The Life of Nelson, Volume 2

Great dexterity of management was required to obtain these supplies, without drawing, upon those who gave them, such tokens of displeasure from Bonaparte as might result in their discontinuance. Towards Spain, although he felt for her perplexities, Nelson took a firm tone. She was nominally neutral, and enjoyed privileges as such; he insisted therefore that she should deal equal measure to both belligerents. "I am ready to make large allowances for the miserable situation Spain has placed herself in; but there is a certain line beyond which I cannot submit to be treated with disrespect." That line of forbearance was dictated, of course, less by indulgence towards Spain than by the necessities of Great Britain, which Nelson, however indignant, was too good a diplomatist to drop out of sight; but he kept up a pressure which secured very substantial assistance, though grudgingly given. "Refreshments we have a right to as long as we remain at peace, and if this goes on"—the refusal, that is, to allow provisions to be bought in quantities—"you may acquaint them that I will anchor in Rosas with the squadron, and receive our daily supplies, which will offend the French much more than our staying at sea."

Towards Naples, as secretly friendly to Great Britain, he was of course far more tender; and, while he rejected no suggestion without consideration, he regarded the distance as too great to render such a means of subsistence certain. The numerous privateers that haunted every port would intercept the transports and render convoys necessary; it was not worth while, for so small an advantage, to involve Naples, in its already critical state, in a dispute with France. An occasional purchase, however, seems to have been made there; and even France herself was at times brought to contribute, indirectly, to the support of the squadron which was watching one of her principal ports. "Latterly our cattle and onions have been procured from France," wrote Nelson; "but from the apparent incivilities of the Spaniards, I suppose we are on the eve of being shut out." To escape the notice of the French agents, it was obviously desirable to distribute as widely as possible the sources of supply, so as not to concentrate observation upon any one, or upon the general fact.

It was, however, upon Sardinia that Nelson in the end chiefly depended. The importance of this island, both in fact and in his estimation, was so great, that it may be said to have constituted the chief object of his thought and anxiety, after his own squadron and the French, which also he at times prophetically spoke of as his own. "I do not mean to use the shells you have sent me at sea," he writes to General Villettes, "for that I hope to consider burning our own ships; but in case they run ashore, then a few put into their sides will do their business." In addition to its extremely favorable central position, Sardinia, as compared to Sicily, did not entail the perplexity that its use by the British might cause a friendly sovereign the loss of his continental dominions. Those of the King of Sardinia had passed already nearly, if not wholly, out of his hands. The island itself was so wild, poor, and neglected, that, even if seized by the enemy, the King would lose little. The net revenue derived from it was only £5,000.

Map of Sardinia

During the previous war Nelson's attention had not been called much to Sardinia. Up to the withdrawal from the Mediterranean in 1796, Corsica had been a sufficient, and more suitable, base for the operations of the fleet, which until then had been upon the Riviera and the northern coast of Italy. When he returned in 1798, even after the Battle of the Nile and the disasters of the French in 1799, the unsettled condition of Naples, the blockade of Malta, and the affairs of Egypt, had combined to keep him in the South; while the tenure of the Allies in Northern Italy, up to the Battle of Marengo, was apparently so secure as to require no great support from the fleet. Irrespective of any personal influences that may have swayed him, Sicily was better suited then to be the centre from which to superintend the varied duties of his wide command.

When he returned in 1803, the old prepossessions naturally remained. In a survey of the political conditions written for the Prime Minister when on the passage to Toulon, much is said of Malta, Sicily, and Naples, but Sardinia is dismissed with a passing hope that the French would not seize it. After joining the fleet off Toulon, however, he had to realize that, if it was to remain at sea, as he purposed and effected, and yet be kept fully provisioned and watered, it must at times make an anchorage, which should be so far convenient as to keep it, practically, as much on its station as when under way. In this dilemma his attention was called to the Madalena Islands, a group off the northeast end of Sardinia, where wood and water could be obtained. Between them and the main island there was a good harbor, having the decisive advantage of two entrances, by one or other of which it could be left in winds from any quarter. A survey had been made a year before, during the peace, by a Captain Ryves, now commanding a ship in the fleet. As winter approached, Nelson decided to examine the spot himself, which he did in the last days of October, taking advantage of a moonlight week when the enemy would be less likely to leave port. He found it admirably adapted for his purposes, and that fresh provisions, though not of the best quality, could be had. "It is certainly one of the best anchorages I have met with for a fleet," he wrote, "but I suppose the French will take it now we have used it." This they did not attempt, and the British fleet continued to resort to it from time to time, obtaining water and bullocks.

Such a roadstead as an occasional rendezvous, where transports could discharge their stores to the vessels, and ships be refitted and supplied, would make the fleet as secure of holding its position as were the cruisers that depended upon Malta and Gibraltar. Its being two hundred miles from Toulon was not a serious drawback, for it was no part of Nelson's plan to keep the fleet close to Toulon. When he took command, he found it so stationed, but he soon removed to a position thirty to forty miles west of the harbor's mouth, which seems to have been his general summer rendezvous. "Lord Nelson," wrote a young officer of the fleet,61 "pursues a very different plan from Sir Richard Bickerton. The latter kept close to the harbour, but Lord Nelson is scarce ever in sight of the land, and there is but one frigate inshore." "I chose this position," Nelson said, "to answer two important purposes: one to prevent the junction of a Spanish fleet from the westward; and the other, to be to windward, so as to enable me, if the northerly gale came on to the N.N.W., to take shelter in a few hours under the Hières Islands, or if N.N.E., under Cape San Sebastian." "It is not my intention to close-watch Toulon, even with frigates," he wrote, and his dispositions were taken rather with a view to encourage the enemy to come out; although, of course, he took every precaution that they should not get far without being observed, and assured himself by frequent reconnoitring that they had not left port. "My system is the very contrary of blockading," he told Admiral Pole. "Every opportunity has been offered the enemy to put to sea," he says again, "for it is there we hope to realize the hopes and expectations of our Country." There was also the obvious advantage that, if habitually out of sight, the enemy could not know his movements, nor profit by his occasional absences in any direction.

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 snatch 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 passing 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 passed 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 Marseilles they are fitting, as reports say, eighty or ninety gunboats, and intend sending them, by the canal of Languedoc to Bordeaux; but I am sure this is not true. They are to go alongshore 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 alongshore 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 Marseilles, 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 passing. 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 circumspection, 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 ambassador—that the latter may understand the apparent breach of neutrality; for Russia has constituted 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 seamanship could preserve the rickety ships, 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 ships. However, with nursing our ships, 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 ships as easy as possible." Under such circumstances, 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 ships' 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 ship—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 shore. 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 pass, 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 ship 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 pass through Rendezvous No. 102, to secure any information the ships there may have obtained of them, you are hereby required and directed to keep on your station and inform any of his Majesty's ships 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 ships for something." It would be tedious to quote the numerous assertions 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 ships, 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 God, 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 hitch about necessary maintenance. Now all this was different. The difficulties about supplies and the condition of his ships 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 anticipation. "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 harassment. 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 God, 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 God'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. "Imust 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 ashore 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."