captain as their foundation. The original may have been Nelson’s, or perhaps the work of Castang, the secretary who had followed him to the Irresistible with Noble, but it was authenticated by Berry and Miller, who interposed their own considerable claims to attention. With the straightforward story of the battle from the Captain’s point of view was a touch of egocentric humour, concocted by Nelson or Miller. Entitled ‘Nelson, His Art of Cooking Spaniards’, it was delivered as a recipe for ‘Olla Podrida’ in a style perhaps familiar today. After ‘battering and basting’ the Spaniards till they were ‘well seasoned’ (‘your fire must never slacken for a moment’ till the enemy was ‘well stewed and blended together’), a ‘hop, skip and jump’ was necessary to turn one ship into ‘a stepping stone’ for another. ‘Your Olla Podrida may now be considered as completely dished, and fit to set before His Majesty.’44

  Nelson considered ‘the pruning knife’ necessary to fit his account for publication, but copies of ‘Remarks Relative to Myself in the Captain’ were sent to family and friends and one accompanied Winthuysen’s sword to the city of Norwich as a gift to his native county. If the commodore had any qualms about self-advertisement he was soon reassured. Jervis’s official account of the battle, addressed to the Admiralty secretary on 16 February, did more than marginalise his exploits. It missed him, and all but one other officer, out altogether.45

  ‘I would much rather have an action with the enemy than detail one,’ the admiral growled. He was thinking of the furore Lord Howe had caused with his formal dispatch about ‘The Glorious First of June’ in 1794. So much discontent and jealousy had been stirred by Howe’s attempt to apportion credit among his captains on that occasion that Sir John decided he would mention none at all, save his own flag officer, Robert Calder, who would bear the wholly unsatisfactory document home. It reached the Admiralty in Whitehall at seven in the morning of 3 March, and made an extraordinary issue of the London Gazette the same day.46

  While the public celebrated their second general naval victory of the war, Nelson’s friends were astonished at the way his achievement had been erased from the record. ‘I don’t like it not being particular enough,’ grumbled his brother Maurice, enclosing the offending Gazette to Horatio. Culverhouse, returning home to deal with sickness in his family, was still deeply upset about the neglect when he met Fanny in Bath.47

  Sir John was not entirely negligent, for he did name deserving captains in a private letter to Earl Spencer, first lord of the Admiralty. On the same day his public dispatch was completed, a confidential epistle explained that he thought it ‘improper to distinguish one [captain] more than another’ before the public, but that stars there had been. Among them, he said, Nelson ‘took the lead on the larboard [tack] and contributed much to the fortune of the day’. And he reinforced the point by observing that the respective contributions of the ships were reflected in the numbers of their casualties, a criterion that placed the Captain before all others.48

  But none of this would have consoled a man as eager for public praise as Nelson. Reading that beggarly official dispatch, he must have been hugely relieved that his insurance policy was already in full swing. Armed with copies of ‘Remarks Relative’, friends at home were going on the offensive. He sent copies to the Duke of Clarence and the secretary for war, William Windham. Nelson had met Windham on the polar expedition of 1773, though the latter had abandoned the venture in Norway because of seasickness. Now he was the Member of Parliament for Norwich as well as secretary for war, and owed Nelson a favour for finding one of his protégés a place on a ship. Nelson sent Peirson to him with a letter of introduction begging Windham’s patronage, and a copy of the account of the battle. The day Windham received his copy of ‘Remarks Relative’ he personally delivered it to the king at St James’s Palace, and happily forwarded another copy to Earl Spencer. Hood and Locker got their copies through Fanny. The admiral said he would circulate it among useful acquaintances, while Locker took it to the newspapers, assuring ‘Horace’ that the Sun was ‘read all over the kingdom’. In fact not only that favourite rag, but also the True Briton and the Star published the piece on 20 March. ‘Nelson’s New Art of Cookery’ had debuted even earlier, in The Times of 13 March.49

  Nor were these statements isolated blows, for public opinion was simultaneously being moulded by other references to Nelson’s prowess. On 2 March, the day before the news of the victory off Cape St Vincent broke in Britain, the papers contained accounts of the commodore’s defeat of the Spanish frigates the previous December and of his capture of the Maria privateer. And for several weeks thereafter a hungry press, disgruntled at the dearth of detail on Jervis’s battle, snapped at every morsel. An admiring family letter of Captain Saumarez was printed, alerting the public to Nelson’s capture of the two prizes and remarking that ‘his bravery’ was ‘above all praise’, while one or more versions by Captain Miller also found their way into newsprint. Most noteworthy of all was a brief but complete history of the battle written by Colonel John Drinkwater himself.50

  The commodore’s hand has often been seen behind A Narrative of the Proceedings of the British Fleet . . . in the Late Action with the Spanish Fleet . . . off Cape St Vincent, published in 1797. Many have worked entirely from Drinkwater’s revised edition of 1840, which elaborates Nelson’s role and exaggerates the author’s connections with a man who had become a national hero since the pamphlet’s first appearance in 1797. There is little evidence that Nelson put Drinkwater up to publishing the original account, nor even – as Drinkwater later claimed – that it was produced at the behest of ‘friends’ of the commodore disappointed at Jervis’s dispatch, and that its ‘main object’ was to ‘honour’ the hero. Nelson was preparing his own account, as we have seen, and it went round the newspapers. Drinkwater’s own distinct and opportunist project was in the making long before the publication of Jervis’s dispatch on 3 March.51

  Drinkwater was on good terms with Nelson, and had reached the fleet as a passenger aboard the commodore’s La Minerve, though that eventful voyage barely featured in the original edition of the Narrative. Switching to the frigate Lively, Drinkwater and Elliot had a grand-stand view of the ensuing battle from their position in the rear of the fleet, and were immensely inspired both by the conflict and Nelson’s part in it. The colonel had a penchant for writing, and would author the standard account of the siege of Gibraltar, and here he had a scoop no journalist could have bettered. Though he claimed he originally wrote his account to entertain freinds, the idea of trading on good fortune and publishing an authoritative eyewitness Narrative would have been a wholly natural consequence.

  The day after the battle, when Nelson visited the Lively, Drinkwater inevitably sought his views of the engagement. Equally inevitably, Nelson was far from unwilling to expand upon the subject. ‘I’ll tell you how it happened,’ he said, and the colonel later claimed that he made some notes in pencil. Drinkwater also enriched his gleanings by conversations with other ‘chief actors’ and apparently had the narrative written before he reached England, for he dated it off Scilly on 27 February. There can be little doubt that he was encouraged by the appearance of Jervis’s threadbar
e dispatch, which left the public demand for information unsatisfied, and possibly that friends of Nelson urged him to publish. There were several in London in the months that followed the battle, including Elliot, Berry, Peirson, Culverhouse, Spicer and Noble. That said, the impression Drinkwater later gave of an account concocted for no greater purpose than to promote Nelson would seem to rest more upon hindsight, wishful thinking and re-interpretation than strict history.

  In the eighteenth century yesterday’s news was as doubtful an earner as it is today, and when Drinkwater’s pamphlet was published later in the spring it sold badly. Indeed, many copies were pulped. It certainly contributed to Nelson’s growing reputation as a public hero, and was the most substantial contemporary account of the battle, but it was far less read than the commodore’s own narrative as featured in various newspapers.

  Determined to establish his own role, Nelson tended to exaggerate and sometimes overlooked competing captains. His narrative gave the impression that the Captain and Culloden had fought the Spaniards unsupported for an hour during the crucial phase of the battle, and in one unguarded letter he went so far as to say that no ships but the Captain, Excellent and Culloden had distinguished themselves. Both remarks particularly libelled the Blenheim, which suffered sixty-one casualties in the engagement, more than either the Excellent or Culloden. At least one officer took great exception to ‘Remarks Relative’. Rear Admiral Sir William Parker of the Prince George angrily informed Nelson that ‘positive assertions should be made with good circumspection’. Among other things, he was aggrieved that no mention had been made of the fact that the Prince George was also firing upon the San Nicolas and the San Josef until their surrender. Indeed, in a narrative of his own, called forth by indignation, Parker even claimed that the San Josef had actually ‘struck to the fire of the Prince George’, rather than Nelson’s boarders – an assertion unsupported by the logs of that ship or any other primary source. Nelson was unimpressed, and replied coldly that he knew ‘nothing of the Prince George till she was hailed [by us] from the forecastle of the San Nicolas’.52

  Thus the battle of Cape St Vincent, like ‘The Glorious First of June’, aroused jealousies and disaffection. Jervis had defeated the Spanish fleet, but no more than Howe had he successfully navigated between the sensibilities of men strong on public honour. For the grateful administration the matter was also a tricky one. Sir John became Earl of St Vincent, and received an annuity of £3,000, while all his vice admirals were made baronets, including Thompson who had flunked Jervis’s order to tack in succession. In April gold medals with striking blue and white ribands were awarded every captain with the promise that they would be presented at St James’s Palace at the earliest opportunity.

  Nelson’s wishes were respected. He was still no favourite of the king’s, but Spencer’s admiration for him had grown tremendously over the last two years, and he was receptive to any favour. Nelson became a Knight of Bath, with the right to construct a coat of arms and decorate his breast with a star and scarlet ribbon. In June a dispensation permitted him to wear the order before an official installation by the king, and the new Earl of St Vincent was empowered to make a provisional investiture. The regular general promotion from the captains’ list was also announced on 20 February, and on 14 March news reached the fleet that Nelson was now a rear admiral of the blue squadron. Now, at last, that ‘dream of glory’ he had mentioned nearly two decades before had been fulfilled, and he was entitled to raise a blue flag at the mizzen of his ships. None felt greater satisfaction than an elderly Norfolk parson whose hair now hung snow white about his bony, frail shoulders. The Reverend Edmund Nelson could not help thinking back to his late brother-in-law, Captain Maurice Suckling. For Nelson had been his legacy, as much as anyone’s, and he had always told the parson that he would live to see his son an admiral.53

  7

  Several writers, especially in recent years, have attacked Nelson for his blatant self-promotion after the battle of Cape St Vincent, but very few have been interested in the other side of the coin. Readers of this book, however, will not be surprised to learn that Nelson’s actions were not entirely self-interested. As usual that paternal protective nature that recognised and rewarded the loyalty of subordinates shone strongly.

  One of his first acts the morning after the battle was to visit the battered Captain and its exhausted but exhilarated company. He presented Miller with Geraldino’s sword, and drawing from his own hand a topaz and diamond ring he placed it on a finger of his flag captain as a symbol of their brotherhood. Miller treasured the ring until his death, when it was bequeathed to his wife and children. The battle had bloodied and bonded the two officers forever. As Miller said, ‘those four glorious hours became more than years in affection’.54

  Both Miller and Berry featured prominently in Nelson’s narrative, which they reviewed and revised to their advantage. A commander already, Berry could expect to be ‘made post’ on account of the exploit, and was extremely moved by Nelson’s attention. ‘Captain Miller’s informed me how honourably you mentioned me,’ he wrote. ‘I cannot express my gratitude.’55

  Nelson also spoke for Collingwood on every useful occasion, and the day Miller received the ring he was scribbling lines to his dear ‘Coll’. ‘My dearest friend,’ he wrote warmly. ‘“A friend in need is a friend indeed” was never more truly verified than by your most noble and gallant conduct yesterday in sparing the Captain from further loss, and I beg both as a public officer and a friend, you will accept my most sincere thanks. I have not failed, by letter to the admiral, to represent the eminent services of the Excellent.’56

  Captains such as Collingwood and Miller could defend their own corners, if necessary, but Lieutenants Spicer and Noble were lowlier creatures and more vulnerable. They needed help. A telling, but rarely quoted passage, in one of Jervis’s letters to the Admiralty exposes the fight Nelson now made for them. Once more it illustrates his defining particularities. Every captain in the fleet had followers to reward, but none apart from Nelson tried to, or at least succeeded, in pressing those claims upon Jervis after the battle of Cape St Vincent. Nelson, though, would not be denied, and in his effort we again see that vital strut to their loyalty. On 16 February, Jervis told Spencer:

  It is with great repugnance I say anything to your Lordship about promotions, knowing how much you must be pressed at home, but Commodore Nelson being uncommonly anxious to reward Lieutenants Spicer and Noble, the former now first [lieutenant] of the Captain, and the latter most desperately wounded in the belly and shoulder on board La Minerve, in her action with the Sabina, in addition to a shot he got in his neck on the coast of Genoa, his father an officer in the army, and a brother a midshipman in the navy, having died on service in the West Indies, will, I trust, excuse my naming them to you a second time . . . I do not presume to call your attention to others. 57

  In fact, unknown to Nelson, Noble had already been promoted commander for his services aboard La Minerve, services that Nelson had also brought to the attention of the Admiralty. Spicer though benefited from his commodore’s latest intervention, and was promoted commander on 8 March. Another elevated after the battle was Midshipman Withers, who had led boarders against both of Nelson’s prizes. He passed his examination for lieutenant the same month and Jervis confirmed his commission by temporarily promoting him to the captured Salvador del Mundo in March. Withers was in London soon afterwards, where he and his mother tried to enlist Nelson’s help in securing an appointment in the East Indies. He never returned to Nelson’s service, but continued to write to his old commander over the years, and spoke of him during his last days in Norfolk. Like many Nelson had nurtured, the successful and the not so successful, Withers seems to have looked lovingly back upon that period as the highlight of his life, and one that at the time promised a bright future.58

  As an army lieutenant, Charles Peirson was more difficult for Nelson to usher forward. Army commissions were commonly purchased, but ‘interest’ wa
s never redundant. Peirson went home with Nelson’s personal letters, and from his family home in London did the round of the commodore’s more accessible relatives. In March he wrote Nelson an account of the flattering figure the new naval hero was cutting in a fresh stage production. Peirson was armed with a recommendation to the Duke of York, the army commander-in-chief, secured for him by Nelson through the offices of William Windham, and for a while the shone sun on this restless but talented young officer. He was gazetted a captain in the 6th West India Regiment of Foot on 11 July, painted in his scarlet uniform by Daniel Orme, and courted Mary Anne Bolton, the sister of the ‘young gentleman’ on Nelson’s quarterdeck. In about December 1798 they were married.

  Peirson wanted to rejoin his old patron in the Mediterranean, but was eventually posted to the West Indies, where he contracted yellow fever. In his last letter to Nelson, written in a shaky hand in 1800, he spoke of his lingering ambition to return to his service:

  I have been very ill for three months. I am recovering, but slowly, and [am] not yet out of danger. I am in want of some Mediterranean air. I have cursed my star ever since I was obliged to leave your lordship’s immediate command. I have got the rank of captain, for which I must thank you and my patron, Lady H[amilton] . . . I must beg of you to have me put under your lordship’s orders, for this is a place of inactivity, which I do not like. I wish to be on a different service, and to be of use to my king and country. I have no hopes of promotion here, and two bad enemies to fight, the climate and illness. Having had the honour of being with your lordship four years and at the beginning of the war, I must beg of you to let me have the honour of finishing the campaign under your orders.59