Nelson

by John Sugden

  75. Elliot to Dundas, 5/4/1794, FO 20/2; Dundas to Elliot, 25/4/1794, FO 20/2.

  76. Hood and Elliot to Dundas, 18/4/1794, FO 20/2.

  77. Maurice, Diary of Moore, I, p. 82; D’Aubant to Hood and Elliot, 23/4/1794, FO 20/2; Hood to D’Aubant, 1/5/1794, NMM: Hoo/9; D’Aubant to Hood, 2/5/1794, NMM: ELL/140.

  78. Hood to Nelson, 13/5/1794, Godfrey, ‘Corsica, 1794’, p. 395; Nelson journal, NLTHW, p. 157.

  79. Nelson to Suckling, 6/4/1794, D&L, 1, p. 381; James Stanier Clarke and John McArthur, Life and Services, 1, pp. 246–7.

  XIX A Long and Hazardous Service (pp. 494–519)

  1. Nelson journal, NLTHW, p. 158.

  2. In addition to Nelson’s journals see Nelson to William, 30/5/1794, Add. MSS 34988, and several documents in NMM: Hoo/9, including casualty returns; Hood to Nelson, 17/5/1794 and Hood to Stuart, 29/5/1794. Udny reported three thousand six hundred prisoners being shipped to Toulon, but may have excluded Corsican allies of the French (Udny to Drake, 26/5/1794, Add. MSS 46826).

  3. Hood to Boyd, 25/5/1794, NMM: Hoo/9; documents referring to the reserves of powder at Gibraltar, especially Rainsford to Henry Dundas, 26/6/1794, in WO 1/288.

  4. J. F. Maurice, ed., Diary of Moore, 1, p. 89.

  5. D’Aubant to Dundas, 23/5/1794, HO 50/456; Hood to d’Aubant, 21/5/1794 (two letters), NMM: Hoo/9.

  6. Nelson to Fanny, 20/5/1794, Monmouth MSS, E816. Nelson’s tendency to underrate opposition would be noticed again, and Moore’s caution earned him some criticism during his later campaign in the Spanish peninsula. Both seem to have been embedded as much in personality as in professional evaluations of particular situations.

  7. Nelson to Suckling, 16/7/1794, Monmouth MSS, E44; Hood to Stephens, 24/5/1794, ADM 1/392; Nelson to Fanny, 8/7/1794, Monmouth MSS, E822; Fremantle to William Fremantle, 13/4/1794, CBS, D-FR/45/2. The same injustice was done to Nelson in Hood to Dundas, 24/5/1794, NMM: Hoo/9.

  8. Nelson to Fanny, 1 to 4/5/1794, Monmouth MSS, E815; Nelson to Suckling, 16/7/1794, D&L, 1, p. 441.

  9. J. H. Godfrey, ed., ‘Corsica, 1794’, p. 400.

  10. Desmond Gregory, Unconquerable Rock, p. 89.

  11. Nelson to Fanny, 7/6/1794, Monmouth MSS, E818; Hood to Hippersley, 15/6/1794, Monmouth MSS, E25; Hood to Stephens, 15/6/1794, ADM 1/392; Nelson to Elliot, 1794, NMM: ELL/138; Hood to Dundas, 15/6/1794, WO 1/302.

  12. Stuart to Elliot, 14/6/1794, NMM: ELL/149; Villettes to Nelson, 10/5/1795, Add. MSS 34904; logs of the Lutine (Captain James Macnamara) and Gorgon, ADM 51/1103 and ADM 51/1152. I have used the manuscript copies of Nelson’s Calvi journal in ADM 1/2224; ADM 1/392; and WO 1/302, and the published version, NLTHW, p. 160 following, taken from the Monmouth manuscripts. There are minor but significant differences between some of these copies. Nelson’s journal gives the figure of fourteen hundred and fifty officers and men embarked. A return of 30/5/1794 (NMM: Hoo/3) lists the number as 1,392. It included detachments of the Royal Artillery and Royal Engineers and men of the 50th and 51st regiments of foot.

  13. A plan in NMM: Hoo/3 shows the Agamemnon eventually found an anchorage in Alusa Bay, south of Port Agro. For a French account of the siege of Calvi see Maurice Jollivet, Anglais dans La Mediterranée, pp. 53–60, but see also the letter of Barthelemi Arna, 8/8/1794, in Gazette Nationale, 24/8/1794.

  14. Nelson to the agents of victuallers and transports, 17/6/1794, Monmouth MSS, E33. Accounts informed by personal inspection of the ground include J. D. Spinney, ‘Nelson at Port Agro’; Tom Pocock, Horatio Nelson, chap. 5; and David Shannon, ‘Nelson at Calvi’. Among additional logs that illuminate the doings offshore is that of L’Aigle (ADM 51/1103).

  15. Nelson to Fanny, 27/6/1794, Monmouth MSS, E820. Nelson’s journal says that two hundred and fifty seamen were landed on 19 June, but army officers speak of one hundred and fifty. See also Hood to Nelson, 21/6/1794, NMM: Hoo/3.

  16. Diary of Hudson Lowe, 19 and 20/6/1794, Add. MSS 20107.

  17. Nelson journal, NLTHW, p. 165.

  18. Stuart to Hood, 28/6/1794, NMM: Hoo/3; Stuart to Elliot, 25/6/1794, NMM: ELL/149; Hood to Elliot, 23/6/1794, NMM: ELL/140; Hood to Dundas, 5/8/1794, WO 1/302.

  19. Stuart to Elliot, 25/6/1794, NMM: ELL/149.

  20. Hood to Nelson, 23 and 30/6/1794, NMM: Hoo/3; Hood to Stephens, 14/3/1794, 3/5/1794, ADM 1/392; Elliot to Stuart, 30/6/1794, NMM: ELL/152; Fremantle to William Fremantle, 17/5/1794, CBS, D-FR/45/2.

  21. Nelson’s journal, ADM 1/2224; Nelson to Hood, 11/7/1794, NMM: Hoo/3.

  22. A. M. W. Stirling, ed., Pages and Portraits, 1, p. 240.

  23. Nelson to Hood, 18, 20/7/1794, D&L 1, pp. 448, 451. Compare Maurice, Diary of Moore, I, pp. 103, 110, and Stuart to Elliot, 25/6/1794, NMM: ELL/149.

  24. Stuart to Elliot, 25/6/1794, NMM: ELL/149; Hood to Elliot, 3/7/1794, NMM: ELL/140; Hood to Nelson, 16, 17/7/1794, NMM: Hoo/3 and Hoo/4; Nelson to Hood, 16/7/1794, NMM: Hoo/3; Nelson to Hood, July 1794, Add. MSS 34937; Hood to Nepean, 17/8/1794, WO1/302.

  25. Nelson to Hood, 20/7/1794, Add. MSS 34904; Hood to Stephens, 5/8/1794, ADM 1/392.

  26. Hood to Nelson, 24/7/1794, 28/12/1796, Add. MSS 34937; Stuart to Nelson, 25/6/1794, Add. MSS 34903.

  27. Nelson’s journal, ADM 1/2224; Lowe diary, Add. MSS 20107.

  28. Stuart’s dispatch of 10/8/1794, The Times, 3/9/1794.

  29. Hood to Nelson, 11/7/1794, NMM: Hoo/3; D&L, 2, p. 178; The Times, 3/9/1794.

  30. Nelson to Hood, 8/7/1794, NMM: Hoo/3.

  31. Nelson to Fanny, 18/8/1794, 1/9/1794, Monmouth MSS, E826, E828; Hood to Stephens, 27/8/1794, ADM 1/392. Moutray’s promotion to second lieutenant indirectly owed something to Nelson. Boyle, who created the vacancy aboard the Speedy, was recalled to England to serve on the Egmont at the express wish of the Duke of Clarence. Clarence had met Boyle in the West Indies when both served under Nelson’s command. In the Speedy, Moutray had also met another graduate of Nelson’s Boreas, Lieutenant William Tatham.

  32. Nelson journal, NLTHW, pp. 163, 165; Nelson’s journal, ADM 1/2224; Joseph Allen, ‘England’s Wooden Walls’, pp. 348–50. Hallowell was the son of the last surviving commissioner of the American board of customs. There are sketches of him in Gentleman’s Magazine, 2, new series (1834), pp. 537–9; DNB, 3, pp. 956–8; and W. H. Fitchett, Nelson and His Captains, chap. 7. Fifty-five Hallowell papers exist at Duke University, Durham, North Carolina.

  33. Maurice, Diary of Moore, 1, p. 108; Nelson journal, NLTHW, p. 165.

  34. The shifting of guns receives a high profile in Nelson’s journal and in his correspondence with Hood. See, for example, Hood to Nelson, 8, 10, 15/7/1794, NMM: Hoo/3.

  35. Nelson to Elliot, 17/7/1794, NMM: ELL/138; certificates of Harness, Jefferson and Chambers dated 9 and 12/8/1794, D&L, 1, p. 493, and Add. MSS 75808; Maurice, Diary of Moore, 1, p. 110; Thomas Pettigrew, Memoirs, 1, pp. 58–9.

  36. Nelson to Hood, 12/7/1794, D&L, 1, p. 435; Nelson to Suckling, 16/7/1794, Monmouth MSS, E44; Nelson to Fanny, 1/8/1794, Monmouth MSS, E824.

  37. Hood to Elliot, 15/7/1794, NLTHW, p. 172. The medical debate about Nelson’s injury is engaged in James Kemble, Idols and Invalids, pp. 128–31; T. C. Barras, ‘Vice-Admiral Nelson’s Lost Eye’; T. C. Barras, ‘I Have a Right to be Blind Sometimes’; Milo Keynes, ‘Horatio Nelson Never Was Blind’; Daniel Duldig, ‘Nelson a Malingerer?’; Anne-Marie E. Hills, ‘His Eye in Corsica’; Anne-Marie E. Hills, ‘Nelson: War Pensioner’; and Peter J. Gray, ‘Turning a Blind Eye’.

  38. Hood to Nelson, 14/7/1794, NMM: Hoo/3; Lowe diary, Add. MSS 20107.

  39. Nelson journal, NLTHW, p. 167. Publishing Stuart’s dispatch, The Times, 3/9/1794, misprinted the name of the army officer who helped Nelson establish the battery. Reference to the War Office lists identifies him as Wauchope.

  40. For Hood’s suspicions see Hood to Elliot, 28/7/1794, NMM: ELL/140. Some historians have emphasised the British lack of powder and shot, but though Hood grew concerned as the siege progressed (Hood to Nelson, 18/7/1794, NMM: Hoo/9) supplies continued to arrive. On 5 August
, for example, two ships brought over ten thousand shells and shot and two hundred barrels of powder (Hood to Elliot, 5/8/1794, NMM: ELL/140). These replenishments probably came from Naples or Sardinia (Hood to Hamilton, 24/7/1794, NMM: HML/12, and Hamilton to Hood, 2/8/1794, NMM: HML/10A). At the end of the siege Stuart’s complaint, which had lately been the dwindling supplies of powder and shot, became the temporary inability of the ships to land fresh supplies because of gales (Stuart to Elliot, 10/8/1794, NMM: ELL/140).

  41. For the arrival of French supplies see Nelson to Elliot, 30/7/1794, NMM: ELL/138, and Hood to Dundas, 5/8/1794, WO 1/302.

  42. Hoste to his father, 24/8/1794, Harriet Hoste, ed., Hoste, 1, p. 34.

  43. Nelson to Fanny, 18, 25/8/1794, 31/1/1795, Monmouth MSS, E826–827, E845.

  44. I have discarded the second-hand report in The Times of 4 October 1804 that Nelson eventually recovered the sight in his right eye. No first-hand evidence to support this remarkable statement has been found.

  45. Hood to Stephens, 31/8/1794, ADM 1/392; The Times, 3/9/1794; Nelson to Elliot, 10/8/1794, NMM: ELL/138. The number of French defenders is uncertain. In his journal Nelson said that three hundred French troops and 247 Corsicans surrendered their arms, and that another 313 previously armed men were in the hospital. He made no reference to the numbers of seamen from the frigates and gunboat in the harbour. However, the statement of a French inspector of roads and bridges, made on the Victory on 11 August (WO1/302: 165), listed the defenders as three hundred regulars, including the sick, and some six hundred Corsicans and seamen. Hood’s flag-captain claimed that four hundred of seven hundred armed defenders in Calvi were in the hospital (Knight to Elliot, 12/8/1794, NMM: ELL/138).

  46. Nelson to Elliot, 4/8/1794, NMM: ELL/138; terms of capitulation, WO 1/302: 145 f.

  47. Knight to Elliot, 29, 30/7/1794, 4, 12/8/1794, NMM: ELL/138; Hood to Stephens, 9/8/1794, Add. MSS 35195; Hood to Nepean, 17/8/1794, enclosing the statement of the French engineer, WO1/302.

  48. Nelson journal, NLTHW, p. 169; Diary of Moore, I, p. 115; Wemyss to Nelson, 8/8/1794, NMM: Hoo/4; Hood to Nelson, 8/8/1794, NMM: Hoo/4; Nelson to Elliot, 5/8/1794, NMM: ELL/140. Nelson’s claim that only four hundred soldiers were fit for duty when Calvi surrendered is exaggerated; Stuart reported the figure as six hundred (Stuart to Elliot, 10/8/1794, NMM: ELL/140). Sickness was also rife among the French, and on that account Stuart delayed occupying the works until they had been evacuated. On 8 August, John Udny wrote to Grenville that the French were suffering from scurvy and a malignant fever (FO 79/11).

  49. Nelson to Hood, Monmouth MSS, E510; Nelson to Clarence, 6, 10/8/1794, NMM: AGC/27.

  50. Nelson to Sainthill, 14/8/1794, United Service Journal (1830), pt i, p. 36; Stuart to Hood, 9/8/1794, ADM 1/392.

  51. Master’s log of Agamemnon, 11 to 12/8/1794, ADM 52/2707; Mary C. Innes, William Wolseley, p. 99.

  52. Nelson to Fanny, 1/8/1794, Monmouth MSS, E824; Fanny to Nelson, 16/12/1794, NLTHW, p. 262; Hamilton to Nelson, 9/12/1794, Add. MSS 34903.

  53. Hood to Stephens, 5/8/1794, ADM 1/392; Hood to Dundas, 5/8/1794, NMM: Hoo/9; The Times, 3/9/1794.

  54. A. T. Mahan, Life of Nelson, p. 130; Nelson to Locker, 4/5/1795, D&L, 2, p. 34; James Harrison, Life, 1, p. 27.

  55. Hood to Nelson, 12/8/1794, NMM: Hoo/4.

  56. Hood to Stephens, 27/8/1794, ADM 1/392; Add. MSS 34902: 53.

  XX Two Meetings with French Gentry (pp. 520–63)

  1. Agamemnon muster, ADM 36/11539. Principal sources for this chapter are Add. MSS 34902–34904; D&L, vols 1 and 2; and NLTHW.

  2. Nelson to Suckling, 20/9/1794, D&L, 1, p. 489.

  3. Nelson to Fanny, 18/8/1794, 12/9/1794, 17/1/1795, Monmouth MSS, E826, E829, E843. The Hood–Stuart spat, focusing on transport and the use of soldiers as marines, can be found in WO 1/302 and WO 1/686.

  4. Hood to Nelson, 18/9/1794, Add. MSS 34903.

  5. Drake to Grenville, 7, 20, 27/9/1794, FO 28/9.

  6. Nelson to Fanny, 20/9/1794, Monmouth MSS, E830; letter of Hood, 27/9/1794, FO 28/9; Brame to Stephens, 20/9/1794, ADM 1/3841.

  7. Drake to Grenville, 27/9/1794, FO 28/9.

  8. Nelson to Fanny, 12/9/1794, Monmouth MSS, E829; Hood to Nelson, 23/2/1796, NMM: CRK/6; Hood to Nelson, 23/8/1795, Add. MSS 34937.

  9. Spencer to Hotham, 3/5/1795, Add. MSS, 75780; Elliot to Windham, 2/4/1795, Add. MSS 37852; A. M. W. Stirling, The Hothams, vol. 2.

  10. Nelson to Locker, 21/3/1795, 4/5/1795, D&L, 2, pp. 20, 34.

  11. Nelson to Fanny, 1/9/1794, Monmouth MSS, E828; Nelson to Clarence, 13/11/1794, NMM: AGC/27; Nelson to Hamilton, 21/11/1794, Alfred Morrison, ed., Hamilton and Nelson Papers, 1, p. 196.

  12. According to Elliot, the captains described their fleet as ‘going fast to leeward’, comparing its increasing disrepair to the position of a crippled ship being driven helplessly upon a lee shore by the wind: Elliot to Dundas, 11/11/1794, FO 20/6.

  13. Nelson to Clarence, 7/11/1794, NMM: AGC/27; Nelson’s report on the fleet in Toulon, 5/11/1794, ADM 1/2224.

  14. Nelson to Elliot, 10/11/1794, NMM: ELL/138; Nelson to Suckling, 7/2/1795, D&L, 2, p. 4; Nelson to Hamilton, 21/11/1794, Morrison, Hamilton and Nelson Papers, 1, p. 196.

  15. Nelson to William, 26/10/1794, Add. MSS 34988.

  16. Nelson to William, 26/10/1794, Add. MSS 34988.

  17. Nelson to Fanny, 15/11/1794, Monmouth MSS, E838.

  18. Nelson to Clarence, 28/11/1794, NMM: AGC/27; Nelson to Fanny, 10, 11/10/1794, 5/12/1794, Monmouth MSS, E833, E836, E840; Fanny to Nelson, 30/9/1794, 10/12/1794, NLTHW, pp. 252, 261; will of Nelson, 21/3/1798, NLTHW, p. 405. In 1794 Lepee was discharged to Mr Polhill, the surgeon at Leghorn, but on 20 October 1795 he joined the Zealous and in 1796 was rated able seaman aboard the Diadem: NMM: ADM/L/A51 (certificates and tickets); ADM 36/11362 (Zealous); and ADM 36/11823 (Diadem).

  19. Nelson to Suckling, 31/10/1794, D&L, 1, p. 499.

  20. Nelson to Suckling, 7/2/1795, D&L, 2, p. 4; Nelson to Fanny, 7/2/1795, Monmouth MSS, E846.

  21. Nelson to McArthur, 28/11/1794, 10/4/1797, Monmouth MSS, E514, E518. John McArthur, Hood’s secretary, acted as prize agent for the captors. Sir William Scott, the great authority on prize law, understood the distinctions between ships ‘originally one of the [task] force and being employed by this force in purposes of indispensable necessity’, and those ‘coming there with provisions or stores and going away immediately or shortly afterwards’ (Add. MSS 34905: 197–200), but in Nelson’s view admitted too many unjustified claims. Considering the Calvi claims, for example, Scott made no distinctions between the store ship Inflexible, which remained at St Fiorenzo but routinely issued supplies to ships involved in the siege and lent them a few men; the Sincere, which ferried supplies back and forth; the St Fiorenzo which spent two days at the siege; and the Britannica which remained off Calvi throughout, until blown away a few days before the surrender (‘Cases of Officers and Men Belonging to the Ships . . . Claiming to Share Prize Money for the Captures made at Calvi’, Benjamin Hallowell Carew papers, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina). Nelson’s own suggestion, that prize money ought to have been awarded according to the number of days a ship was materially involved, was a sensible basis for the arbitration of such cases. His arguments were not entirely selfish. ‘Why is Captain [Benjamin] Hallowell omitted?’ he complained. ‘He rendered more service than almost any other officer. If these share, I insist he does.’

  22. Hood to Nelson, 1/12/1794, D&L, 1, p. 506; Hood to Nelson, 27/1/1795, Add. MSS 34937.

  23. Spencer to Hood, 27/3/1795, Add. MSS 34937.

  24. Details about Leghorn can be found in Thomas Fremantle’s journal, published in Anne Fremantle, ed., Wynne Diaries (1952), and in Nautical Magazine, 3 (1834), pp. 684–9. I have not succeeded in locating the original of Fremantle’s diary. It was not deposited with his personal papers in Aylesbury.

  25. Fremantle, Wynne Diaries, pp. 254–6, 259. For Fremantle see Ann Parry, The Admirals Fremantle, and Ludovic Kennedy, Nelson and His Captain
s.

  26. Fremantle, Wynne Diaries, p. 254; Tom Pocock, Horatio Nelson, pp. ix–x; Tom Pocock, Nelson’s Women, p. 85.

  27. Udny to Nelson, July 1796, Add. MSS 34904: 231; Udny to Nelson, 11/4/1797, Add. MSS 34906; Cockburn to Nelson, 24/7/1797, Add. MSS 34906; Brame to Nelson, 21/8/1796, Add. MSS 34904. The publication of the 1952 edition of the Wynne diaries alerted scholars to Nelson’s Italian mistress, but it was Oliver Warner, MM, 46 (1960), p. 63, who used the only surviving letter between the two (Nelson to Adelaide, undated, Huntington Library, San Marino, California) to name her. Nelson addressed his letter to ‘Signora Adelaide Correglia’, while Udny, who also knew her well, forwarded a letter for Nelson to ‘Signora Adelaide Carellia’. Carellia was a phonetic rendering of Correglia. Little is known about Adelaide, and Pocock’s inference that she was ‘an opera singer’ (Horatio Nelson, p. 124) appears to have no foundation. Research for the present work trebled the previously known number of documents referring to Adelaide, and considerably sharpens the focus upon her circumstances and relationship to Nelson, but the picture still remains misty.

  28. Richard Walker, Nelson Portraits, pp. 15–17, 19, 195.

  29. Fremantle to William Fremantle, undated, CBS, D-FR/45/2/112A; Fremantle, Wynne Diaries, p. 254.

  30. Nelson to Adelaide, undated, Huntington Library. It is impossible to decide when this note was written. The reference to the ship leaving for Leghorn does not necessarily imply that Nelson himself was going there; it could have meant that he was taking advantage of a ship going to Leghorn to send her a letter. There is a finality in the tone of the note that suggests that it was penned late in 1796 or 1797, when circumstances were ending their relationship.

  31. Fremantle, Wynne Diaries, p. 255.

  32. Nelson sat on the trials of Lieutenant William Walker of the Rose, acquitted at Leghorn of illicit profiteering, 13 September 1794; the officers of the Windsor Castle, acquitted of tyranny at St Fiorenzo on 11 November 1794; a man of the Dolphin accused of fatally wounding a sailmaker; and a seaman of the Princess Royal, convicted at Leghorn on 18–19 December 1794 for assaulting his master-of-arms. For details see ADM 1/5331.