The Life of Nelson Volume II Part 10

From Madalena he extended his observations over the whole island of Sardinia, upon the holding of which he thenceforth laid the greatest stress, and entertained most anxious fears lest the French should s.n.a.t.c.h it out of his hands. "If we could possess Sardinia, we should want neither Malta nor any other. It is the most important island, as a naval and military station, in the Mediterranean. It possesses at the northern end the finest harbour in the world [Madalena]. It is twenty-four hours' sail from Toulon; it covers Italy; it is a position that the wind which carries the French to the westward is fair for you to follow. In pa.s.sing to the southward they go close to you. In short, it covers Egypt, Italy, and Turkey." He was anxious that the British Government should buy it. "If we, from delicacy, or commiseration of the unfortunate king of Sardinia, do not get possession of that island, the French will. If I lose Sardinia, I lose the French fleet."

His apprehensions were not verified; as also they were not during his command, either in the Morea, in Naples, or in Sicily. Napoleon took no active steps against Sardinia, although the proceedings there did not escape the sharp eyes of the French agents, but elicited from them vivacious remonstrances. "The government of the Republic," wrote one, "has a right to complain of this excessive complaisance. To give regular support to a squadron blockading a port, to revictual it, in one word, periodically, is to tread under foot the neutrality which is professed. I shall notify my government of a fact which demands all its attention, and in which it is painful to me to see a cause of misunderstanding between France and his Sardinian Majesty." It is singularly confirmatory of the reality of Bonaparte's intention to attempt the invasion of England, that he confined his efforts in the South--in the Mediterranean--to feints and demonstrations. What he did there looked to the future, not to the present; although, doubtless, he stood always so ready that no opportunity offering advantage would have pa.s.sed neglected. The active mind of Nelson, condemned to the uncertainties of the defensive and to military idleness, however it may have been burdened with administrative routine and official correspondence, found ample time to speculate on the designs of Bonaparte, and the latter took care that he should have matter enough to occupy him--and if possible mislead him--in rumor and in movements.

"At Ma.r.s.eilles they are fitting, as reports say, eighty or ninety gunboats, and intend sending them, by the ca.n.a.l of Languedoc to Bordeaux; but I am sure this is not true. They are to go alongsh.o.r.e to the Heel of Italy, and to embark and protect their army either to Sicily or the Morea, or to both; and the Navy of Europe can hardly prevent these alongsh.o.r.e voyages." In this will be noticed the recurrence of ideas familiar to him in the Riviera eight years before; the expectation of ex-centric operations into which Bonaparte was rarely betrayed.

Frequent stories also reach him of projects to invade and seize Sardinia. Vessels are fitting for that purpose, now at Ma.r.s.eilles, now at Villefranche; now the expedition is to come from Corsica only. "A light linen jacket, trowsers, red cap, and a pair of shoes, is the whole expense of Government; the plunder of the Sardinian Anglo-Sardes is held out as the reward." To prevent it he seeks the authority of his Government and of the King of Sardinia to garrison Madalena. The straits of Bonifacio are but ten miles wide; it is impossible therefore for a cruiser to prevent boats pa.s.sing. If the attempt is made, no scruples about the neutrality of Sardinia shall tie his hands. "I have directed the frigates to pursue them, even should they chase into Sardinia, and to take or destroy them, and also the Corsican troops; for if I wait till the island is taken I should feel deserving of reprobation. Of course, they will say we have broken the neutrality, if we attack them in the ports of Sardinia before their conquest, and if we do not I shall be laughed at for a fool.

_Prevention is better than cure_." With his usual long-headed circ.u.mspection, however, even when most bent on an extreme step, he warns the Prime Minister, to whom he is writing, to mention his purpose to the Russian amba.s.sador--that the latter may understand the apparent breach of neutrality; for Russia has const.i.tuted herself a champion of the Sardinian monarch. "I mention my intention that idle reports may not be attended to."

As the winter of 1803-4 approached, and it became evident that Spain was to persevere in her neutrality, Nelson removed his fleet to a rendezvous about thirty miles south of Cape San Sebastian, on the Spanish coast--the Number 97 continually mentioned in his official letters to captains. There the highlands of Spain afford some shelter from the furious northerly gales, which, sweeping over France from the Atlantic, are compressed as in a funnel between the Pyrenees and the Alps, to fall with redoubled violence on the Gulf of Lyons. Only the utmost care and the most skilful seamans.h.i.+p could preserve the rickety s.h.i.+ps, upon whose efficiency so much depended, and which, if damaged, there was none to replace. I "bear up for every gale," wrote Nelson.

"I must not in our present state quarrel with the northwesters--with crazy masts and no port or spars near us." Even in September, he writes, there are "three days' gale of severe blowing weather out of the seven, which frequently comes on suddenly, and thereby exposes the topmasts, topsail yards and sails, to great hazard, under every care and attention; and there are no topmasts or topsail yards in store, either at Gibraltar or Malta." "The French fleet keep us waiting; and such a place as all the Gulf of Lyons, for gales of wind from the N.W.

to N.E., I never saw; but by always going away large, we generally lose much of their force and the heavy sea. By the great care and attention of every captain, we have suffered much less than could have been expected. I do not believe Lord St. Vincent would have kept the sea with such s.h.i.+ps. However, with nursing our s.h.i.+ps, we have roughed it out better than could have been expected. We either run to the southward, or furl all the sails and make the s.h.i.+ps as easy as possible." Under such circ.u.mstances, it was no small nor unworthy boast he made near the close of the cruise, when the first ineffectual attempt of the French to leave Toulon ended in numerous accidents.

"These gentlemen are not accustomed to a Gulf of Lyons gale, which we have buffeted for twenty-one months, and not carried away a spar."

Nelson himself, though reckless to desperation when an adequate object was at stake, in the moments of repose husbanded his means, and looked to the efficiency of his instruments, with the diligence of a miser.

With his own hand he noted the weather indications, including the barometer, at least three times every twenty-four hours, and occasionally even more often.

A rendezvous, however advantageous, was not permitted by Nelson to become a permanent station, or a long-continued resting-place for the fleet. In the inevitable monotony of a watch protracted so far beyond his original expectations, his sleepless solicitude for the health and contentment of the s.h.i.+ps' companies warned him that lack of mental interest saps the spirit, and wears away the strength, beyond the power of mere bodily comfort to prevent. On Number 97 was kept always a s.h.i.+p--frigate or smaller cruiser--with word where the admiral was to be found at any time; and thither resorted the vessels returning from their missions to all parts of the station, or coming out from England. "Rejoin me at Number 97," their instructions ran, "where you will find me, or orders for your further proceedings." Other rendezvous there were, of course, each with its own number, and with a cruiser if at sea; but in the anchorages occasionally resorted to, as Madalena, or the Gulf of Palmas in the south of Sardinia, communications were left on sh.o.r.e. With the threads thus reaching from these centres to the different parts of his command, Nelson's habit was to keep his fleet in motion from point to point, in the stretch of sea bounded on the one side by the coast of Spain, as far south as the Balearics, and on the east by the islands of Sardinia and Corsica.

Through this hunting-ground, from end to end of which he roamed in unceasing restlessness, like a lion roaring for his prey, the Toulon fleet must pa.s.s, wherever bound; and by the judicious distribution of the cruisers--all too few--allowed him by St. Vincent's economies, he hoped to get timely and sufficient information of its leaving port.

"The great thing in all military service is health," he wrote to his old friend, Dr. Moseley, who had been with him in the far-back Central American expedition in 1780; "and you will agree with me, that it is easier for an officer to keep men healthy, than for a physician to cure them. Situated as this fleet has been, without a friendly port, where we could get all the things so necessary for us, yet I have, by changing the cruizing ground, not allowed the sameness of prospect to satiate the mind--sometimes by looking at Toulon, Ville Franche, Barcelona, and Rosas; then running round Minorca, Majorca; Sardinia and Corsica; and two or three times anchoring for a few days, and sending a s.h.i.+p to the last place for _onions_, which I find the best thing that can be given to seamen; having always good mutton for the sick, cattle when we can get them, and plenty of fresh water. In the winter it is the best plan to give half the allowance of grog, instead of all wine. These things are for the commander-in-chief to look to; but shut very nearly out from Spain, and only getting refreshments by stealth from other places, my command has been an arduous one." "Our men's minds," he added, "are always kept up with the daily hopes of meeting the enemy." An order indicating one of the squadron movements, of which he here speaks, may be worth quoting. "Whereas it is my intention," he writes at Number 97 to the captain there stationed, "to proceed with the squadron, the first westerly wind, off Toulon, for the purpose of reconnoitring the enemy at that port, and from thence pa.s.s through Rendezvous No. 102, to secure any information the s.h.i.+ps there may have obtained of them, you are hereby required and directed to keep on your station and inform any of his Majesty's s.h.i.+ps arriving on said rendezvous," etc.

The health of the crews, thus carefully watched, remained excellent throughout, and is mentioned by him continually with evident pride as well as satisfaction. Occasional slight outbursts of scurvy are noted, despite his efforts for fresh food, and he mentions hectic complaints--"of the few men we have lost, nine in ten are dead of consumption "--but upon the whole, the general condition is unparalleled in his experience. "We are healthy beyond example, and in great good humour with ourselves," he writes in October, 1803, "and so sharp-set, that I would not be a French Admiral in the way of any of our s.h.i.+ps for something." It would be tedious to quote the numerous a.s.sertions to the same effect scattered up and down his correspondence at this time; but in December, 1804, when near the end of this long period of suspense, and after eighteen months at sea, he writes to the Admiralty: "The Fleet is in perfect good health and good humour, unequalled by anything which has ever come within my knowledge, and equal to the most active service which the times may call for." Dr.

Gillespie, who joined the "Victory" as physician to the fleet in January, 1805, wrote immediately afterwards that out of her eight hundred and forty men, but one was confined to his bed by sickness, and that the other s.h.i.+ps, though upwards of twenty months off Toulon, were in a like condition of health.

The same could not then, nor for long before, be said of Nelson himself. The first flush of excitement in leaving England and taking command, the expectation and change of scene in going out, affected him favorably. "As to my health," he says, immediately after joining the fleet, "thank G.o.d, I have not had a finger ache since I left England;" but this, unfortunately, did not endure. It was his first experience of the weightier anxieties of a commander-in-chief; for when he had succeeded to that position, temporarily, in the Mediterranean and the Baltic, he had found either a squadron in good running order, or at the least no serious. .h.i.tch about necessary maintenance. Now all this was different. The difficulties about supplies and the condition of his s.h.i.+ps have been mentioned, as have also his fears for Naples, Sicily, and the Morea,--all of which, in his belief, might possibly be conquered, even without the interposition of the Toulon fleet. The latter, however, kept him most uneasy; for he could get no certain knowledge as to its destination, or the probable time of its moving; and the wide field for injury open to it, if his vigilance were eluded, kept his eager, unquiet mind continually on the strain of speculation and antic.i.p.ation. "I hope they will come out and let us settle the matter. You know I hate being kept in suspense." The nervous excitability--irritability--that often overlay the usually cordial kindliness and gracious bearing of the man, was an easy prey to such hara.s.sment. It breaks out at times in his letters, but was only occasionally visible to those around him. By the first of December he already foresees that he cannot last long.

"Next Christmas, please G.o.d, I shall be at Merton; for, by that time, with all the anxiety attendant on such a command as this, I shall be done up. The mind and body both wear out."

As autumn drew towards winter, the bitter cold went through his feeble frame, and in the wild weather he was "always tossed about, and always sea-sick." "We have had a most terrible winter," he writes, even before the New Year. "It has almost knocked me up. I have been very ill, and am now far from recovered; but I hope to hold out till the battle is over, when I must recruit." "My heart, my Lord, is warm," he tells Lord Hobart, the Secretary of State for War, "my head is firm, but my body is unequal to my wishes. I am visibly shook; but as long as I can hold out, I shall never abandon my truly honourable post." He feared also blindness. "My eyesight fails me most dreadfully," he writes to his old friend Davison. "I firmly believe that, in a very few years, I shall be stone-blind. It is this only, of all my maladies, that makes me unhappy; but G.o.d's will be done." The first winter was unusually severe, and during it was added, to his official cares and personal suffering, an extreme anxiety about Lady Hamilton, for he was expecting the birth of a second child in January. This child, a girl, lived but a short time; he never saw her. The effect of these various causes upon his health was so great, that the physicians, as early as January, 1804, were advising his return. "The medical gentlemen are wanting to survey me, and to send me to Bristol for the re-establishment of my health," he tells Minto; but he adds, "do not mention it (it is my concern) I beg of you." Reports were then unusually persistent that the enemy was about to put to sea. "_I_ must not be sick until after the French fleet is taken."

To the last moment the destination of the French and the purposes of Bonaparte remained unknown to him, a fruitful source of guessing and worry. "It is at best but a guess," he wrote to Ball, after a year's pondering, "and the world attaches wisdom to him that guesses right."

Yet his conclusions, however reached, though subject to temporary variations, were in the main correct. Strongly impressed though he was with the importance and exposure of Egypt, he inclined upon the whole to the belief that the French were bound to the westward, out of the Straits and into the Atlantic. This confirmed him in taking his general summer rendezvous to the westward, where he was to windward of such a movement, as well as interposed between Toulon and any Spanish fleet attempting to go there. "My station to the westward of Toulon, an unusual one," he writes to Addington in August, 1803, "has been taken upon an idea that the French fleet is bound out of the Straits and probably to Ireland. I shall follow them to the Antipodes." Two months later he says: "Plausible reasons may certainly be given for every one of the plans" suggested by his various correspondents; but he thinks that either Alexandria or outside the Mediterranean is the most probable. "To those two points my whole attention is turned."

"Their destination, is it Ireland or the Levant? That is what I want to know;" but in December he still holds to his first impression: "My opinion is, certainly, out of the Mediterranean."

In this perplexity Elliot suggested to him to receive on board the fleet some good Frenchmen, who could land from time to time and get information in Toulon,--a proposition which drew from Nelson a characteristic and amusing explosion. "Mr. Elliot wanted to send me some _good_ Frenchmen, to go ash.o.r.e and get me information. My answer to all these offers is 'No.' I can be told nothing of any consequence to me; but a copy of the French admiral's orders, when he is to put to sea, and where he is destined to, is the only useful information I can care about. I can see the number and force at Toulon any day I please, and as for the names of the Captains or Admirals I care not what they are called; therefore, as you may suppose, I have none of these 'good Frenchmen' about me." "I put no confidence in them," he tells Elliot.

"You think yours good: the Queen thinks hers the same: I believe they are all alike. Whatever information you can get me, I shall be very thankful for; but not a Frenchman comes here. Forgive me, but my mother hated the French." "I never trust a Corsican or a Frenchman. I would give the devil ALL the good ones to take the remainder."

As winter advanced, his perplexities increased, for each correspondent, by long dwelling on his particular concern, saw its danger and importance growing in his own eyes, and dwelt upon them with greater emphasis in his letters. "Ball is sure they are going to Egypt; the Turks are sure they are going to the Morea; Mr. Elliot at Naples, to Sicily; and the King of Sardinia, to his only spot. Every power thinks they are destined against them; but whatever the French may intend to do," he concludes, with a quaint humor occasional with him, "I trust, and with confidence, they are destined for _Spithead_."

He recognized, too, that Bonaparte himself was not wholly master of his own projects when contending with such uncertain elements; and the great master of War, in this instance as in many others, had placed his force so centrally, in the heel of Italy, that he threatened with equal facility in two opposite directions, to his own advantage and his enemies' perplexity. "Circ.u.mstances may even make it necessary to alter its destination by Buonaparte; Egypt or Ireland, and I rather lean to the latter destination." Anything, indeed, is possible; for, as winter approaches, "we can be sure of nothing in so short a run,"--as to Sardinia or Sicily.

For a little while during February, 1804, he was further stirred up by reports that the French were about to concentrate their naval forces, from Brest and Ferrol, in the Mediterranean; and this he was inclined to believe, unfavorable as the season would be for maritime operations in that stormy sea, with the inexperienced crews of the enemy. In the summer his conviction of the importance of the Mediterranean had fully prepared him for such an attempt. "Naples, the Morea, and ultimately Egypt, are in Buonaparte's view," he had then written. "With this idea, I fully expect that the French fleet from Brest will a.s.suredly come into the Mediterranean, to protect this army across the water. I shall try and fight one party or the other, before they form a junction." "Much may be done before British reinforcements arrive," he reminded St. Vincent. "Your Lords.h.i.+p knows what Admiral Bruix might have done, had he done his duty, and they may buy their experience."

Now he says to Ball, "The Admiralty tells me nothing, they know nothing; but my private letters say, that the Brest squadron, as well as Ferrol,[62] is bound here--if so, we shall have work enough upon our hands." Thirty thousand troops, also, were ready to embark in Ma.r.s.eilles and Nice. The conclusion, in view of so great a force a.s.sembling, was natural: "Egypt, I have no doubt is the favourite and ultimate object of the Corsican tyrant." Nelson's spirit rises with the occasion. "I shall try to intercept them, but I cannot go so far to the westward as is necessary; for I will not lose sight of the Toulon fleet. What a most zealous man can do to meet all points of difficulty, shall be done. My squadron is the finest for its numbers in the world, and much may be expected of it. Should superior numbers join, we must look it in the face. _Nil desperandum!_ G.o.d is good, and our cause is just."

This alarm pa.s.sed away like others. Bonaparte had no idea of pus.h.i.+ng s.h.i.+ps into the Mediterranean, or embarking his naval forces on any doubtful experiments, until he had first tested the possibility of that supreme adventure, the invasion of England. When that mighty imagination pa.s.sed away like a dream that leaves no trace, he ordered his fleets into the Mediterranean, as Nelson had expected, and the result was Trafalgar.

As the spring of 1804 opened, the French admiral at Toulon began to exercise his s.h.i.+ps outside the harbor, singly or in small groups, like half-fledged birds learning to fly; or, to use Nelson's expression, "My friend Monsieur La Touche sometimes plays bo-peep in and out of Toulon, like a mouse at the edge of her hole." The only drill-ground for fleets, the open sea, being closed to him, he could do no better than these furtive excursions, to prepare for the eagle's flight Napoleon had prescribed to him. "Last week, at different times, two sail of the line put their heads out of Toulon, and on Thursday, the 5th [April], in the afternoon, they all came out." "Yesterday [the 9th] a rear-admiral and seven sail, including frigates, put their nose outside the harbour. If they go on playing this game, some day we shall lay salt upon their tails, and so end the campaign."

These outings--"capers," Nelson called them--naturally became more venturesome by little and little, as the British suffered them to proceed without serious attempt at molestation, or near approach on their part. Nelson veiled the keenness of his watch, as he crouched for a spring, with a drowsy appearance of caution and indifference.

The French admiral, Latouche Treville, was he who had commanded at Boulogne when Nelson's boats were repelled with slaughter; and it was also he who in 1792 had sent a grenadier to the King of Naples, with a peremptory summons to diplomatic apology in one hand, and a threat of bombardment in the other. For both these affairs Nelson considered he had a personal score to settle. "I rather believe my antagonist at Toulon begins to be angry with me: at least, I am trying to make him so; and then, he may come out, and beat me, as he says he did off Boulogne. He is the Admiral that went to Naples in December, 1792, who landed the grenadier. I owe him something for that."

The French having eight sail-of-the-line certainly ready for sea, and two or three more nearly so--how nearly Nelson was not sure--he now endeavored to lure them out. "I have taken a method of making Mr. La Touche Treville angry. I have left Sir Richard Bickerton, with part of the fleet, twenty leagues from hence, and, with five of the line, am preventing his cutting capers, which he has done for some time past, off Cape Sicie." "He seems inclined to try his hand with us," he writes a week later, "and by my keeping so great an inferiority close to him, perhaps he may some day be tempted." Nelson had near Toulon at the time nine s.h.i.+ps-of-the-line. Had he succeeded in bringing Latouche Treville to attack his five, he would have hoped, even with such odds, for a decisive victory; but, failing that, he was a.s.sured that the Toulon fleet would be out of the game for that summer. It was important to bring matters to an issue, for, as he wrote Elliot, his force was diminis.h.i.+ng daily through the deterioration of s.h.i.+ps never from the first fit for their work. Measured by the standard of the s.h.i.+ps in the Channel, "I have but four sail fit to keep the sea. I absolutely keep them out by management." Except the four, all needed docking, and there was not a dock open to the British west of Constantinople.

But, while thus keenly anxious to force an action, he was wary to obtain tactical conditions that should insure a success, adequate both to the risk he ran, and to the object at which he aimed. "I think their fleet will be ordered out to fight close to Toulon, that they may get their crippled s.h.i.+ps in again, and that we must then quit the coast to repair our damages, and thus leave the coast clear; but my mind is fixed not to fight them, unless with a westerly wind, outside the Hieres, and with an easterly wind, to the westward of Sicie."

Crippled there, to leeward of their port, the other British division coming up fresh, as a reserve, from the southward, where it lay concealed, would both cut them off, and rescue any of their own fleet that might have been overpowered. Bickerton's orders were to remain due south from Port Cros, one of the Hyeres, at a distance such that, with the upper canvas furled, his s.h.i.+ps could not be seen from the islands, but could keep the main division in sight from their mastheads. In all cases of antic.i.p.ated battle, Nelson not only took his measures thus thoughtfully, but was careful to put his subordinates in possession both of his general plans, and, as far as possible, of the underlying ideas. Thus, in a memorandum issued about this time to the captains, he says: "As it is my determination to attack the French fleet in any place where there is a reasonable prospect of getting fairly alongside of them, I recommend that every captain will make himself, by inquiries, as fully acquainted as possible with the following places, viz., Hieres Bay, [with its three entrances], Gourjean Bay, (of which I send a chart from the latest surveys made,) Port Especia, and, in particular the northern Pa.s.sage into Leghorn Roads, from which side it is only, in my opinion, possible to attack an enemy's fleet to advantage; and with the Gulf of Ajaccio." To these instructions he adds some details of practical preparation for anchoring under fire, and the reasons therefor. In the same spirit, when expecting the Brest fleet in the Mediterranean, he says: "I am perfectly prepared how to act with either a superior or an inferior force. My mind is firm as a rock, and my plans for every event fixed in my mind." No man ever was served better than Nelson by the inspiration of the moment; no man ever counted on it less.

In communicating his ideas to his subordinates Nelson did not confine himself to official intercourse; on the contrary, his natural disposition impelled him rather to familiar conversation with them on service subjects. "Even for debating the most important naval business," we learn through his confidential secretary at this period, "he preferred a turn on the quarter-deck with his captains, whom he led by his own frankness to express themselves freely, to all the stiffness and formality of a council of war."[63] An interesting instance of these occasional counsels has been transmitted to us by one of his captains, then little more than a youth, but the last to survive of those who commanded s.h.i.+ps under him. "Throughout the month of October, 1804, Toulon was frequently reconnoitred, and the Phoebe and Amazon were ordered to cruize together. Previous to their going away Lord Nelson gave to Captains Capel and Parker several injunctions, in case they should get an opportunity of attacking two of the French frigates, which now got under weigh more frequently. The princ.i.p.al one was, that they should not each single out and attack an opponent, but 'that both should endeavour together to take _one frigate_; if successful, chase the other: but if you do not take the second, still you have won a victory, and your country will gain a frigate.' Then, half laughing, and half snappishly, said kindly to them as he wished them good-bye, 'I daresay you consider yourselves a couple of fine fellows, and when you get away from me you will do nothing of the sort, but think yourselves wiser than I am!'"[64]

The game of cat and mouse, off Toulon, occasioned one incident which greatly upset Nelson's composure, and led to a somewhat amusing display of ire, excited by a statement of the French admiral, published throughout Europe, that his renowned antagonist had run away from him. On the 13th of June, two French frigates and a brig were seen under the Hyeres Islands, where they had been sent by Latouche Treville, upon the report that some enemy's cruisers were in the neighborhood. Nelson despatched two frigates after them, which, owing to light winds, did not get near until the next day. The French vessels being then seen from the "Victory" to be close in with the batteries, the "Excellent," 74, was sent to support the frigates, and some time afterwards the other four s.h.i.+ps also bore up for the main entrance to the islands. Upon this, Latouche Treville got under way, and at about 5 P.M. came out of the harbor with his eight sail-of-the-line. Nelson's division reduced their canvas, hauling to the wind in line of battle, on the starboard tack, which, with the then wind, was with their heads off sh.o.r.e, and the "Excellent" was recalled, although she could not rejoin till midnight. In this order they hove-to (stopped), with two reefs in the topsails and the main yards square, at 7.30 P.M., which at that time of the year was broad daylight, and in this general position remained till next morning.

As the distance between the hostile bodies was apparently from twelve to fifteen miles, the French admiral's observations may have failed to recognize that the enemy, by backing his topsails, had offered a fair challenge; else, in his report of this very commonplace occurrence, he could scarcely have used, concerning the movement of heading south, the expression, _prit cha.s.se_, which, whether rendered "retired," or "retreated," or, as Nelson did, "ran away," was a misrepresentation of the facts, and heightened by the a.s.sertion that he pursued till nightfall, and next morning could not see the enemy. Writing to Elliot four days after the affair happened, Nelson mentioned casually his view of the matter. "Monsieur La Touche came out with eight sail of the line and six frigates, cut a caper off Sepet, and went in again. I brought-to for his attack, although I did not believe anything was meant serious, but merely a gasconade." "On the morning of the 15th,"

he tells Acton on the same day, "I believe I may call it, we chased him into Toulon." His purpose evidently was, as has been shown, to fight, if the enemy meant business, to leeward of the port, and far enough off to give Bickerton a chance to come up. Great was his wrath, two months later, when Latouche's statement reached him, and he found that not only no mention was made of the relative numbers, but that the offensive expression quoted had been used. "I do a.s.sure you," he wrote to the Admiralty, enclosing a copy of the day's log, "I know not what to say, except by a flat contradiction; for if my character is not established by this time for not being apt to run away, it is not worth my time to attempt to put the world right." He might well have rested there,--an imputation that might have injured an untried man could provoke only a smile when levelled at his impregnable renown; but his ruffled mind would not let him keep quiet, and in private correspondence he vented his rage in terms similar to those used of the Danish commodore after Copenhagen. "You will have seen Monsieur La Touche's letter of how he chased me and how I _ran_. I keep it; and, by G--d, if I take him, he shall _eat_ it." He is a "poltroon," a "liar," and a "miscreant." It may be added that no admiral, whether a Nelson or not, could have abandoned the "Excellent" under the conditions.

Immediately after this abortive affair, Nelson, convinced by it that something more than a taunt was needed to bring his enemy under his guns, stationed frigates at the Hyeres, and to cruise thence to the eastward as far as Cape Taillat, to intercept the commerce between Italy and Toulon and Ma.r.s.eilles. For this purpose he had recommended, and the Government had ordered, a blockade of all Genoese ports including Spezia; Genoa, now the Ligurian Republic, being considered as much France as Toulon. Nothing, he said, could distress France more. This blockade had been but feebly enforced, owing to the lack of small cruisers; but he hoped to attain the same end by the frigates off the Hyeres. "I really am of opinion," he told their commander, "that it will force La Touche out." In the latter, however, he had to do with an opponent of skill as well as of resolution. Firmly imbued with the French tradition, and with Bonaparte's instructions, which subordinated his local action entirely to the great scheme in which the Toulon fleet had its appointed part, Latouche Treville was neither to be provoked nor betrayed into an action, by which, however tempting the promise, his fleet might be made unfit for their intended service.

Nelson did him no more than justice, when he said, "I am confident, when he is ordered for any service, that he will risk falling in with us, and the event of a battle, to try and accomplish his orders;" but, short of the appointed time, nothing else could entice him. In vain did the British admiral bait his trap by exposing frigates, without visible support, to draw him to leeward, while the hostile fleet hovered out of sight to windward. The shrewd Frenchman doubtless felt the temptation, but he distrusted the gifts too plausibly tendered.

Besides the interest of the public service, Nelson had the strongest personal motives for bringing matters to an issue. The prolonged suspense and the anxiety were exhausting him, the steady tension even of the normal conditions fretted him beyond endurance; but when a crisis became accentuated by an appearance that the enemy had eluded him, his feelings of distress, acting upon an enfeebled organization, and a nervous temperament so sensitive that he started at the mere dropping of a rope beside him, drove him almost to distraction. On such an occasion he wrote: "I am absolutely beginning this letter in a fever of the mind. It is thick as b.u.t.ter-milk, and blowing a Levanter; and the Narcissus has just spoke me to say, 'she boarded a vessel, and they understood that the men had seen, a few days before, twelve sail of s.h.i.+ps of war off Minorca. It was in the dusk, and he did not know which way they were steering.' This is the whole story, and a lame one. You will imagine my feelings, although I cannot bring my mind to believe. To miss them, G.o.d forbid.... If I should miss these fellows, my heart will break: I am actually only now recovering the shock of missing them in 1798. G.o.d knows I only serve to fight those scoundrels; and if I cannot do that, I should be better on sh.o.r.e."

When the weather cleared, and a reconnoissance showed the news was false, his intense relief found expression in the words: "I believe this is the only time in my life, that I was glad to hear the French were in port." "The French s.h.i.+ps," he says at another time, "have either altered their anchorage, or some of them have got to sea in the late gales: the idea has given me half a fever. If that admiral were to cheat me out of my hopes of meeting him, it would kill me much easier than one of his b.a.l.l.s. Since we sat down to dinner Captain Moubray has made the signal, but I am very far from being easy."

On the 12th of May, 1804, there was a change of administration in England. Earl St. Vincent left the Admiralty, as First Lord, and was succeeded by Lord Melville. A few days before this Nelson, by a general promotion, had become Vice-Admiral of the White, the rank in which he died eighteen months later.

The return of summer had improved his health from the low condition into which it had fallen during the winter, but he did not flatter himself as to the future. The combination of colorless monotony with constant racking anxiety slackened the springs of moral energy, which, and which alone, responding joyously to a call to action, afforded the stimulus capable of triumphing over his bodily weakness, and causing it for the moment to disappear. "This is an odd war," he said, "not a battle!" Tying himself to the s.h.i.+p, in profound sympathy with the crews, he never went ash.o.r.e from the time he left Malta in June, 1803, until he reached Gibraltar in July, 1805; nor was he ever outside of the "Victory" from July 30, 1803, the day he went on board her from the "Amphion." "Always shut up in the Victory's cabin," as he himself wrote, "cannot be very good for the const.i.tution. I think you will find me grown thin, but never mind." Other officers, especially of the frigates, got their occasional runs ash.o.r.e; but his slight figure was continually in view, walking the front of the p.o.o.p, to the unconscious contentment of the men, thus reminded ever that their admiral shared their deprivations. This profound seclusion to the narrow circle of the flags.h.i.+p, although often broken by the presence of officers from the other vessels, who, whether cruising in company with the fleet, or arriving with tidings from different ports, were daily partakers of the admiral's hospitable table, could not but depress him; and there was with him the constant sense of loss, by absence from those he held most dear. "I have not a thought except on you and the French fleet,"

he tells Lady Hamilton; "all my thoughts, plans, and toils tend to those two objects. Don't laugh at my putting you and the French fleet together, but you cannot be separated."

Yet even towards her his mind is fixed as of old, that she must take a place second to duty. She had, it appears, insisted upon her wish to come out to the station to be near him. Malta and Italy were both, he said, out of the question. His place was off Toulon, as long as the French fleet was there; therefore he could not go into harbor; nay, "I might absolutely miss you, by leaving the Mediterranean without warning. The other day we had a report the French were out, and seen steering to the westward. We were as far as Minorca when the alarm proved false." As for coming on board the "Victory" to live, which she seems to have suggested, "Imagine what a cruize off Toulon is; even in summer time we have a hard gale every week, and two days'

heavy swell. It would kill you; and myself to see you. Much less possible to have Charlotte, Horatia, &c., on board s.h.i.+p! And I, that have given orders to carry no women to sea in the Victory, to be the first to break them! I know, my own dear Emma, if she will let her reason have fair play, will say I am right; but she is like Horatia, very angry if she cannot have her own way." "Horatia is like her mother; will have her own way, or kick up a devil of a dust,"--an observation both Greville and Hamilton had had to make. "Your Nelson,"

he concludes, "is called upon, in the most honourable manner, to defend his country. Absence to us is equally painful: but, if I had either stayed at home, or neglected my duty abroad, would not my Emma have blushed for me? She could never have heard my praises, and how the country looks up." "The call of our country," he says again, "makes it indispensable for both our honours--the country looks up to the services of the poorest individual, much more to me, and are you not a sharer of my glory?"

Of his daily life on board, and intercourse with others, we have intimations, fragmentary yet sufficient. "Our days," he himself says, "pa.s.s so much alike that, having described one, you have them all. We now [October] breakfast by candle light; and all retire, at eight o'clock, to bed." "We cruise, cruise, and one day so like another that they are hardly distinguishable, but _hopes_, blessed _hopes_, keeps us up, that some happy day the French may come out, then I shall consider my duty to my country fulfilled." Of one of these monotonous days we have received a description from an officer,[65] a member of the admiral's mess, who had then too lately entered upon them to feel the full weight of their deadly sameness.

"At 6 o'clock my servant brings a light and informs me of the hour, wind, weather, and course of the s.h.i.+p, when I immediately dress and generally repair to the deck, the dawn of day at this season and lat.i.tude being apparent at about half or three-quarters of an hour past six. Breakfast is announced in the Admiral's cabin, where Lord Nelson, Rear Admiral Murray, (the Captain of the Fleet,) Captain Hardy, commander of the Victory, the chaplain, secretary, one or two officers of the s.h.i.+p, and your humble servant a.s.semble and breakfast on tea, hot rolls, toast, cold tongue, &c, which when finished we repair upon deck to enjoy the majestic sight of the rising sun (scarcely ever obscured by clouds in this fine climate) surmounting the smooth and placid waves of the Mediterranean, which supports the lofty and tremendous bulwarks of Britain, following in regular train their admiral in the Victory. Between the hours of 7 and 2 there is plenty of time for business, study, writing, and exercise, which different occupations I endeavour to vary in such a manner as to afford me sufficient employment. At 2 o'clock a band of music plays till within a quarter of 3, when the drum beats the tune called, 'The Roast Beef of Old England' to announce the Admiral's dinner, which is served up exactly at 3 o'clock, and which generally consists of three courses and a dessert of the choicest fruit [a fact which bespeaks the frequency of communications with the land], together with three or four of the best wines, champagne and claret not excepted. If a person does not feel himself perfectly at his ease it must be his own fault, such is the urbanity and hospitality which reign here, notwithstanding the numerous t.i.tles, the four orders of Knighthood, worn by Lord Nelson,[66] and the well earned laurels which he has acquired. Coffee and liqueurs close the dinner about half-past 4 or 5 o'clock, after which the company generally walk the deck, where the band of music plays for nearly an hour.[67] A 6 o'clock tea is announced, when the company again a.s.semble in the Admiral's cabin, where tea is served up before 7 o'clock, and, as we are inclined, the party continue to converse with his lords.h.i.+p, who at this time generally unbends himself, though he is at all times as free from stiffness and pomp as a regard to proper dignity will admit, and is very communicative. At 8 o'clock a rummer of punch with cake or biscuit is served up, soon after which we wish the Admiral a good night (who is generally in bed before 9 o'clock). Such is the journal of a day at sea in fine or at least moderate weather, in which this floating castle goes through the water with the greatest imaginable steadiness."

Another medical officer, who served on board the "Victory" soon after the writer of the lines just quoted, has transmitted some other interesting particulars of Nelson's personal habits and health, which relate to the general period now under narration.

"An opinion has been very generally entertained, that Lord Nelson's state of health, and supposed infirmities arising from his former wounds and hard services, precluded the probability of his long surviving the battle of Trafalgar, had he fortunately escaped the Enemy's shot: but the writer of this can a.s.sert that his Lords.h.i.+p's health was uniformly good, with the exception of some slight attacks of indisposition arising from accidental causes; and which never continued above two or three days, nor confined him in any degree with respect to either exercise or regimen: and during the last twelve months of his life, he complained only three times in this way. It is true, that his Lords.h.i.+p, about the meridian of life, had been subject to frequent fits of the gout; which disease, however, as well as his const.i.tutional tendency to it, he totally overcame by abstaining for the s.p.a.ce of nearly two years from animal food, and wine, and all other fermented drink; confining his diet to vegetables, and commonly milk and water. And it is also a fact, that early in life, when he first went to sea, he left off the use of salt, which he then believed to be the sole cause of scurvy, and never took it afterwards with his food.

"His Lords.h.i.+p used a great deal of exercise, generally walking on deck six or seven hours in the day. He always rose early, for the most part shortly after daybreak. He breakfasted in summer about six, and at seven in winter: and if not occupied in reading or writing despatches, or examining into the details of the Fleet, he walked on the quarter-deck the greater part of the forenoon; going down to his cabin occasionally to commit to paper such incidents or reflections as occurred to him during that time, and as might be hereafter useful to the service of his country. He dined generally about half-past two o'clock. At his table there were seldom less than eight or nine persons, consisting of the different Officers of the s.h.i.+p: and when the weather and the service permitted, he very often had several of the Admirals and Captains in the Fleet to dine with him; who were mostly invited by signal, the rotation of seniority being commonly observed by his Lords.h.i.+p in these invitations. At dinner he was alike affable and attentive to every one: he ate very sparingly himself; the liver and wing of a fowl, and a small plate of macaroni, in general composing his meal, during which he occasionally took a gla.s.s of champagne. He never exceeded four gla.s.ses of wine after dinner, and seldom drank three; and even those were diluted with either Bristol or common water.

"Few men subject to the vicissitudes of a Naval life, equalled his Lords.h.i.+p in an habitual systematic mode of living. He possessed such a wonderful activity of mind, as even prevented him from taking ordinary repose, seldom enjoying two hours of uninterrupted sleep; and on several occasions he did not quit the deck during the whole night. At these times he took no pains to protect himself from the effects of wet, or the night air; wearing only a thin great coat: and he has frequently, after having his clothes wet through with rain, refused to have them changed, saying that the leather waistcoat which he wore over his flannel one would secure him from complaint. He seldom wore boots, and was consequently very liable to have his feet wet. When this occurred he has often been known to go down to his cabin, throw off his shoes, and walk on the carpet in his stockings for the purpose of drying the feet of them. He chose rather to adopt this uncomfortable expedient, than to give his servants the trouble of a.s.sisting him to put on fresh stockings; which, from his having only one hand, he could not himself conveniently effect.

"From these circ.u.mstances it may be inferred, that though Lord Nelson's const.i.tution was not of that kind which is generally denominated strong, yet it was not very susceptible of complaint from the common occasional causes of disease necessarily attending a Naval life. The only bodily pain which his Lords.h.i.+p felt in consequence of his many wounds, was a slight rheumatic affection of the stump of his amputated arm on any sudden variation in the state of the weather; which is generally experienced by those who have the misfortune to lose a limb after the middle age. His Lords.h.i.+p usually predicted an alteration in the weather with as much certainty from feeling transient pains in his stump, as he could by his marine barometer; from the indications of which latter he kept a diary of the atmospheric changes, which was written with his own hand.

"His Lords.h.i.+p had lost his right eye by a contusion which he received at the siege of Calvi, in the island of Corsica. The vision of the other was likewise considerably impaired: he always therefore wore a green shade over his forehead, to defend this eye from the effect of strong light; but as he was in the habit of looking much through a gla.s.s while on deck, there is little doubt that had he lived a few years longer, and continued at sea, he would have lost his sight totally."[68]

The business hours of the day from seven to two were spent by Nelson largely with his secretaries. We know from Colonel Stewart that in the Baltic, where his command was more numerous than in the Mediterranean, his habit was to get through the ordinary business of the squadron before eight o'clock; for the rest, the greater part of the detail work would fall upon the Captain of the Fleet, then Rear-Admiral George Murray, who would require only general instructions and little interference for carrying on the laborious internal administration of the fleet. The admiral's energies were sufficiently taxed in considering and meeting, so far as his resources would permit, the numerous and complicated demands for external services in the different quarters of his wide command--the ingenious effort to induce two and two to make five, in which so much of the puzzle of life consists. His position necessarily involved extensive diplomatic relations. Each British Minister around the sh.o.r.es of the Mediterranean had his own particular care; the British admiral was in confidential communication with all, and in every movement had to consider the consequences, both of what he did and of what he left undone. It was a day when force ruled, and all the nations of Europe, whether they wished or not, had to put their chief trust in the sword, and in those who bore it. Not the least of Nelson's qualifications for his post was that he possessed intimate knowledge and experience of political conditions in the Mediterranean, knew the peoples and the rulers well, and to great sagacity and sound judgment added a temper at once firm and conciliatory. "He had in a great degree," said a contemporary who knew him well,[69] "the valuable but rare quality of conciliating the most opposite tempers, and forwarding the public service with unanimity amongst men not of themselves disposed to accord;" and although the remark referred primarily to his conduct in the naval service, it will readily be seen that this apt.i.tude is nowhere more useful than in the tangled maze of conflicting national interests. "My line of conduct," he wrote to Hobart, a year after taking his command, "in obedience to the spirit of his Majesty's instructions communicated through your Lords.h.i.+p, has been simply this,--to conciliate all, to protect all from French rapacity. I have been honoured with your letter of January 7th, and it has given me most sincere pleasure that my whole conduct in my command here has been such as to meet his Majesty's approbation." The new Ministry, upon a.s.suming office, requested him in the most flattering terms to continue his direct correspondence on political subjects with them, as with their predecessors.

Yet, while conciliatory, he could at times be curt and arbitrary enough. Fault was found with the blockade of Genoa on the ground that it did not comply with the requirements of international law; the complaint resting, apparently, on the statement that the blockaders could not be seen from Genoa. Nelson replied that the proof of evident danger to vessels seeking to enter or leave, rested on the fact that captures were made; and it is, on the face of it, absurd to say that there can be no danger to a vessel seeking to enter a blockaded port, because the blockading vessels are not visible from the latter. Much more depends upon their number, disposition, and speed. "From my knowledge of Genoa and its Gulf," said Nelson, "I a.s.sert without fear of contradiction, that the nearer s.h.i.+ps cruise to Genoa, the more certain is the escape of vessels from that port, or their entrance into it insured. I am blockading Genoa, according to the orders of the Admiralty, and in the way I think most proper. Whether modern law or ancient law makes my mode right, I cannot judge; and surely of the mode of disposing of a fleet, I must, if I am fit for my post, be a better judge than any landsman, however learned he may appear. It would be the act of a fool to tell Europe where I intend to place the s.h.i.+ps, for the purpose of effectually obeying my orders; not a captain can know it, and their positions will vary, according to the information I may receive.... I endeavour, as well as I am able, to obey my orders, without entering into the nice distinctions of lawyers. I will not further take up your time on a subject which, without being a lawyer, merely as a man, could have admitted of no dispute." Along with much truth, there was in this a certain amount of special pleading, as appeared when he took the further position that, to intercept s.h.i.+ps from Genoa, bound to the Atlantic, there was no better place than the Gut of Gibraltar. When a definition of international law is stretched as far as that, it will have little elastic force left.

A petty, yet hara.s.sing, diplomatic difficulty, curiously ill.u.s.trative of maritime conditions at that day, ran unsettled through almost the whole of his command. Malta, under the Knights, had been always at war with the Barbary Powers; and there was trouble in impressing upon the rulers of the latter that, when it pa.s.sed into British hands, its people and s.h.i.+ps were under British protection. Several Maltese vessels had been taken by Algerine cruisers, and their crews enslaved.

When Nelson came out in 1803, he found pending these cases, and also the question of compelling, or inducing, the Dey to receive back the British consul, whom he had expelled with insult. In the absence of a British representative, the negotiations were intrusted wholly to the admiral.

Nelson's feelings were strongly excited. He was tenacious of everything he conceived to touch his country's honor, and long service in the Mediterranean had made him familiar with the outrages on its defenceless coasts practised by these barbarians, under the pretence of war with the weaker states. Even in the remote and impoverished north of Sardinia, the shepherds near the beaches watched their flocks with arms beside them, day and night, to repel the attacks of marauders from the sea. Not only were trading-vessels seized, but descents were made upon the sh.o.r.e, and the inhabitants swept off into slavery. Speaking of one such case in 1799, he had said: "My blood boils that I cannot chastise these pirates. They could not show themselves in the Mediterranean did not our Country permit. Never let us talk of the cruelty of the African slave trade, while we permit such a horrid war." But he knew, both then and afterwards, that Great Britain, with the great contest on her hands, could not spare the s.h.i.+ps which might be crippled in knocking the barbarians' strongholds about their ears, and that no British admiral would be sustained in a course that provoked these pirates to cast aside the fears that restrained them, and to declare war on British commerce, which, as it was, he had difficulty to protect. He estimated ten s.h.i.+ps-of-the-line as the force necessary, in case the batteries at Algiers were to be attacked. Exmouth, twelve years later, with fuller information, thought and found five to be sufficient.