Nelson

by John Sugden

  22. The army had twenty-four-, twelve-, nine-, six- and four-pounder guns on the expedition (order book, 21/3/1780, Collections, pp. 76–8; Dalling’s statement, CO 137/81: 349; lists of military stores shipped in the Superb and Penelope, CO 137/81: 340), but only the lighter and more manageable four-pounders appear to have gone forward to the siege. This may have influenced gunnery tactics.

  23. Polson to Dalling, 30/4/1780, CO 137/77.

  24. Return of casualties, 30/4/1780, CO 137/77: 153.

  25. For the reduction of rations see order book, Collections, p. 83.

  26. Moseley, Treatise on Tropical Diseases, p. 167.

  27. Dancer, A Brief History, p. 19; Dalling to Germain, 2 to 20/7/1780, CO 137/78. A messenger who left the fort on the evening of 23 April reported everyone well at that time (Collections, p. 5).

  28. Dancer, A Brief History, pp. 43, 44, 53.

  29. Clarke and McArthur, Life and Services, 1, p. 54. The nature of the diseases that destroyed the San Juan expedition has aroused such disagreement that it is worth devoting some paragraphs to the subject. A traditional opinion that yellow fever (the notorious ‘Yellow Jack’) was involved is untenable. Dancer, who was on the spot, understood at the time that his patients were not displaying typical symptoms of yellow fever (A Brief History, p. 53), and later distinguished between yellow fever and the type of ‘intermittent’ disorders he saw in Nicaragua (Dancer, Medical Assistant, pp. 65–92, 381–3). Certain defining features of yellow fever, particularly the copious discharges that gave the disease the nickname of ‘black vomit’, were not reported on the San Juan. Moreover, the course of yellow fever tends to be fairly consistent, with a few days of fever being followed by a three- or four-day remission before relapse with the appearance of severe haemorrhages and other symptoms. Finally, the vectors of malaria, which occur in marshy and estuarine areas, fit the illness of 1780 more comfortably than the jungle vectors of yellow fever.

  Dr Anne-Marie Ewart Hills, ‘Nelson’s Illnesses, 1780–1782’, advances the improbable theory that the principal illness was tropical sprue. She argues that the expeditionary force was in a pre-scurvy state at the mouth of the San Juan, and low on folic acid as well as vitamin C. Sprue, an intestinal malfunction, incubates in twenty to thirty days and, though chronic, can progress more swiftly in victims deficient in folic acid. Though Dr Hills is a deservedly respected authority on Nelson’s medical history, I do not find this explanation credible at any level. It partly relies upon a statement Nelson later gave Benjamin Moseley, the surgeon general in Jamaica, which said that ‘the fever which destroyed the crews of the different vessels [in the mouth of the San Juan] invariably attacked them from twenty to thirty days after their arrival in the harbour’ (Moseley, Treatise on Tropical Diseases, p. 165). However, though interesting, this account does not constitute strong historical evidence. It appears to have been made a good time after the event, and is at best only third-hand. Nelson was invalided to Jamaica, and did not witness the progress of the disease sweeping the ships. He may have received his information from others who had been present (Collingwood springs to mind), but whether he heard or rendered it accurately is questionable. Moseley himself, presumably on the authority of other witnesses, contradicted Nelson’s account by stating that ‘few of the Europeans retained their health above sixteen days’ (Treatise on Tropical Diseases, pp. 162–3).

  Dr Hills’s belief that the men were in a pre-scorbutic condition, though founded on a reference to scurvy in the log of the Hinchinbroke, rests uncomfortably with Dancer’s testimony that the expedition arrived at the San Juan ‘in general good health and in great spirits’ (Dancer, A Brief History, p. 10). Moreover, we know from Dancer that at the fort it was the Indians who fell ill first, and enough perished for the British to appropriate nearly £1,000 for the principal purpose of compensating their relatives at a rate of £25 per man (Colville Cairns, proposals of July 1780, Stephen Kemble papers, William L. Clements Library). Yet the Indians had neither been on the ships nor subject to the dietary deficiencies that supposedly primed the sprue. Similarly the immunity of the Bay of Honduras blacks to the disease (Kemble journal, Collections, pp. 15, 24) seems consistent with the resistance some native populations develop to malaria.

  The typical symptoms of sprue (weakness, a sore tongue, difficulty in swallowing, fatty stools, weight loss, indigestion, anaemia and diarrhoea) would not, I believe, have generated the description of the disease given by Dancer. In sprue, for example, diarrhoea and dysentery are thought to be precipitating factors for the disease, whereas on the San Juan they were associated with its later phases (Dancer, A Brief History, p. 44). Finally, sprue is a chronic rather than an acute, rapidly developing and fatal disease. It attacks individuals sporadically, and is not epidemic. Yet the principal disease of 1780 was so general that Dancer thought it contagious. ‘In the beginning,’ he said, it was ‘dependent on climate &c. and affecting only individuals’ but later it became ‘evidently contagious, and seized almost every one who came within the infection’ (Dancer, A Brief History, p. 36). Moseley reported that the expedition eventually cost the British fourteen hundred men (Moseley, Treatise on Tropical Diseases, p. 163). That sprue could have simultaneously developed in so many and been so swift and destructive is very hard to believe.

  James Kemble, Idols and Invalids, pp. 117–19, 120–2, had a stronger candidate in typhoid fever, which incubates in seven to twenty-one days and is clinically difficult to distinguish from malaria. More than one ailment was probably at work, but malaria fits the full thrust of the evidence best. Both the season (the beginning of the rains) and the environment (the marshy margins of the river and estuary) were tailor-made for malaria. Dr Peter Walsh, who served with Kemble’s force, regarded the wet, close weather as ‘the principal cause’ of the fevers (Collections, pp. 15–16). Though at that time mosquitoes were not known to be the agents of malaria and yellow fever, they created serious problems for the men on the San Juan. Indeed, they even featured in the articles of capitulation that led to the surrender of the Spanish fort in May, something that may have been unprecedented in military history. Thus, in the eighth article, the British commander, Captain Polson, undertook ‘to do my utmost to keep the mosquitoes within the bounds of moderation’ (Robert Beatson, Naval and Military Memoirs, 6, p. 230).

  In an effort to clarify the matter I submitted the data about the San Juan expedition to experts in the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine, part of the University of Liverpool. H. M. Gilles, Emeritus Professor of Tropical Medicine, thought ‘a combination of malignant tertian malaria and typhoid’ a ‘reasonable possibility’ and added, ‘If I were to opt for one single diagnosis’ it would be ‘malignant tertian malaria in patients debilitated by vitamin deficiencies and under nutrition. It is now well accepted that under nutrition is a risk factor for severe malaria and subsequent death.’ Dr. Geoff Gill, Reader in Tropical Medicine, broadly agreed: ‘Though it is possible for malaria to cause all these features,’ he wrote, ‘it would be unusual; and my feeling is that there was worse than one illness . . . I would go for malaria and bacillary (bacterial) dysentery.’ For Dr Gill, too, typhoid was a possible suspect, however. On the present evidence this is, perhaps, as far as we can go.

  30. Parker to Stephens, 7, 28/4/1780, ADM 1/242; Janus muster, ADM 36/8720; and Dalling to Germain, 14/4/1780, CO 137/78.

  31. Polson to Kemble, 28/4/1780, Collections, p. 208.

  32. Polson to Kemble, 1, 12/5/1780, Collections, pp. 215, 220.

  33. Narrative of Sir Alexander Keith, 1780, CO 137/79: 74; proceedings of a council at Tebuppy, 1/10/1780, CO 137/79: 164; Kemble to Dalling, 19/5 to 11/6/1780, CO 137/78; information of Todd, 25/8/1780, CO 137/78: 239; Polson to Dalling, 30/4/1780, CO 137/77; Collections, pp. 14, 31.

  34. Forthringham to Parker, 30/4/1780, ADM 1/242.

  35. Hinchingbroke musters, ADM 36/9510–9511; testimony of Collingwood, 5/12/1780, CO 137/79: 194. Bullen’s log (NMM: ADM/L/H113) gives variant details of the fat
alities aboard the Hinchingbroke.

  36. Nelson to Polson, 2/6/1780, D&L, 1, p. 33*; Dalling to Nelson, 13/5/1780, Add. MSS 34903. Nelson remained on good terms with the Dalling family, even after the general’s death: Louise, Lady Dalling to Nelson, 10/8/1804, NMM: CRK/14.

  37. Parker to Stephens, 20/5/1780, ADM 1/242; account of John Tyson, Add. MSS 34990: 36; Nelson to Locker, 23/1/1780, D&L, 1, p. 32.

  38. Dalling to Germain, 20, 21/5/1780, CO 137/77; Nelson to Paynter, 31/5/1780, Add. MSS 34988.

  39. Dalling to Germain, 29/6/1780, CO 137/77.

  40. Shaw to Kemble, 27/6/1780, Kemble papers, William L. Clements Library.

  41. See Hodgson’s narrative, CO 137/80: 322; evidence of William Dalrymple, 6/12/1780, CO 137/79:184; Moseley, Treatise on Tropical Diseases, p. 163.

  42. Germain to Dalling, 7/12/1780, CO 137/78. For Germain’s earlier support of the venture see, for example, his letters to Dalling dated 4 January, 1 March and 5 April 1780 (Germain papers, William L. Clements Library). As late as 1 March, with the rains and their attendant threat of disease looming, Germain urged Dalling to make ‘the most vigorous efforts’ to implement the plan and reported that three thousand reinforcements were ready to sail from England to Jamaica.

  43. D&L, 1, p. 7.

  44. Joseph and William Brodie Gurney, Trial of Edward Marcus Despard, p. 174. Clifford D. Conner has written a biography of Despard.

  IX Fighting Back (pp. 176–90)

  1. The Janus muster (ADM 36/8720) says that Nelson’s commission was dated 22 March and that he appeared on 18 May, but I have followed the Janus log here (ADM 52/2359).

  2. Compare the musters of Hinchingbroke (ADM 36/9510–9511) with that of the Janus. I did not find a muster for the Victor.

  3. Nelson to Ross, 12/6/1780, Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth.

  4. James S. Clarke and John McArthur, Life and Services, 1, p. 61.

  5. Robert Wood, Archibald Bruce and James Melling, 1/9/1780, ADM 1/242; Nelson to Parker, 30/8/1780, ADM 1/242.

  6. Parker to Nelson, 1/9/1780, Add. MSS 34903; Parker to Stephens, 5/9/1780, ADM 1/242.

  7. Account of the Duke of Clarence, Add. MSS 34990: 54.

  8. M. Eyre Matcham, Nelsons of Burnham Thorpe, p. 106; Nelson to Fanny, 27/6/1794, Monmouth MSS, E820.

  9. Nelson to Fanny, 28/6/1794, Monmouth MSS, E821.

  10. Linda Colley, Britons, p. 183.

  11. Nelson to St Vincent, 23/9/1801, D&L, 7, p. ccxxix*; Colin White, ‘Nelson and Shakespeare’.

  12. Nelson to Ross, 1/9/1780, 12/9/1801, NMM: PST/38, and D&L, 4, p. 487.

  13. Lion muster, ADM 36/9203; Lion log books, ADM 51/540 and ADM 52/1847; Cornwallis to Stephens, November 1780, ADM 1/1613; D&L, 1, p. 8; Nelson to Cornwallis, 31/1/1799, Hist. MSS Commission, Various Collections, 6, p. 392.

  14. Nelson to Locker, 5/3/1781, D&L, 1, p. 39.

  15. R. S. Neale, Bath, pp. 17, 22–3.

  16. Nelson to Locker, 23/1/1781, D&L, 1, p. 35; Louis Hodgkin, Nelson and Bath, pp. 11–12.

  17. Nelson to Locker, 23/1/1781, 15/2/1781, D&L, 1, pp. 35, 38. For the diagnosis see James Kemble, Idols and Invalids, pp. 120–22, and Anne-Marie Ewart Hills in ND, 7 (2000), p. 240.

  18. Nelson to Locker, 15/2/1781, 5/3/1781, D&L, 1, pp. 28, 39; The Bath Chronicle, 1/3/1781.

  19. Nelson to Locker, 15/2/1781, D&L, 1, p. 38.

  20. Nelson to Locker, 21/2/1781, D&L, 1, p. 39. For Kingsmill (formerly Brice), see NC, 5 (1801), pp. 189–212. He was then a senior captain, within hailing distance of achieving flag rank, and therefore a potentially useful patron. Nelson wrote to him regularly in succeeding years, but few of the letters have survived.

  21. Illustrated London News, 6/6/1846; notes and drawings of James Frederick King (b. 1781), whose father obtained Suckling’s house after the latter’s death in 1798: George Gater and Walter H. Godfrey, Old St. Pancras and Kentish Town, pp. 53–4, pl. 110. The location of the house, long since demolished, is incorrectly identified by Thomas Foley, Nelson Centenary, p. 16. It would seem to have been near the junction of presentday Kentish Town and Castle roads.

  22. Jenkinson to Sandwich, 12/2/1781, Add. MSS 38308; ‘Nelson’s Appointment to the Command of the Albemarle, 1781’.

  23. Account with Robert Winch, 5/5/1781–2/7/1781, Western MSS 3676, Wellcome Library, London.

  24. Nelson to Stephens, 23/1/1784, NMM: ADM/C/653; Accounts, 1781, 1784, Western MSS 3676, Wellcome Library, London.

  25. Nelson to William, 7/5/1781, Add. MSS 34988; James Harrison, Life, 1, p. 66; William Nelson’s statement, 1799, NMM: PHB/15.

  26. Nelson to William, 24/8/1781, Add. MSS 34988. These paragraphs also depend upon the logs of the Albemarle, ADM 51/4110 and ADM 52/2136; Hinton’s log, NMM: ADM/L/A72; and the ship’s musters, ADM 36/10081–10082.

  27. Norfolk Chronicle, 8/9/1781; Nelson to William, 19/10/1781, 18/12/1781, Add. MSS 34988.

  28. Nelson to Stephens, October 1781, ADM 1/2222; Hinton, passing certificate, 4/2/1779, ADM 107/7; Bromwich, return of service, 1817, ADM 9/6: no. 1800.

  29. Nelson to Locker, 21/10/1781, D&L, 1, p. 47. Nelson to William, 9/9/1781, 19/10/1781, Add. MSS 34988.

  30. Orders of 7, 26/9/1781 and 17/10/1781, ADM 2/111.

  31. Nelson to Admiral Robert Roddam, 22/10/1781, Add. MSS 34961; Nelson to Stephens, 3, 6 and 24/9/1781, ADM 1/2222.

  32. Nelson to William, 24/8/1781, 18/12/1781, Add. MSS 34988.

  33. D&L, 1, p. 8; Admiralty to Nelson, 23/10/1781, Add. MSS 34933.

  X ‘The Poor Albemarle’ (pp. 191–227)

  1. Nelson to Locker, 22/12/1781, D&L, 1, p. 49. The Albemarle logs (Nelson’s in ADM 51/4110; Trail’s in ADM 52/2136; and Hinton’s and Bromwich’s in NMM: ADM/L/A72) are used throughout this chapter. For Bromwich’s story of the Danish midshipman see James Stanier Clarke and John McArthur, Life and Services, 1, p. 66.

  2. Nelson to Locker, 22/12/1781, D&L, 1, p. 49; Nelson to Stephens, 18/12/1781, Add. MSS 34961; and Dickson to Stephens, 20, 30/11/1781 and 8, 18/12/1781, ADM 1/1709.

  3. Nelson to Locker, 2/1/1781, D&L, 1, p. 52; Albemarle musters, ADM 36/10081–82. Those who served as midshipmen aboard the Albemarle during Nelson’s command were George Barlow, James Boyd, David Carnegie, George Dawson, Charles Hardy, John Hughes, George Mitchell, Alexander St Clair, John Williams and John Wright. The captain’s servants were John Cussans, Thomas Easton, William Field, James Gregory, John Goodall, Frank Lepee, Samuel Lightfolly, Dennis O’Neal, Samuel Simpkin, Henry Wilson and John Wood.

  4. Nelson to William, 25/1/1782, Add. MSS 34988; Dickson to Stephens, 21, 27/12/1781 and 5/1/1782, ADM 1/1709 and ADM 1/1710; Payne to Stephens, 15/1/1782, ADM 1/2307; Hughes to Stephens, 1–3/1/1782, ADM 1/655.

  5. DNB, 10, pp. 186–7.

  6. Nelson to Stephens, 31/1/1782, Add. MSS 34933; report on the Albemarle, 1781, ADM 95/30/24.

  7. Hughes to Nelson, 11/1/1782, Add. MSS 34961.

  8. Nelson to William, 8/2/1782, Add. MSS 34988.

  9. Nelson to Hughes, 12/1/1782, Add. MSS 34933.

  10. Albemarle log, 26/1/1782, ADM 51/4110; Nelson to William, 28/1/1782, Add. MSS 34988; Nelson to Stephens, 20/1/1782, ADM 1/2223; Nelson to Stephens, 31/1/1782, Add. MSS 34933.

  11. Clarke and McArthur, Life and Services, 1, p. 68.

  12. Nelson to William, 25/1/1782, Add. MSS 34988.

  13. Nelson to Proby, 21/1/1782, Add. MSS 34961; NMM: SAN/4, p. 15.

  14. Nelson to Locker, 5/2/1782, 2/4/1782, D&L, 1, pp. 56, 61.

  15. Nelson to William, 8/2/1782, Add. MSS 34988.

  16. David Cordingley, Heroines and Harlots, pp. 13, 14, 201.

  17. Tom Pocock, Sailor King, p. 71. For a discussion of this subject see N. A. M. Rodger, Wooden World, pp. 75–81.

  18. Bartholomew Ruspini, Treatise on Teeth, p. 64. For an account of mercurial treatments of venereal complaints see William Northcote, Marine Practice of Physic and Surgery, 2, chap. 8.

  19. Nelson to Locker, 2/4/1782, D&L, 1, p. 61; Nelson to his father, 8/3/1782, NMM: STW/1.


  20. Nelson to Locker, 1/6/1782, D&L, 1, p. 64.

  21. Nelson to Locker, 1/6/1782, D&L, 1, p. 64; Pringle to Stephens, 25/4/1782, ADM 1/2307; Daedalus log, ADM 51/224; Nelson to Worth, 1/7/1782, Add. MSS 34961.

  22. Nelson to Ross, 9/8/1783, Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth.

  23. Nelson to Locker, 19/10/1782, D&L, 1, p. 66.

  24. In addition to the logs and musters of the Albemarle see the log of the Pandora, ADM 51/668, and Inglis to Stephens, 10/9/1782, ADM 1/998.

  25. The logs and muster vary in details. Hinton’s seems to have Nelson taking a Cape Cod schooner on 23 August.

  26. Testimonial for Carver, 17/8/1782, in Tom Pocock, Young Nelson in the Americas, p. 175; Gersham Bradford, ‘Nelson in Boston Bay’. Francis William Blagdon, Orme’s Graphic History, p. 60, gives a variant account of the episode, based on a letter of 21 December 1805, but the details are not borne out by the ships’ logs. Some historians (for example Colin White, Nelson Encyclopaedia, p. 91) have also dismissed the more traditional story of Carver and the Harmony, which appears to have come from Bromwich (Clarke and McArthur, Life and Services, 1, pp. 72–3) but it is broadly confirmed by the logs and musters. Hinton’s log for 18 August, for instance, reports: ‘Brought to a schooner with stock and vegetables that came off from Plymouth on purpose to supply us.’ However, I have had to modify it. Carver’s name does not appear among the lists of Nelson’s prisoners, and he cannot have been aboard the schooner taken in July, as generally represented.

  27. For this incident see the logs for 15 August 1782; Nelson to Locker, 19/10/1782, D&L, 1, p. 66; D&L, 1, p. 8; Clarke and McArthur, Life and Services, 1, p. 74; Salter to Digby, 2/8/1782, ADM 1/490; and ‘Particulars Respecting the French Fleet Now on the Coast of America’, August 1782, ADM 1/490.