The Life of Nelson, Volume 2

War on the continent of Europe had ceased definitively with the treaty of Lunéville, between France and Austria, signed February 9, 1801. Over four years were to elapse before it should recommence. But, as Great Britain was to be the first to take up arms again to resist the encroachments of Bonaparte, so now she was the last to consent to peace, eager as her people were to have it. Malta had fallen, the Armed Neutrality of the North had dissolved, the French occupation of Egypt was at its last gasp. Foiled in these three directions by the sea-power of Great Britain, unable, with all his manipulation of the prostrate continent, to inflict a deadly wound, Bonaparte now resorted to the threat of invasion, well aware that, under existing conditions, it could be but a threat, yet hoping that its influence upon a people accustomed to sleep securely might further his designs. But, though the enchanter wove his spells to rouse the demon of fear, their one effect was to bring up once more, over against him, the defiant form of his arch-subverter. Both the Prime Minister, Addington, and the First Lord of the Admiralty assured Nelson that his presence in charge of the dispositions for defence, and that only, could quiet the public mind. "I have seen Lord St. Vincent," he wrote the former, "and submit to your and his partiality. Whilst my health will allow, I can only say, that every exertion of mine shall be used to merit the continuance of your esteem." St. Vincent, writing to him a fortnight later, avowed frankly the weight attached to his very name by both friend and foe. "Our negotiation is drawing near its close, and must terminate one way or another in a few days, and, I need not add, how very important it is that the enemy should know that you are constantly opposed to him."

Map of the English Channel and North Sea

The purpose of Bonaparte in 1801 is not to be gauged by the same measure as that of 1803-1805. In 1798 he had told the then government of France that to make a descent upon England, without being master of the sea, would be the boldest and most difficult operation ever attempted. Conditions had not changed since then, nor had he now the time or the money to embark in the extensive preparations, which afterwards gave assurance that he was in earnest in his threats. An adept in making false demonstrations, perfectly appreciative of the power of a great name, he counted upon his own renown, and his amazing achievement of the apparently impossible in the past, to overawe the imagination of a nation, whose will, rather than whose strength, he hoped to subdue. Boulogne and the small neighboring ports, whose nearness clearly indicated them as the only suitable base from which an invasion could start, were in that year in no state to receive the boats necessary to carry an army. This the British could see with their own eyes; but who could be sure that the paper flotilla at Boulogne, like the paper Army of Reserve at Dijon a year before, had not elsewhere a substantial counterpart, whose sudden appearance might yet work a catastrophe as unexpected and total as that of Marengo? And who more apt than Bonaparte to spread the impression that some such surprise was brewing? "I can venture to assure you that no embarkation of troops can take place at Boulogne," wrote Nelson, immediately after his first reconnoissance; but he says at the same time, "I have now more than ever reason to believe that the ports of Flushing and Flanders are much more likely places to embark men from, than Calais, Boulogne, or Dieppe; for in Flanders we cannot tell by our eyes what means they have collected for carrying an army." "Great preparations at Ostend," he notes a week later; "Augereau commands that part of the Army. I hope to let him feel the bottom of the Goodwin Sand." It was just this sort of apprehension, specific in direction, yet vague and elusive in details, that Bonaparte was skilled in disseminating.

St. Vincent, and the Government generally, agreed with Nelson's opinion. "We are to look to Flanders for the great effort," wrote the Earl to him. Neither of them had, nor was it possible for clear-headed naval officers to have, any substantial, rational, fear of a descent in force; yet the vague possibility did, for the moment, impress even them, and the liability of the populace, and of the commercial interests, to panic, was a consideration not to be overlooked. Besides, in a certain way, there was no adequate preparation for resistance. The British Navy, indeed, was an overwhelming force as compared to the French; but its hands were fully occupied, and the fleet Nelson had just left in the Baltic could not yet be recalled. It was, however, in purely defensive measures, in the possession of a force similar to that by which the proposed attack was to be made, and in dispositions analogous to coast defences, that the means were singularly defective, both in material and men. "Everything, my dear Lord," wrote Nelson, the day after he hoisted his flag at Sheerness, "must have a beginning, and we are literally at the foundation of our fabric of defence;" but, he continues, reverting to his own and St. Vincent's clear and accurate military intuitions, "I agree perfectly with you, that we must keep the enemy as far from our own coasts as possible, and be able to attack them the moment they come out of their ports."

"Our first defence," he writes a fortnight later, showing the gradual maturing of the views which he, in common with St. Vincent, held with such illustrious firmness in the succeeding years, "is close to the enemy's ports. When that is broke, others will come forth on our own coasts." It was in the latter that the unexpected anxieties of 1801 found the Government deficient, and these it was to be Nelson's first care to organize and dispose. By the time his duties were completed, and the problems connected with them had been two months under his consideration, he had reached the conclusion which Napoleon also held, and upon which he acted. "This boat business may be a part of a great plan of Invasion, but can never be the only one." From the first he had contemplated the possibility of the French fleets in Brest and elsewhere attempting diversions, such as Napoleon planned in support of his later great projects. "Although I feel confident that the fleets of the enemy will meet the same fate which has always attended them, yet their sailing will facilitate the coming over of their flotilla, as they will naturally suppose our attention will be called only to the fleets."

What was feared in 1801 was not a grand military operation, in the nature of an attempt at conquest, or, at the least, at injury so serious as to be disabling, but rather something in the nature of a great raid, of which the most probable object was the city of London, the chief commercial centre. It was upon this supposition that the instructions of the Admiralty to Nelson were framed, and upon this also the memorandum as to methods, submitted by him to it, on the 25th of July, 1801. "It is certainly proper to believe that the French are coming to attack London. I will suppose that 40,000 men are destined for this attack, or rather surprise." His plan is given first in his own words, as due to a matter of so much importance; and to them the writer appends a summary of the principal features, as understood by him. These are not always easily to be seen on the face of the paper, owing to the small time for its preparation, and the consequent haste—off-hand almost—with which it was drawn up, as is further indicated from the copy in the Admiralty being in his own writing.

MEMORANDA BY LORD NELSON, ON THE DEFENCE OF THE THAMES, ETC.

25th July, 1801.

Besides the stationed Ships at the different posts between the North Foreland and Orfordness, as many Gun-vessels as can be spared from the very necessary protection of the Coast of Sussex and of Kent to the westward of Dover, should be collected, for this part of the Coast must be seriously attended to; for supposing London the object of surprise, I am of opinion that the Enemy's object ought to be the getting on shore as speedily as possible, for the dangers of a navigation of forty-eight hours, appear to me to be an insurmountable objection to the rowing from Boulogne to the Coast of Essex. It is therefore most probable (for it is certainly proper to believe the French are coming to attack London, and therefore to be prepared) that from Boulogne, Calais, and even Havre, that the enemy will try and land in Sussex, or the lower part of Kent, and from Dunkirk, Ostend, and the other Ports of Flanders, to land on the Coast of Essex or Suffolk; for I own myself of opinion that, the object being to get on shore somewhere within 100 miles of London, as speedily as possible, that the Flats in the mouth of the Thames will not be the only place necessary to attend to; added to this, the Enemy will create a powerful diversion by the sailing of the Combined Fleet, and the either sailing, or creating such an appearance of sailing, of the Dutch Fleet, as will prevent Admiral Dickson from sending anything from off the great Dutch Ports, whilst the smaller Ports will spew forth its Flotilla,—viz., Flushing, &c. &c. It must be pretty well ascertained what number of small Vessels are in each Port.

"I will suppose that 40,000 men are destined for this attack, or rather surprise, of London; 20,000 will land on the west side of Dover, sixty or seventy miles from London, and the same number on the east side: they are too knowing to let us have but one point of alarm for London. Supposing 200 craft, or 250, collected at Boulogne &c., they are supposed equal to carry 20,000 men. In very calm weather, they might row over, supposing no impediment, in twelve hours; at the same instant, by telegraph, the same number of troops would be rowed out of Dunkirk, Ostend, &c. &c. These are the two great objects to attend to from Dover and the Downs, and perhaps one of the small Ports to the westward. Boulogne (which I call the central point of the Western attack) must be attended to. If it is calm when the Enemy row out, all our Vessels and Boats appointed to watch them, must get into the Channel, and meet them as soon as possible: if not strong enough for the attack, they must watch, and keep them company till a favourable opportunity offers. If a breeze springs up, our Ships are to deal destruction; no delicacy can be observed on this great occasion. But should it remain calm, and our Flotilla not fancy itself strong enough to attack the Enemy on their passage, the moment that they begin to touch our shore, strong or weak, our Flotilla of Boats must attack as much of the Enemy's Flotilla as they are able—say only one-half or two-thirds; it will create a most powerful diversion, for the bows of our Flotilla will be opposed to their unarmed sterns, and the courage of Britons will never, I believe, allow one Frenchman to leave the beach. A great number of Deal and Dover Boats to be on board our vessels off the Port of Boulogne, to give notice of the direction taken by the Enemy. If it is calm, Vessels in the Channel can make signals of intelligence to our shores, from the North Foreland to Orfordness, and even as far as Solebay, not an improbable place, about seventy or eighty miles from London.

"A Flotilla to be kept near Margate and Ramsgate, to consist of Gun-boats and Flat-boats; another Squadron to be stationed near the centre, between Orfordness and North Foreland, and the third in Hoseley Bay.38 The Floating Batteries are stationed in all proper positions for defending the different Channels, and the smaller Vessels will always have a resort in the support of the stationed ships. The moment of the Enemy's movement from Boulogne, is to be considered as the movement of the Enemy from Dunkirk. Supposing it calm, the Flotillas are to be rowed, and the heavy ones towed, (except the stationed Ships), those near Margate, three or four leagues to the north of the North Foreland; those from Hoseley Bay, a little approaching the Centre Division, but always keeping an eye towards Solebay; the Centre Division to advance half-way between the two. The more fast Rowing boats, called Thames Galleys, which can be procured the better, to carry orders, information, &c. &c.

"Whenever the Enemy's Flotilla can be seen, our Divisions are to unite, but not intermix, and to be ready to execute such orders as may be deemed necessary, or as the indispensable circumstances may require. For this purpose, men of such confidence in each other should be looked for, that (as far as human foresight can go,) no little jealousy may creep into any man's mind, but to be all animated with the same desire of preventing the descent of the Enemy on our Coasts. Stationary Floating Batteries are not, from any apparent advantage, to be moved, for the tide may prevent their resuming the very important stations assigned them; they are on no account to be supposed neglected, even should the Enemy surround them, for they may rely on support, and reflect that perhaps their gallant conduct may prevent the mischievous designs of the Enemy. Whatever plans may be adopted, the moment the Enemy touch our Coast, be it where it may, they are to be attacked by every man afloat and on shore: this must be perfectly understood. Never fear the event. The Flat Boats can probably be manned (partly, at least,) with the Sea Fencibles, (the numbers or fixed places of whom I am entirely ignorant of,) but the Flat Boats they may man to be in grand and sub-divisions, commanded by their own Captains and Lieutenants, as far as is possible. The number of Flat Boats is unknown to me, as also the other means of defence in Small Craft; but I am clearly of opinion that a proportion of the small force should be kept to watch the Flat-Boats from Boulogne, and the others in the way I have presumed to suggest. These are offered as merely the rude ideas of the moment, and are only meant as a Sea plan of defence for the City of London; but I believe other parts may likewise be menaced, if the Brest fleet, and those from Rochfort and Holland put to sea; although I feel confident that the Fleets of the Enemy will meet the same fate which has always attended them, yet their sailing will facilitate the coming over of their Flotilla, as they will naturally suppose our attention will be called only to the Fleets."

Coming by water, the expectation seems to have been that the enemy might proceed up the river, or to a landing on some of the flats at the mouth of the Thames. Nelson says expressly that he does not think those alone are the points to be guarded; but he characterizes his paper as being "only meant as a sea plan of defence for the city of London," and the suggestion already noticed, that the enemy's fleet will support the attack by diversions, is merely mentioned casually. London being the supposed object, and the Thames the highway, the purely defensive force is to be concentrated there; the Channel coasts, though not excluded, are secondary. "As many gun-vessels as can be spared from the very necessary protection of the coast of Sussex, and of Kent to the westward of Dover, should be collected between the North Foreland and Orfordness, for this part of the coast must be seriously attended to."

The attack is expected in this quarter, because from Flanders and Flushing it is the most accessible. The object, Nelson thinks, will be to get on shore as speedily as possible, and therefore somewhere within one hundred miles of London. Anywhere from the westward of Dover round to Solebay—"not an improbable place"—must be looked upon as a possible landing. If there are forty thousand men coming, he regards it as certain that they will come in two principal bodies, of twenty thousand each—"they are too knowing to let us have but one point of alarm for London." "From Boulogne, Calais, and even Havre, the enemy will try and land in Sussex, or the lower part of Kent; and from Dunkirk, Ostend, and the other ports of Flanders, to land on the coast of Essex or Suffolk." "In very calm weather, they might row over from Boulogne, supposing no impediment, in twelve hours; at the same instant, by telegraph, the same number of troops would be rowed out of Dunkirk, Ostend, &c. &c. Added to this, the enemy will create a powerful diversion by the sailing of the combined fleet, and either the sailing, or creating such an appearance of sailing, of the Dutch fleet, as will prevent Admiral Dickson [commander-in-chief in the North Sea] from sending anything from off the great Dutch ports, whilst the smaller ports will spew forth its flotilla—viz, Flushing &c. &c."

To frustrate that part of this combined effort which is supposed to be directed against the Channel coast, Nelson proposes that, "if it is calm when the enemy row out, all our vessels and boats appointed to watch them, must get into the Channel, and meet them as soon as possible; if not strong enough for the attack, they must watch, and keep them company till a favourable opportunity offers. Should it remain calm," so that the cruising ships cannot assist, "the moment that they begin to touch our shore, strong or weak, our flotilla of boats must attack as much of the enemy's flotilla as they are able—say only one half or two thirds—it will create a most powerful diversion, for the bows of our flotilla will be opposed to their unarmed sterns."

The dispositions to defend the entrance of the Thames, being considered the more important, are the more minute. Blockships are stationed in the principal channels, as floating fortifications, commanding absolutely the water around them, and forming strong points of support for the flotilla. It is sagaciously ordered that these "are not, from any apparent advantage, to be moved, for the tide may prevent their resuming the very important stations assigned them." Nelson was evidently alive to that advantage in permanent works, which puts it out of the power of panic to stampede them; tide is not the only factor that prevents retrieving a false step. The eastern flotilla is organized into three bodies, the right wing being near Margate, the left in Hollesley Bay near Harwich, the centre, vaguely, between Orfordness and the North Foreland. When the alarm is given, they are to draw together towards the centre, but not to emphasize their movement sufficiently to uncover either flank, until the enemy's flotilla can be seen; then they are "to unite, but not intermix."

To both divisions—that in the Channel and that on' the East Coast—the commander-in-chief, in concluding, renews his charge, with one of those "Nelson touches" which electrified his followers: "Whatever plans may be adopted, the moment the enemy touch our coast, be it where it may, they are to be attacked by every man afloat and on shore: this must be perfectly understood. Never fear the event."

This plan for the defence of London against an attack by surprise, drawn up by Nelson on the spur of the moment, was based simply upon his general ideas, and without specific information yet as to either the character or extent of the enemy's preparations, or of the means of resistance available on his own side. It has, therefore, something of an abstract character, embodying broad views unmodified by special circumstances, and possessing, consequently, a somewhat peculiar value in indicating the tendency of Nelson's military conceptions. He assumes, implicitly, a certain freedom of movement on the part of the two opponents, unrestricted by the friction and uncertainty which in practice fetter action; and the use which, under these conditions, he imagines either will make of his powers, may not unfairly be assumed to show what he thought the correct course in such a general case.

Prominent among his ideas, and continuous in all his speculations as to the movements of an enemy, from 1795 onward, is the certainty that, for the sake of diversion, Bonaparte will divide his force into two great equal fragments, which may land at points so far apart, and separated by such serious obstacles, as were Solebay and Dover. Those who will be at the trouble to recall his guesses as to the future movements of the French in the Riviera, Piedmont, and Tuscany, in 1795 and 1796, as well as his own propositions to the Austrians at the same period, will recognize here the recurrence, unchastened by experience or thought, of a theory of warfare it is almost impossible to approve. That Bonaparte,—supposed to be master of his first movements,—if he meant to land in person at Dover, would put half his army ashore at Solebay, is as incredible as that he would have landed one half at Leghorn, meaning to act with the other from the Riviera. If this criticism be sound, it would show that Nelson, genius as he was, suffered from the lack of that study which reinforces its own conclusions by the experience of others; and that his experience, resting upon service in a navy so superior in quality to its enemies, that great inferiority in number or position could be accepted, had not supplied the necessary corrective to an ill-conceived readiness to sub-divide.

The resultant error is clearly traceable, in the author's opinion, in his dispositions at Copenhagen, and in a general tendency to allow himself too narrow a margin, based upon an under-valuation of the enemy not far removed from contempt. It was most fortunate for him, in the Baltic, that Parker increased to twelve the detachment he himself had fixed at ten. The last utterances of his life, however, show a distinct advance and ripening of the judgment, without the slightest decrease of the heroic resolution that so characterized him. "I have twenty-three sail with me," he wrote a fortnight before Trafalgar, "and should they come out I will immediately bring them to battle; … but I am very, very, very anxious for the arrival of the force which is intended. It is, as Mr. Pitt knows, annihilation that the country wants, and not merely a splendid victory of twenty-three to thirty-six. Numbers only can annihilate."

The assumption that Bonaparte's plan would be such as he mentioned, naturally controlled Nelson in the dispositions he sketched for the local defence of the shore lines. The invasion being in two bodies, the defence was to be in two bodies also; nor is there any suggestion of a possibility that these two might be united against one of the enemy's. The whole scheme is dual; yet, although the chance of either division of the British being largely inferior to the enemy opposed to it is recognized, the adoption of a central position, or concentration upon either of the enemy's flotillas, apparently is not contemplated. Such uncertainty of touch, when not corrected by training, is the natural characteristic of a defence essentially passive; that is, of a defence which proposes to await the approach of the enemy to its own frontier, be that land or water. Yet it scarcely could have failed soon to occur to men of Nelson's and St. Vincent's martial capacities, that a different disposition, which would clearly enable them to unite and intercept either one of the enemy's divisions, must wreck the entire project; for the other twenty thousand men alone could not do serious or lasting injury. The mere taking a position favorable to such concentration would be an adequate check. The trouble for them undoubtedly was that which overloads, and so nullifies, all schemes for coast defence resting upon popular outcry, which demands outward and visible protection for every point, and assurance that people at war shall be guarded, not only against broken bones, but against even scratches of the skin.

This uneducated and weak idea, that protection is only adequate when co-extensive with the frontier line threatened, finds its natural outcome in a system of defence by very small vessels, in great numbers, capable of minute subdivision and wide dispersal, to which an equal tonnage locked up in larger ships cannot be subjected. Although St. Vincent was at the head of the Admiralty which in 1801 ordered that Nelson should first organize such a flotilla, and only after that proceed to offensive measures, the results of his experience now were to form—or at the least to confirm in him—the conclusion which he enunciated, and to which he persistently held, during the later truly formidable preparations of Napoleon. "Our great reliance is on the vigilance and activity of our cruisers at sea, any reduction in the number of which, by applying them to guard our ports, inlets, and beaches, would in my judgment tend to our destruction." Very strangely, so far as the author's opinion goes, Nelson afterwards expressed an apparently contrary view, and sustained Mr. Pitt in his attack upon St. Vincent's administration on this very point; an attack, in its tendency and in the moment chosen, among the most dangerous to his country ever attempted by a great and sagacious statesman. Nelson, however, writing in May, 1804, says: "I had wrote a memoir, many months ago, upon the propriety of a flotilla. I had that command at the end of the last war, and I know the necessity of it, even had you, and which you ought to have, thirty or forty sail of the line in the Downs and North Sea, besides frigates &c.; but having failed so entirely in submitting my mind upon three points I was disheartened." This Memoir has not been preserved, but it will be noticed that, in expressing his difference from St. Vincent in the words quoted, he assumes, what did not at any time exist, thirty or forty sail-of-the-line for the North Sea and the Downs. St. Vincent's stand was taken on the position that the flotilla could not be manned without diminishing the cruisers in commission, which were far short of the ideal number named by Nelson. It may be believed, or at least hoped, that if forced to choose between the two, as St. Vincent was, his choice would have been that of the great Earl. It seems clear, however, that in 1804 he believed it possible that the Army of Invasion might get as far as the shores of England—a question which has been much argued. "I am very uneasy," he then wrote to Lady Hamilton, "at your and Horatia being on the coast: for you cannot move, if the French make the attempt."