by John Sugden
11. Genoa’s complaints may be sampled in Nelson to Drake, 30/9/1795, ND, 7 (2001), p. 534; Castiglione to Hotham, 31/7/1795, and Hotham to Castiglione, 22/8/1795, both enclosed in ADM 1/393; correspondence enclosed by Drake in FO 28/12: no. 23; Grenville to Drake, 3/9/1795, FO 28/12; ‘Abstract of the different points . . . between . . . Great Britain and the Republic of Genoa since . . . 1793’, FO 28/16: no. 77; Drake to Nelson, 27/9/1795, with enclosures, NMM: CRK/4; and Add. MSS 46828: 27–83. Details of the Meleager’s prizes are from Cockburn to Drake, 7/8/1795, Cockburn to McArthur and Pollard, 8/9/1795, and Cockburn to McArthur, Pollard and Udny, 11/2/1796, all in NMM: MRF/D/6; Drake to Grenville, 28/7/1795, 8, 27/8/1795, with their enclosures, FO 28/11, FO 28/12; and Roger Morriss, Cockburn, pp. 23–6.
12. Nelson to Fanny, 5/10/1795, Monmouth MSS, E874.
13. Nelson to Firpo, 7/8/1795, SRRC, 112/16/33: 331; Fellows to Firpo, 30/8/1795, SRRC, 112/16/33: 359; Aliberti to Firpo, 10/9/1795, 12/1/1796, SRRC, 112/16/33: 367, 414.
14. Anne Fremantle, ed., Wynne Diaries (1952), p. 255; Brame to Nelson, 29/8/1795, SRRC, 112/16/31. While at Vado Adelaide may have communicated with her mother in Genoa through Nelson’s letters to Brame, the British consul in that town. Brame regularly informed Nelson that his enclosures had been carefully forwarded: Brame to Aliberti, 18/8/1795, SRRC, 112/16/33: 348, and Brame to Nelson, 5/9/1795, SRRC, 112/16/31.
15. Brame to Nelson, 5/3/1796, SRRC, 112/16/31.
16. Account by Andrews, 20/8/1795, Add. MSS 34962; log of the Mutine (n. 10 above).
17. Nelson’s letters to Fremantle and Cockburn, both dated 26/8/1795, are filed in Add. MSS 34962.
18. Nelson’s summons, 26/8/1795, Add. MSS 34902; Nelson to Hotham, 27/8/1795, ADM 1/393.
19. Nelson to Hotham, 28/8/1795, Add. MSS 34962; Nelson to Drake, 27/8/1795, FO 28/12.
20. Hoste to his brother, 14/9/1795, NMM: MRF/88/1; log book of the Inconstant, ADM 51/1179.
21. Complaint of Spinola, 28/10/1795, Add. MSS 34933: 54; Hotham to Nelson, 4/9/1795, NMM: CRK/7; Udny to Drake, 1/9/1795, Add. MSS 46926.
22. Log book of the Moselle, ADM 52/3226.
23. Nelson to Fanny, 1/9/1795, Monmouth MSS, E871; Nelson to Jackson, 2/9/1795, Add. MSS 34962; letter of 10/9/1795, Add. MSS 34962: 37.
24. Hamilton to Nelson, 31/10/1796, Add. MSS 34904; Nelson to William, 29/7/1795, Add. MSS 34988; Nelson to Suckling, 27/10/1795, D&L, 2, p. 92; Nelson to Drake, 28/4/1796, Monmouth MSS, E987; Nelson to Fanny, 2/8/1796, 24/7/1795, Monmouth MSS, E900, E868; Nelson to Hotham, 30/8/1795, ADM 1/393.
25. Nelson to Clarence, 27/10/1795, NMM: CRK/14; Nelson to Drake, 6, 8/8/1795, Add. MSS 34962; Nelson to Cockburn, 8/8/1795, D&L, 2, p. 67; Fellows to Firpo, 10, 13/8/1795, SRRC, 112/16/33: 335, 337; De Vins to Drake, 5/8/1795, Add. MSS 46827.
26. Drake to Grenville, 29/8/1795, FO 28/12; Trevor to Grenville, FO 67/19; Nelson to Drake, 12/11/1795, Monmouth MSS, E37.
27. Drake to Nelson, 15/8/1795, NMM: CRK/14; Nelson to Drake, 16/8/1795, NMM: PST/39; Nelson to Jackson, 17/8/1795, Add. MSS 34962; Jackson to Nelson, 21/8/1795, Add. MSS 34904; Hotham’s letters to Nelson in Add. MSS 34904: 44–50, Add. MSS 46835: 134, and NMM: JER/1–2a; Nelson’s account of the Vado campaign, NMM: JER/1–2a; De Vins to Drake, 11/8/1795, Add. MSS 46827; Jackson to Eden, 27/8/1795, FO 67/18; Nelson to Fanny, 1/9/1795, Monmouth MSS, E871.
28. Drake to Grenville, 29/8/1795, 14, 22/9/1795, FO 28/12.
29. Nelson to Hotham, 17/9/1795, Add. MSS 34962; Eden to Grenville, 5/9/1795, FO 7/42.
30. Of the many studies of Bonaparte, personal favourites are August Fournier, Life of Napoleon I, and David G. Chandler, Campaigns of Napoleon. The most recent study of the Italian campaign is Martin Boycott-Brown’s The Road to Rivoli.
31. Trevor to Grenville, 1/8/1795, FO 67/17; Drake to Grenville, 28/8/1795, FO 28/12; Drake to Elliot, 29/8/1795, 11/9/1795, NMM: ELL/25; Eden to Grenville, 13/10/1795, FO 7/43.
32. Nelson to De Vins, 11/9/1795, FO 28/12; Nelson to De Vins, 14/9/1795, NMM: JER/1–2a; De Vins to Drake, 14/9/1795, Add. MSS 46827.
33. Nelson to Hotham, 17/9/1795, Add. MSS 34962; De Vins to Drake, 14, 19/9/1795, Add. MSS 46827.
34. Udny to Drake, 1/9/1795, Add. MSS 46826.
35. Drake to Grenville, 5/9/1795, FO 28/12.
36. For these paragraphs see Hotham to Nelson, 10, 25/9/1795, Add. MSS 34904; Nelson to Hotham, 17, 20/9/1795, Add. MSS 34962 and NMM: JER/1–2a; and Fremantle to William Fremantle, 26/11/1795, CBS, D-FR/45/2.
37. Drake to Grenville, 26/9/1795, FO 28/13; Nelson’s account of the Vado campaign, NMM: JER/1–2a (part also in NMM: CRK/14, and the whole reprinted in D&L, 7, p. xix); Hotham to Nelson, 9/10/1795, Add. MSS 34904; various documents in NMM: CRK/14.
38. Nelson, undated letter in NMM: CRK/14.
39. Nelson to Nepean, 13/11/1795, ADM 1/2225; Nelson’s account of the Vado campaign, NMM: JER/1–2a.
40. Trevor to Elliot, 21/10/1795, NMM: ELL/101; Drake to Grenville, 29/9/1795, and enclosures, FO 28/13; Nelson to Trevor, 6, 7/11/1795, FO 67/19; Nelson to Wallis, 7/11/1795, and Nelson to De Vins, 8/11/1795, both in NMM: JER/1–2a; the Moselle log.
41. Drake to Grenville, 5 and 11(with enclosure)/9/1795, 2/11/1795, FO 28/12; FO 28/13: no. 42.
42. Drake to Grenville, 29/9/1795, 1, 3, 9/10/1795, FO 28/13; Nelson to Jackson, 19/9/1795, Add. MSS 34962; Nelson’s account of the Vado campaign, NMM: JER/1–2a; Brame to Udny and Trevor, 10/10/1795, SRRC, 112/16/31; log of the Southampton, ADM 51/1131.
43. Nelson statement, November 1795, NMM: CRK/14; Drake to Nelson, 7/11/1795, NMM: CRK/4.
44. Nelson to Parker, 20/11/1795, FO 67/19; Goodall to Nelson, 8/11/1795, Add. MSS 34904; Hotham to Spencer, 1/11/1795, Add. MSS 75780. For a favourable view of Parker see Fremantle to William Fremantle, 26/11/1795, CBS, D-FR/45/2.
45. Drake to Nelson, 12, 15/11/1795, NMM: CRK/4. For the La Brune affair see Nelson to Nepean, 13/11/1795, D&L, 2, p. 98*; Drake to Grenville, 14, 19/11/1795, FO 28/13; Drake to Elliot, 21/11/1795, NMM: ELL/125; Brame to Udny, 14/11/1795, SRRC, 112/16/31.
46. Nelson to Parker, 20/11/1795, 23/12/1795, Add. MSS 34962, and NMM: JER/1–2a.
47. The watering parties are mentioned in Drake to Grenville, 3/12/1795, with enclosures, FO 28/13. Noble, Withers and Newman were taken to Nice and Marseilles before being returned to Genoa, where they were discharged to Brame on 23 February 1796, on the condition that the British would release three French officers of equivalent rank in return: Drake to Nelson, 1/12/1795, NMM: CRK/4; Brame to Noble, 15/12/1795, and Brame to Drake, 24/2/1796, both in SRRC, 112/16/31; Noble to Drake, 20/11/1795, SRRC, 112/16/33: 382; and documents filed at SRRC, 112/16/33: 401, 455. Withers believed that Nelson had oiled these negotiations by releasing clothes he had captured from the French, but although a valise and personal accoutrements belonging to a French artillery officer were sent to France’s minister plenipotentiary in Genoa, this was done afterwards and quite gratuitously. See United Service Journal, 1843, ii, p. 640; Brame to Elliot, 11/6/1796, NMM: ELL/124; and Faypoult to Nelson, 23/6/1796, SRRC, 112/16/33: 740. However, Nelson was concerned to effect the release of his officers: Nelson to Brame, 16/12/1795, 27/1/1796, SRRC, 112/16/33: 390, 430. Withers and Noble have already been mentioned. Samuel Newman began his naval career as an able seaman on the Speedy in July 1793, and joined the Agamemnon as a twenty-year-old midshipman at St Fiorenzo on 4 February 1795. He continued to serve on her till she was paid off in September 1796. Newman passed for lieutenant on 7 May 1800 (ADM 6/98) but never received his commission.
48. Drake to Grenville, 7/12/1795, Add. MSS 39793; Nelson to Hoste, 12/12/1795, Monmouth MSS, E298; Nelson to the commanding officer at Leghorn, 25/11/1795, NMM: ELL/125.
49. Drake to Nelson, 7/1/1796, and other letters in NMM: CRK/4; Eden to Drake, 21/12/1795, Add. MSS 46825.
50. Nelson to Nepean, 26/11/1795, ADM 1/2225; Trevor to Nelson, 23/12/1795, Add. MSS 34904.
51. Spencer to Nelson, 15/1/1796, NMM: CRK/11; Nelson letter, 6/11/1795, Add. MSS 21506: 151; Nelson to Lloyd, 29/
1/1798, facsimile in the John Rylands Library, Manchester, MAM PLP78.52.1.
52. Nelson to Fanny, 2, 7/12/1795, Monmouth MSS, E878; Jervis to Nelson, 29/9/1796, Add. MSS 31166; James Harrison, Life, 1, p. 140.
53. Nelson to Jervis, 21/12/1795, NMM: CRK/14.
54. Edmund Nelson to Nelson, 3/12/1795, Monmouth MSS, E615.
55. Jervis to James, 28/6/1797, Add. MSS 31160.
56. Jervis to Bowen, 23/8/1797, Add. MSS 31160.
57. Jervis to Aylmer, 31/8/1797, Add. MSS 31160.
58. Jedediah S. Tucker, St Vincent, 2, p. 390; Geoffrey Marcus, Age of Nelson, p. 66. More recent studies of Jervis include Evelyn Berckman, Nelson’s Dear Lord; the hyperbolic Charles B. Arthur, Remaking of the English Navy; Ruddock F. Mackay, ‘Lord St Vincent’s Early Years’; and P. K. Crimmin, ‘John Jervis’. A new biography, written by someone willing to confront a heterogeneous mass of primary material with a cool head, is needed.
59. Fremantle to William Fremantle, CBS, D-FR/45/2/117.
60. Jervis’s record on health was also questioned in Christopher C. Lloyd and J. L. S. Coulter, Medicine in the Navy.
61. Lady Elliot to Elliot, 6/12/1795, NLS, 11072: 160.
62. Jervis to Nelson, 13/1/1796, NMM: CRK/11; Nelson to William, 26/12/1795, Add. MSS 34988; Jervis to Spencer, 13/1/1796, 24/1/1796, Add. MSS 75799.
63. Anne Fremantle, ed., Wynne Diaries (1935–40), 2, p. 112.
64. Trevor to Jervis, 27/1/1796, FO 67/20; Nelson to Fanny, 20/1/1796, Monmouth MSS, E883.
65. Jervis to Trevor, 11/2/1796, Add. MSS 31166; Nelson to Fanny, 27/1/1796, Monmouth MSS, E884; Jervis to Nelson, 21/1/1796, Add. MSS 34938; Jervis to Nepean, 24/1/1796, Add. MSS 31171; Udny to Macartney, 4/1/96, Add. MSS 46825; Nelson to Drake, 27/1/1796, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Nelson’s letter book for 1796, Monmouth MSS, E987, and the logs of the Diadem (ADM 51/1167), Blanche (ADM 51/1140), Meleager (ADM 51/1210), and Peterel (ADM 51/1137) have also been used for the 1796 campaign.
66. Nelson to Fanny, 12/2/1796, Monmouth MSS, E885.
67. Nelson to Fanny, 17, 28/2/1796, Monmouth MSS, E886.
68. Nelson to Drake, 6/4/1796, D&L, 2, p. 142; Jervis to Nepean, 18/4/1796, ADM 1/394; Jervis to Elliot, 3/4/1796, NMM: ELL/141; Nelson to Drake, 19/4/1796, and Nelson to Jervis, 18/4/1796, both in NMM: JER/1–2a; Nelson to Drake, 19/4/1796, Monmouth MSS, E987; Nelson to Brame, 14/4/1796, SRRC, 112/16/33: 551.
69. Jervis to Nelson, 21/3/1796, Add. MSS 31166; Add. MSS 31175: 83; Jervis to Spencer, 28/3/1796, 31/5/1796, Add. MSS 75799, 75793.
70. Nelson to Jervis, 8/4/1796, NMM: JER/1–2a; Macartney to Drake, 10/1/1796, Add. MSS 46825; Brame to Drake, 11/4/1796, FO 28/14.
71. The correspondence on this subject is extensive, but see Nelson to Trevor, 24/2/1796, 2/3/1796, FO 67/20; Nelson to Hamilton, 11/3/1796, NMM: JER/1–2a; Nelson to Drake, 15/3/1796, NMM: CRK/14; Hamilton to Jervis, 22/3/1796, 17/5/1796, NMM: HML/10C; Hamilton to Drake, 11, 30/4/1796, FO 28/14, FO 28/15; Hamilton to Trevor, 26/4/1796, NMM: HML/10D; Trevor to Hamilton, 13/4/1796, NMM: HML/11; Trevor to Grenville, 31/3/1796 and Brame to Trevor, 30/3/1796, FO 67/20; and correspondence in Add. MSS 31159: 43; Add. MSS 31175: 105; Add. MSS 39793: 139, 143; Add. MSS 46826: 159; and Egerton MSS 2639: 269, 283.
72. Drake to Nelson, 6, 12, 29/3/1796, 21/4/1796, NMM: CRK/4; Jervis to Elliot, 3/4/1796, NMM: ELL/141; Jervis to Nelson, 26/4/1796, NMM: CRK/11; Acton to Hamilton, 9/4/1796, Egerton MSS 2639. Several proposals for amphibious operations off the coast appear to have been made. One, of uncertain origin, suggested that Jervis use two or three frigates, some gun launches, a few hundred soldiers and the seamen to destroy enemy batteries and supplies at Vado, Savona and Finale (memorandum, 18/6/1796, SRRC, 112/16/33: 725).
73. Nelson to Fanny, 9/4/1796, Monmouth MSS, E890; Nelson to Drake, 6/4/1796, Monmouth MSS, E515; Nelson’s proposals to Beaulieu, April 1796, Monmouth MSS, E987; Brame memoranda, NMM: ELL/124.
74. Brame, 11/4/1796, FO 67/21: 29; Nelson to Trevor, 11/4/1796, FO 67/21.
75. Nelson to Trevor, 11/4/1796, Monmouth MSS, E987; Eden to Greville, 20/4/1796, FO 7/45; Nelson to Drake, 11/4/1796, FO 28/14; Trevor to Grenville, 13/4/1796, 16/4/1796, FO 67/21.
76. Trevor to Nelson, 23/5/1796, Add. MSS 34904.
77. Jervis to Nelson, 11/5/1796, NMM: CRK/11; Jervis to Nepean, 11/5/1796, Add. MSS 31171.
78. Nelson to Jervis, 8/4/1796, ADM 1/394.
79. ‘Disposition of the frigates between Toulon and Cape del Mele’, FO 67/21, p. 110; Nelson to Trevor, 19/4/1796, FO 67/21; Nelson to Drake, 19/4/1796, Add. MSS 46835.
80. Nelson to Jervis, 25/4/1796, ADM 1/394; Nelson to Drake, 28/4/1796, Monmouth MSS, E987; DNB, 14, pp. 525–6; logs cited in n. 65 above.
81. Acton to Hamilton, 3/5/1796, Egerton MSS 2639; Spencer to Nelson, 26/4/1796, 4/5/1796, NMM: CRK/11.
82. John C. Dann, ed., Nagle Journal, pp. 200–3, contains the sometimes inaccurate memories of a sailor serving aboard the Blanche in these raids.
83. Nelson to Jervis, 1/6/1796, 24/6/1796, ADM 1/394; Nelson to Jervis, 2/6/1796, NMM: JER/1–2a; Nelson to Graham, 19/6/1796, Monmouth MSS, E987; Nelson draft to Genoa, 22/6/1796, NMM: CRK/14; ship’s logs; Edward P. Brenton, Naval History, 1, p. 337; Jervis to Coffin, 29/6/1796, Add. MSS 31159; Morriss, Cockburn, p. 28.
84. Jervis to Drake, 11/5/1796, Tucker, St Vincent, 1, p. 181; Nelson to Jervis, 14/5/1796, Monmouth MSS, E987; Nelson to Elliot, 16/5/1796, NMM: ELL/138.
85. Nelson to Jervis, 18/5/1796, NMM: JER/1–2a; Nelson to Drake, 14/5/1796, Monmouth MSS, E987; Drake to Nelson, 24/5/1796, NMM: CRK/4.
86. Nelson to Jervis, 3/6/1796, NMM: JER/1–2a. James Kemble, Idols and Invalids, p. 133, suggests that these symptoms indicate arteriosclerosis of the coronary arteries (producing angina) or spondylitis deformans, involving arthritis, but at thirty-eight Nelson would seem to have been young for either condition. Moreover, for many years he had complained of chest pains, which may have been related to his tropical disorders.
87. Jervis to Nelson, 29/6/1796, Add. MSS 34938; Jervis to Nelson, 5/9/1796, NLTHW, p. 337.
88. Nelson to Jervis, 5/6/1796, NMM: JER/1–2a.
89. Nelson to Fanny, 2/8/1796, Monmouth MSS, E900; Jervis to Nepean, 22/6/1796, ADM 1/394; Jervis to Nelson, 22/5/1796, 1, 7, 8/6/1796, NMM: CRK/11 and Add. MSS 34938: 31, 32.
90. Jervis to Spencer, 18/7/1796, Add. MSS 75793.
XXII From Flag Captain to Ship-Boy (pp. 605–34)
1. Barbara E. Rooke, ed., The Friend, 1, p. 572; Richard Holmes, Coleridge, chap. 1.
2. Nelson to Jervis, 28/6/1796, D&L, 7, p. lxxxix. The number of transfers mentioned in Jervis to Nelson, 10/6/1796, Add. MSS 31175, is incomplete. This chapter rests heavily on the musters of the Agamemnon (ADM 36/11358–62) and Captain (ADM 36/11799).
3. Florence Marryat, Captain Marryat, 1, pp. 19–20.
4. Edward Fraser, Sailors Nelson Led, pp. 54–5.
5. The quotation is from the master’s log for 10/5/1795 (ADM 52/2632). The number and severity of the floggings and the names of the offenders are sometimes given differently in the logs, making precise figures impossible. For example, two soldiers punished for fighting in October 1793 received six lashes each according to one log, and a dozen each in another. Moreover, the severity of the punishment is unrecorded for about 24 per cent of the floggings noted. See also BL: John to Ann Brock, 10/5/1793.
6. Nelson to the Marine Society, 6/2/1793, Monmouth MSS, E328.
7. E. G. Thomas, ‘Old Poor Law’, p. 58; R. Leslie-Melville, Sir John Fielding, pp. 114–25; James Stephen Taylor, Jonas Hanway.
8. Minutes of the Marine Society, 21/2/1793, NMM: MSY/B/5. For a discussion of boys at sea see Michael Lewis, Social History of the Navy, pp. 86–90, 149–55.
9. The register of the Marine Society, 19 to 21/2/1793, NMM: MSY/0/7, contains the names of twenty boys sent to Nelson, but one never enlisted on the Agamemnon, and his place was taken by another originally destined for the Ramilles. Of these, three were discharged before the ship left for
the Mediterranean, and seventeen sailed. However, the Agamemnon muster (ADM 36/11358) lists three additional boys as having been acquired from the Marine Society, though only one actually sailed. One deserted and another requested a discharge in April 1793. As none of the additional boys appear on the Marine Society register, they may have been entered in the muster as charity boys by mistake. John Sugden, ‘Forgotten Agamemnons’, addresses these contradictions and gives fuller information. For the Marine Society training ship, see their minutes, 17/1/1793, NMM: MSY/B/5.
10. Another two boys received two dozen lashes each for theft on 19 October 1794, but they are not identified in the logs, and may not have belonged to the Marine Society contingent.
11. Of the seventeen Marine Society boys known to have sailed to the Mediterranean, two deserted and one, Thomas Paling, disappears from the musters in 1794, after being disrated a captain’s servant on 11 November 1794, in compliance with the new Admiralty order abolishing that rating. Other boys similarly disrated reappear on the ship’s books as ‘boys’, but Paling seems to have transferred to another ship.
12. Brian Lavery, Nelson’s Navy, p. 134.
13. BL: John to Ann Brock, 10/5/1793.
14. Joseph Allen, ‘England’s Wooden Walls’, pp. 346–7. The quotation does not appear in the manuscript version of Allen’s interview with Wilkinson, 15/2/1840, NMM: BGY/W/3. See also Robinson to Nelson, 16/8/1805, and Romano to Nelson, 17/1/1804, Western MSS 3676, Wellcome Library, London; Archibald Johnston petition, 22/9/1802, Monmouth MSS, E122; Nelson to St Vincent, 8/9/1801, D&L, 4, p. 486; and ADM 107/5, p. 184 (Collett’s passing certificate). Isaac Collett was about thirteen years old when he joined the Agamemnon as a volunteer in November 1794. Nelson rated him midshipman, and he became a lieutenant in 1801, but died without further advancement nineteen years later.
