(IfarncU Intowoitg ffiibtaty BERNARD ALBERT SINN COLLECTION NAVAL HISTORY AND BIOGRAPHY THE GIFT OF BERNARD A. SINN, 97 1919 Cornell University Library DA 87.1.N42L37 1896 3 1924 027 918 725 Cornell University Library The original of tliis book is in tlie Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924027918725 THE S^ELSON mEMORIAL NELSON AND HIS COMPANIONS IN ARMS BY JOHN KNOX LAUGHTON, m.a., r.n. Honorary Fellow of GoTiville and Caius College, Cambridge Professor of Modern History in King's College, London Lecturer on Naval History at the Royal Naval College, Greenwich With Numerous Illustrations NEW YORK LONGMANS, GREEN & CO. LONDON :GEOJRGE ALLEN 1896 [All rights reserved'\ /^5 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson &» Co. At the Ballantjne Press ^Dedicated {with permission) to The Right Honourable HORATIO, EARL NELSON Preface Very many lives of Nelson have been written from almost as many different points of view. With these the present work does not enter into com- petition. The author has elsewhere related the story of Nelson's career in some detail, and has not attempted to repeat it here ; but while dwelling on the principal incidents in Nelson's life and on the glories of his achievements, he has endeavoured to describe some of the influences which tended to form N elson's character ; some of the men, second only to himself, from whom he derived his inspira- tion ; some of those who so nobly worked with him in securing the liberty and establishing the great- ness of England. Nelson has been too often repre- sented as a demi-god, saint, or sentimentalist, and not unfrequently as a mere animal, with an animal's instincts and love of fighting. The author has here portrayed him as a man, with a man's passions and a man's weaknesses, but as a man of transcendent viii PREFACE genius, endowed with that grandest attribute of genius, the capacity of taking infinite pains. In selecting the illustrations, which, he believes, will give a peculiar interest to the volume, the author has been so fortunate as to receive much and most valuable assistance ; and has the pleasing task of acknowledging the kindness of the Baroness Burdett-Coutts, in permitting her little known por- trait! of Captain Hardy by Abbott to be reproduced (p. 250) ; of Mrs. Levien, in allowing the beautiful intaglio of Nelson's head to be copied (p. 151) ; and of Earl Nelson, in putting at his disposal the unique portrait of Nelson as a young man by Rigaud (p. 14), the admirable bust of Nelson by Thaller and Ranson (p. 264), and the print of Merton House, now a thing of the past (p. 220). He has also to express his sense of the zealous co-operation of the publisher, Mr. George Allen, and his sons, to whose spirit, taste, and skill, the number and excellence of the illustrations must be altogether ascribed. Contents CHAP. I. EARLY SERVICE II. THE BATTLE OF ST. VINCENT . III. THE BATTLE OF THE NILE IV. NAPLES . . . . V. THE BATTLE OF COPENHAGEN VI. THE BOULOGNE FLOTILLA VII. THE BLOCKADE OF TOULON . VIII. THE BATTLE OF TRAFALGAR . I 33 82 126 172 209 228 266 APPENDIX TITLES . ORDERS AND MEDALS CHRONOLOGY BIBLIOGRAPHY 327 328 329 335 List of Illustrations " England expects that every man will do his duty" Frontispiece Designed in colour by T. H. Robinson. PAGE BuRNHAM Thorpe Rectory ..... facing 4 From an engraving by J. Landseer, after a fainting by i f. pocock. ■ Captain Nelson (aged twenty-two) . . . „ 14 From the fainting by J. F. RiGAUD, now in the possession of Earl Nelson. J, Photogravure. Sir John Jervis (about 1790) . . . . „ 46 From an engraving by R. LAURIE, after the painting by T. Stuart. Photogravure. Plan of the Battle of St. Vincent . . . (^^ 59 The Battle of St. Vincent — "Nelson's Patent Bridge" facing 62 From an engraving by Fittler, after the painting by N. POCOCK. Collingwood (about 1800) „ 66 H From an engraving by C. Turner, after a painting in the possession of the family. Photogravure. Memorandum, 2oth July 1797 . . . • ,> 75 Facsimile. xii LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Letter to Lord St. Vincent, i6th August 1797 facing 79 Facsimile, Sir Horatio Nelson (1797) ■ • • „ 82 From an engraving iy Robert Graves, A.R.A., after a fainting by L. F. ABBOTT. Photogravure. The Battle of the Nile „ no Prom an engraving by J. Fittler, after th£ painting hy N. POCOCK. Plan of the Battle of the Nile . . . on w^ Lady Hamilton (Miranda) .... facing 126 From a lithograph by J. W. Slater, after a painting by G. ROMNEY. Photogravure. Lady Hamilton (A Sibyl) „ 132 From the painting by G. ROMNEy, now in the National Portrait Gallery, Photogravure. Lady Hamilton (Attitude No. III.) . . . ,, 138 From the drawing by F. Rehberg. Lord Nelson ,,151 From a crystal intaglio set in the lid of a bonbonniire given by Lady Hamilton to the grandfather of the Rev. John Levien, and now in the possession of Mrs. Levien. Letter from Sir Edward Berry, 30TH March 1800 „ 160 Facsimile. Lady Hamilton (Attitude No. VI.) . . . „ 166 From the drawing by F. Rehberg. Memorandum (about December 1800) . . . o;^ 169 Facsimile. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS xiii PAGE Lord Nelson (about December 1800) . . facing 174 From an engraving after a painting iy L. F, ABBOTT. Photogravure, Chart of the Sea- approaches to Copenhagen . (?« 191 Battle of Copenhagen . . . . facing 194 From an engraving by J. FiTTLER, after the fainting by N. POCOCK. Lady Hamilton (The Spinstress) . . . . „ 204 From an engraving by T. Cheeseman, after the fainting by G, ROMNEY, now belonging to Lord IVEAGH. Photo- gravure, Postscript of a Letter from Nelson, 2ist Janu- ary 1801 , . on 206 Facsimile. Lord Nelson (about 1802) . .. . . facing 214 From an engraving by T. HoDGETTS, after the fainting by Sir W. Beechey, in the possession cf the Duke of Wellington. Photogravure, Merton House „ 220 From a plate ielon^ng to Earl Nelson. H.M. Ship Victory . „ 228 From a recent photograph. Nelson's Flagships : being Portraits of H.M. Ships Agamemnon, Vanguard, Captain, Ele- phant, Victory „ 238 From an engraving by J. FiTTLEE, after the painting by N. PocoCK. Captain Hardy (1861-2) . . . . . „ 250 From the painting by L, F. Abbott, new in the possession of the Baroness Burdett-Coutts. Photogravure. xiv LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS PAGE Lord Nelson (1800) facing 264 From a marble bust, .executed at Vienna, ty Franz Thaller and Matthias Ranson ; in the possession of Earl Nelson. The Battle of Trafalgar „ 288 From an engraving by J. FiTTLER, after the painting by N. POCOCK. Plan of the Battle of Trafalgar . . .on 297 The Battle of Trafalgar .... facing 300 From an engraving by W. Miller, after the painting by . C. Stanfield, now belonging to the United Service Club. The ships shown are, counting from the left — i. Royal Sovereign; 2. Sta. Ana (Sp.); 3. Achille (Fr.); 4, Belle- isle; 5. Mars; &. Fougueux (Fr.); 7. T^mSraire; 8. Redoutable (Fr,); 9. Victory; 10. Conqueror; 11. Bucentaure (Fr.) ; 12. Leviathan; 13. Neptune; 14. SSma. Trinidad (Sp.). The Death of Nelson . . . . . . ,, 304 From an engraving by W. Bromley, after the painting by A. W. Devis, now in the Painted Hall at Greenwich. The Nelson Monument in St. Paul's . . „ 317 From a photograph. The Nelson Monument at Liverpool . . . ,, 319 From a photograph. The Nelson Column in Trafalgar Square „ 320 From a photograph. Nelson's Orders, Medals, &c ,. 326 From a photograph. Photogravure. Signatures PAGE George Farmer 6 W. Locker 8 P. Parker lo Hood 40 W. HOTHAM 40 J- Jervis 45 T. Troubridge 51 Rt. Man 52 cuthbt. collingwood 66 Wm. Parker . • . 68 St. Vincent 70 Sam. Hood (right hand) 72 Sam. Hood (left hand) 74 Tho. Fra. Fremantle 77 Jas. Saumarez. . 85 Alex. Jno. Ball ....... 86 J. Orde 90 Ths. Foley . 100 Ben. Hallowell 123 T. M. Hardy 124 Wm. Hoste 125 XVI SIGNATURES W. Sidney Smith Keith Nelson Bronte Nelson Bronte Nelson of Nelson & Bronte Henry Blackwood R. G. Keats . Geo. Campbell C. W. Adair . COLLINGWOOD . THE Nile PAGE 149 153 154 155 155 161 242 245 299 309 THE NELSON MEMORIAL CHAPTER I EARLY SERVICE IT has been said that our naval commanders may be divided into two classes — in the one is Nelson ; in the other are all the rest. Exag- gerated as such a statement is, it fairly represents the opinion of Nelson's countrymen. To them, Nelson's predecessors or contemporaries — Hawke, Rodney, Howe, Hood, St. Vincent — are mere names, barely known or but half remembered. And yet, to the men of Nelson's own time, when the achievements of Hawke and Rodney were still living memories, to the men who had fought with Howe or Jervis, Nelson's deeds — transcendent as they were acknowledged to be— did not seem so utterly to eclipse all others. Some of them even doubted whether posterity would not give the palm to Howe or St. Vincent. The public had no such A 2 THE NELSON MEMORIAL doubt. They held the first object in naval war to be the annihilation of the enemy's fleet, and that admiral to be the greatest who most successfully effected it. Of the difficulties which lay in the way of others, and of the skill with which they overcame them, the public neither knew nor cared anything. The " Glorious First of June," as a bright harbinger of victory, had stirred the national pulse, and " St. Valentine's Day " had relieved the country from an anxiety well nigh insupportable ; but far above these they esteemed the destruction of the French fleet at the Nile, not for its singular tactical merit, but for the completeness of the result. Eleven line- of-battle ships taken or destroyed out of thirteen was a style of arithmetic which commended itself to the rudest understanding. But in truth the country had already taken Nelson to its heart. Eighteen months before, in a time of the deepest depression, it had heard — in the words of Captain Mahan — " that the crew of one British seventy-four, headed by a man whom few out of the navy yet knew, had, sword in hand, carried first a Spanish eighty, and then another of one hundred and twelve guns. It was enough." This, it had said, was something like a hero ; this was the man they had been looking for, the man to whom Britain might safely entrust her sceptre of the sea, And POPULAR ESTIMATE 3 from this faith they never faltered. Official rewards might be measured with regard to the just claims though less brilliant services'of others, or be limited by cold considerations of policy, but to the nation he was then, and for all time, the ideal embodiment of valour and heroic achievement, of patriotism and devotion. He was Nelson. And to his country- men still— under very different circumstances, and after the lapse of nigh a hundred years — " his name sounds stirring as the trumpet blast ; and wives still pray for boys with hearts as bold as his," who so fought and so died for England "in the brave days of old." The story of his career can now be little more than a twice-told tale. 'It is not proposed here to repeat it at length ; but, in attempting to emphasise certain portions of it, to examine the influences under which his character was formed or developed, to trace his relations to the instructors of his youth and early manhood, or to those who, in later life, shared in his achievements, something may still be done towards giving a truer presentment of our national hero, the most tender and loving of friends, but to his country's enemies the most terrible thunderbolt of war. It is a distinction that was made, perhaps unconsciously, by different artists in their endeavour to portray his features ; and 4 THE NELSON MEMORIAL while the English Abbott has brought out the soft- ness, the almost feminine gentleness, of one side of his character, an unknown Italian, a countryman of Caracciolo, in a portrait which we may accept as equally trustworthy, has laid stress on the iron will and the inflexible resolution which marked so many of his actions. About his childhood there was nothing remark- able. His father, a country clergyman with a large family and a small income, was rector of Burnham Thorpe, in Norfolk ; and there, in the rectory, or, according to local tradition, somewhat unexpectedly in a neighbouring farmhouse, Horatio Nelson was born on 29th September 1758; the same year in which — under very different auspices, amid very different surroundings^William Pitt first saw the light. That he was in due time sent to the nearest available grammar-school, at Norwich, or afterwards at North Walsham — that he dug out his initials on the wall — that he played truant — that he robbed orchards, and was, presumably, soundly birched, — such-like things might be related of every middle- class lad of the century. At the age of twelve, he was small for his years, fragile in appearance, and with a spirit beyond his size. His mother died when he was but nine years old ; and when, in November 1770, her brother. Captain ■ 1 1 1 '^^^l wBSm •^jiH gjj h^hbrrh ^ w ; SibndlB ^P^AH^^K '■ ^pI ^^p_' 'U wp JjB^^**ft ■ '^if'iWH ^■JHIB n& «Mi ^HHK' a^M ^ ■^l^j>l J^ra ■|^«ff ' ^^^ j^Ky wV '^HH ^^^ m 1 i g|^^^&|c^4!rjHi' iitSsHB ^m jg^ ^^^S ^BWjr' ■ ^L^^hB ^ ^^^^^ HB^H HHp' ShhHI >■ or O . < ■= D EARLY SERVICE 5 Maurice Suckling, was appointed to the command of the 64-gun ship Raisonnable, then commissioned in expectation of a war with Spain, he offered his brother-in-law to take one of his boys with him. The family choice fell on the little Horatio, who is said to have begged to be allowed to go. Suckling was surprised. " What," he exclaimed, " has poor Horatio done, who is so weak, that he, above all the rest, should be sent to rough it out at sea ? " In reality, however, the boy was sturdy enough ; and when, on the dispute with Spain being arranged. Suckling was moved to the Triumph, the guardship in the Medway, Horatio went with him, and was sent by him for a year's voyage to the West Indies and back, in a merchant-ship, commanded by one of his old petty officers, who had served for three years with him in the Dreadnought. Afterwards, in 1773, the boy was permitted to go for a summer's voyage towards the North Pole, in the little expedition commanded by Captain Phipps, afterwards Lord Mulgrave ; and, on his return, was sent, by his uncle's interest, to the Seahorse, a small frigate then fitting out for the East Indies, under the command of Captain George Farmer, who, as a midshipman, had served with Suckling in the West Indies during the Seven Years' War, and had since married and settled in Norfolk. As different 6 THE NELSON MEMORIAL branches of his family spelt the name Fermor and Farmar, it is well to note that he himself signed Of Farmer's influence on Nelson's character we have no record. It would seem that he himself did not recognise any ; but we may hold it impossible for an observant and high-spirited lad not to be influenced, and indeed moulded, by a man singularly distinguished, not only by his bravery, but by his tact and judgment, who was thus for two years prominently and continually before his eyes. When living at Norwich on half pay, Farmer had taken a leading part in the suppression of a dangerous riot, and, on the representation of the local magis- trates, had been specially promoted to the rank of commander. He had been again promoted — this time to the rank of post-captain — for the ability and discretion he had shown as senior naval officer at the Falkland Islands when the Spaniards took forcible possession of them in June 1770; and nine CAPTAIN FARMER 7 or ten years later his eldest son was created a baronet, in acknowledgment of the father's gal- lantry in defending the Quebec frigate against a very superior force, till she blew up. Farmer him- self perishing in the explosion. A portrait of him, by Charles Grignion, is now in the pos- session of Mr. Henry Taylor, of Curzon Park, Chester. After two years and a half in the Seahorse, and visiting nearly every part of the East Indies, Nelson's health gave way, and he was sent home in apparently a dying condition. The voyage, how- ever, set him up again, and he was quite well when he arrived in England in September 1776. Although only just eighteen, he had served a hard and varied apprenticeship of six years, and had obtained a good practical knowledge of his pro- fession. He was now appointed acting lieutenant of the Worcester for a trip to Gibraltar, and seems to have felt no little pride in being entrusted with the charge of a watch. Captain Suckling was at this time Comptroller of the Navy, and thus, as the virtual chief of the Navy Board, had very great influence. Accordingly, when his nephew came home from Gibraltar, though still eighteen months under the regulation age, he obtained an order for him to be examined ; and, the day after he passed, 8 THE NELSON MEMORIAL had him promoted to be lieutenant of the frigate Lowestoft, just commissioned by Captain William Locker for ser- vice in the West Indies. Twenty years before, Locker had notably dis- tinguished him- self when first lieutenant of the Experiment, in the capture of the French privateer Teldmaque of 20 guns, and, as was commonly the case with French privateers, an enormous number of men— 460. The Experiment, though a 20-gun frigate, had only 1 60 men ; and the T^ldmaque, trusting in her great superiority of force, endeavoured to close with the Experiment and capture her in a hand-to-hand encounter. She succeeded in running on board her, but so that her men could only reach the Experiment from the forecastle, and therefore in small numbers at a time, who were killed as fast as they got on to the Experiment's deck. And meantime the Experiment's great guns, loaded with round shot and grape, swept the Teldmaque's deck, killed a very great number of her men, and drove the rest from their quarters. Then Strachan, CAPTAIN LOCKER 9 the captain of the Experiment, " ordered me," wrote Locker to his father, "to take the men and enter her ; which they no sooner saw than they all, or best part of them, got off the deck as fast as they could. We had only two or three men wounded in boarding." The result was that the T616maque was captured, with a loss of 235 men, killed and wounded ; the loss of the Experiment being only 48 ; but Locker himself had received a shrewd wound in the leg, from which he suffered all the rest of his life. Two years after this, on 20th November 1759, he had been present at the crushing defeat of the French by Hawke in Quiberon Bay; and had after- wards, as a lieutenant of the Royal George, been admitted to Hawke's confidence, and had retained a lively sense of Hawke's greatness, goodness, and kindness. He used to speak — so his son has told us — in enthusiastic terms of Hawke's gentle and gentlemanly discipline, as a thing till then unknown in the service ; and we may be quite sure that in his conversations with his young lieutenant he did not omit to speak of other parts of Hawke's method ; of his ceaseless care for the health and wellbeing of the men, not less than of the impetuous swoop on the enemy's fleet, which the writers of the age could only speak of as "the swoop of a hawk." Locker lo THE NELSON MEMORIAL would seem to have himself learnt the trick of carrying on the duty in the friendly and gentlemanly spirit of his old chief, and to have taken especial notice of Nelson, at first as the nephew of the influential Comptroller, and afterwards as the most willing, painstaking, and energetic of young officers. Before Nelson had been quite a year in the Lowestoft, he was moved by Sir Peter Parker, the admiral at Jamaica, into the flagship, the Bristol ; but the friendship between him and Locker continued and ripened, notwithstand- ing the difference of their ages, and led to a corre- spondence which is one of the most pleasing memorials we have of Nelson's earlier days, and which was continued till Locker's death, rather, on the part of Nelson, in the tone of a son to a dearly loved father, than of a lieutenant to his captain, or of a young captain to one many years his senior. Even after the battle of the Nile, when all Europe was ringing with his praises, he could still write in the simplicity of his affection : — "My dear Friend, — I well know your own good- ness of heart will make all due allowances for my '4^ «A GOOD SCHOLAR" ii present situation, and that truly 1 have not the time or power to answer all the letters I receive at the moment ; but you, my old friend, after twenty-seven years' acquaintance, know that nothing can alter my attachment and gratitude to you. I have been your scholar ; it is you who taught me to board a Frenchman by your conduct when in the Experi- ment ; it is you who always told me, ' Lay a Frenchman close and you will beat him ' ; and my only merit in my profession is being a good scholar. Our friendship will never end but with my life ; but you have always been too partial to me. . . . I beg you will make my kindest remembrances to Miss Locker and all your good sons, and believe me ever your faithful and affectionate friend, " Nelson." After being for several years Lieutenant-Governor of Greenwich Hospital, Captain Locker died there in 1800, leaving three sons, the youngest of whom, Edward Hawke Locker, well known for his exer- tions in co-operation with Charles Knight for the promotion of popular literature, succeeded in carry- ing out a pet scheme of his father's, the formation of a gallery of naval pictures in the Painted Hall at Greenwich, which, among many others, includes portraits of both himself and his father. Arthur 12 THE NELSON MEMORIAL Locker, for many years editor of the Graphic, and Frederick Locker-Lampson, author of " London Lyrics" — whose posthumous "Confidences" were published only a few months ago — were his sons, grandsons of Nelson's old friend. From the Bristol, Nelson was quickly promoted to be commander of the Badger brig, and from her was posted, on nth June 1779, to be captain of the Hinchinbroke, formerly the French merchant-ship Astree, captured off Cape Frangais in the previous October, fitted out as a 24-gun frigate, and named the Hinchinbroke, in compliment to the Earl of Sandwich, then First Lord of the Admiralty. It was a time of some anxiety at Jamaica, for the Hinchinbroke, then commanded by Captain Christopher Parker, the admiral's son, was out on a cruise, was overdue, and had^t was sorely feared — fallen in with the French fleet under D'Estaing, then expected at Cape Frangais to lead an expedition for the conquest of Jamaica. The alarm proved, however, to be ill-founded, and in fact D'Estaing was not the man to undertake any needless risks ; though the Hinchinbroke, having been delayed by foul winds, had been in great straits for want of provisions. In September she returned to Port-Royal, when Nelson joined her ; and in the following March he NICARAGUA 13 went in her, as the naval commander of a joint- expedition against Grenada on Lake Nicaragua. The passage up the river San Juan was one of excessive hardship ; the severe labour and the pestilential climate proved more deadly than the guns or muskets of the enemy, and of the Hinchin- broke's complement of 200 men, 190 died at the time or shortly after. The soldiers fared very little better. The fort was taken on 29th April, but it was found impossible to hold it on account of the great mortality among the men. By the following January most of them had died, and the few still living then abandoned the post and retired down the river to the ships. Nelson himself, at death's door, was recalled to Jamaica only just in time to save his life ; and indeed it was long doubtful whether his life was saved. When sufficiently recovered to bear the voyage, he was sent to Eng- land, where he arrived in October ; but for many months he was in a very precarious state, nor was his health fully re-established for more than a year. It was at this time, and apparently in February 1 78 1, that he had his portrait painted by John Francis Rigaud as a present to Captain Locker. It is now in the possession of Earl Nelson, by whose kind permission it is here reproduced. As the earliest authentic portrait, it has great 14 THE NELSON MEMORIAL interest ; but the conditions under which it was painted must have been most unfavourable, and prevent its being regarded as a really good likeness. On 2ist February he wrote to Captain Locker concerning it : "It will not be the least like what I am now, that is certain ; but you may tell Mr. Rigaud to add beauty to it, and it will be much mended." When the sittings were actually given does not appear, but during a visit to London in May he had still to call on Rigaud occasionally. In August 1 78 1, Nelson was appointed to com- mand the 28-gun frigate Albemarle, in which, during the winter, he made a voyage to Elsinore in charge of a fleet of merchant vessels. In the following spring he went to Newfoundland and Quebec, and after a short stay there was ordered out on a cruise off Boston, where, on 14th August, he fell in with a small French squadron, consisting of four ships of the line and the Iris frigate. It was his first meet- ing with a French force, and he had to fly from it. A few weeks before he had captured a Cape Cod fishing-boat, and had pressed her master, Nathaniel Carver, into his service as a pilot. Carver's local knowledge now stood the Albemarle in good stead. When pursued by the French squadron, she ran into shoal water and so escaped, followed only by the Iris. When the line-of-battle ships were no FAIR CANADA 15 longer in sight, Nelson brought to, to wait for the frigate, which, however, did not consider it prudent to engage, and went off on the other tack. For his good service on this occasion, Nelson restored his boat to Carver, and sent him home with a certificate, which was long, and probably is still, preserved by his descendants. Of Nelson's life at Quebec there is no authentic account. He himself wrote in raptures of the climate. " Health, that greatest of blessings," he said, "is what I never truly enjoyed till I S2ivf fair Canada. The change it has wrought, I am con- vinced, is truly wonderful." But. according to a story which there seems no reason to doubt, the place had other charms to him than that of climate. Still more than "fair Canada," he is said to have admired a. fair Canadian, with whom he fell violently in love, so that he was with difficulty persuaded not to throw up the service in order to devote himself entirely to her. It is impossible to say how much of this is exaggeration. That it is based on truth is most probable; but "saltwater and absence" — the time-honoured cure for the complaint — seem to have obliterated even the memory of a transient passion. Early in November, Nelson went from the St. Lawrence to New York, where he found a detachment of the fleet from the West Indies under i6 THE NELSON MEMORIAL the command of Lord Hood, newly raised to an Irish peerage for his share in the victory of 12th April. Hood's career in the navy was in many respects an extraordinary one, though it does not quite warrant the common assumption that, in the eighteenth century, merit — even if unsupported — was sure to make its way. He was the elder of two brothers, sons of a country clergyman, of an obscure Dorsetshire family, whom a happy chance had appointed to the vicarage of Butleigh, in Somersetshire, and thus brought into close inter- course with the Grenvilles and their family con- nections, the Lytteltons and Pitts. The two young Hoods entered the navy under the immediate patronage of Captain Smith — dis- tinctively known as " Tom of Ten Thousand " — a reputed son of Sir Thomas Lyttelton, and were afterwards for some time with Captain Thomas Grenville, the. brother of George Grenville and of Lord Temple. So started, the ball was at their feet. They served with Rodney, with Saunders ; they made distinguished friends ; they were early promoted ; they were both men of unusual merit, and made the best of their opportunities ; both of them commanded a frigate during the Seven Years' War, and both fought a brilliant single ship action. THE HOODS 17 In February 1759 the elder brother, Samuel, in the Vestal, of 32 guns, captured the French frigate Bellona, of the same force, an achievement which Mr. Blackmore, in the " Maid of Sker," has introduced into modern literature. Alexander, the younger brother, married, about 1763, Miss West, a first cousin of the Grenvilles and Mrs. Pitt. Samuel had married, in 1749, the daughter of Edward Linzee, mayor of Portsmouth. Altogether, their family and Parliamentary interest was very great, and to speak of them as unfriended men, rising by force of merit from a comparatively humble position, is palpably absurd. After being Commodore and Commander-in-chief on the Newfoundland Station, Samuel Hood had accepted the post of Naval Commissioner, or, as it would now be called. Captain-superintendent of Portsmouth Dockyard, and Governor of the Naval Academy, then considered as a practical retirement from active service. The necessities of the times, the refusal of many of the most capable men to serve under the administration of Lord Sandwich, and the desire of sending to the West Indies a second admiral who could act in harmony with Rodney, had all combined to force the Admiralty to bring back Hood into the line of promotion, make him a rear-admiral, and at the same time a baronet — B i8 THE NELSON MEMORIAL apparently as a reward for giving up a snug billet on shore. Although specially selected as a friend of Rodney, he was by no means an ardent admirer ; and, in fact, his private letters, recently published,^ show him as a severe and even censorious critic of his superiors ; but his remarks on the conduct of the battle off the Chesapeake on 5th September 1781, and of the more celebrated battle to leeward of Dominica on 12th April 1782, as well as of the subsequent opera- tions of the war, point him out as an exceedingly capable judge, even though his sentences do not err on the side of mercy. , His portrait by Reynolds, taken about this date, is in interesting agreement with his character as revealed in his confidential correspondence, no less than manifested by his conduct in command. The lofty brow, vulturine nose, compressed lips, and iron jaw speak at once of intelligence, keenness, decision, and firmness, each in an extreme degree ; such, indeed, as might be expected in one whom Nelson, at a later period, described as "the greatest sea- officer I ever knew," " equally great in all situations which an admiral can be placed in." The portrait would seem to have been painted as a present for his brother. It remained in the possession of the ' Letters of Sir Samuel Hood (Navy Records Society). LORD HOOD 19 Bridport family till last year, 1895, when it was sold to Mr. Agnew, with whom it now is. It has been engraved, and is reproduced as a frontispiece to the " Letters of Sir Samuel Hood," already referred to. The later portrait by Abbott, now in the National Portrait Gallery, softens, probably unduly softens, the characteristic intensity of the expression. That such a man immediately conceived a high opinion of Nelson, a young captain who as yet had had no opportunity of distinguishing himself, tells its own story of the remarkable power which Nelson always had of influencing those with whom he came in contact, of the charm of manner, the intelligent understanding of what was going on, the single- minded devotion to the service, which impressed every one. Hood introduced him to Prince William Henry, afterwards William IV., but at that time a midshipman of the Barfleur, Hood's flagship. Many years later the Prince gave an account of his first interview with Nelson. He said : — " I was then a midshipman on board the Barfleur, and had the watch on deck, when Captain Nelson of the Albemarle came in his barge alongside, who appeared to be the merest boy of a captain I ever beheld, and his dress was worthy of attention. He had on a full-laced uniform.; his lank unpowdered hair was tied in a stiff Hessian tail of an extra- 20 THE NELSON MEMORIAL ordinary length ; the old-fashioned flaps of his waistcoat added to the general quaintness of his figure, and produced an appearance which particularly attracted my notice, for I had never seen anything like it before, nor could I imagine who he was nor what he came about. My doubts, however, were removed when Lord Hood introduced me to him. There was something irresistibly pleasing in his address and conversation, and an enthusiasm when speaking on professional subjects that showed he was no common being." In the following January, when Hood returned to the West Indies, at Nelson's request he took the Albemarle with him ; but the war was practically at an end, and during the remaining months nothing of importance occurred. In the summer of 1783 the Albemarle went home and was paid off, when the whole of the ship's company volunteered to enter for any ship to which Nelson might be appointed. He had, however, made up his mind not to apply for a ship just then, and obtained leave to go to France, at once to economise and to learn the language. His stay was only for a few months. He again fell in love — this time with a Miss Andrews, daughter of an English clergyman resid- ing at St. Omer — and was bent on marrying. It would seem that the young lady, or her father for A NARROW ESCAPE 21 her, refused his proposal, for within a few days he was back in London applying for a ship, expressing himself freely as to the conduct of the Opposition — " Mr. Fox and all that party " — whom he wrote of as " a turbulent faction who are striving to ruin their country," and dining with Lord Hood, "who," he says, " expressed the greatest friendship for me, said that his house was always open to me, and that the oftener I came the happier it would make him." On 1 8th March 1784 he was appointed to the 28-gun frigate Boreas, which was soon after ordered out to the West Indies. Whilst at Ports- mouth he narrowly escaped a serious accident. He was riding out of Portsea — then more com- monly called Portsmouth Common — with "a young girl," when his horse — "a blackguard horse" — bolted, carried him out, round the works, through the London gate into Portsmouth, dashed through the town, and back into Portsea by a narrow gate- way, where a waggon was passing at the time. There was barely room for the horse, and the rider, to avoid being jammed, threw himself off, falling, unluckily, on hard stones and bruising his back. The girl's horse had also bolted for company, but was fortunately stopped just before Nelson " dis- mounted." As a child he is said to have had a pony ; but as a man this is the only recorded 22 THE NELSON MEMORIAL instance of his trusting himself in a saddle. One such experience was perhaps sufficient. About the middle of May he sailed for Barbadoes, where he arrived towards the end of J une. To ordinary men the commission of a frigate in the West Indies in time of peace would have been dull enough. Nelson, however, contrived to get a good deal of excitement out of the commission of the Boreas, principally by his extraordinary deter- mination on two occasions to disobey the orders of the commander-in-chief. Sir Richard Hughes. The one was rather a legal than a naval case. Hughes, who was a quiet, easy-going man, had been per- suaded by the merchants of St. Kitt's to suspend the Navigation Act in favour of Americans trading to that island. Nelson maintained that this was illegal ; he declared that as the Americans had made themselves foreigners they should be treated as foreigners ; and, in contravention of the admiral's order, he seized several American ships at St. Kitt's and at Nevis. Co-operating with him in this matter were two officers with whom he was united in a close bond of friendship. These were the Collingwoods — Cuthbert, then captain of the Mediator, and his younger brother, Wilfrid, commander of the Rattler sloop. This latter, who is spoken of as a young THE COLLINGWOODS 23 man of great promise, died at Antigua in April 1787, while still in command of the Rattler. The elder brother, Cuthbert, whose career was, at differ- ent times, closely associated with Nelson's, though eight years older than Nelson, was his junior on the post-list. He was twenty-five when he was made a lieutenant, and in that rank had not been fortunate ; so that, having been at last recommended to Sir Peter Parker, he was nearly twenty-nine when he was promoted to be commander of the Badger in succession to Nelson, and was in his thirtieth year when — again in succession to Nelson — he was posted to the Hinchinbroke. That the two brothers agreed with Nelson in his interpretation of the Navigation Act was a simple matter. There could be no doubt that Hughes's order was illegal ; and if, in the admiral's absence. Nelson, as the senior officer, chose to countermand it, the disobedience and the responsibility were his, as well as the annoyance and the cost of the many lawsuits which his action entailed. The admiral was afterwards forced to admit that Nelson had acted in accordance with the law ; but he neither formally rescinded his order, nor took steps to defend Nelson in the law courts ; and though this was eventually done by the Admiralty, Nelson was grievously hurt when the thanks of the 24 THE NELSON MEMORIAL Government for the protection of trade and the enforcement of the Act were sent to the admiral instead of to himself. He had had all the trouble, worry, and risk, while all the credit was given to Hughes, who blandly accepted it as nothing more than his due. The other instance of Nelson's disobedience was on a purely naval question. As has already been said, the resident commissioner at a dockyard was commonly, though not always, an officer on half-pay, who, being on half-pay, had no execu- tive authority. The commissioner at Antigua was Captain Moutray, an old officer, of no great experi- ence, whom Hughes had authorised to hoist a broad pennant, as commodore, and to carry on the duties of senior officer there. This was certainly irregular ; but the duties related only to the routine of the port, and Moutray was a harmless, unaggressive kind of man, little likely to stretch his authority. Nelson, however, would not tolerate it ; and, on coming to Antigua, told Moutray that he could not receive any orders from him as long as he was on half-pay. To Moutray, this seems to have been a matter of indifference, and we may suppose that he knew that the admiral's order was illegal ; but Hughes, when it came to his knowledge, was furious at this second act of insubordination. He reported it in strong COMMISSIONER MOUTRAY 25 language to the Admiralty, and in due time Nelson received a sharp reprimand for taking the law into his own hands. Moutray, however, was recalled, and for the time the commissionership at Antigua was abolished. Amid his worries and anxieties, Nelson had mean- while cheered himself by the society of Mrs. Moutray, who had inspired him with a deep and devoted attachment. " If it were not for her," he wrote to Captain Locker, " I should almost hang myself at this infernal hole " ; and when she left for England, on 20th March 1785, he "took leave of her with a heavy heart." But Nelson's was a nature that yearne(# for woman's sympathy, adulation, flattery, and throughout his life could hardly endure to be deprived of it. Within a few weeks of Mrs. Moutray 's departure, he was at the feet of Mrs. Nisbet, a young widow, niece of the President of Nevis, who, from her uncle and her friends, had heard a good deal of Nelson's lawsuits, determined conduct, and eccentricity. A young lady at St. Kitt's had written to her : — " We have at last seen the captain of the Boreas, of whom so much has been said. He came up just before dinner, much heated, and was very silent ; yet seemed, according to the old adage, to think the more. He declined drinking any wine ; but after 26 THE NELSON MEMORIAL dinner, when the President, as usual, gave the following toasts, 'the King,' ' the Queen and Royal Family,' and ' Lord Hood,' this strange man regularly filled his glass and observed that those were always bumper toasts with him ; which having drank, he uniformly passed the bottle and relapsed into his former taciturnity. It was impossible during this visit for any of us to make out his real charac- ter, there was such a reserve and sternness in his behaviour, with occasional sallies, though very transient, of a superior mind. Being placed by him I endeavoured to rouse his attention by showing him all the civilities in my power; but I drew out little more than 'Yes' or 'Mo.' If you, Fanny, had been there, we think you would have made something of him, for you have been in the habit of attending to these odd sort of people." This must have been in April ; and on 28th June he wrote to his brother : "Do not be surprised to hear that I am a benedict, for, if at all, it will be before a month." Fate and the bother about the lawsuits ordered it otherwise, and he was not married till nearly two years later. And meantime Prince William, as captain of the Pegasus frigate, arrived on the station in November 1786, and put himself under the orders of Nelson, who, by the PRINCE WILLIAM 27 departure of Sir Richard Hughes in the previous July, had been left senior officer. Of the Prince, both as a man and an officer. Nelson conceived a very high idea. " He has his foibles," he wrote, "as well as private men, but they are far overbalanced by his virtues. In his pro- fessional line he is superior to near two-thirds, I am sure, of the list ; and in attention to orders and respect to his superior officers, I know hardly his equal. This is what I have found him ; some others, I have heard, will tell another story." And a couple of months later: "In every respect, both as a man and a prince, I love him. He has honoured me as his confidential friend ; in this he shall not be mistaken." It is difficult to avoid the belief that the divinity which doth hedge a king had its influence in producing this very high estimate ; for to an im- partial observer the conduct of the Prince in his private relations, either to man or woman, was by no means admirable, and as an officer his discipline was uncertain and often harsh. So far from con- sidering it an honour and a privilege to serve under the Prince's command, the lieutenants of the Pegasus made what interest they could to get out of her ; they said openly that "no officer could serve under him — the Prince — but that sooner or later he must be broke ; " and though some excuse may be made 28 THE NELSON MEMORIAL for the indiscreet zeal of a youth, then barely twenty- two, the Prince's conduct in the Andromeda, some years later, was marked by the same faults as in the Pegasus. All this, however, Nelson was unable to see ; and when Mr. Schomberg, the first lieutenant of the Pegasus, a very capable officer of nine years' seniority, who had apparently been appointed to the Pegasus as the Prince's dry-nurse, refused to receive a reprimand which he considered unjust, and applied for a court-martial, Nelson promptly ordered him under arrest to wait his trial, instead of trying to smooth away the difference, as he certainly would have done under other circumstances, and when he himself had a longer experience. When, after Schomberg had been under arrest for four months, Nelson sent the Pegasus to Jamaica, Commodore Gardner had no difficulty in arranging the quarrel ; and how little it was held by the Admiralty to be to Schomberg's disadvantage was shown by their promoting him to be commander and post-captain in 1790. In the battle of the ist of June he commanded the Culloden, and received on board Captain Renaudin and other officers and men of the Vengeur, which, at the moment when her sinking became imminent, was actually in pos- session of the Culloden's first lieutenant and a party ISAAC SCHOMBERG 29 of her men. A year or two later Schomberg was made a Commissioner of the Navy ; compiled the well-known "Naval Chronology," a painstaking but not very accurate work, and died in 1 8 1 3. Nelson was afterwards reprimanded by the Admiralty for sending the Pegasus to Jamaica, instead of to Halifax direct, as ordered, and he was told that his reasons were not satisfactory ; to which, with an utterly unconscious humour, he replied that "in future no consideration shall ever induce me to deviate in the smallest degree from my orders." The incident is perhaps of more importance in the story of Nelson's career than it has generally been considered. It was a lesson which a man of his sensitive nature could not but take to heart, and which, it may be thought, strongly influenced his future conduct, making him — while always maintaining strict discipline — averse to extreme measures, and giving him a reputation as a commander with a singular talent for ruling men by gentle methods. As soon as Prince William understood that Nelson was engaged to be married, he declared that he would give the bride away. Nelson felt the compliment the more as " His Royal Highness," he wrote to Mrs. Nisbet, "has not yet been in a private house to visit, and is determined never to 30 THE NELSON MEMORIAL do it, except in this instance." A few weeks later he wrote : "His Royal Highness often tells me he believes I am married, for he never saw a lover so easy or say so little of the object he has a regard for. When I tell him I certainly am not, he says then he is sure I must have a great esteem for you, and that it is not what is vulgarly called love. He is right. My love is founded on esteem, the only foundation that can make the passion last." When we remember, the sequel of the story of Nelson's married life, we may perhaps be inclined to think the Prince's remark had more in it than either of them thought at the time. Nelson, however, had no misgivings ; and on the Prince's suggestion that he might not be able to be at Nevis again, the marriage took place on 12th March 1787, the Prince, as had been arranged, giving the bride away. The honeymoon was a short one, and on the 19th the Boreas, with the Pegasus in company, sailed on a visit to the other islands. In May the Prince left for Jamaica, and a few weeks later the Boreas sailed for England, where she arrived in the beginning of July. Mrs. Nelson joined her husband at Portsmouth, where he expected that the Boreas would be paid off. In this he was disappointed, for war with France appeared every day more likely ; NELSON MARRIES 31 and, though the Boreas was pronounced scarcely seaworthy, the Admiralty would not venture to disperse her ship's company, while at the same time they were unwilling to draft them to another ship till there was some certainty. She was therefore sent round to the Nore, where she lay till December, and was then paid off. For the next five years Nelson was unemployed, living for the greater part of his time at Burnham Thorpe, where he took a friendly interest in the affairs of the villagers, and where the old people still have tales — somewhat shadowy, it may be — of his kindly nature, handed down from their fathers or grandfathers. There can be little doubt, too, that he read a good deal. His later correspondence contains frequent allusions to matters or expressions which he could only have learnt from books ; and when afloat he certainly did not read much. From time to time he was worried with lawsuits, or rather threats of lawsuits, arising out of his exposure of abuses in the West Indies ; but a more real trouble was the want of employment, which to a man of very limited means, almost if not quite dependent on his pay, was a most serious matter. It has often been said that it was extraordinary that the Admiralty should leave him all these years vegetating on shore ; but, indeed, in the commission 32 THE NELSON MEMORIAL of the Boreas he had had his full share of such employment as was going in those piping times of peace and retrenchment, and the Admiralty had no reason to make an exception in his favour. They did not know him as the future hero of the Nile or Trafalgar, but only as a man whose self-will and excess of zeal had caused them both trouble and annoyance. Lord Hood, who was then at the Admiralty, did indeed know more about him ; but probably even Hood thought that the mental dis- cipline of adversity would do him no harm, and he more than hinted to Nelson that the King had con- ceived a bad opinion of him. Nelson thought that Hood also had turned against him — was acting as his enemy ; but for that there was no real ground. CHAPTER II THE BATTLE OF ST. VINCENT IN January 1793, when war with France was imminent, Nelson was appointed to the 64-gun ship Agamemnon, which, on the declaration of war, was presently sent out to the Mediterranean, as one of a large fleet under the command of Lord Hood. The idea of our Government was to bring a pressure to bear on the towns of the south coast of France, Marseilles and Toulon more especially, and to give a helping hand to the Royalists, if there were any. Under the sufferings caused by a close blockade, the Royalists of Toulon asserted themselves and handed their city over to the commander of the English fleet. They were, in fact, quite as ready to be helped by foreigners as their friends on the eastern frontier. The brutal and sanguinary excesses of the faction then dominant in France have always been a favourite theme for denunciation by humanitarian sentimentalists ; but, abominable as they were, it ought not to be forgotten that they were largely the 34 THE NELSON MEMORIAL outcome of panic caused by the anti- French efforts of their opponents. We in England remember the horrible story of the massacres in September 1792 ; we forget that they were the answer to the capture of Longwy and the advance of the Prussian army. We remember the revolutionary propaganda, the murder of the King, the Committee of Public Safety, and the Reign of Terror ; we forget or ignore the panic caused by the known intrigues of the princes and by the expected coalition of all Europe. The French mob has always had the character of being quick to shed blood ; this may perhaps be attributed to a nervous sensibility rather than to a hellish cruelty. But it is difficult to say what might have been the conduct of a London mob in 1648, if a French, or Spanish, or Dutch army had been landed in England. It might not have left us much to boast of in the way of comparison. Even as it was, the fate of such Irish soldiers as were brought over by the King during the Civil War, or of the women who followed in the train of these soldiers, is a passage in our history which we are fain to forget. From darker days than 28th August 1648 or 30th January 1649 we were happily preserved by the action of our navy, which was, before every- thing, English. In France there was no such saving influence. The sea-frontier was as open as the land, OCCUPATION OF TOULON 35 and on each the Royalists preferred the cause of their party to that of their country. On 27th August, Hood, with the English fleet, entered the harbour of Toulon, joined, as he did so, by the Spanish fleet under the command of Don Juan de Langara. The forts were occupied ; and the city was held in the name of Louis XVIL, under the white Bourbon flag. The position, however, was one of extreme difficulty. Hood had with him but a small number of soldiers — 1000 to 1500 ; and, with the exception of these, the town and forts were held by a motley garrison of French, Spaniards, Piedmontese, and Neapolitans, speaking no common language and recognising no one commander-in- chief. Hood would gladly have sent the French ships away to some place of security ; but to this neither the Toulonese nor the Spaniards would consent, and he was obliged to give way. He believed that these latter were already negotiating with the Convention ; and though there is no direct evidence that such was the fact, the mere suspicion of it was a fatal bar to any unison of action. The result was that the measures necessary for the defence of the town were not taken, and when the Republicans mustered in force they had little difficulty in rendering themselves masters of all the commanding positions. Hood hastily embarked 36 THE NELSON MEMORIAL the troops and as many of the French Royalists as could be taken on board. Some few of the French ships, which were ready for sea, were also utilised ; but the greater number were ordered to be set on fire, and were wholly or partially burnt. The con- fusion was extreme as, amid the firing of the enemy, the blazing of the ships and arsenal, the explosion of the magazine, and the incompetence of the Spanish and Neapolitan officers, the fleet got to sea. When the Republican army entered the town, they found none on whom to wreak their vengeance except the comparatively innocent populace. All the men of note, who were unquestionably parties to establishing a foreign force in French territory, had escaped. The Republican fury was, however, bent on revenge, and great numbers of the wretched townspeople — women and children — were savagely put to death. With all this, however. Nelson had very little to do. As soon as Hood had entered the harbour of Toulon, he had despatched Nelson to Naples to request the Neapolitan Government to send 10,000 soldiers to his assistance, and some 5000 were actually sent. Afterwards Nelson had been ordered to take command of a small squadron of frigates and blockade the coast of Corsica, which he had done with complete success. In February SIEGE OF BASTIA 2>1 he was joined by Hood, as the Government had suggested that the few soldiers who had been at Toulon might be employed in the reduction of Corsica. However, after they had taken San Fiorenzo without any serious resistance, the general in command conceived that nothing more could be done without reinforcements from Gibraltar, and positively refused to assist Hood in taking Bastia, which Nelson had pointed out as a place certain to yield to a combined attack. The fact seems to be that none of the superior soldier officers understood the power of the fleet, and considered the question one of laying siege to a fortified town with a garrison reported to be 7000 strong, with a force of barely 2000 men of all arms. Hood, however, was resolute ; and as the soldiers could not be had, he landed all the marines of the fleet, with a party of seamen, under the command of Nelson, to invest the place on the land side. There was also a numerous band of Corsicans, who added nothing to the material strength of the assailants, but did perhaps produce some moral effect. In reality, report had greatly exaggerated the numbers of the garrison and the strength of the fortifications, and after two months' close invest- ment the place surrendered. The siege of Calvi was next formed, Nelson, as 38 THE NELSON MEMORIAL before, commanding the working parties of seamen. It was here that a shot, striking the parapet of the battery, dashed some gravel with great force into Nelson's face, cutting his right eye. At the moment he thought little of it ; but the sight gradually faded, and within a few months was completely lost. Calvi surrendered early in September, and in October Lord Hood left for England, partly to confer with the Admiralty, but principally on account of his health. It is perhaps worth noting that a hundred years ago an old man — Hood was just 70 — with the option of wintering at any point of the Riviera or in Corsica, went home to winter in England, fully intending to come out again in the spring. There was at this time no intention, either on his part or on that of the Admiralty, of his resigning the command ; but early in 1795 Lord Chatham was succeeded as First Lord by Lord Spencer, between whom and Hood a difference arose as to the needs of the Mediterranean fleet. Hood urged that several more ships ought immediately to be sent out. Spencer replied that there were already in the Mediterranean as many as could be spared from other services. The correspondence got warm, and Hood had the gift of compressing a great deal of bitterness into few words. He wrote HOOD'S RETIREMENT 39 that with a force so inadequate he could not con- sider his professional character safe, and begged to be relieved from the command. He had already hoisted his flag on board the Victory at Spithead. He was told that he might strike his flag and come on shore ; which he did. It was the end of his sea service ; and though in the following year he was appointed Governor of Greenwich Hospital, where he died twenty years later, at the age of 92, he felt the indignity extremely ; and some months later wrote to Cap- tain Wolseley, who had asked him to use his interest to get him a ship : — "My dear Wolseley, — . . . Nothing would give me greater pleasure than to be able to assist your wishes in any respect whatever. . . . But to be candid with you, I can be of no use to any one, for Lord Spencer is not content with marking me with indifference and inattention, but carries it to all who have any connection with me ; you will therefore do well, in any application you may make to his Lordship, not to make mention of my name. I have neither seen or spoken to his Lordship since my flag was struck, and look upon myself as thrown upon the shelf for ever. It may be right it should be so. But a conscious- 40 THE NELSON MEMORIAL ness of having discharged my duty with zeal and industry as a faithful servant to the public in the several situations in which I have had the honour to be placed, will bear me up against the treat- ment I have, and must ever think most unde- servedly received, and will not fail to cheer my declining years." ^ When Hood quitted the Mediterranean, he left the command— it was understood temporarily — with Admiral Hotham, who, as a young captain, and twenty years later as a commodore, had repeat- edly distinguished himself in the Seven Years' War and the War of American Independence. Of his per- sonal courage, there could be no doubt ; but now, as commander-in-chief, he showed a lack of energy, a want of decision, a fear of responsibility, which proved disastrous to the interests of his country. Unwilling to trust any of his ships out of his sight, ' Innes's Life of Admiral Wolseley, p. 107. ADMIRAL HOTHAM 41 he lay with his whole fleet at San Fiorenzo or Leghorn, permitting the French, whom Hood had left scattered, to unite ; and when they put to sea in March, he engaged them in a desultory half- hearted manner which could not lead to any decisive result. Nelson, in the little Agamemnon, with the Inconstant frigate, hung on to the retreating enemy, and was the principal cause of the capture of two large French ships, the fa Ira and Censeur, with which gain Hotham was quite satisfied. He pre- ferred the certain safety of all his ships to the probable destruction of all the enemy's. It was of this that Nelson wrote to his wife in language that has become classical : — " I wish to be an admiral and in the command of the English fleet ; I should very soon either do much or be ruined. My disposition cannot bear tame and slow measures. Sure I am, had I com- manded our fleet on the 14th [of March], that either the whole French fleet would have graced my triumph, or I should have been in a confounded scrape. I went on board Admiral Hotham as soon as our firing grew slack in the van and the f^a Ira and Censeur had struck, to propose to him leaving our two crippled ships, the two prizes, and four frigates to themselves, and to pursue the enemy ; but he, much cooler than myself, said, 'We must 42 THE NELSON MEMORIAL be contented, we have done very well.' Now, had we taken ten sail and had allowed the eleventh to escape when it had been possible to have got at her, I could never have called it well done. Goodall backed me ; I got him to write to the admiral, but it would not do. We should have had such a day as, I believe, the annals of England never pro- duced." Surely this is a very remarkable letter ! It must be remembered that at the time Nelson was only a captain, and not the senior captain in the fleet ; in years, he was younger than most of his colleagues ; and, unlike many of them, who had been with Byron or Rodney in the West Indies, or with Hughes in the East Indies, it was the first general action he had seen. Yet he lays down the line of conduct which, as we know, he did steadily pursue when, a few years later, he attained the wished-for command of a fleet. The singleness of purpose ; the perfect insight into the only true objective of a fleet — the absolute destruction of the enemy ; the contention that nothing was well done as long as anything remained to do, — all is here as plainly and forcibly stated as if it had been given out as a memo of the commander-in-chief on the eve of Trafalgar. The same inertness which had already permitted the French to collect their fleet together, now per- HOTHAM'S TWO ACTIONS 43 mitted a reinforcement of six ships sent from Brest to get into Toulon unopposed. Still Hotham could not make up his mind to do anything. Hood's re- signation was not yet known ; and in almost every letter which he wrote, Nelson expressed a wish that he was with them again. On June 7 he wrote : " Truly sorry am I that Lord Hood does not com- mand us ; he is a great officer, and were he here we should not now be skulking." Before the next day the news had reached him. " Oh, miserable Board of Admiralty ! " he wrote ; " they have forced the first officer in our service away from his com- mand." And a few days later: "This fleet must regret the loss of Lord Hood, the best officer, take him altogether, that England has to boast of. Lord Howe certainly is a great officer in the management of a fleet. But that is all. Lord Hood is equally great in all situations which an admiral can be placed in." Well might he say, " Oh, miserable Board ! " for having forced Hood to resign by refusing him the reinforcements he demanded, they were imme- diately afterwards compelled to send them out, and, on June 14, Rear- Admiral Man joined the fleet with seven sail of the line. A month later the French fleet came out with orders to take, burn, or drive away the English. When, however, the two fleets 44 THE NELSON MEMORIAL were in presence of each other, their hearts failed them and they turned to fly. Had they been hotly pursued they must have been destroyed ; but again they were allowed to escape — this time with the loss of one ship, the Alcide, which caught fire and blew up. " Hotham," wrote Nelson, " has no head for enterprise, perfectly satisfied that each month passes without any losses on our side." He was still to suffer much from Hotham's inac- tivity and fear of responsibility, although detached from the fleet to co-operate with the Austrian army, in conference with Mr. Drake, the English Minister at Genoa. He had with him a small and varying force of frigates and one or two cutters, the work he was called on to perform being for the most part the interruption of the French coasting trade, preventing supplies being sent by sea, and haras- sing their operations on shore. For all this the force at his disposal was much too small, but Hotham refused to increase it. Nelson's opinion was that if he had been properly supported he could have so harassed the French army that the invasion of Italy would have been impossible. The only road by which they could advance, by which their baggage - train and artillery could pass, was in many places commanded from the sea, and might have been absolutely blocked. HOTHAM'S RESIGNATION 45 As it was, the service was both dangerous and exhausting ; few days passed without a skirmish of some kind — with a battery, or a gunboat, or armed coasters ; but with such inadequate forces these could not produce any important effect on the campaign, and by the end of November the French had driven back the Austrians and had occupied the Riviera, rendering his position on the coast no longer tenable. It was about the same time that Sir John Jervis arrived to take the command, which Hotham had resigned on ^ < the plea of failing health. There J^^^LyC/oif can be little doubt that he felt the 1/ responsibility of the position too much for him. At the time it was not understood how greatly he had been overburdened. He had fought two battles, had won two victories, and had captured or destroyed three ships of the line. Nelson's opinion of the battles and of Hotham was unknown, and if it had been known it would have carried no weight. In the course of 1797, Hotham was raised to a peerage on the Irish Establishment, as Baron Hotham ; but he had no further service. The events of 1797 and of 1798 probably convinced him that a style of fight- ing had come in which he could not hope to 46 THE NEL50N MEMORIAL practise, and he lived in contented retirement till 1813. Jervis was a very different sort of man. As fear- less before the enemy as Hotham, he had the higher moral courage of almost greater importance in a commander, the fearlessness of responsibility. He was at this time in his sixty-first year, had served with credit through the Seven Years' War and through the War of American Independence, had been captain of the Foudroyant, and was distin- guished not so much by his good conduct in the battle off Ushant in 1778, or by the brilliant capture of the P^gase in 1 782, as by the perfection of the order and discipline of his ship. Young officers, it is said, used to be sent on board her to see what a man-of-war ought to look like ; and, as a minor point, it is noted that she was the first ship in the navy to carry three royal yards. In the end of 1793 he had gone out to the Lee- ward Islands as commander-in-chief, and in the early part of 1794 had captured Martinique, Guadeloupe, and St. Lucia. As he did not return to England till December 1794, the portrait, here reproduced, published as a print in August 1794, with the legend, "Vice- Admiral of the White and Commander-in-chief of His Majesty's ships at the Reduction of the Islands ^.lJ/^.u^.^. 'u:.yt'i/i^i/ (^.^fs/'-'ji'. ■/y^ U'/ir/ /V/7 ... jr^. SIR JOHN JERVIS 47 of M;irtiniqu(.\ St. Lucia, Guadeloupe, Marie- Galanto, Dcscada, and the Saints, from a capit;il picture in tlic possession of Francis Stephens, I'lsq.," must have been painted some time before, probably about tlie xear 1 790, when he was fifty-five. His conduct in the West Indies had pointed him out for higher commands, and accordingly he had been named for the Mediterranean as soon as Hood was forced to resion, though an unwillingness to distvirb 1 lotham had delayed his actual appointment. His arri\;\l in the tleet marked the beginning of a new era. There was no more peaceful lying in San Fioren/o Ray, no more "skulking," as Nelson had called it, among the Balearic Islands. The fleet was kept actually off Toulon, though, with detach- ments in the Lc\ant, at Tunis, or at Gibralt;xr, the numbers with the tlag were seldom equal to those of the French in the h;u-bour. But off Toulon )er\is determined the fleet should rem;un, and what Jer\is determined on was generally accomplished. He detemiined that the tleet under his command should be to other fleets wh.it, fifteen years before, the Foudroyant had been to other ships ; and it rune to be so, but only by a constant attention to minutia\ an enforcement of orders, which was con- sidered by many to be extremely irritating. Of tliis lervis was c;ueless. He had been brought up in a 48 THE NELSON MEMORIAL hard school, and was obeyed from fear when he was not obeyed from love. But although unsparing in his reprimands to those whom he judged careless, disobedient, or stupid, he was lavish of praise when the conduct of an ofificer seemed to him to merit it. While in the West Indies he had witnessed the gallantry of Captain Faulknor — the same who afterwards, when in com- mand of the Blanche, fell, shot through the heart, in the celebrated engagement with the Pique ; but at the siege of Fort- Royal of Martinique, commander of the Zebra sloop, which, in the final attack, he ran close to the wall of the fort, and "leaping overboard at the head of his sloop's company, assailed and took this important post before the boats could get on shore. No language of mine can express the merit of Captain Faulknor upon this occasion." This was what Jervis wrote officially. What he did personally was described by Faulknor himself in a letter to his mother. " The Zebra, when she came out of action, was cheered by the admiral's ship ; and the admiral himself publicly embraced me on the quarter-deck, and directed the band to play ' See the Conquering Hero Comes ! ' Such com- pliments are without example in the navy." In reality he went beyond this. As he embraced Faulknor, he presented him with his commission as CAPTAIN FAULKNOR 49 captain, saying: "Captain Faulknor, by your daring courage this day a French frigate has fallen into our hands. I have ordered her to be taken into our service, and here is your commis- sion to command her, in which I have named her, after yourself. Sir, the Undaunted."^ As in the West Indies, so in the Mediterranean. Nelson was previously unknown to him. They met for the first time on 19th January 1796, when the Agamemnon joined the fleet in San Fiorenzo Bay, and on the 20th Nelson wrote to his wife : " We were received not only with the greatest attention, but with much apparent friend- ship. ... I found the admiral anxious to know many things which I was a good deal surprised to find had not been communicated to him from others in the fleet ; and it would appear that he was so well satisfied with my opinion of what is likely to happen, and the means of prevention to be taken, that he had no reserve with me respecting his information and ideas of what is likely to be done." Nelson was forthwith sent off into the Gulf of Genoa. "The fleet," he wrote to his wife, " was not a little surprised at my leaving them ' The name " Undaunted " has remained in the navy, and is now borne by a first-class cruiser. D 50 THE NELSON MEMORIAL so soon, and I fancy there was some degree of envy attached to the surprise ; for one captain told me, ' You did just as you pleased in Lord Hood's time, the same in Admiral Hotham's, and now again with Sir John Jervis.' . . . My com- mand here is to prevent any small number of men from making a descent in Italy." At the same time, Jervis, on his part, was writing of Nelson as one "whose zeal, activity, and enterprise cannot be surpassed. I have only to lament the want of means to give him the command of a squadron equal to his merit." But the rapidity with which these two men gauged each other's worth is very remarkable. Jervis, of course, was a known man. Before he saw him, Nelson had heard plenty of the Fou- droyant, and the P^gase, and the capture of Mar- tinique. Of Nelson, on the other hand, Jervis cannot have known or heard much. Hotham he had not seen since the war began ; his ac- quaintance with Hood was slight, and it is very improbable that he consulted him. Locker, it is true, was an old . shipmate, and may have spoken of Nelson as a rising man, but scarcely in terms which would justify the high opinion which Jervis so quickly expressed. But it was not only of Nelson that he judged CAPTAIN TROUBRIDGE 51 with this quick insight. In August he wrote to the secretary of the Admiralty: "The copper of the Courageux is very defective, but it would break Ben Hallowell's heart to go home. I am afraid of being thought a puffer like many of my brethren, or I should have dealt out the merits of Captain Troubridge, which are very uncommon. I never saw him before my arrival at San Fiorenzo." Hallowell had served as a lieu- tenant under Hood and Rodney in North America and the West Indies ; he had been made a captain by Hood at Toulon in 1793, and in 1794 had served with Nelson on shore at Calvi. Trou- bridge — Thomas Troubridge — had been an inti- mate friend of Nel- son's from boyhood ; they had gone out as youngsters to- gether in the Sea- horse. Nelson came home in less than three years. Troubridge had remained, was moved into the flagship, was made a lieutenant and after- wards a captain by Sir Edward Hughes, was present in all the actions with Suffren, and had not come home till after an absence of ten years. And now, in the Mediterranean, the old friendship with Nelson had been renewed, 52 THE NELSON MEMORIAL and was to form an important factor in the careers of each. During the summer of 1796 Nelson continued detached from the fleet, in command of a frigate squadron on the coast of Italy, and for most of the time as commodore, with a distinguishing pennant, which Jervis ordered him to wear. In October, Spain was forced by France to declare war against England, and to put her fleet at the disposal of the Directory. This seriously changed the situation, for the force with Jervis was unable to oppose the great numerical odds of a Franco- Spanish fleet. Rear-Admiral Man, who had for the past year commanded a strong squadron at Gib- raltar, was ordered to join the commander-in-chief in San Fiorenzo Bay. After Hotham's second action Nelson had described him as "a good man in every sense of the word," but he was now guilty of an extraordinary breach of discipline and error of judgment. He believed that the Spanish fleet commanded the approach to Corsica ; that it would be impossible for him to jt)in the admiral ; that to attempt it would be to sacrifice the squadron ; and, instead of obeying the order, he withdrew REAR-ADMIRAL MAN 53 from the Mediterranean, and, after a short cruise off Cadiz, sailed to England. On his reporting himself at Spithead, he was ordered to strike his flag, nor was he employed again. But the mischief had been done. Jervis had been left with not more than fifteen sail of the line to face a combined fleet of thirty-eight. Bonaparte, too, had overrun the north of Italy. Naples had been compelled to declare itself neutral. There were thus no English interests or allies to protect, even if there had been an English force capable of protecting them ; and, in accordance with instructions from home, Jervis evacuated Corsica and retired to Gibraltar and to Lisbon. In the beginning of February he put to sea in order to prevent the Spanish fleet joining the French at Brest. The political situation in Eng- land was at the time extremely alarming. The news of the French successes in Italy, of the English fleet quitting the Mediterranean, of the attempt of Hoche on Ireland, of the failure of negotiations and of the English Ambassador being ordered to quit France within forty -eight hours, had con- curred to give a shock to the public mind. When the Bank stopped cash payments the alarm was at its height, and consols sank to 51. It was known that by a series of disasters the 54 THE NELSON MEMORIAL fleet with Jervis had been reduced to ten ships, and that the Franco- Spanish fleet in the Mediter- ranean was of four times the force. The sole dependence of the country had been on the navy, and the navy had failed. Utter ruin seemed imminent. On 6th February, Jervis was joined by a rein- forcement of five ships under Rear-Admiral Parker, thus again bringing up his force to fifteen ships of the line ; and with these he took up his station off Cadiz, ranging from Cape St. Vincent to Cape Spartel, determined to prevent the passage of the Spanish Mediterranean fleet. Nelson at this time had been sent up the Medi- terranean in the Minerve to bring away the troops from Elba, and on the passage up had captured the Spanish frigate Santa Sabina, which he was obliged to relinquish on being chased by the Spanish fleet. At Elba the general in command had declined to evacuate the island without direct orders, and Nelson, returning from his bootless errand, saw some of the Spanish ships at Algeciras and in the Straits, and on the night of 1 2th February passed through their whole fleet. On the 1 3th he rejoined the admiral, and moved back into his own ship, the Captain, which now flew his red broad pennant at the main. During the night the signal-guns of the ST. VALENTINE'S DAY 55 Spaniards were repeatedly heard. It was known that they were in the immediate neighbourhood, and Nelson had brought in a fairly accurate report of their number. Jervis knew perfectly well that it was nearly double that of his own squadron ; but he knew also that their real strength was not proportionate ; and, whatever it was, he was determined to fight. The early morning of 14th February was very foggy, and the enemy's fleet was not seen till about ten o'clock. It was then made out to consist of twenty-seven ships of the line, many of them of unusual size, including the Santisima Trinidad, of 1 30 guns, at that time the largest ship in the world. Against this imposing armament Jervis mustered no more than fifteen ships of the line, and though six of these were three-deckers, they were very inferior in size to those of the enemy. On the other hand, the Spanish ships were in very bad order, their men were not sailors, their officers were not seamen ; whilst of the English ships, ten had been with Jervis for a year, and the other five had been in the Channel fleet, some of them for two years. From this point of view the superiority of the English was enormous, and the English officers, Jervis himself, and certainly Nelson, recognised it as more than counterbalancing the disproportion of numbers. 56 THE NELSON MEMORIAL The story is told — and is probably true — that as the Spanish force was gradually made out through the fog and reported to the admiral : " There are eight sail of the line, Sir John." "Very well, Sir." " Twenty sail " — " Twenty-five sail " — " Twenty- seven." "Enough, Sir," said Jervis ; "no more of that. The die is cast, and if there are fifty sail I will go through them." Captain Hallowell, whose ship, the Courageux, had been wrecked a few weeks before, and was serving as a volunteer on board the Victory, was standing beside the admiral at the time, and was so delighted at the answer that he patted him on the back, exclaiming, "That's right. Sir John : by God, we'll give them a damned good licking." Jervis was not a man to take liberties with, but in the excitement of the moment much might be forgiven ; and in this instance it would come the more naturally, as Hallowell was some- what irrepressible and of colossal stature, while Jervis was rather under the middle height — about 5 feet 7 inches. The Spanish fleet, which had been at Cartagena and been ordered back to Cadiz, after passing through the Straits of Gibraltar, had experienced a fresh south-easterly breeze, which the inexperience of their crews had imagined to be a gale, and had been blown by it some distance to the westward. THE BATTLE OF ST. VINCENT 57 On the night of the 13th the wind had changed to the west, blowing fair for the Spaniards' port. When they were seen about ten o'clock on the 14th they were in an irregular, straggling line, streaming away to the east. They were to the southward of the English, who, by signal, formed line of battle ahead and astern of the admiral's ship, the Victory, as most convenient, and pressed on without delay, Troubridge in the CuUoden leading. As they approached the enemy's line, nine of the Spanish ships had already passed to the east- ward of the English. There was here a con- siderable gap in their very loose formation ; but it appeared that, as the two lines were steering, the tenth Spanish ship and the Culloden would inevitably come into collision at the point of crossing. Mr. Griffiths, the first lieutenant of the Culloden, pointed this out to Troubridge, who answered, " Can't help it, Grififiths ; let the weak- est fend off." As the English van came on, there was a distant cannonade between the leading ships on either side ; but the Culloden, reserving her fire, poured a double-shotted broad- side into the unfortunate Spaniard which had threatened her with collision. Almost at the same moment Jervis made the signal to "tack in succession," that is, to turn towards the north, 58 THE NELSON MEMORIAL EXPLANATION OF THE PLAN I2h. 3oin. P.M. — "Let the weakest fend off." The English fleet, in close line of battle, standing towards the south, the CuUoden leading ; the Victory, with the flag of Sir John Jervis (blue at the main), indicated by the St. George's flag ; the Captain, by the broad pennant. The Spanish fleet, in very irregular line, running towards the east, and turning northwards to avoid the collision ; the Santisima Trinidad, flagship of Don Josef de Cordova, indicated by the Spanish flag. ih. P.M. — The English tacking in succession ; the CuUoden, the leading ship, keeping away to join the Captain ; followed at some distance by the Blenheim, Prince George, and Orion. The Spaniards, standing towards the north, and bearing up to pass astern of the English rear, are headed back by Nelson in the Captain, presently supported by the CuUoden. It must be understood that this and the other plans are intended merely as indications, without any attempt at an accuracy which would be quite impossible of attainment. The regularity of the English line, and the irregularity of the Spanish, are here purposely exaggerated, in order to accentuate, on the very small scale, the extreme difference between the two. THE BATTLE OF ST. VINCENT S//4.,/r57: f f 'croMtum, at ^rt}^ ^ f^ ri^3o"'9M : cai' «3 Of ^ * CI=»^^ NELSON TO LORD ST. VINCENT August z6, I'jg'j REJOINS THE FLAG 79 remains of my carcass to England." The letter, which has a postscript, " You will excuse my scrawl, considering it is my first attempt " (in writing with his left hand), is given in fac-simile by Clarke and M 'Arthur. On 3rd August he wrote to his wife : "It was the chance of war, and I have great reason to be thankful; and I know that it will add much to your pleasure in finding that Josiah, under God's providence, was principally instrumental in saving my life." The copy appears to be inaccurate, and, so far as is known, neither the original of this nor of the earlier one is now in existence. As the little squadron rejoined the fleet he wrote again to St. Vincent, of whose peerage he was not yet aware : — " Theseus, \bth August 1797. " My dear Sir, — I rejoice at being once more in sight of your flag, and with your permission will come on board the Ville de Paris and pay you my respects. If the Emerald has joined, you know my wishes. A left-handed admiral will never again be considered as useful ; therefore the sooner I get to a very humble cottage the better, and make room for a better man to serve 8o THE NELSON MEMORIAL the State. But, whatever be my lot, believe me, with the most sincere affection, ever your most faithful Horatio Nelson." To this St. Vincent replied the same day : — " My dear Admiral, — Mortals cannot command success ; you and your companions have certainly deserved it by the greatest degree of heroism and perseverance that ever was exhibited. ... I hope you and Captain Fremantle are doing well. The Seahorse shall waft you to England the moment her wants are supplied. Your son-in-law^ is cap- tain of the Dolphin hospital-ship, and all other wishes you favour me with shall be fulfilled as far as is consistent with what I owe to some valuable officers in the Ville de Paris. . . . Give my love to Mrs. Fremantle. I will salute her and bow to your stump to-morrow morning if you will give me leave. " Yours most truly and affectionately, "St. Vincent." The commander-in-chief was, of course, in the position to know and judge what had been done ; but the uninformed opinion in the fleet took a less ' Sc. stepson. IRRESPONSIBLE OPINION 8i favourable view of the matter. A young mate of the Excellent, a lad of twenty, repeating, it would seem, or rather paraphrasing, what he had heard at his captain's table, wrote to his father : "The service has lost a very brave officer in Captain Bowen. He is regretted by every one that knows him. It is a pity such a rash man as Admiral Nelson should have a command ; but I am in hopes that the loss of his arm will hinder him from taking any command again this war." CHAPTER III THE BATTLE OF THE NILE THE Seahorse arrived at Spithead on ist September, and, on the 2nd, Nelson^i — whd had been nursed by Mrs. Fremantle' during the passage— struck his flag and went to Bath. His health continued to be surprisingly good ; but the arm gave him a great deal of pain, so that he could only obtain rest by the free use of opium. It afterwards appeared that, in per- forming the amputation, a nerve had been tied with the artery, thus causing intense pain for many weeks, and leaving behind a neuralgic pre- disposition and nervous irritability which perma- nently affected his health. As soon, however, as it appeared likely that he would be able to serve again, he was given to understand that he would be sent out. to rejoin St. Vincent. At the same time the Foudroyant was spoken of as his flagship. This was a new 80-gun ship, not yet launched, and should not be confused with the older Foudroyant which Jervis had commanded 8« ^"a^.-'Z^Av/. 'a":JK''i/''ayr/, euit£''^. G • "Ve/f^^iS' CAPTAIN BERRY 83 in 177S or 1782 — the Foudroyant which was gallantly captured by the Monmouth and Swift- sure in 1758. In the end, the Foudroyant was not ready in time, and it was settled that Nelson should go out in the 74-gun ship Vanguard, with Berry as his flag-captain. Berry is supposed to have been in more general actions than any man living, even in his time. As a volunteer and midshipman he was present in the five actions fought by Sir Edward Hughes in the East Indies, and had been promoted by Jervis in the West Indies in 1794. He had afterwards been with Nelson in the Agamemnon and Captain, and was promoted to the rank of commander in Novem- ber 1796, but had remained in the Captain as a volunteer, and had specially distinguished himself in boarding the San Nicolas in the battle of St. Vincent. For his gallantry on this occasion he was at once promoted to be captain. In Octo- ber, Nelson took him with him to wait on the King, who condoled with the wounded admiral on the loss of his arm. Nelson answered that he had indeed lost his right arm, but — presenting Berry — not his right hand. A portrait, by Phillips, was lent to the Naval Exhibition of 1891, by the Rev. E, Stanley Carpenter, of Shrewsbury. Another, by Copley, is in the Painted Hall at Greenwich. 84 THE NELSON MEMORIAL On 28th November, Nelson wrote to him, con- gratulating him on his approaching marriage ; and again on 8th December : "If you mean to marry, I would recommend your doing it speedily, or the to-be Mrs. Berry will have very little of your company ; for I am well, and you may expect to be called for every hour. We shall probably be at sea before the Foudroyant is launched." It is impossible to say whether the arrange- ments were hurried by this strong hint, but Berry was married on the 12th. On the 19th he accompanied Nelson to St. Paul's, where the King went in state, to offer up thanksgiving for the victories, and formally presented the flags taken, on the 1st of June, at St. Vincent and at Cam- perdown — a gift which the authorities of the cathe- dral so little valued that even the memory of them has entirely vanished. The oldest verger has no recollection of ever having seen them. In the last days of December the Vanguard was commissioned at Chatham ; but it was not till three months later, on 29th March 1798, when she had gone round to Spithead, that Nelson hoisted his flag on board her. She sailed from St. Helen's on loth April, and joined the fleet off Cadiz on the 30th. Nelson's arrival had been anxiously expected. SIR JAMES SAUMAREZ 85 In the eighteen months that he had had him under his command, St. Vincent had learnt to know him, and to trust him as he trusted few, and had already resolved to send him at once into the Mediterranean with a small squadron, to try and ascertain the designs of the French, who, according to his latest intelligence, were preparing a mighty armament at Toulon, the purpose of which was entirely unknown. There was therefore no delay, and, on 2nd May, Nelson went on to Gibraltar, whence he sailed on the 9th, in company with the 74-gun ships Orion and Alexander, four frigates, and a brig. Sir James Saumarez, the captain of the Orion, who was a year older than Nelson, had been made a lieutenant for his good conduct in the murderous attack on Fort Sullivan on 28th June 1776; a commander for his share, as lieutenant of the Fortitude, in the hard-fought action on the Dogger- bank, 5th August 1781 ; and a captain for his intelligent service with Hood at St. Kitt's in January 1782. As a young captain, then only twenty-five, 86 THE NELSON MEMORIAL he had commanded the Russell in the battle of 1 2th April, and was for some time closely engaged with the Ville de Paris. In 1793, when in command of the Crescent frigate, he had captured the French frigate Reunion, of somewhat superior force, a brilliant piece of service, for which he had been knighted. Afterwards, as captain of the Orion, he had again distinguished himself in Lord Bridport's action off Isle Groix on 23rd June 1795, and more especially in the battle of St. Vincent. He was thus a man of long experience and most meritorious service, with the additional advantage that, being a native of Guernsey, he spoke French as readily as English. The captain of the Alexander, Alexander John Ball, also a year older than Nelson, was a lieutenant of the Formi- dable on 1 2 th April 1782 ; was promoted out of her two days after- wards, and came home a post-captain in 1783. He also went to France on the peace, to economise and learn the language, and was at St. Omer when Nelson was there, but did not make his personal acquaintance. Nelson apparently considered that CAPTAIN BALL 87 Ball, being four years his junior as a captain, ought to have called on him ; and it was probably this, more than the alleged cause, which gave Nelson an unfavourable impression. He wrote to Locker : " Two noble captains are here, Ball and Shepard ; they wear fine epaulettes, for which I think them great coxcombs. They have not visited me ; and I shall not, be assured, court their acquaintance." With Saumarez, Nelson was already well ac- quainted, though there was no intimacy. Ball was appointed to the Alexander in August 1796, but had not joined the fleet off Cadiz till after Nelson had gone home in the Seahorse, and the two men met for the first time when Nelson took the Alexander under his command at Gibraltar. It is said that when Ball went on board the Vanguard to pay his respects, Nelson greeted him with, "What, are you come to have your bones broken ? " Ball answered that he had no wish to have his bones broken, un- less his duty to his king and country required it, and then they should not be spared. Such a meet- ing was not a favourable prognostic for the future ; but the omen was happily falsified. By 1 8th May the little squadron was off Toulon, and one of the frigates captured a small corvette, from whose crew Nelson ascertained that there were fifteen ships of the line ready for sea, and 88 THE NELSON MEMORIAL a great many transports, which were embarking troops, cavalry as well as infantry. " Reports say," he wrote, "they are to sail in a few days, and others that they will not sail for a fortnight. . . . They order their matters so well in France that all is secret." All that he could hope to do was to watch for their sailing and keep touch with them ; but, unfortunately, on the night of the 20th a violent storm from the north-west drove the squadron far to the southward and dismasted the Vanguard. She was in imminent danger of sink- ing ; so much so, that, when the Alexander took her in tow. Nelson, afraid that the two ships might be sent to the bottom together, called to Ball to cast off the tow-rope. Ball, however, persevered, and succeeded in bringing her safely into the road- stead of San Pietro in Sardinia. As soon as they anchored. Nelson went on board the Alexander, and cordially embracing Ball, exclaimed — as fifteen months before he had written to CoUingwood — " A friend in need is a friend indeed." It was the beginning of a friendship between the two which later years only strengthened. By the joint exertions of Berry, Saumarez, and Ball, the Vanguard was jury-rigged and ready for sea in four days, and on 31st May the three ships were again off Toulon ; but the harbour THE FRENCH PUT TO SEA 89 was empty. The French had, in fact, sailed with the same northerly wind which had treated the Vanguard so roughly. They had gone, they had vanished ; the water left no trail ; and by an ex- traordinary mischance, which has never been ex- plained, all the frigates had separated in the storm, after seeing the Vanguard dismasted. They had taken for granted that she would be obliged to return to Gibraltar to refit ; they had accordingly gone to Gibraltar, had rejoined the fleet, and were not sent back. Their absence paralysed Nelson's hands, not only at the outset, but throughout the campaign. As it was, he neither knew nor had means of finding out what had become of the French. They might have gone south. St. Vincent had suggested Sicily as their possible aim ; but he had equally suggested Portugal or Ireland. Nelson thought it at least as probable that they were in some roadstead in the Gulf of Genoa, collecting and organising their forces, and he was unwilling to leave the neighbourhood till he had some certain knowledge. He was thus still to the north of Elba on 7th June, when he was joined by a strong squadron of ten 74-gun ships, the Leander, of 50 guns, and the Mutine brig, all under the command of Nelson's old friend Captain Trou- bridge, in the Culloden. 90 THE NELSON MEMORIAL This large force was sent in obedience to special orders from the Admiralty, dated 2nd May, the very day on which St. Vincent had given his first orders to Nelson ; and, in a private letter accompanying them. Lord Spencer suggested that Nelson would be the proper man to command it. As Nelson was already in the Mediterranean, it would have been invidious to make any other arrangement ; but in any case St. Vincent would have concurred with Lord Spencer's suggestion ; for of Sir William Parker, the second in command, and of Sir John Orde, the third, he had not formed a very high opinion. They were, however, excessively angry at a junior's being detached on what was practically an independent command, and both of them remon- strated. St. Vincent smoothed matters over for the time by representing the appointment as really made from home ; but Orde felt more particularly aggrieved, and the circumstance gave rise to a feeling of antagonism, which re- sulted in St. Vincent's summarily sending him home — a proceeding which the Admiralty did not ap- prove of, and for which, on his re- turn to England, he was challenged by Orde, though the duel was happily prevented. Between Nelson and Orde, too. TIDINGS OF THE ENEMY 91 it left a bitterness and jealousy which found ex- pression in many of Nelson's later letters. For some days after the reinforcement had joined him, Nelson continued examining the northern coast of Italy. On the 14th he learned that the French had been seen near Sicily, and on the morning of the 17th he lay- to off the Bay of Naples, and sent Troubridge on shore to gain intelligence, and at the same time to learn the attitude of the Neapolitan Government. Troubridge went at once to call on Sir William Hamilton, the English Minister, and, with Hamilton, to see Sir John Acton, the Neapolitan Captain-General and Premier. Acton gave him every assurance of goodwill on the part of the Government, although, he explained, pending the negotiations on foot with Vienna, they were unable openly to take part with the English ; but as to supplies, he gave him there and then an open order to the governors of all the ports of Sicily to assist them in every possible way. With this, and the information that the French were at Malta, Troubridge returned to Nelson, who immediately made sail through the Straits of Mes- sina, hoping to find his enemy still at Malta. The strength of the fortress would, he believed, detain them till his arrival. He had not reckoned on the incapacity or treachery of the grand master, who 92 THE NELSON MEMORIAL delivered up the place on the first summons ; and when passing Messina he received the disagreeable news that the French had taken possession, had garrisoned the town, and left hurriedly. This was confirmed off Cape Passaro ; but their destination was quite unknown. His instructions spoke vaguely of "the Adriatic, Morea, Archipelago, or even the Black Sea"; but Nelson, considering all the circumstances of the armament — "40,000 troops in 280 transports, many hundred pieces of artillery, waggons, draught-horses, cavalry, artificers, naturalists, astronomers, mathe- maticians, &c." — came to the conclusion that Egypt and India was their aim. " Strange as it may appear," he wrote, "an enterprising enemy may with great ease get an army to the Red Sea ; and if they have concerted a plan with Tippoo Sahib to have vessels at Suez, three weeks at this season is a common passage to the Malabar coast, when our India possessions would be in great danger." Acting on a carefully reasoned-out opinion, which was, too, correct in its main features. Nelson made up his mind to look for them at Alexandria, which he reached on 29th June, seven days after passing Cape Passaro. At Alexandria the French had not been seen or heard of. He could find no flaw in his argument ; and though he now knew that they AN ANXIOUS qUEST 93 were not at Alexandria, he maintained that he had been right in looking for them there. And so, in fact, he had ; for, on leaving Malta on i6th June, it was for Alexandria they steered. Nelson left Cape Passaro on the 22nd, steering in the same direction, passed them unseen in the night of the 23rd, and reached Alexandria before them. It has often been said that, being so firmly con- vinced of the intention of the French, he ought to have seen that he must have passed them, and ought, therefore, to have waited for them. It is so easy to be wise after the event. It must be remembered that Nelson did not know that the French were going to Alexandria, though he had believed it. He did not know that his squadron of 74-gun ships, one of them under jury-masts, sailed nearly twice as fast as the French fleet ; and as, having sailed from Malta six days before he sailed from Cape Passaro, they had not reached Alexandria before him, he could only suppose that they had, after all, gone in some other direction. So he steered to the north till he sighted the coast of Caramania ; and then, having still heard nothing of the object of his search, and his ships being short of water, he went to Syracuse, where he anchored on 19th July. So much romance and imaginative falsehood — 94 THE NELSON MEMORIAL not to give it a worse name — ^has been piled up round the story of this visit to Syracuse, that it will be satisfactory to relate what really happened in the words, or rather a translation of the words, of the governor, Don Giuseppe delle Torre, as he wrote them to Sir John Acton, on 22nd July. "On the morning of Thursday, the 19th instant, several ships were seen coming from the east, the number of which increased, though slowly, as the wind was very light, until fourteen ships of the line could be made out ; but, as the distance did not permit us to distinguish either the cut of the sails or the flag, we remained in doubt as to what nation they belonged to. " Presently, however, the wind freshening from the east, and the ships bearing up towards this place, I ordered the castle flag to be hoisted, which they answered by showing English colours. On this, I at once sent off" a boat with the captain of the port and an adjutant of the town, to offer them whatever refreshments they might be in need of; but seeing that, taking advantage of the wind, they were steering straight for the harbour, I despatched a second boat with the town major and the second commandant of artillery, to confer with the com- mandant of the squadron, to repeat the compliments and offers of assistance, and at the same time to THE GOVERNOR OF SYRACUSE 95 acquaint him that our orders and instructions pre- vented our admitting into the harbour more than three or four ships of war at one time, even though they should belong to an allied and friendly power, as the English nation was. " But at half a mile from the mouth of the har- bour they met a boat from the squadron, bringing the vice-admiral^ to me from the admiral, who showed my officers a royal letter, telling them that it contained the royal orders to admit the whole squadron, which meantime was coming on as though to enter the harbour, without waiting for any answer. The vice-admiral, accompanied by my officers, coming to my house, presented a royal despatch, written in the name of his Majesty, and signed by the captain-general, the Cbevalier Acton, enjoining me in the most pressing manner to wel- come and assist the English squadron, going be- yond what is usual, and mentioning many novel and unexpected possibilities, by reason of his Majesty's goodwill and friendship towards the English nation. " And although in this royal despatch it was not directly stated nor openly implied that the entire squadron was to be admitted, still, as it had almost arrived in the harbour while I was reading the ' Very possibly Berry the flag-captain. 96 THE NELSON MEMORIAL royal order, and the admiral having sent me a letter written with his own hand — at best, barely intelligible — in which he referred to necessity to justify his entering with his whole squadron, it seemed better to waive the point ; and the cir- cumstances already mentioned, as well as other reflections, counselled me not to oppose or resent the entry of the squadron ; the more so, as I should otherwise be obliged to have recourse to our cannon, a measure which might be productive of the most deplorable consequences, especially as the townspeople, mad with delight, were rushing headlong to the harbour, and would have carried the ships, one by one, to their own houses, if it had been possible ; and considering also the very warm interest expressed by your Excellency, in the King's name, in the despatch of June 17th, which the admiral had presented to me, and the strict injunctions to welcome and assist the said squad- ron, I felt obliged to allow it, and to content myself with friendly protests and messages, requesting the admiral to send four ships to the neighbouring harbour of Augusta, and to direct five or six others to cruise outside, standing off and on within sight of the port, as your Excellency will see by the enclosed copy of my letter to him. In reply to which he sent me his vice-admiral to say that THE GOVERNOR'S LETTER 97 he hoped to put to sea again as soon as possible, and to hand me the enclosed packet for the Min- ister-Plenipotentiary Hamilton, which I transmit to your Excellency to be given to him. " Meanwhile, cultivating the most amicable rela- tions with the admiral, I have not ceased dropping friendly hints as to the propriety of his quitting this port, or at least of his sending away part of his force, so as not to throw suspicion on the King's neutrality ; trusting that your Excellency, in laying this, my humble report, before his Majesty, will not represent me as meriting his royal disapprobation. Throughout this whole business the squadron has complied with my requests to the admiral. In these three days not a soldier has set foot on shore, but only officers and the boats' crews, who all returned to their ships at the closing of the gates at sunset. They spend their money with extreme freedom, even the lowest sailors paying at least double for what they buy, notwithstanding an order I had published, strictly forbidding the country people to raise the price of their provisions. " The commander-in-chief of the squadron came to visit me on the second day, accompanied by his staff; and I, as in duty bound, received him with every courtesy except that of personally re- turning his visit on board his ship ; his Majesty 98 THE NELSON MEMORIAL having given a general order prohibiting all gover- nors of towns from going on board any ship of war, whether of our own or any other nation. On this duty I therefore sent the town major with his adjutants and some other officers. I have thus laid the whole case before your Excellency for the information of his Majesty, having earnestly en- deavoured, in fulfilment of my duty, to act, so far as circumstances permitted, for the best advan- tage of his Majesty's service." ^ This letter of the governor's can only be con- sidered as directly contradicting the popular story that the fleet was watered at Syracuse in conse- quence of secret orders sent by the Queen ; and if corroboration was needed, it is given by Nelson's letters to Sir William Hamilton — letters, it may be said, written in a fit of extreme pique at Don Giuseppe's " friendly protests and messages." On 22nd July he wrote: "I have had so much said about the King of Naples' orders only to admit three or four of our ships into his port, that I am astonished. I understood that private orders, at least, would have been given for our free admission." This would appear to be the letter which he sent to the governor to be forwarded. On the 23rd he wrote again: "Our present wants have been ' "Foreign Office Records, Sicily," vol. 44. AMPLE SUPPLIES 99 most amply supplied, and every attention has been paid to us ; but I have been tormented by no private orders being given to the governor for our admission." A short extract from the Vanguard's log will be the best practical comment on the words " amply supplied " : — "20th July, employed watering the ship; re- ceived on board 664 lbs. fresh beef. 2 ist, employed watering ; killed 2 bullocks. 22 nd, employed watering ; killed 2 bullocks ; received on board 29 pipes of wine. 23rd, received 8 bullocks ; completed our water. 24th, received on board II bullocks; 2 p.m. unmoored ship. 25th, at 4 A.M. came on board a pilot ; at 5 weighed." The other logs tell the same tale. All the ships completed their water and took on board an "ample supply " of wine and of bullocks, many of which, poor beasts, were thrown overboard,^ a few days later, in clearing for action. For, on 28th July, Troubridge stood into the Gulf of Coron and brought out a small French vessel laden with wine, and intelligence that the French fleet, with transports innumerable, had been seen, about a month before, steering to the eastward along the coast of Candia. In a moment it was clear to Nelson that his first judgment was correct, that the French had gone to ' No less than ten were thrown overboard by the Zealous. loo THE NELSON MEMORIAL Egypt, and he at once determined to go there again to look for them. On 31st July, as he was approaching Alexandria, he sent on two of his ships, the Alexander and Swiftsure, to examine the harbour ; but by noon on 1st August he was sufficiently near with the whole squadron to see that it was crowded with French merchant-ships, but that no men-of-war were there. If not there, it was clear to him that they must be to the eastward, and in that direction he turned to look for them, the two advanced ships being thus left a long way astern ; the others in a cluster, in no order of sailing ; the Culloden, with the wine brig in tow, bringing up the rear, and the Goliath, Captain Thomas Foley, leading, with the Zealous, still commanded by V^ ^ c<^ Hood, close up to her. y It was about three o'clock \^y^ when Hood made the signal for seeing the French fleet. The story of this is curious, but is related by the prin- cipal actor in it. Sir George Elliot, a younger son of Sir Gilbert Elliot, afterwards Lord Minto, who had been Viceroy of Corsica, where he had contracted a lifelong friendship for Nelson. George Elliot, at this time fourteen years old — it was his birthday — was signal midshipman of the GEORGE ELLIOT loi Goliath, and perched on the royal yard, was sweep- ing the horizon with his glass, when he discovered the French fleet at anchor. In his own words : — " The Zealous was so close to us that had I hailed the deck they must have heard me ; I therefore slid down by the backstay and reported what I had seen. We, the Goliath, instantly made the signal, but the under toggle of the upper flag at the main came off in breaking the stop, and the lower flag came down ; but the compass signal was clear at the peak. Before we could recover our flag, the Zealous made the signal for the enemy's fleet, whether from seeing our compass signal or not, I never heard ; but we thus lost the little credit of first signalling the enemy." ^ The signal made by the Zealous announced sixteen sail of the line — accurate in effect, though three of the sixteen were large frigates. Into this Nelson did not stop to inquire. He had, in fact, supposed all along that the number of the French ships would be about sixteen : fifteen had been reported to him as ready for sea when he was first off Toulon ; but he was fully persuaded that, to the fleet under his command, the odds of a few ships was a trifling matter. It was not only that he had * Memoir of Sir George Elliot, Written for his Children. Privately printed, 1863. I02 THE NELSON MEMORIAL confidence in himself and in the discipline of his ships, but also, and to an extreme degree, in the merit of the captains. They were all men in the very prime of life, mostly between thirty-five and forty. Saumarez and Ball were forty-one ; Berry, perhaps the youngest, was thirty. Many of them had known each other as young men in the fleet under Rod- ney in the West Indies, sixteen or seventeen years before, and had taken part in the great battle of April 12, 1782, Others had been with Hughes in the East Indies, where the fighting, if not scientific on the side of the English, was at any rate very sharp. One had commanded a ship on the First of June. Four had commanded ships, two others had been present as volunteers, in the battle of St. Vincent. Seldom has a body of officers been got together of such a high and uniform standard of merit and experience. The uniformity of age, also, perhaps counted for some- thing. There might be rivalry amongst them, but there were no petty jealousies, and Nelson's genial and considerate temper was a bond of union. They had become, as Nelson called them, a " band of brothers " ; and, though several of them lived to achieve further distinction and attain high rank, it is by their share in the battle of the Nile that THE BAND OF BROTHERS 103 they are now principally remembered. It was a victory that ennobled all who fought in it ; and, following up Nelson's own allusion, we may pic- ture him as saying : — " This day is called the feast of Lammas. He that outlives this day and comes safe home. Will stand a-tiptoe when this day is named, And rouse him at the name of Lammas. He that shall live this day and see old age. Will yearly on the vigil feast his neighbours. . . . Old men forget ; yet all shall be forgot. But he'll remember with advantages What feats he did that day : then shall our names. Familiar in his mouth as household words. Nelson the chief, Foley and Saumarez, Miller and Hood, Ball, Westcott, Hallowell, Be in their flowing cups freshly remembered. . . . And Lammas-tide shall ne'er go by, From this day to the ending of the world, But we in it shall be remembered : We few, we happy few, we band of brothers." During the long and anxious quest for the French fleet, Nelson had lost no opportunity of summoning the several captains on board the Vanguard, and with them, in friendly converse, discussing the plan of the battle which was the goal of their hopes. It is not to be supposed that he con- sulted them as to what was to be done. No man ever lived more firm in his own convictions, more I04 THE NELSON MEMORIAL absolutely fearless of responsibility, than was Nel- son. But having formed his plan, he explained it fully to them in all its bearings. No one could say that they might not meet the enemy's fleet at sea, or, if so meeting it, whether they would be to windward or leeward of it. Each possible situa- tion required to be considered, and for each case it was fully explained what would probably be done. Nelson reserving the final decision till the occeision should arise and show him what would be most fitting. As under a press of sail, on the afternoon of I St August, he drew near the French fleet and discovered it in Aboukir Bay, at anchor in single line along the coast, almost in the direction of the wind, he immediately saw that, by concentrating his attack on the weathermost end of the line, the French ships towards the other end, however good their will and prompt their resolution, would be, for a considerable time, unable to support their friends or to take any part in the fighting. Before they could possibly interfere, the ships of the weather- most end must be overpowered by numbers and taken or destroyed. All this appears now so self-evident, so much a matter of course, that it has become a commonplace of naval tactics ; and at the present day, especially since the employment of more IN ABOUKIR BAY 105 speedy and more certain means of destruction, any admiral who allowed his fleet to be caught at anchor in such a position would be rightly held guilty of criminal negligence and stupidity. A hundred years ago this was not the case, and though some English officers — probably also some French — had suggested the method of attack, it had never been carried out, either from want of nerve in the cofnmander-in- chief, or from some other untoward circumstances. There is, however, no doubt that the possibility of such a case arising had suggested itself to Nelson, and that it had been examined in all its details. It had been pointed out that where there was room for the French ships to swing there must be room between them and the shore for English ships to pass ; and the possible advantage of going inside the French line, if at anchor along the coast, had been explained. For many months Nelson had enjoyed the confidence of Lord Hood, so far as a man of thirty -six can have the confidence of one twice his age, and from him had learned the minute details of his exploit at St. Kitt's in January 1782, and of Rodney's celebrated action of 12th April 1782. He thus knew that on that day, when the French were clearing for action, they had piled up all the mess gear — tables, stools, chests, buckets, crockery, and such like — on the larboard side of the io6 THE NELSON MEMORIAL decks, in expectation of being engaged only on the starboard side, the side nearest to the advancing English, and were thus at a terrible disadvantage when Rodney, followed by a large part of his fleet, passed through their line and engaged them on the larboard side. Their guns on that side were blocked up and could not be worked, and the tables, stools, &c., struck by shot, became formidable missiles, and swept away the men by wholesale. Several of the captains now with Nelson — notably Foley, Hood, Miller, Saumarez, and Ball — had been with Rodney on that great day, and must often have heard the circumstance spoken of; so that the suggestion that it might be well to pass inside, if the depth of water permitted, at once commended itself to them. But this was a question which could not be answered beforehand, and as to which the decision, even at the time, must be left to the leading ship. And meanwhile the French were making what preparations they could. Their admiral, Brueys, believed that, lying, as he was, with a battery of guns on the island of Aboukir supporting the head — the western extremity — of his line, he was not in much danger of immediate attack, though he thought that very probably the English might next morning make some desultory attempt on his rear, out of range of the battery on Aboukir Island. None the THE FRENCH LINE 107 less, he had taken all reasonable precautions accord- ing to the science of the age. From the merchant- men and transports in Alexandria he had already filled up the complements of his ships, which, on account of the number of soldiers on board, had left France much below their normal strength. The parties on shore watering when the English were first discovered, were hastily recalled, and many men from the frigates were drafted to the ships of the line, so as to increase the available force at the guns. The ships were brought into more exact line by springs on their cables or other means ; and there was nothing to show Brueys that his fleet was not quite equal to any emergency — more especially as the English, though equal in number of ships, were inferior in size, tonnage, number and weight of guns, and number of men. The French flagship, a huge three-decker of 1 20 guns, first built as the Dauphin Royal, renamed the Sans Culotte in the time of revolutionary frenzy, and now, in a third edition, named the Orient, was, in material force, equal to any two of the English 74-gun ships. Similarly, the French 8o's — the Franklin, Tonnant, and Guil- laume Tell — were large, heavily armed ships, to which the English could only oppose 74's ; and, fighting at anchor, any advantage which the English might have from superior seamanship was lost to io8 THE NELSON MEMORIAL them. Still, as has been said, the French had no expectation of immediate action, and still less of an action of the peculiar, the unprecedented character of that which followed. It was altogether of the nature of a surprise, in itself most demoralising ; and though they made a stout defence, they were virtually beaten by the first broadsides of the English ships. As the English advanced, drawing into line as they did so, a deplorable accident occurred, which, by weakening the fleet of one of its best ships, may fairly be considered the cause of the want of absolute completeness in the victory. When the French fleet was first sighted, the Culloden, with the French brig in tow, was a considerable distance astern. On a signal from the Vanguard, she cast off the in- cumbrance ; but in an attempt to take up what Troubridge conceived to be her proper station, at the head of the line, she gave one more illustration of the truth of that proverbial philosophy which tells us that "the more haste the worse speed." She stuck fast on the extreme end of the shoal which is a prolongation, for some miles to the north, of Aboukir Point, rising above the surface, about mid- way, as Aboukir Island, or, as it has been since called. Nelson Island. Every effort which Trou- bridge's skill or experience could suggest was made. THE CULLODEN ON SHORE 109 but in vain ; and the only consolation for the mis- fortune was that she served as a buoy for the benefit of the Alexander and Swiftsure, which, being still farther astern, and not coming up till after dark, would infallibly have stuck on the same shoal had they not been warned by the fate of the Culloden. As the English ships formed into line as most convenient, the accident of position placed the Goliath first, the Zealous and Theseus closely fol- lowing. Nelson had signalled that he meant to attack the enemy's van. It was thus left for Foley to determine whether he was to pass inside or not — that is, to ascertain whether there was sufficient depth of water for the Goliath and other 74's to pass ahead of and inside the French line. The problem was cleverly solved by young Elliot. "Standing," he says, "as aide-de-camp, close to the captain, I heard him say to the master that he wished he could get inside of the leading ship of the enemy's line. I immediately looked for the buoy on her anchor, and saw it apparently at the usual distance of a cable's length, 200 yards, which I reported. They both looked at it and agreed there was room to pass between the ship and her anchor, and it was decided to do it." As the Goliath was running along the French line, thus obliquely towards their headmost ship. no THE NELSON MEMORIAL the Guerrier, their ships and the battery on the island opened their fire briskly enough, but with singularly little result. It is this advance of the English, the position just as they were about to begin the action, that is shown in the picture, the supposed point of view being south of the French centre. A minute later the scene was obscured by smoke ; for the Goliath, having reserved her fire, passed close under the bows of the Guerrier, pouring in her broadside at the distance of but a few yards with unerring aim and most destructive effect. The Zealous, closely following her, did exactly the same, bringing down the Guerrier 's foremast, and making a hole in her bow that "a coach and four might be driven through." Miller's account of the Theseus, in a letter to his wife, is : — "In running along the enemy's line in the wake of the Zealous and Goliath, I observed their shot sweep just over us; and knowing well that at such a moment Frenchmen would not have cool- ness enough to change their elevation, I closed them suddenly, and running under the arch of their shot, reserved my fire — every gun being loaded with two, and some with three round shot — until I had the Guerrier 's masts in a line, and her jib-boom about six feet clear of our rigging. We then opened with such effect that a secpnd !Mfl^i!itiDiR,ii irf.)|B|'Tn(gB!«ipRj\iiii^iS]^rj(!j|t »^„ THE ENGLISH ATTACK in breath could not be drawn before her main and mizen masts were also gone. This was precisely at sunset, or forty-four minutes past six." Almost at the same moment, and nearly abreast of the Theseus, the Orion passed round a little further off, and the Audacious passed between the Guerrier and the ship astern of her — the Con- qudrant — treating the Conqudrant very much as her friends had treated the Guerrier. This tre- mendous attack practically disposed of the French van. The Vanguard and other ships following anchored outside, and by half-past eight the five headmost ships of the French line had surren- dered and been taken possession of. And so the tide of battle gradually rolled down towards the French rear, which, as though para- lysed, made no effort, and quietly awaited its doom. The ships individually fought bravely, but there was no attempt at collective action, and they were singly overpowered. The huge Orient was at first engaged by the Bellerophon alone, which, by a mischance, lay exposed to her tre- mendous broadside and was speedily reduced to a wreck. She cut her cable and drifted out of the fight, but her place was taken by the Alex- ander and Swiftsure, which did not come into action till about eight o'clock, and anchored, one 112 THE NELSON MEMORIAL EXPLANATION OF THE PLAN. 6h. 1 5m. P.M. — The French ships anchored in a bent line just outside the shoal water extending from the shore : A, Guerrier ; B, Conqudrant ; C, Spartiate ; D, Aquilon ; E, Peuple Souverain ; F, Franklin, with the flag of Rear-Admiral Blanquet-Duchayla ; G, Orient, with the flag of Vice-Admiral Brueys, the com- mander-in-chief ; H, Tonnant ; K, Heureux ; L, Mercure ; M, Guillaume Tell, with the flag of Rear-Admiral Villeneuve ; N, Gdn^reux; o, Timoldon. Aboukir Island, on which the French had erected a heavy battery, about the position of the word Aug. The English ships advancing to the attack : i. Goliath ; 2. Zealous ; 3. Orion ; 4. Theseus ; 5. Audacious ; 6. Van- guard ; 7. Minotaur (Capt. Louis) ; 8. Defence ; 9. Bellero- phon ; and following (not shown in the plan), 10. Majestic (Capt. Westcott) ; 11. Swiftsure ; 12. Alexander, and the little Leander. The CuUoden on shore, about the position of the TT in the headline. 9h. 15m. P.M. — The French ships as before. The English anchored alongside of them, numbered as above. 9, being disabled, cut her cable and withdrew by the dotted line ; her place was taken by 1 1. 10 caught her bowsprit in the rigging of K, and suffered heavy loss ; as she got free she took up the position shown. The Leander anchored athwart the bow of F, where, comparatively safe, she kept up a most destructive fire on E, F, and G. BATTLE OF THE NILE W 0^ojitien at ..-iV G'JJ-fJi A ^'^3 ^^^ L °l^ ^ H L A A .(^ Jcxuttcn at 3'i5-^Jk. I^n^usn ^^^ JFremk 1 — > ^^ H 114 THE NELSON MEMORIAL on the bow, the other on the quarter, of the Orient. Even before this time it had been seen that the Orient was on fire between decks. This was apparently extinguished ; but some Httle time after she was again on fire under the poop. It was never certainly known how this fire originated, but it was supposed, with every appearance of pro- bability, to have been caused by the ignition of a pile of carcasses — shells filled with inflammable composition — on the poop. French writers have indeed denied the possibility of this ; but that the French ships did carry such things was proved by their actual presence on board some of the prizes. As the fire gathered strength, the Alex- ■ ander directed her guns on the spot, so as to pre- vent its being extinguished, and about ten o'clock the ship blew up with a terrific explosion. This is Captain Miller's account of an incident which has been a fertile source of inspiration for painters and poets : " The Orient caught fire on the poop, when the heavy cannonade fi-om all the Alexander's and part of the Swiftsure's guns be- came so furious that she was soon in a blaze, displaying a most grand and awful spectacle, such as formerly would have drawn tears down the victors' cheeks ; but now pity was stifled as it rose, by the remembrance of the numerous and horrid L'ORIENT BLOWN UP 115 atrocities their unprincipled and bloodthirsty nation had been and were committing, and when she blew up about eleven o'clock, though I endea- voured to stop the momentary cheer of the ship's company, my heart felt scarce a single pang for their fate." Some of the men and officers were, however, picked up, but the greater number went down with the ship and the ;^6oo,ooo which she had on board. About eight years ago a company was formed to recover this and other treasure from the sunken ships ; but, though they claimed to have determined the position of the wrecks, the search for the coin proved fruitless. The Casablanca legend, as related by Mrs. Hemans in verses dear to little girls, is fictitious in all save the fact that the Casabiancas, father and son, did perish. They were hurled into the water together, and were seen swimming, but were lost sight of in the dark- ness and were drowned. With the blowing up of the Orient the victory, already certain a couple of hours before, was won. What remained was to make it as complete as possible, and in that the remainder of the night was passed. The fighting was desultory, but often renewed. "Towards morning," wrote Miller, "my people were so extremely jaded that, as soon as they had hove our sheet-anchor up, they dropped ii6 THE NELSON MEMORIAL under the capstan bars, and were asleep in a moment in every sort of posture, having been then working at their fullest exertion or fighting for near twelve hours, without being able to benefit by the respite that occurred ; because while the Orient was on fire I had the ship completely sluiced, as one of our precautionary measures against fire or combustibles falling on board us when she blew up." By the forenoon of and August nine of the French ships had been taken or destroyed. The Tonnant, though not yet surrendered, had been dismasted, had cut her cables, and had drifted on shore. The Gdndreux, the Guillaume Tell, and the Timol^on, with two frigates, attempted to fly ; but the Timoldon was cut off, turned, and ran herself on shore, where, by the shock, her masts went over the side. The other two with the frigates escaped for the time, but were both captured some eighteen months later. During the 2nd the Timoldon and Tonnant were left to themselves while more press- ing work was being attended to ; but on the 3rd the Tonnant was taken possession of by a party from the Theseus, and the Timoldon was set on fire by her own men, who escaped to the shore. This, then, was the end of the battle. Eleven out of thirteen French ships of the line had been NOT A VICTORY: A CONqUEST 117 taken or destroyed, and two of the four frigates. It was not a victory ; it was a conquest. So wrote Nelson concerning it. For the moment he used the word merely as a superlative ; it was an overwhelm- ing victory. In reality it was a great deal more. In the strictest sense it was a conquest ; it was the conquest of Egypt ; it was the isolation and virtual imprisonment of the French army. Bonaparte understood this from the first, and after a vain and hopeless campaign in Syria — hopeless against the power which commanded the communications by sea — he made an ignominious flight, leaving Kldber to get the army out of the mess in which he had put it. Nelson, too, understood it, and wrote on nth August : " The French army is in a scrape. They are up the Nile without supplies. The in- habitants will allow nothing to pass by land, nor H. N. by water. Their army is wasting with the flux, and not a thousand men will ever return to Europe." And some months later, 22nd March 1799, he wrote: "The ambassador of Bonaparte has been intercepted by Troubridge on his way to Constantinople, and amongst other articles of his instructions is . . . an offer to enter on terms for his quitting Egypt with his army. This offer is what I have long expected the glorious battle of the Nile would produce ; but it was my determination ii8 THE NELSON MEMORIAL from that moment never, if I could help it, to permit a single Frenchman to quit Egypt. . . . To Egypt they went with their own consent, and there they shall remain whilst Nelson commands the detached squadron." It is probable that Kldber did not realise the fix they were in till he became commander-in-chief. It was not his business, and very likely he had not the data before him. But a month after Bonaparte had deserted his post he wrote : "I know all the importance of the possession of Egypt. I used to say in Europe that this country was for France the fulcrum by means of which she might move at will the commercial system of every quarter of the globe. But to do this effectually a powerful lever is required, and that lever is a navy. Ours has ceased to exist. Since that period everything has changed, and peace with the Porte is, in my opinion, the only expedient that holds out to us a method of fairly getting rid of an enterprise no longer capable of attaining the object for which it was undertaken." A victory so transcendent was, of course, not won without serious loss. Oiit of 7401 men of all ranks present in the action, 218 were killed and 678 wounded. Among the killed were Captain Westcott of the Majestic, five lieutenants, and a captain of marines. Three of the captains — : NELSON WOUNDED 119 Saumarez, Ball, and Darby of the Bellerophon — were slightly wounded ; Nelson himself more severely. He was struck on the forehead by a piece of langridge — scrap iron — which cut a great gash, and caused a large flap of flesh and skin to hang down over the eyes. This was sewn up and dressed easily enough ; but the effect of the blow was more serious, and caused him much suffering for many months. Within a day or two after the battle. Berry was charged with the admiral's despatches and sent to the commander-in-chief in the Leander. Unfor- tunately, on the coast of Candia the Leander fell in with the 74-gun ship Gdn^reux, and was captured after a brilliant defence, in which both Thompson and Berry were severely wounded. The French- men, smarting under the defeat from which they had themselves so narrowly escaped, treated the prisoners with the greatest contumely, plundering them even of their clothes, and landed them desti- tute at Corfu, whence they were afterwards sent to Trieste and released on parole. Berry did not reach England till December, when he was received by the King and knighted. But his news had come two months before by the duplicate despatches which Nelson had sent to Naples, and thence over- land, by Captain Capel. He arrived in London on I20 THE NELSON MEMORIAL 2nd October, and was received with the utmost enthusiasm, some idea of which may be formed from Lady Spencer's letter to Nelson of the same date : — " Captain Capel just arrived ! " ]^Y' joy. joy to you, brave, gallant, immortalised Nelson! May that great God, whose cause you so valiantly support, protect and bless you to the end of your brilliant career ! Such a race surely never was run. My heart is absolutely bursting with different sensations of joy, of gratitude, of pride, of every emotion that ever warmed the bosom of a British woman on hearing of her country's glory — and all produced by you, my dear, my good friend. . . . This moment the guns are firing, illuminations are preparing, your gallant name is echoed from street to street, and every Briton feels his obligations to you weighing him down. ... I am half mad, and I fear I have writ- ten a strange letter, but you'll excuse it. Almighty God protect you ! " The next day the city of London voted to Nelson a sword of the value of 200 guineas, and thanks to the officers and seamen of the fleet. On the 6th the Gazette announced the creation of Nelson to the dignity of a baron, by the title of " Baron Nelson of the Nile and of Burnham Thorpe." It had been informally announced ENTHUSIASM IN ENGLAND 121 before ; for the vote of the city on the 3rd was to "the Right Honourable Lord Nelson." Prayer and thanksgiving for the victory were read in all churches on Sunday the 21st — October aist^ — and repeated on the two following Sundays. When Parliament met on 20th November,^ the " great and brilliant victory " was prominently mentioned in the King's speech. On the 21st, votes of thanks were passed by both Houses of Parliament ; and, by the Commons, an address to the King, praying that "he would give directions that a monument be erected in St. Paul's to the memory of Captain George Blagdon Westcott, of the Majestic, who fell gloriously in the battle " ; and on the 22nd, on a recommendation from the King, the House of Commons unanimously granted an annuity of the net sum of ;^2000 to "Rear- Admiral Lord Nelson and to the two next heirs male on whom the title of Baron Nelson of the Nile and Burnham Thorpe shall descend." A gold medal to the admiral and captains was not exceptional ; what was exceptional was the gift of a medal — gold to the admiral and captains, silver to lieutenants and officers ranking with them, copper gilt to inferior officers, and copper ^ The date of the battle of Trafalgar, seven years later. ^ The anniversary of the great battle of Quiberon Bay in 1759. 122 THE NELSON MEMORIAL bronzed to the men — by Mr. Alexander Davison, a very intimate personal friend of Nelson's, and, in this case, agent for the sale of the prizes. The gift of a medal, under such circumstances, by a private individual, was exceptional ; but the device is truly remarkable, showing, on the one side, Nelson's profile supported by a figure of Hope, and on the reverse the French fleet at anchor, the British fleet advancing to the attack, and the sun setting in the east. It has often been pointed out that Turner made a similar blunder in his celebrated picture of the Temd- raire, which has been defended on the plea of artistic necessity ; the blunder on the medal can scarcely have proceeded from anything but artistic ignorance. From the East India Company Nelson received ;^ 1 0,000, a sword from the captains who had fought with him, and rich presents from the Sultan, the Tsar, the King of Naples, and the King of Sardinia. The most extraordinary of all was from Captain Hallowell, of the Swiftsure, who, it has been suggested, " fearing the effect of all the praise and flattery lavished on his chief, determined to remind him that he was mortal," and sent him a coffin, with a signed certificate pasted on the bottom that " Every part of this HALLOWELL'S GIFT 123 coffin is made of the wood and iron of 1' Orient, most of which was picked up by his Majesty's ship under my command, in the Bay of Aboukir ; " and with it a letter : — " SwiFTSURE, 2yd May 1799. " My Lord, — Herewith I send you a coffin made of part of I'Orient's mainmast, that when you are tired of this life you may be buried in one of your own trophies ; but may that period be far distant is the sincere wish of your obedient and much obliged servant, f Hallowell served with distinction throughout the war, and in 18 15 was made a K.C.B. By a curious chance, he succeeded in 1828, when he was sixty- eight, to the estates of the Carews of Beddington, with whom he was only distantly connected. To a friend who congratulated him on it he answered : "Half as much twenty years ago had indeed been a blessing, but I am now old and crank." He was made a G.C.B. in 1831, and died in 1834. His portrait, by Hayter, as an old man wearing the sash of the G.C.B., is in the National For- ^^^^^iC^ 124 THE NELSON MEMORIAL trait Gallery. Another, unnamed, was lent to the Naval Exhibition of 1891 by the late Sir Edward Inglefield. When Berry was ordered a passage in the Leander, Nelson promoted the commander of the Mutine to be captain of the Vanguard in his room. This was Thomas Masterman Hardy, whose gal- lantry had attracted Nelson's notice when, shortly before the battle of St. Vincent, he went to Elba in the Minerve frigate, of which Hardy was then a lieutenant. In May 1797, Hardy, still in the Minerve, had commanded the boats in cutting out the Mutine brig from under the batteries of Santa Cruz, and had been promoted by St. Vin- cent in consequence. Capel, the youngest son of the Earl of Essex, and a lieutenant of the Van- guard, was promoted to the Mutine ; and when it was determined that he should go home with the duplicate despatches, Hoste was appointed to suc- ceed him in the command of the Mutine, though not yet eighteen. Of all the young officers brought forward by Nelson, none had a more brilliant career than William Hoste, who, as a lad of twelve, had CAPTAIN HOSTE 125 joined the Agamemnon when first commissioned, and had continued with Nelson in the Captain and the Theseus, dis- tinguishing himself by his cheerful and dashing bravery on a score of difficult occasions. When Nelson went home in the Seahorse, young Hoste had remained with Miller in the Theseus, and had been promoted in February to be one of her lieu- tenants. In January 1802, Hoste — then a few months over twenty-one — was made a post-captain by Lord St. Vincent; and from 1808 to 18 14 he commanded a detached squadron in the Adriatic, stopping the coasting trade, and engaging in a series of adventurous attacks on the coast batteries or on vessels sheltered under them, the stories of which read more like romance than sober history. In 18 1 4 he was made a baronet and a K.C.B. ; but his health was broken by the hardships and ex- posure of his service, and, after being more or less an invalid for many years, he died, at the age of forty-eight, in 1828. CHAPTER IV NAPLES WHEN Capel arrived at Naples, the news which he brought threw the town into the wildest delirium. Acton and Sir William Hamilton wrote to Nelson in terms of warm congratulation and delight, but were thrown far into the shade by Hamilton's wife, who, after driving through Naples with a bandeau on her head showing the motto Nelson and Victory, wrote to him the following letter : — " Naples, September 8, 1798. "My dear, dear Sir, — How shall I begin? What shall I say to you ? 'Tis impossible I can write, for since last Monday I am delirious with joy, and assure you I have a fever caused by agitation and pleasure. Good God, what a victory ! Never, never has there been anything half so glorious, so complete. I fainted when I heard the joyful news, and fell on my side, and am hurt. But what of that .'* I should feel it a glory ■§, ^^/na£^. ,^,Az^ •J^Uim^yUimJ'. DELIRIUM AT NAPLES 127 to die in such a cause. No, I would not like to die till I see and embrace the victor of the Nile. How shall I describe to you the transports of Maria Carolina? 'Tis not possible. She fainted, cried, kissed her husband, her children, walked frantic with pleasure about the room, cried, kissed and embraced every person near her, exclaiming : ' Oh, brave Nelson ! Oh, God, bless and protect our brave deliverer ! Oh, Nelson, Nelson, what do we not owe to you ! Oh, victor, saviour of Italy ! Oh, that my swollen heart could now tell him personally what we owe to him ! ' "You may judge, my dear Sir, of the rest; but my head will not permit me to tell you half of the rejoicing. The Neapolitans are mad, and if you was here now you would be killed with kindness. Sonnets on sonnets, illuminations, rejoicing. Not a French dog dare show his face. How I glory in the honour of my country and my countryman ! I walk and tread in air with pride, feeling I was born on the same land with the victor Nelson and his gallant band. But no more. I cannot, dare not trust myself, for I am not well. " Little dear Captain Hoste will tell you the rest. He lives with us in the day, for he will not sleep out of his ship, and we love him dearly. He is a fine, good lad. Sir William is delighted with 128 THE NELSON MEMORIAL him, and says he will be a second Nelson. If he is only half a Nelson he will be superior to all others. " I send you two letters from my adorable Queen. One was written to me the day we received the glorious news ; the other yesterday. Keep them, as they are her own handwriting. I have kept copies only, but I feel that you ought to have them. If you had seen our meeting after the battle — but I will keep it all for your arrival ; I could not do justice to her feeling nor to my own, with writing, it. We are preparing your apartment against you come. I hope it will not be long, for Sir William and I are so impatient to see and embrace you. " I wish you could have seen our house the three nights of illuminations ; it was covered with your glorious name ; there were three thousand lamps, and there should have been three millions if we had had time. All the English vied with each other in celebrating this most gallant and ever-remarkable victory. Sir William is ten years younger since the happy news, and he now only wishes to see his friend to be completely happy. How he glories in you when your name is mentioned ! He cannot contain his joy. For God's sake, come to Naples soon ! " We receive so many sonnets and letters of con- LADY HAMILTON'S LETTER 129 gratulation. I send you some of them to show you how your success is felt here. How. I felt for poor Troubridge ! He must have been so angry on the sandbank — so brave an officer! In short, I pity all those who were not in the battle. I would have been rather an English powder-monkey or a swab in that great victory than an emperor out of it. But you will be tired of all this. Write or come soon, to rejoice your ever sincere and obliged friend, "Emma Hamilton. "The Queen has this moment sent a diamond ring to Captain Hoste, six butts of wine [and] two calves for the officers, and every man on board a guinea each. Her letter is in English, and comes as from an unknown person, but a well-wisher to our country and an admirer of the gallant admiral. As war is not yet declared with France, she could not show herself so openly as she wished ; but she has done so much and rejoiced so very publicly that all the world sees it. She bids me say that she longs more to see you than any woman with child can long for anything she may take a fancy to, and she shall be for ever unhappy if you do not come. God bless you, my dear, dear friend ! " My dress from head to foot is alia Nelson — ask Hoste ; even my shawl is blue, with gold I30 THE NELSON MEMORIAL anchors all over ; my earrings are Nelson's anchors ; in short, we are be-Nelsoned all over. I send you some sonnets, but I must have taken a ship on purpose to send you all what [is] written on you. Once more, God bless you ! My mother desires her love to you. I am so busy, and write in such a hurry, I am afraid you will not be able to read this scrawl." Without some knowledge of Lady Hamilton's antecedents, this letter, atrociously written and worse spelt, addressed to a man with whom she was barely acquainted, and had not seen for five years, might appear extraordinary. A slight sketch of her life will explain it. Amy Lyon, daughter of the village blacksmith, was born at Great Neston, in Cheshire, probably in 1 761. Her father died in 1765, and the girl was brought up by her mother and grandmother at Hawarden, where, at an early age, she was put into service. She was still very young when she went up to London, and, being extremely pretty and of a gay, giddy disposition, fell into evil ways. In the end of 1779 or beginning of 1780, when she was probably a few months under nineteen, and possibly a year or two younger, she gave birth to a little girl, which was taken care of by her grandmother. She AMY LYON 131 herself was left destitute, and is said to have been reduced to the lowest stage of degradation, from which she escaped in the summer of 1780, to appear as Hygeia, or the Goddess of Health, in the exhibition of the notorious James Graham. For eight or ten months in 1781 she was living under the protection of Sir Harry Fetherstonehaugh, of Up Park, Sussex, a dissolute and hard riding baronet, whom she nearly ruined. By Christmas her reckless extravagance and faithlessness had disgusted him, and, though she was within a few months of a second confinement, he packed her off with no more money than sufficient to pay her travelling expenses to Hawarden. Among her too intimate friends at Up Park was Charles Greville, second son of the Earl of Warwick, who possibly had reason to believe him- self the father of the expected infant. To him the girl, now signing herself Emly Hart, turned for assistance and support, and by the summer of 1782 — the child having been apparently still- born — she was living with Greville near Padding- ton Green, "his wife in everything except in legal title to the name," in the euphemistic language of one of her biographers. Greville had stipulated that she should drop all her old friends and con- nections, and it appears that for the next three 132 THE NELSON MEMORIAL years and a half her life was one of comparative respectability. Greville was a man of taste and refinement, and Emma — as she was now called — received some education. She was introduced, too, to Romney the artist, and sat to him for a great many pictures — not portraits, in the strict sense of the word, but character pictures, arid, as such, all more or less idealised. How many of these pictures were painted cannot be told. John Romney, in the life of his father, has named twenty-three. Lord Ronald Gower, in his little monograph on Romney, mentions forty- two, and though some of the titles seem to be repeated, it is very probable that they refer to different pictures. On the other hand, there can be no doubt that some of the pictures are alto- gether wrongly named. Mrs. Gamlin has pointed out^ that " Lady Hamilton as St. Cecilia " is almost certainly " Mrs. Smith as a Wood Nymph," painted in 1785 ; that " Lady Hamilton as a Nun" is not a nun ; and that the title " Lady Hamilton reading in the Gazeiie the news of a Victory by Nelson," is chronologically absurd. Among the very many which are undoubtedly correct, though the names and pictures may not always seem in agreement, the " Miranda," here 1 George Romney and his Art, pp. 138-142. PORTRAITS OF EMMA 133 reproduced, is one of the earliest; the "Sibyl," one of the most lovely; though why "Miranda," why "Sibyl," is not quite apparent. "The Spin- stress," or " Lady Hamilton at the Spinning Wheel," was painted originally for Mr. Greville in 1786, but was sold to Mr. Christian Curwen for 150 guineas. It now belongs to Lord Iveagh. "Circe," a beautiful full length, now the property of Mr. Herbert C. Gibbs, was not completed by Romney, and is somewhat spoiled by the in- troduction of two wolves by an ambitious amateur. A leopard, similarly painted in, has been painted out by order of Mr. Gibbs. " SensibiHty," a picture very well known by its engravings, was sold at Christie's, in 1890, for ^^3045, and was afterwards bought by Lord Burton. The face is lovely ; but the punning reference to the sensitive plant on the table is disagreeable, and the head- dress suggests rather the title of " Lady Hamilton with the Mumps." In 1784, Greville's maternal uncle. Sir William Hamilton,^ who had been for many years the English Minister at Naples, came home on leave. His wife had died about two years before, and it was commonly supposed that he had come to ' There are two portraits of him in the National Portrait Gallery, one by David Allan in I77S, the other by Sir Joshua Reynolds. 134 THE NELSON MEMORIAL England to look out for a second. The idea was not pleasing to Greville, who had learned to con- sider himself as his uncle's heir, and he was perhaps not sorry to notice Hamilton's undisguised admira- tion of Emma's beauty, or to listen to the rapturous expression of it. "Yes," he answered, "she is, I think, about as perfect a thing as can be found in all nature." " My dear Charles," replied the uncle, "she is better than anything in nature. In her particular way she is finer than anything that is to be found in antique art." He easily fell into the habit of calling in every afternoon and spending some time in easy conversation with Emma, whom he taught to address him as Pliny ; and gradually the girl, who at first spoke of him as "an old man," began to forget his age, and to think him charming. All this rested in Greville's mind, so that when, a few months later, his affairs fell into confusion, he had no scruple in suggesting to Hamilton to take the girl off his hands ; and, after a correspondence extending over the best part of a year, this was agreed to, and Emma was sent out to Naples as if on a visit. There was no actual bargain, but there was a clear under- standing that Hamilton was to help his nephew out of his difficulties. To us nothing can well appear more cold-blooded EMMA HARTE 135 than GreviUe's behaviour in this matter, and it can only be explained on the supposition that, notwith- standing his protestations of affection, he regarded her simply as one of the frail sisterhood, void alike of feeling or sensibility. And yet, in truth, Emma ought not to be so classed. Whatever she was before she linked her fortunes to GreviUe's, it ap- pears probable that she had become really fond of him. In her residence with him there was none of that gilded splendour which so often casts a false brilliance over vice. She was housed and dressed as became the wife of a man of very limited means — her yearly allowance for dress and pocket-money was only ^20 ; and in other ways her life was retired, almost solitary, with, in Gre- viUe's absence, her mother for her sole companion, Romney her sole friend, reading and singing her sole amusement. Anything approaching to gaiety or dissipation was unknown. Such a manner of life was certainly as foreign to her later as it was to her earlier character, and may be taken as evidence that she honestly loved the man for whom she endured it. When he deliberately sold her to his uncle, he robbed her of that guiding principle which had ruled her for nearly four years ; and her future conduct, if restrained by prudence, ap- pears in a widely different light from that which 136 THE NELSON MEMORIAL shone on it in the modest house by Paddington Green. Making every allowance for emotional exagge- ration, her early letters from Naples may still be accepted as indicating a very real distress at the proposed arrangement. Greville was obstinately silent. There was, of course, nothing for him to say. " I have been from you going of six months," she wrote to him in July 1786, "and you have wrote one letter to me, instead of which I have sent fourteen to you. So pray, let me beg of you, my much beloved Greville, only one line from your dear, dear hands. . . . For God's sake, my ever dear Greville, do write to me some comfort. . . . I am poor, helpless, and forlorn. I have lived with you five years, and you have sent me to a strange place, and no one prospect but thinking you was coming to me. Instead of which I was told I was to live, you know how, with Sir William. No : I respect him ; but no, never ! Shall he perhaps live with me a little while like you and send me to England ? Then, what am I to do } What is to become of me?" In calmer mood she added, ten days later : " Pray write, for nothing will make me so angry, and it is not to your interest to disoblige me, for you don't know the power I have here. Only, I never will be his EMMA AT NAPLES 137 mistress. If you affront me, I will make him marry me." It was her last protest; she accepted the position, but apparently in the firm intention of carrying out her threat to Greville — the making Hamilton marry her. And, meantime, the public sense of morality, less cogent in Naples than in London, did not feel aggrieved when the sinners were, on the one hand, the English Ambassador, handsome, wealthy, and with an agreeable fund of wit and humour, and, on the other, an exceedingly beautiful woman, who sang delightfully, had a remarkable histrionic and mimetic talent, with a pretty turn for bantering and sprightly conversation. She had the best masters in Naples, and she worked hard, so that she soon acquired a fluent knowledge of Italian, and improved in her singing and music. She was not received at Court ; but society was less punctilious, and readily yielded to Hamilton's insistence. " Sir William," she wrote to Greville in August 1787, "is very fond of me and very kind to me. ... He is never a moment from me. He goes nowhere without me. He has no dinners but what I can be of the party. Nobody comes without they are civil to me." Her singing had an extraordinary success. She was offered ;^6ooo to go to Madrid for three years as "first woman in the Italian opera"; she was 138 THE NELSON MEMORIAL offered ^2000 for a season in London. She invented, too, a series of classic attitudes or statu- esque representations, the outcome, probably, of Romney's instruction, which became famed through- out Europe. Goethe, who was at Naples in 1787, wrote : — "Sir William Hamilton, after long love and study of art, has at length discovered the most perfect of the wonders of nature and art in a beautiful young woman. She lives with him — an Englishwoman, of about twenty years old. She is very handsome and of a beautiful figure. The old knight has had made for her a Greek costume, which becomes her extremely. Dressed in this, and letting her hair loose, and taking a couple of shawls, she exhibits every possible variety of pos- ture, expression, and look, so that at last the spec- tator almost fancies it is a dream. What the greatest artists have aimed at, is shown in per- fection, in movement, in ravishing variety. Stand- ing, kneeling, sitting, lying down, grave or sad, playful, exulting, repentant, wanton, menacing, anxious — all mental states follow rapidly one after another. With wonderful taste she suits the folding of her veil to each expression, and with the same handkerchief makes every kind of head- dress. The old knight holds the light for her ■illliiilillllliliii^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ Rehberg. Art Reproduction Co. sc. LADY HAMILTON. (Attitude, No. 3.) EMMA'S ATTITUDES 139 and enters into the exhibition with his whole soul." The "old knight" was, in fact, so much pleased with these representations that he commissioned Frederick Rehberg, a young German artist, to make a series of twelve drawings of them, which were published in 1794, under the title of " Draw- ings faithfully copied from Nature at Naples." Two of these are here reproduced. After five years' consideration, Hamilton finally decided to marry his charming companion, and did so during a visit to England in the summer of 1791. On their return to Naples she was pre- sented to the Queen, who received her kindly, and, by degrees, as an intimate. She was recog- nised as the leader of Neapolitan society, which conveniently ignored her antecedents, and remem- bered only her beauty, her singing, her acting, and her good-humour. All the English who visited or passed through Naples had the same story. Only a few days after her return. Lady Malmesbury wrote to her sister. Lady Elliot : " You never saw anything so charming as Lady Hamilton's attitudes. The most graceful statues or pictures do not give you an idea of them. Her dancing of the tarantella is beautiful to a degree . . . the most lively thing possible." And five I40 THE NELSON MEMORIAL years later, Captain James, of the Petrel brig, describing a dinner which he gave on board to Prince Augustus and the principal people then at Naples, wrote : — " The loyalty of that exquisite and charming lovely woman, Lady Hamilton, outshone then, as upon every other occasion, the whole party ; for, in the ecstasy of singing ' God save the King ' in full chorus with the whole ship's company, she tore her fan to pieces and threw herself into such bewitching attitudes, that no mortal soul could re- frain from believing her to be an enthusiastic angel from heaven, purposely sent down to celebrate this pleasant, happy festival." A naval captain, fresh from the tedious blockade of Toulon, would naturally take the most favour- able view of a beautiful woman in Lady Hamilton's position. Sir Gilbert Elliot, who, after the evacua- tion of Corsica, was at Naples in December 1796, was a more exacting critic, and wrote : — " Lady Hamilton is the most extraordinary com- pound I ever beheld. Her person is nothing short of monstrous for its enormity, and is grow- ing every day. She tries hard to think size advan- tageous to her beauty, but is not easy about it. Her face is beautiful ; she is all nature and yet all art — that is to say, her manners are perfectly LADY HAMILTON 141 unpolished, of course very easy, though not with the ease of good breeding, but of a barmaid ; ex- cessively good-humoured, and wishing to please and be admired by all ages and sorts of persons that come in her way. But, besides considerable natural understanding, she has acquired, since her marriage, some knowledge of history and the arts, and one wonders at the application and pains she has taken to make herself what she is. With men, her language and conversation are exaggera- tions of anything I ever heard anywhere." That a man like Elliot thought it necessary to write about Emma at this length, is in itself strong evidence of her social success ; but it is very doubt- ful whether she ever had that influence with the Queen which she loved to claim. It would seem, rather, that the Queen but flattered her vanity in order the better to make use of her. As the fury of the French Revolution extended, as her brother- in-law and sister were remorselessly sacrificed to it, the Queen's hatred of the Jacobins became more and more bitter, at the same time that she felt and knew herself to be surrounded by spies in the French interest. She leant for support on the English Government and the English Minister, but her private communication with him was neces- sarily restricted. The appearance of intimacy with 142 THE NELSON MEMORIAL Emma removed the difficulty. She could see and speak with her whenever and wherever she liked ; for their secret converse was supposed to be in the interests of immorality rather than of politics. The Italian Jacobins and French agents did not love the Queen or her confidante. To them, the Queen was Messalina ; Emma, a vulgar courtesan ; but the part of confidential agent between the Queen and the English Minister, which Emma was really playing, does not seem to have been suspected. It was quite in the nature of things that Emma, thus trusted by the Queen on the one side, and by her husband on the other, with many and important secrets, should begin to consider herself a power in the State, and, in the end, to represent herself as the guiding spirit of the policy of Naples, if not also of England. In September 1793, when Nelson was sent by Lord Hood to Naples, he was for a few days a guest in Hamilton's house, and carried away many pleasant memories of Hamilton's wife, who had been very kind to his stepson, and whom, in a letter to his wife, he described as "a young woman of amiable manners, who does honour to the station to which she is raised." During the following five years he was not once at Naples, and though he not unfre- THE qUEEN OF NAPLES 143 quently wrote Hamilton friendly letters about the course of events, and commonly concluded them with "my best respects to Lady Hamilton," there was certainly no intimacy ; nor does it appear that Emma had any recollection of him more than she had of the hundreds of other people who passed across her horizon. In the summer of 1798 things were different. Naples had been sorely pressed by the French. Emma, with all the emotional enthusiasm of her nature, flung herself into the Queen's quarrel, and was eager for the overthrow of the Queen's enemies. When she learned from her husband that the admiral now sent to the Queen's support was one whom she had formerly known, she immediately prepared to gush over him, to make him believe that she had never forgotten him. When he lay-to off Naples on 17th June, she scribbled a few lines to him, as to an intimate friend : — "My dear Admiral, — I write in a hurry, as Cap- tain Troubridge cannot stay a moment. God bless you and send you victorious, and that I may see you bring back Bonaparte with you. Pray send Captain Hardy out to us, for I shall have a fever with anxiety. The Queen desires me to say everything that's kind, and bids me say with her whole heart 144 THE NELSON MEMORIAL she wishes you victory. God bless you, my dear, dear Sir. I will not say how glad I shall be to see you ; indeed, I cannot describe to you my feelings on your being so near us. " Ever, dear Sir, your obliged and grateful " Emma Hamilton." It was the same delusion that impelled her, on receiving the news of the battle of the Nile, to take the prominent part she did in the public rejoicings, and to write to Nelson the extraordinary letter which has been quoted ; and it was still this which — when Nelson, having arranged for the continuous blockade of the coast of Egypt, and sent the most of his ships and the prizes to Gibraltar, came on himself to Naples — took her on board the Vanguard, where, without further warning, she flung herself fainting on Nelson's breast. She had scarcely recovered before the King arrived on board to greet Nelson as his saviour and deliverer. All Naples was in one mind to do him honour ; but everywhere Lady Hamilton was the moving spirit ; and Nelson, sick and ill at ease, yielded to the intoxication of the brilliant scene and the fascinations of the beautiful woman. That their hero should thus have fallen has been a grief and pain and surprise to many who have not NELSON LED CAPTIVE 145 considered the antecedents or the character of Lady Hamilton, nor yet those of Nelson. When it is remembered that Nelson had all his life shown him- self extremely susceptible to woman's influence ; that he had never been thrown into close communion with a woman without falling in love with her ; that his knowledge of Society, with a capital S, was very limited ; and that the attentions of a woman in the social position of Lady Hamilton, of whose history he was almost entirely ignorant, must have been most gratifying to his vanity ; when, too, with a full knowledge of Lady Hamilton's previous career, we picture her as a woman beautiful, sweet-voiced, and tender ; of a kindly nature and a soft heart, yet capable and energetic ; but withal excessively vain, boastful, and an unblushing, irresponsible, perhaps unconscious, liar — the result of a familiar acquaintance needs no further explanation. At Naples, Nelson, who was still suffering from the effects of the wound received in the battle of the Nile, and from the mental strain of the long search for the French fleet, lived in the Hamiltons' house, and Emma nursed him, fondled him, flattered him, feted him. When, on the advance of the French and the utter rout of the Neapolitan army, the Court moved to Palermo, Nelson and the Hamiltons kept house together, and, according to report, which was K 146 THE NELSON MEMORIAL certainly exaggerated, plunged into reckless dissi- pation. Lady Minto, at Vienna, was told that "every sort of gaming went on half the night. Nelson used to sit with large parcels of gold before him and generally go to sleep. Lady Hamilton taking from the heap without counting, and playing with his money to the amount of ^500 a night. Her rage is play, and Sir William says when he is dead she will be a beggar." Sir Arthur Paget, whose cor- respondence has been recently published, heard a similar story in May 1800, when he came out to relieve Hamilton. " Lord Nelson's health," he wrote, "is, I fear, sadly impaired, and I am assured that his fortune is fallen into the same state, in consequence of great losses which both his Lord- ship and Lady Hamilton have sustained at faro and other games of hazard." From Nelson's correspondence and his very frank discussion of his money matters, we are able to say that these stories were not true ; but it is very probable that there was some foundation for them. That some years later. Lady Hamilton played — played high, recklessly, and with bad luck, is known ; it may therefore fairly be supposed that she did so at Naples ; and it is not impossible, or indeed unlikely, that Nelson occasionally advanced her PALERMO SCANDAL 147 money, or himself joined in the game. He cer- tainly did not lose heavily, or impair his fortune. That he sat, night after night, nodding over the table like a drunken dotard, is false on the very face of it. Still, there unquestionably was a great deal of scandal, and many of Nelson's best friends were extremely anxious to get him away from the scene of it. Troubridge, especially, wrote to him repeat- edly, with the freedom of a five-and-twenty years' friendship, urging him to quit the Court, whose neglect to furnish the promised supplies seemed to be condoned by his presence. It is not, however, to be supposed that Nelson was lingering there solely for his pleasure. His orders were explicit — to protect the kingdom of Naples from internal or external foes ; and that he did most effectually, so far as the sea-power ex- tended. He had not, indeed, been able to prevent the consequences of entrusting the land defence to a disorganised army and to an ignorant or imbecile general ; but slowly and steadily he won the kingdom back from the invaders and their rebel partisans. His correspondence at this time, too, shows no lack of energy, and in one instance manifests a petulance peculiarly his own, when he fancied his position as commanding the detached squadron was invaded. In 1792, Captain Sir William Sidney Smith, who 148 THE NELSON MEMORIAL had been knighted in Sweden for service with the Swedish navy, had been sent by the Foreign Office on a secret mission to Constantinople, where his brother, Mr. J. Spencer Smith, was the accredited Minister. On his way back he joined Hood at Toulon, volunteered for service, and, on the evacua- tion of the place, had been appointed to burn the French ships, a task which, in the hurry and con- fusion, he did so imperfectly, that many of the burnt ships were at sea the next year, were in the fleets of 1795, at the Nile, and even at Trafalgar. Comment- ing on this in 1 795, Nelson had referred to an old song, " Great talkers do the least, we see," in which he but echoed the general opinion that Smith was all gas. He was therefore the more annoyed to learn, in December 1798, that he had been sent out to the Levant, independent of his authority ; and that, without communicating with him, he had hoisted a broad pennant, had taken ships left on the coast of Egypt under his orders, and had given passes, in his own name, to trading vessels. Probably no other man but Smith could have done this; but Smith, with all his undoubted courage and ability, had a strong element of the charlatan in his character, and loved to pose as the hero of the situation. Nelson wrote most bitterly to St. Vincent, to Spencer, and to Smith himself; and received ex- SIR SIDNEY SMITH 149 planations from the two first, that it was altogether a mistake, and that Smith had no authority for what he had done. But, in truth, Spencer's letter was not by any means clear ; and St. Vincent, mis- understanding it, had not given Smith instructions to put himself under Nelson's orders. To a man of Smith's temperament this was a sufficient intimation that he was appointed by the Admiralty to act as senior officer in the Levant ; and though he did write officially to Nelson as *^*^' /^^ t^^^t^ . it was in the tone of an equal inviting co-operation, rather than of a subordinate reporting to a com- mander. When he understood the trouble that his vanity had caused, he made amends, like the gallant fellow he really was ; but the whole entanglement. I50 THE NELSON MEMORIAL which did give much annoyance, and might have caused very serious mischief, arose out of the want of official preciseness and formality in the orders under which Smith was sent out.^ All this, however, was merely a disagreeable interlude in the real work of the campaign — the blockade of Malta, and the reduction of Naples and the other ports held by the French. This was more seriously threatened in May 1799, by the French fleet coming into the Mediterranean. In expectation of an attack, Nelson collected his scattered squadron off the west end of Sicily ; but the alarm having blown over, he returned to Palermo, shifted his flag to the Foudroyant — which had just come out from England — and went on to Naples, from which he had been obliged to withdraw the ships, leaving only a few small craft under the command of Captain Foote, in the Seahorse frigate. He was just, and only just, in time to find that Cardinal Ruffo, who commanded the royal army, had, in flagrant dis- obedience of his instructions, granted terms to the rebels, and had persuaded Foote to sign the treaty. As no part of it had been carried out, Nelson at ' A characteristically theatrical portrait of Smith, by Eckstein, is now in the National Portrait Gallery. It is engraved as the frontispiece to the Life by Barrow. Another and more pleasing portrait, by Chandler, has been en- graved by E. Bell. NELSON. (vrom a Crystal Intaglio.) THE BAY OF NAPLES 151 once declared that it was irregular, and annulled it. He compelled the rebels to surrender to the King's mercy ; and when one of the ringleaders, Caracciolo, a captain in the King's navy — a de- serter, a betrayer of his trust, a double-dyed traitor — fell into his hands, he had him tried and hanged with a stern promptitude which amazed those who thought that, because he was a kind- hearted man, he was likely to deal gently with mutineers or traitors. They had not read his letters to St. Vincent and Calder on the occasion of the mutinies off Cadiz ; they did not know that, in his eyes, mutiny or treason was as the sin for which there is no forgiveness. By July 13th all the forts held by the French and the rebels had been captured, and the King's authority was everywhere recognised in Naples. It was just at this time that St. Vincent, who was in very feeble health, resigned the command to Lord Keith, who, as Captain George Keith Elphinstone, had served with credit, but without any particular distinction, through the American / \^ War, and at Toulon, under Hood. As a rear- admiral, he had commanded the sea forces at the 152 THE NELSON MEMORIAL reduction of the Cape of Good Hope, and had been rewarded with an Irish peerage, under the title of Baron Keith of Stonehaven Marischal. He was a man of cool, sound judgment, who, throughout his whole career, did excellently well whatever he was called on to do, without at any time forcing an opportunity or rising to the height of genius. It is very possible that, in his inmost soul, Nelson despised him as a cold-blooded Scotch- man, and he certainly felt some soreness at not having been himself chosen as the successor of St. Vincent. When, therefore, he received Keith's order to go to Minorca, with the whole or greater part of his squadron, instead of obeying it, he proceeded to discuss its bearing on the state of affairs in Naples and Sicily, the importance of which the influence of Lady Hamilton and her devotion to the Queen very probably led him to overestimate. He came to the conclusion that by withdrawing the squadron from Neapolitan waters the French party would recover courage, the rebellion would reassert itself, and all the work would have to be done over again. If the French made an attack on Minorca, it might fall. If one or other must be risked, the kingdom of the Two Sicilies was of the greater consequence ; so he determined to stay where he LORD KEITH 153 was. And he did stay, till, after several repeated orders, he at last consented to send a part of his squadron. As no harm resulted from his dis- obedience, as the French quitted the Mediter- ranean, and, by Keith's following in pursuit, Nelson was left commander-in-chief, no special notice was taken of his breach of discipline, though he was told that the Admiralty could not consider that his reasons for disobeying the order were sufficient. The victory at the Nile was, naturally, held to atone for many irregularities. In August, Nelson returned to Palermo, when, in recognition of his important services to the crown of Naples, the King created him Duke of Bronte, conferring on him, at the same time, the estate of Bronte, with a revenue estimated at about ^3000 a year. The new title entailed a change of signature ; and, in fact, many changes before he satisfied himself The history of these has some personal interest. Since November 17, 1798, when he received the Gazette announcing his elevation to the peerage, he had signed, in due course, ^ 1 V^-^ ^n^ ; ^"d so, though with occasional exceptions, he continued to sign till 154 THE NELSON MEMORIAL November i, 1799, when he wrote to Sir Isaac Heard, Garter King of Arms, suggesting that the ducal arms of Bronte must have a place in the plan of the arms he was to bear, and continu- ing, " If his Majesty approves of my taking the title of Bronte, I must have your opinion how I am to sign my name. At present I describe myself as ' Lord Nelson, Duke of Bronte, in Sicily.' As the pelisses given to me and Sir Sidney Smith are novel, I must beg you will turn in your mind how I am to wear it when I first go to the King ; and as the aigrette is directed to be worn, where am I to put it? In my hat, having only one arm, is impossible, as I must have my hand at liberty ; therefore, I think, on my outward garment." This letter he signed It was probably after an answer to this letter that, on 2 1st March 1800, he issued the following memorandum : — " By my patent of creation, I find that my family name of Nelson has been lengthened by the words NELSON'S SIGNATURES 155 "of the Nile." Therefore in future my signature will be It would seem that on his return to England, in the following November, it was hinted to him that this signature was not quite in order. Two letters of 1 8th November 1800 are given as signed " Nelson of the Nile," but on the 21st he had reverted to his original signature of "Nelson." A letter of 24th January 1801 appears to be the first which he signed And this was the signature which he finally adopted ; though he again signed " Nelson " on 29th and 30th January. After a short visit to Port Mahon in October 1799, Nelson had returned to Palermo, and was still there when, on 6th January 1800, he received formal notice of Keith's resuming the command. He made very little secret of his extreme morti- 156 THE NELSON MEMORIAL fication, and, though he joined Keith off Leghorn, and accompanied hinj to Malta, it would seem to have been in a determination to take his own way, so far as possible. He had never felt any diffi- culty about disobeying orders if they were contrary to his judgment or inspiration ; and to look out to the north-west when Keith ordered him to look out to the south-east was a peculiar happiness, more especially as by doing it he fell in with the French store-ships which were endeavouring to break the blockade, under convoy of the G^nereux, the ship which, after escaping from Aboukir Bay, had captured the Leander. The frustration of the enemy's plan was gratifying to him ; the capture of the G6nereux still more so ; but most of all, perhaps, was the being able to write to Lord Spencer that he had quitted Keith on his own responsibility, and if he had failed, might have been broke. However, the capture or dispersion of the convoy permitted Keith to go to Genoa, leaving Nelson in command of the blockade. Nelson had no intention of continuing to act in subordination to Keith ; he was, or fancied himself, extremely ill, and determined to return to Palermo. Troubridge, on whom the command devolved, expostulated with him in vain. His health, he said, required him to THE GENEREUX CAPTURED 157 go to Palermo ; and to Palermo he went. It has, of course, been said that this determination was entirely due to the influence of Lady Hamilton, from whose society he could not tear himself. That his passion for Lady Hamilton was not without weight may be admitted, but a study of his letters at this time shows it as certain that his pique at having been superseded by Keith had much more to do with it. This pique, however, did not carry him so far as to detain a ship of force like the Foudroyant, which he ordered to return to Malta, his flag meantime flying on board a trans- port at Palermo. It was by this time very well known that the French at Malta were in great straits, that their provisions and stores were exhausted, and that the capture of the Gendreux had virtually sealed their doom. One chance remained to them — possibly of saving the fortress, but at any rate of saving a large ship and as many men as she could carry. The ship was the Guillaume Tell, of 80 guns, which had escaped from the battle of the Nile, and was at this time lying in the harbour of Valetta. It was known to the English that she was ready for sea and had taken on board a great many supernumeraries. A few minutes before midnight of March 29-30 she ran out of the 158 THE NELSON MEMORIAL harbour with a fresh breeze, passing close by the frigate Penelope, which was already on the alert, and finding the private signal unanswered, followed her, firing continually, at once to distress the enemy and alarm such ships as were within hearing. From half-past twelve to daybreak of the 30th the little Penelope hung on to the chase, yawing from time to time and pouring in a raking broad- side, to which the Guillaume Tell could only reply with her stern guns, not venturing to risk the delay of turning to destroy her puny antagonist. When day broke it was seen that the Guillaume Tell had suffered considerably ; had lost her main and mizen topmasts and mainyard, and her rig- ging everywhere badly cut. About five o'clock the 60-gun ship Lion came up, ran alongside of the Guillaume Tell, and closely engaged her for twenty minutes, at the end of which time she was obliged to drop astern to repair damages. The Penelope meantime had never ceased her fire ; and a little before six the Foudroyant entered into the action, but in half-an-hour she too was disabled and fell astern. But the fire of the three ships was kept up at intervals, and brought down the French- man's main and mizen masts. After a short delay, the Foudroyant again closed ; the Guillaume Tell's foremast went over the side, and at twenty minutes THE GUILLAUME TELL 159 past eight she struck her colours, after a most obstinate contest, creditable in the highest degree to all parties. To the Penelope, for hanging on to the chase with the hound-like determination which had alone rendered it possible for the other ships to come up. The Lion was, by her size, unable to meet an 80-gun ship on equal terms, but she made the attempt, in order still further to delay her. The Foudroyant ought, single-handed, to have been a match for her ; but half of her men were on shore pushing the siege of the town on the land side, and *the Guillaume Tell had thus about three men to her one. But the defence of the Guillaume Tell was also extremely brilliant, and the story of the action is one in ^yhich Englishmen and Frenchmen can rightly feel equal pride. The official report was written by the senior officer. Captain Dixon, of the Lion ; but Berry sent a private note to Nelson : — " In great haste. "My dear Lord, — I had but one wish this morning — it was for you. After a most gallant defence, le Guillaume Tell surrendered. She is completely dismasted. The Foudroyant's lower masts and main topmast are standing, but every roll I expect them to go over the side, they are i6o THE NELSON MEMORIAL so much shattered. I was slightly hurt in the foot, and I fear about forty men are badly wounded, besides the killed, which you shall know hereafter. "All hands behaved as you could have wished. How we prayed for you, God knows, and your sincere and faithful friend, E. Berry." " Love to all. Pray send this to my wife, or write Admiralty." The fac-simile of a page of this letter will testify as to the extreme excitement in which it was written. In answer to it Nelson wrote : "I am sensible of your kindness in wishing my presence at the finish of the Egyptian fleet, but I have no cause for sorrow. The thing could not be better done, and I would not for all the world rob you of one particle of your well-earned laurels. Thank kindly for me all my brave friends in the "Fou- droyant ; and, whatever fate awaits me, my attach- ment to them will never cease but with my life. ... My task is done, my health is lost, and the orders of the great Earl of St. Vincent are com- pletely fulfilled — thanks, ten thousand thanks, to my brave friends ! " It was, however, and with a correct judgment, to Blackwood that he expressed the warmest acknow- 4^ ^^^ p Mh'^^^^^ ^^^ ^ ^^ ''^"'^'^^^ ^^ ^ SIR EDWARD BERRY TO LORD NELSON March jo, iSoo v^' K / 3; o w M W ;? & 9 ^ ^ 1 CAPTAIN BLACKWOOD i6i ledgments. "Is there," he wrote, " a sympathy which ties men together in the bonds of friend- ship without having a personal knowledge of each other? If so (and I believe it was so to you), I was your friend and acquaintance before I saw you. Your conduct and character on the late glorious occasion stamps your fame beyond the reach of envy ; it was like yourself; it was like the Penelope. Thanks ; and say everything kind for me to your brave officers and men. ... I shall see you very soon, either here or at Malta ; but in every situation I am your sincere and attached friend. . . ." Blackwood, a younger brother of the second Lord ^^^-'^'^ '^*<'^ Dufferin, and grand- uncle of the present Marquis, was in after years more intimately associated with Nelson. At the peace he was made a baronet, later on a K.C.B., and died of scarlet fever, at the age of sixty-two, in 1832. The capture of the last of the "Egyptian fleet" seemed to Nelson a fitting occasion for him to ask permission to resign his command ; but, before he L i62 THE NELSON MEMORIAL received the letter, Lord Spencer had written, suggesting, in friendly terms, that it would be better he should do so if his health would not permit him to undertake active service. It was, he thought, unadvisable for him to remain inactive at Palermo. So it was agreed that Nelson should go home, and in company with the Hamiltons ; Sir William having, to his disgust, been superseded somewhat summarily, in consequence, there can be little doubt, of a feeling that, under the influ- ence of his wife, he had become very much a tool in the hands of the Queen. Nelson was very anxious that they should all go together in the Foudroyant, but to this Keith would not consent. His force had just been diminished by the loss of the Queen Charlotte, which had been accidentally burnt, and he felt that he could not further weaken it by sending away a fine 8o-gun ship. His refusal was no doubt strengthened by an objection to lend- ing even an appearance of official sanction to Lady Hamilton's presence ; and, though he was obliged to offer Nelson a frigate, he had probably ascertained that her Ladyship would scorn such a conveyance. So they determined to go home overland ; arid crossing over from Leghorn to Ancona, were landed at Trieste, whence they travelled by easy stages to Vienna, Prague, Dresden, and Hamburg — AT DRESDEN 163 Nelson everywhere f^ted as the victor of the Nile, the saviour of Europe, and Lady Hamilton flatter- ing herself that Nelson's glory was legitimately shared -by her. At Dresden they stopped with the English Minister, Hugh Elliot, a brother of Lord Minto's, where they met Mrs. St. George, a lively young widow — mother of Archbishop Trench by her second marriage— whose journal, privately printed by her son in 1861, gives a very curious and unflattering account of the party. Mrs. St. George wrote with much bitterness, but her state- ments of fact are fully corroborated by other and more partial testimony. Under date 8th October she says : — " Lady Hamilton is bold, forward, coarse, assum- ing, and vain. Her figure is colossal, but, except- ing her feet, which are hideous, well shaped. Her bones are large, and she is exceedingly embonpoint} She resembles the bust of Ariadne. The shape of all her features is fine, as is the form of her head and particularly her ears ; her teeth are a little irregular, but tolerably white ; her eyes light blue, with a brown spot in one, which, though a defect, takes nothing away from her beauty and expression ; her eyebrows and hair are dark, and her com- plexion coarse. Her expression is strongly marked, ' She was wilhin four months of her confinement. i64 THE NELSON MEMORIAL variable, and interesting ; her movements in com- mon life ungraceful ; her voice loud, yet not dis- agreeable. Lord Nelson is a little man, without any dignity. . . . Lady Hamilton takes possession of him, and he is a willing captive, the most sub- missive and devoted I have seen. After dinner we had several songs in honour of Lord Nelson, written by Miss Knight and sung by Lady Hamil- ton. She puffs the incense full in his face ; but he receives it with pleasure, and snuffs it up very cordially." Miss Knight, the daughter of Rear- Admiral Sir Joseph Knight, had been living at Naples with her mother, on whose death she took refuge with the Hamiltons, and was now one of their party. She had been in the habit of celebrating the glories of Nelson and the loves of "Henry "and "Delia" in the feeblest of verse. In her journal, she says that at Vienna they made the acquaintance of Haydn, who "set to music some English verses, and, amongst others, part of an ode which I had composed after the battle of the Nile, descriptive of the blowing up of the Orient : — " ' Britannia's leader gives the dread command — Obedient to his summons flames arise ; The fierce explosion rends the skies, And high in air the ponderous mass is thrown. MRS. ST. GEORGE 165 The dire concussion shakes the land — Earth, air, and sea, united, groan ; The solid Pyramids confess the shock. And their firm bases to their centre rock.' ' Haydn accompanied Lady Hamilton on the piano when she sang this piece, and the effect was grand." On 7th October, Mrs. St. George noted: " Break- fasted with Lady Hamilton, and saw her represent in succession the best statues and paintings extant." Her description of the attitudes closely resembles that of Goethe, written nearly fourteen years before. But, having exhausted her enthusiasm, she resumed the functions of censor. " It is remarkable," she says, " that, though coarse and ungraceful in common life, she becomes highly graceful and even beautiful during this performance. It is also singular that, In spite of her imitation of the finest ancient draperies, her usual dress is taste- less, vulgar, loaded, and unbecoming. She has borrowed several of my gowns, and much admires my dress, which cannot flatter, as her own is so frightful. Her waist is absolutely between her shoulders. After showing her attitudes, she sung and I accompanied. Her voice is good and very strong, but she is frequently out of tune ; her ex- pression strongly marked and various ; but she has i66 THE NELSON MEMORIAL no shake, no flexibility, and no sweetness. She acts her songs, which I think the last degree of bad taste. All imperfect imitations are disagree- able, and to represent passion with the eyes fixed on a book and the person confined to a spot must always be a poor piece of acting manquS. She continues her demonstrations of friendship, and said many fine things about my accompanying her at sight. Still she does not gain upon me. I think her bold, daring, vain even to folly, and stamped with the manners of her first situation much more strongly than one would suppose, after having re- presented Majesty and lived in good conipany fifteen years. Her ruling passions seem to me vanity, avarice, and love for the pleasures of the table. She shows a great avidity for presents, and has actually obtained some at Dresden by the common artifice of admiring and longing. Mr. Elliot says, ' She will captivate the Prince of Wales, whose mind is as vulgar as her own, and play a great part in England.' " It would appear, in fact, that she did make the attempt in the following January ; but a temporary indisposition prevented her success at the time, and Hamilton, warned by Nelson of the danger, gave her no further opportunities. At Hamburg, Nelson made the acquaintance of m 111 Rehberg. Art Reproduction Co. sc. LADY HAMILTON. (Attitude, No. 6.) GENERAL DUMOURIEZ 167 General Dumouriez, and, according to Miss Knight, the two took a great fancy to each other. " Du- mouriez at that time maintained himself by his writings, and Lord Nelson forced him to accept a hundred pounds, telling him that he had used his sword too well to live only by his pen." The result of their friendship was a remarkable corre- spondence during the following year, when Du- mouriez sent Nelson some suggestions as to the contemplated invasion of England by the Boulogne flotilla — a subject which, as a French soldier, he had studied for twenty years ; and offered to come over to London secretly, to discuss the plans with the Ministry ; "or else," he says, " I could be with you to second you, and, in rendering a service to your country and to my friend Nelson, I should be able to hasten the downfall of a Government which will overthrow all others if it continues." Nelson sent the note to Mr. Addington, then Prime Minister, and there, it would seem, the matter rested ; Nelson presumably not feeling in want of the offered assistance. From Hamburg, Nelson and his party crossed to Yarmouth, where they landed on 6th November 1 800, and the next day proceeded towards London, which they reached on the afternoon of the 8th, joining Nelson's father and wife at an hotel in St. i68 THE NELSON MEMORIAL James's Street. Lady Nelson's reception of her husband is said to have been markedly cold ; but it may have been only the embarrassment of meet- ing him before strangers ; for not only were the Hamiltons and Miss Knight of the party, but they were presently joined by the Duke of Queensberry — the "old Q" of scandal — the most disreputable old sinner that even the eighteenth century pro- duced, the former friend of Dashwood and Sandwich, whose vices, now that they were gone, he added to his own. It does not appear that Nelson had known him before, so that the visit must have been nomi- nally to Hamilton, and really to Emma, the fame of whose beauty and easy morals had been noised abroad through Europe. And with the Duke was his shadow, Lord William Gordon, the second son of the third Duke of Gordon, brother of the more notorious Lord George Gordon, and at this time about fifty-five ; a bon-^ivant, a wit, with a pleasant knack of turning society verses, and, in a word, the good qualities and the bad which might be expected in the friend and companion of "old Q." The acquaintance so begun between these two and Nelson led to a certain degree of intimacy, the connecting link of which, however, was unquestion- ably Emma, the licence of whose conversation endeared her to the old reprobate. STATEMENT OF WOUNDS tA^ V ^^^M ^1^^ ^