The Life of Nelson, Volume 1

In his still limited sphere, and on all matters directly connected with it and his professional duties, his judgment was sound and acute, as his activity, energy, and zeal were untiring. The menace to Corsica from the fall of Leghorn was accurately weighed and considered. Midway between the two lay the since famous island of Elba, a dependence of Tuscany, so small as to be held readily by a few good troops, and having a port large enough, in Nelson's judgment, to harbor the British fleet with a little management. "The way to Corsica," he wrote to the Viceroy, "if our fleet is at hand, is through Elba; for if they once set foot on that island, it is not all our fleet can stop their passage to Corsica." The Viceroy took upon himself to direct that the island be occupied by the British. Nelson complied without waiting for Jervis's orders, and on the 10th of July a detachment of troops, convoyed by his squadron, were landed in the island, and took charge, without serious opposition, of the town of Porto Ferrajo and the works for the defence of the harbor. The measure was justified upon the ground that the seizure of Leghorn by the French showed that Tuscany was unable to assure Elba against a similar step, prejudicial to the British tenure in Corsica. The administration remained in the hands of the Tuscan officials, the British occupation being purely military, and confined to the places necessary for that purpose.

The blockade of Leghorn was enforced with the utmost rigor and great effectiveness. For a long time no vessels were allowed to go either out or in. Afterwards the rule was gradually relaxed, so far as to permit neutrals to leave the port in ballast; but none entered. The trade of the place was destroyed. Nelson hoped, and for a time expected, that the populace, accustomed to a thriving commerce, and drawing their livelihood from its employments, would rise against the feeble garrison, whose presence entailed upon them such calamities; but herein, of course, he underestimated the coercive power of a few resolute men, organized for mutual support, over a mob of individuals, incapable of combined action and each uncertain of the constancy of his fellows.

The Austrian preparations in the Tyrol gradually matured as the month of July wore on. Towards its end Marshal Wurmser, the successor of Beaulieu, advanced for the relief of Mantua and the discomfiture of Bonaparte, whose numbers were much inferior to his opponents. The projected movement was of course known to the British, and its first results in raising the siege of Mantua, and throwing reinforcements into the place, gave them great hopes. Amid the conflicting rumors of the succeeding days, the wonderful skill and success of Bonaparte, who overthrew in detail forces greatly superior in the aggregate to his own, escaped notice for the time; the superficial incidents of his abandoning his previous positions alone received attention, and nothing less than his retreat in confusion was confidently expected. Nelson, justly estimating the importance of Leghorn, and over-sanguine of the support he might hope from the inhabitants, projected a sudden assault upon the town, by troops to be drawn from the garrisons in Corsica, supported by seamen of the squadron. Speaking of the steady intercourse between, that island and the mainland by way of Leghorn, he says: "The only way is to cut at the root, for whilst Leghorn is open, this communication must constantly be going on. This moment brings to my eyes a body of about 200 men, with the Corsican flag carrying before them; they are partly from Nice, and joined by Genoese, &c., on the road. The time approaches," he rightly forecasts, "when we shall either have to fight them in Corsica or Leghorn." The imminence of the danger was evident. "Our affairs in Corsica are gloomy," he had already written to the Duke of Clarence. "There is a very strong republican party in that island, and they are well supported from France; the first favourable moment, they will certainly act against us."

The details of the intended assault upon Leghorn do not appear, and it is probable that they never passed beyond the stage of discussion to that of acceptance, although he alludes to the plans as "laid." Clear-sighted for the key of a situation, and ardent to strike "at the root," as five years later in the Baltic he was eager to cut away the Russian root of the Armed Neutrality, instead of hewing off the Danish branch, Nelson urged the speedy adoption of the measure, and pressed his own fitness to harmonize the land and sea forces under one command, in virtue of his rank as Colonel of Marines. "Leghorn is in such a state," he writes to Elliot on the 5th of August, "that a respectable force landed, would, I have every reason to suppose, insure the immediate possession of the town. Not less than a thousand troops should be sent, to which I will add every soldier in my squadron, and a party of seamen to make a show. In every way, pray consider this as private, and excuse my opinions. I well know the difficulty of getting a proper person to command this party. Firmness, and that the people of Leghorn should know the person commanding, will most assuredly have a great effect. A cordial co-operation with me (for vanity apart, no one is so much feared or respected in Leghorn as myself) is absolutely necessary. I am going further: we know the jealousy of the army against the navy, but I am by the King's commission a Colonel in the army from June 1st, 1795." After discussing this difficult question of professional susceptibilities, he concludes: "You will consider, Sir, all these points, and form a much better judgment than I can, only give me credit that the nearest wish of my heart is to serve my King and my Country, at every personal risk and consideration. It has ever pleased God to prosper all my undertakings, and I feel confident of His blessing on this occasion. I ever consider my motto, Fides et Opera."38

Having, with true strategic insight, chosen the place where the blow ought to be struck for the preservation of Corsica, he pressed, with characteristic fervor, the necessity of taking risks. He discusses details indeed; he proposes no mere adventure, real as was his personal enjoyment of danger and action. What man can do, shall be done; but being done, still "something must be left to chance. Our only consideration, is the honour and benefit to our Country worth the risk? If it is (and I think so), in God's name let us get to work, and hope for His blessing on our endeavours to liberate a people who have been our sincere friends." Hearing at the same time that an army officer of general rank will have the command instead of himself, he adds: "Pray assure him there is nothing I feel greater pleasure in than hearing he is to command. Assure him of my most sincere wishes for his speedy success, and that he shall have every support and assistance from me." Truly, in generosity as in ardor, Nelson was, to use the fine old phrase, "all for the service."

The project upon Leghorn had the approval of the Viceroy and of Jervis; but the latter, while expressing perfect reliance upon "the promptitude of Commodore Nelson," was clear that the attempt must depend upon the contimied advance of the Austrians. This was also Nelson's own view. "All will be well, I am satisfied, provided Wurmser is victorious; upon this ground only have I adopted the measure." This qualification redeems the plan from the reproach of rashness, which otherwise might have been applied to the somewhat desperate undertaking of carrying a fortified town by such a feat of hardihood. It loses thus the color of recklessness, and falls into place as one part of a great common action, to harass the retreat of a beaten enemy, and to insure the security of one's own positions.

On the 15th of August, when the above words were written, Nelson was still ignorant of the Austrian defeats at Lonato and Castiglione, nearly two weeks before, and of their subsequent retreat to the Tyrol. A rumor of the reverse had reached him through Florence, but he gave it little attention, as the French in Leghorn were not claiming a victory. On the 19th he knew it definitely, and had to abandon the expectation, confided to his brother, that the next letter seen from him would be in the "Public Gazette." "An expedition is thought of, and of course I shall be there, for most of these services fall to my lot." "One day or other," he had written to his wife, apparently with this very enterprise in mind, "I will have a long Gazette to myself; I feel that such an opportunity will be given me. I cannot," he continued with prophetic self-reliance, "if I am in the field of glory, be kept out of sight."

During the remainder of the month he continued to be amused with those unfounded reports of victories, which are among the invariable concomitants of all wars, and which his sanguine temperament and peculiar readiness to trust others made him especially ready to accept. He was not wholly unaware of this tendency in himself, though he continued to repeat with apparent belief reports of the most startling and erroneous character, and never seems to have appreciated, up to the time of his leaving the Mediterranean, the astonishing quickness and sagacity with which Bonaparte frustrated the overwhelming combinations against him. "We hear what we wish," he says on one occasion. "The Toulon information is, as I always thought it, pleasant to know but never to be depended upon; all is guess. I have long had reason to suspect great part is fabricated in Genoa;" but he was continually deceived by it.

Throughout the discomfitures of the Austrians on shore, the purely naval part of the war continued to be successfully maintained. Jervis, with unrelaxing grip, kept his position before Toulon, effectually checking every attempt of the French fleet to escape unobserved into the open, while Nelson shut up Leghorn so rigorously that the enemy lost even the partial advantage, as a port of supply, which they had before drawn from its neutrality. But, during this pregnant summer, grave causes for anxiety were rolling up in the western basin of the Mediterranean. The attitude of Spain had long been doubtful, so much so that before Sir John Jervis left England, in the previous autumn, the ministry had deliberated upon the contingency of her declaring war, and a conditional decision had been reached to evacuate Corsica, if that event occurred. During the spring of 1796 reports of coming hostilities were current in the fleet. Nelson's first opinion was that, if they ensued, there was no object in remaining in the Mediterranean, except to preserve Corsica from the French. This, he thought, was not a sufficient motive, nor had the conduct of the natives entitled them to protection. With all the powers making peace with France, he hoped Great Britain would leave the Mediterranean. This, however, was but a passing expression of discouragement, whence he soon rallied, and, with a spirit worthy of his race, which was soon to face all Europe undismayed, his courage mounted continually as the storm drew nearer.

The summer of 1796 was in truth the period of transition, when the victories of Bonaparte, by bringing near a cessation of warfare upon the land, were sweeping from the scene the accessories that confused the view of the future, removing conditions and details which perplexed men's attention, and bringing into clear relief the one field upon which the contest was finally to be fought out, and the one foe, the British sea-power, upon whose strength and constancy would hinge the issues of the struggle. The British Navy, in the slight person of its indomitable champion, was gradually rising to the appreciation of its own might, and gathering together its energies to endure single-handed the gigantic strife, with a spirit unequalled in its past history, glorious as that had often been. From 1796 began the rapid ascent to that short noontide of unparalleled brilliancy, in which Nelson's fame outshone all others, and which may be said to have begun with the Spanish declaration of war, succeeded though that was by the retreat in apparent discomfiture from the Mediterranean, now at hand.

The approach of this extraordinary outburst of maritime vigor is aptly foretokened in the complete change, gradual yet rapid, that passed over Nelson's opinions, from the time when rumors of a Spanish war first assumed probability, up to the moment when the fact became tangible by the appearance of the Spanish fleet in the waters of Corsica. Accentuated thus in a man of singular perceptions and heroic instincts, it further affords an interesting illustration of the manner in which a combative race—for Nelson was through and through a child of his people—however at first averse to war, from motives of well-understood interest, gradually warms to the idea, and finally grows even to welcome the fierce joy which warriors feel, as the clash of arms draws near. "If all the states of Italy make peace," he writes on the 20th of May, "we have nothing to look to but Corsica; which in the present state of the inhabitants, is not, in my opinion, an object to keep us in the Mediterranean: we shall, I hope, quit it, and employ our fleet more to our advantage." "Reports here," on the 20th of June, "are full of a Spanish war. If that should be the case, we shall probably draw towards Gibraltar and receive large reinforcements."

On the 15th of August, however, he writes to Jervis, betraying the incipient revulsion, as yet not realized, against abandoning the Mediterranean, which was already affecting the current of his thoughts. "I hope we shall have settled Leghorn before the Dons, if they intend it, arrive. I have still my doubts as to a Spanish war; and if there should be one, with your management I have no fears. Should the Dons come, I shall then hope I may be spared,39 in my own person, to help to make you at least a Viscount." A few days later, having meantime heard of Wurmser's disasters at Castiglione: "Austria, I suppose, must make peace, and we shall, as usual, be left to fight it out: however, at the worst, we only give up Corsica, an acquisition which I believe we cannot keep, and our fleet will draw down the Mediterranean;" but at the same time, August 19, he writes to the Duke of Clarence with glowing hopes and rising pride: "I hope Government will not be alarmed for our safety—I mean more than is proper. Under such a commander-in-chief as Sir John Jervis nobody has any fears. We are now twenty-two sail of the line; the combined fleet will not be above thirty-five sail of the line. I will venture my life Sir John Jervis defeats them. This country is the most favourable possible for skill with an inferior fleet; for the winds are so variable, that some one time in twenty-four hours you must be able to attack a part of a large fleet, and the other will be becalmed, or have a contrary wind." That the Duke trembled and demurred to such odds is not wonderful; but the words have singular interest, both as showing the clear tactical apprehensions that held sway in Nelson's mind, and still more, at the moment then present, as marking unmistakably his gradual conversion to the policy of remaining in the Mediterranean, and pursuing the most vigorous aggressive measures.

A fortnight after this letter was written, Genoa, under pressure from Bonaparte, closed her ports against British ships, interdicting even the embarkation of a drove of cattle, already purchased, and ready for shipment to the fleet off Toulon. Nelson immediately went there to make inquiries, and induce a revocation of the orders. While the "Captain" lay at anchor in the roads, three of the crew deserted, and when her boats were sent to search for them they were fired upon by a French battery, established near the town. Nelson, in retaliation, seized a French supply ship from under the guns of the battery, whereupon the Genoese forts opened against the "Captain," which had meantime got under way and was lying-to off the city. Nelson did not return the fire of the latter, which was kept up for two hours, but threw three shot into the French battery, "to mark," as he said, the power of the English to bombard the town, and their humanity in not destroying the houses and innocent Genoese inhabitants. In the communications which followed under a flag of truce, Nelson was informed, verbally, that all the ports of the Republic were closed against Great Britain. This stand, and the firing on the ship, being considered acts of hostility, the little island of Capraia, between Corsica and Genoa, and belonging to the latter, was seized by Nelson, acting under the counsel of the Viceroy of Corsica. This was done both as a retaliatory measure, and to put a stop to the use which French privateers and parties of Corsicans had hitherto made of it, under cover of Genoese neutrality.

As Jervis was already under apprehension of an outbreak of scurvy in the fleet, consequent upon the failure of supplies of live cattle following the French occupation of Leghorn, the closure of the Genoese ports was a severe blow. It was, however, but one among several incidents, occurring nearly simultaneously, which increased his embarrassments, and indicated the close approach of the long-muttering storm. To use his own words, "The lowering aspect of Spain, with the advanced state of the equipment of the French fleet in Toulon," impelled him to concentrate his force. Rear-Admiral Man, who had been blockading Cadiz since his detachment there by Hotham, in October, 1795, was ordered up to the main fleet. Swayed by fears very unlike to Nelson's proud confidence in his admiral and his service, he acted with such precipitation as to leave Gibraltar without filling with provisions, and arrived so destitute that Jervis had to send him back at once, with orders to replenish with stores and then to rejoin without delay. Under the influence of the panic which prevailed at Gibraltar, Man had also sent such advices to the coast of Portugal as caused the commander-in-chief to fear that expected supplies might be arrested. "Oh, our convoy!" cried Nelson; "Admiral Man, how could you quit Gibraltar?" Yet, as he wrote to Jervis, he had expected some such step, from what he had already seen "under his hand to you."

Thus, for the time at least, there were lost to the British seven of the ships-of-the-line upon which Nelson had reckoned in his letter to the Duke of Clarence. It was possibly on this account that Jervis wrote him to shift his commodore's pendant to a frigate, and send the "Captain" to the fleet. Nelson obeyed, of course, and at once; but taking advantage of the fact that no captain had yet joined his ship, he thought it "advisable to go in her myself." In this he doubtless was influenced chiefly by his unwillingness to miss a battle, especially against such great numerical odds. "I take for granted," he admitted to the Viceroy, "that the admiral will send me back in a cutter, but I shall give him a good ordered seventy-four, and take my chance of helping to thrash Don Langara, than which few things, I assure you, would give me more real pleasure." The particular emergency seems, however, soon to have passed; for after two days with the fleet he returned off Leghorn in the "Captain," somewhat comforted as to the apprehensions of the British Cabinet. "Whatever fears we may have for Corsica, it is certain Government at home have none, by taking so very respectable a part of your force away." A regiment had been transferred to Gibraltar with Man's squadron, when the latter returned there.

These rising hopes and stirring expectations of brilliant service were speedily dashed. On the 25th of September Jervis received orders from the Admiralty to abandon Corsica, to retreat from the Mediterranean, and to proceed with the fleet to England. In pursuance of these instructions Nelson was directed to superintend the evacuation of Bastia, the "most secret" letter to that effect reaching him at that port on the 29th of September,—his birthday. The purpose of the ministry filled him with shame and indignation. Confronted abruptly with the course which four months before had seemed to him natural and proper, the shock brought out the fulness of the change through which he had passed meantime. He has no illusions about Corsica. The inhabitants had disappointed all the expectations of the British,—"At a peace I should rejoice at having given up the island." But the days passing over his head had brought wider and maturer views of the general policy of Great Britain, as well as increasing faith in the powers of the fleet, vigorously used in aggressive warfare. "Whilst we can keep the combined fleet in the Mediterranean [by our own presence], so much the more advantageous to us; and the moment we retire, the whole of Italy is given to the French. If the Dons detach their fleet out of the Mediterranean, we can do the same—however, that is distant. Be the successes of the Austrians on the other hand what they may, their whole supply of stores and provisions comes from Trieste, across the Adriatic to the Po, and when this is cut off [as by our uncovering the sea it must be], they must retire." Above all he grieves for Naples. If a weak and vacillating ally, there was no doubt her heart was with them. "I feel more than all for Naples. The King of Naples is a greater sacrifice than Corsica. If he has been induced to keep off the peace, and perhaps engaged in the war again by the expectation of the continuance of the fleet in the Mediterranean, hard indeed is his fate; his kingdom must inevitably be ruined." In the impression now made upon him, may perhaps be seen one cause of Nelson's somewhat extravagant affection in after days for the royal family of Naples, independent of any influence exerted upon him by Lady Hamilton.

With these broad views of the general strategic situation, which are unquestionably far in advance of the comparatively narrow and vague conceptions of a year, or even six months before, and doubtless indicate the results of independent command and responsibility, acting upon powers of a high order, he at the same time shows his keen appreciation of the value of the organized force, whose movements, properly handled, should dominate the other conditions. "When Man arrives, who is ordered to come up, we shall be twenty-two sail of such ships as England hardly ever produced, and commanded by an admiral who will not fail to look the enemy in the face, be their force what it may: I suppose it will not be more than thirty-four of the line. There is not a seaman in the fleet who does not feel confident of success." "The fleets of England," he says again, "are equal to meet the world in arms; and of all fleets I ever saw, I never beheld one in point of officers and men equal to Sir John Jervis's, who is a commander-in-chief able to lead them to glory."

Reasoning so clearly and accurately upon the importance to Great Britain's interests and honor, at that time, of maintaining her position in the Mediterranean, and upon the power of her fleet in battle, it is not strange that Nelson, writing in intimate confidence to his wife, summed up in bitter words his feelings upon the occasion; unconscious, apparently, of the great change they indicated, not merely in his opinions, but in his power of grasping, in well-ordered and rational sequence, the great outlines of the conditions amid which he, as an officer, was acting. "We are all preparing to leave the Mediterranean, a measure which I cannot approve. They at home do not know what this fleet is capable of performing; anything, and everything. Much as I shall rejoice to see England, I lament our present orders in sackcloth and ashes, so dishonourable to the dignity of England." To the British minister at Naples his words were even stronger: "Till this time it has been usual for the allies of England to fall from her, but till now she never was known to desert her friends whilst she had the power of supporting them. I yet hope the Cabinet may, on more information, change their opinion; it is not all we gain elsewhere which can compensate for our loss of honour. The whole face of affairs is totally different to what it was when the Cabinet formed their opinion."

Nevertheless, although Nelson's perceptions and reasoning were accurate as far as they went, they erred in leaving out of the calculation a most important consideration,—the maintenance of the communications with England, which had assumed vital importance since the general defection of the Italian States, caused by Bonaparte's successes and his imperious demands. It would be more true to say that he underestimated this factor than that he overlooked it; for he had himself observed, six weeks earlier, when the approach of a Spanish war first became certain: "I really think they would do us more damage by getting off Cape Finisterre;40 it is there I fear them," and the reason for that fear is shown by his reproach against Man, already quoted, for his neglect of the convoy. The position of the Spanish Navy in its home ports was in fact intermediate—interior—as regarded the British fleet and the source of its most essential supplies. So long as its future direction remained uncertain, it lay upon the flank of the principal British line of communications. Nelson did not use, perhaps did not know, the now familiar terms of the military art; and, with all his insight and comprehensive sagacity, he suffered from the want of proper tools with which to transmute his acute intuitions into precise thought, as well as of clearly enunciated principles, which serve to guide a man's conclusions, and would assuredly have qualified his in the present instance. Upon the supposition that the Spanish Navy, practically in its entirety, entered the Mediterranean and appeared off Corsica,—as it did,—Nelson's reasoning was correct, and his chagrin at a retreat justified; but, as he himself had wisely remarked to Beaulieu, it is not safe to count upon your enemy pursuing the course you wish. Had the Spanish Government chosen the other alternative open to it, and struck at the communications, such a blow, or even such a threat, must have compelled the withdrawal of the fleet, unless some other base of supplies could be found. The straitness of the situation is shown by the fact that Jervis, after he had held on to the last moment in San Fiorenzo Bay, sailed for Gibraltar with such scanty provisions that the crews' daily rations were reduced to one-third the ordinary amount; in fact, as early as the first of October they had been cut down to two-thirds. Whether, therefore, the Government was right in ordering the withdrawal, or Nelson in his condemnation of it, may be left to the decision of those fortunate persons who can be cocksure of the true solution of other people's perplexities.