The Life of Nelson, Volume 2

It was at about this time that Nelson expressed, to one or more of his captains, his views as to what he had so far effected, what he had proposed to do if he had met the hostile fleets, and what his future course would be if they were yet found. "I am thankful that the enemy have been driven from the West India Islands with so little loss to our Country. I had made up my mind to great sacrifices; for I had determined, notwithstanding his vast superiority, to stop his career, and to put it out of his power to do any further mischief. Yet do not imagine I am one of those hot brained people, who fight at an immense disadvantage, without an adequate object.[1] My object is partly gained," that is, the allies had been forced out of the West Indies." If we meet them, we shall find them not less than eighteen, I rather think twenty sail of the line, and therefore do not be surprised if I should not fall on them immediately: we won't part without a battle.104 I think they will be glad to leave me alone, if I will let them alone; which I will do, either till we approach the shores of Europe, or they give me an advantage too tempting to be resisted."

It is rare to find so much sagacious appreciation of conditions, combined with so much exalted resolution and sound discretion, as in this compact utterance. Among the external interests of Great Britain, the West Indies were the greatest. They were critically threatened by the force he was pursuing; therefore at all costs that force should be so disabled, that it could do nothing effective against the defences with which the scattered islands were provided. For this end he was prepared to risk the destruction of his squadron. The West Indies were now delivered; but the enemy's force remained, and other British interests. Three months before, he had said, "I had rather see half my squadron burnt than risk what the French fleet may do in the Mediterranean." In the same spirit he now repeats: "Though we are but eleven to eighteen or twenty, we won't part without a battle." Why fight such odds? He himself has told us a little later. "By the time the enemy has beat our fleet soundly, they will do us no harm this year." Granting this conclusion,—the reasonableness of which was substantiated at Trafalgar,—it cannot be denied that the sacrifice would be justified, the enemy's combinations being disconcerted. Yet there shall be no headlong, reckless attack. "I will leave them alone till they offer me an opportunity too tempting to be resisted,"—that speaks for itself,—or, "until we approach the shores of Europe," when the matter can no longer be deferred, and the twenty ships must be taken out of Napoleon's hosts, even though eleven be destroyed to effect this. The preparedness of mind is to be noted, and yet more the firmness of the conviction, in the strength of which alone such deeds are done. It is the man of faith who is ever the man of works.

Singularly enough, his plans were quickly to receive the best of illustrations by the failure of contrary methods. Scarcely a month later fifteen British ships, under another admiral, met these twenty, which Nelson with eleven now sought in vain. They did not part without a battle, but they did part without a decisive battle; they were not kept in sight afterwards; they joined and were incorporated with Napoleon's great armada; they had further wide opportunities of mischief; and there followed for the people of Great Britain a period of bitter suspense and wide-spread panic. "What a game had Villeneuve to play!" said Napoleon of those moments. "Does not the thought of the possibilities remaining to Villeneuve," wrote Lord Radstock of Calder's fruitless battle, "make your blood boil when you reflect on the never to be forgotten 22d of July? Notwithstanding the inferiority of Lord Nelson's numbers," he says at the same time, with keen appreciation of the man he knew so well, "should he be so lucky as to fall in with the enemy, I have no doubt that he would never quit them105 until he should have destroyed or taken some of the French ships; and that he himself would seek the French admiral's ship, if possible, I would pledge my life on it." "There is such an universal bustle and cry about invasion, that no other subject will be listened to at present by those in power. I found London almost a desert, and no good news stirring to animate it; on the contrary, the few faces I saw at the Admiralty at once confirmed the truth of the report of the combined squadron having safely arrived at Ferrol." This was after Calder had met and fought them, and let them get out of his sight.

Lord Minto, speaking of the same crisis, says: "There has been the greatest alarm ever known in the city of London, since the combined fleet [Villeneuve's] sailed from Ferrol. If they had captured our homeward-bound convoys, it is said the India Company and half the city must have been bankrupt." These gleams of the feelings of the times, reflected by two men in close contact with the popular apprehensions, show what Nelson was among British admirals to the men of his day, and why he was so. "Great and important as the victory is," wrote Minto, three months later, after the news of Trafalgar, "it is bought too dearly, even for our interest, by the death of Nelson. We shall want more victories yet, and to whom can we look for them? The navy is certainly full of the bravest men, but they are mostly below the rank of admiral; and brave as they almost all are, there was a sort of heroic cast about Nelson that I never saw in any other man, and which seems wanting to the achievement of impossible things which became easy to him, and on which the maintenance of our superiority at sea seems to depend against the growing navy of the enemy." "The clamour against poor Sir Robert Calder is gaining ground daily," wrote Radstock, condemnatory yet pitiful towards the admiral who had failed duly to utilize the opportunity Nelson then was seeking in vain, "and there is a general cry against him from all quarters. Thus much one may venture to say, that had your old chief commanded our squadron, the enemy would have had but little room for lying or vapouring, as I have not a shadow of a doubt but that he would either have taken or destroyed the French admiral."

But there was but one Nelson, and he meantime, faint yet pursuing, toiled fruitlessly on, bearing still the sickness of hope deferred and suspense protracted. "Midnight," he notes in his private diary of June 21st. "Nearly calm, saw three planks which I think came from the French fleet. Very miserable, which is very foolish." "We crawled thirty-three miles the last twenty-four hours," he enters on the 8th of July. "My only hope is, that the enemy's fleet are near us, and in the same situation. All night light breezes, standing to the eastward, to go to the northward of St. Michael's.106 At times squally with rain." Amid these unavoidable delays, he was forecasting and preparing that no time should be lost when he reached the Straits and once more came within the range of intelligence. The light winds, when boats could pass without retarding the ships, were utilized in preparing letters to the officials at Gibraltar and Tangiers, to have ready the stores necessary for the fleet upon arrival. These papers were already on board the two frigates remaining with him, with the necessary instructions for their captains, so that they might part at any moment judged fitting, irrespective of weather conditions. Again he cautions the authorities to keep his approach a profound secret. No private letters for Gibraltar were permitted in the mail-bags, lest they should unwittingly betray counsel. The vessels were directed to rejoin him forty miles west of Cape Spartel, giving him thus time to decide upon his course before he reached Gibraltar; for it was quite on the cards that he might find it imperative to hurry north without anchoring. On the 13th of July, five hundred miles from Cape St. Vincent, one of these ships left him, probably the last to go.

On the 18th of July, Cape Spartel was sighted. "No French fleet," wrote the admiral in his diary, "nor any information about them: how sorrowful this makes me, but I cannot help myself!" "I am, my dear Mr. Marsden," he wrote to the Secretary of the Admiralty, "as completely miserable as my greatest enemy could wish me; but I blame neither fortune or my own judgment. Oh, General Brereton! General Brereton!" To his friend Davison he revealed yet more frankly the bitterness of his spirit, now that the last hope was dashed, and it was even possible that the mis-step of going to Trinidad had caused him to incur a further mistake, by leaving the allies in the West Indies. "But for General Brereton's damned information, Nelson," he said, half prophetically, "would have been, living or dead, the greatest man in his profession that England ever saw. Now alas! I am nothing—perhaps shall incur censure for misfortunes which may happen, and have happened."

But if he himself were disappointed, and foreboded the discontent of others, the greatness of what he had done was quickly apparent, and received due recognition from thoughtful men. "Either the distances between the different quarters of the globe are diminished," wrote Mr. Elliot from Naples, "or you have extended the powers of human action. After an unremitting cruise of two long years in the stormy Gulf of Lyons, to have proceeded without going into port to Alexandria, from Alexandria to the West Indies, from the West Indies back again to Gibraltar; to have kept your ships afloat, your rigging standing, and your crews in health and spirits—is an effort such as never was realised in former times, nor, I doubt, will ever again be repeated by any other admiral. You have protected us for two long years, and you saved the West Indies by only a few days." Thus truly summarized, such achievements are seen to possess claims to admiration, not to be exceeded even by the glory of Trafalgar.

Although no French fleet was visible, as Nelson approached the Straits, there were a half-dozen British ships-of-the-line, under the command of his old friend Collingwood, blockading Cadiz. When Orde was driven off that station by Villeneuve on the 9th of April, and retired upon Brest, he had already sent in an application to be relieved from a duty which he himself had sought, and had held for so short a time; alleging a bundle of grievances which show clearly enough the impracticable touchiness of the man. His request was at once granted. Early in May, Collingwood was sent from England with eight sail-of-the-line for the West Indies; but learning on the way that Nelson had gone thither, he detached to him two of his swiftest seventy-fours, and, with great good judgment, himself took position off Cadiz, where he covered the entrance of the Mediterranean, and effectually prevented any ships from either Cartagena or Ferrol concentrating in the neighborhood of the Straits.

Nelson received word from some of his lookouts appointed to meet him here, that nothing had been heard of the allied squadrons. The anxiety which had never ceased to attend him was increased by this prolonged silence. He had no certainty that the enemy might not have doubled back, and gone to Jamaica. He would not stop now to exchange with Collingwood speculations about the enemy's course. "My dear Collingwood, I am, as you may suppose, miserable at not having fallen in with the enemy's fleet; and I am almost increased in sorrow by not finding them [here]. The name of General Brereton will not soon be forgot. I must now only hope that the enemy have not tricked me, and gone to Jamaica; but if the account,107 of which I send you a copy, is correct, it is more than probable that they are either gone to the northward, or, if bound to the Mediterranean, not yet arrived." His surmise remains accurate. He then continues, with that delicate and respectful recognition of the position and ability of others, which won him so much love: "The moment the fleet is watered, and got some refreshments, of which we are in great want, I shall come out and make you a visit; not, my dear friend, to take your command from you, (for I may probably add mine to you,) but to consult how we can best serve our Country, by detaching a part of this large force." Circumstances prevented his neighborly intention from taking effect. A week later Nelson returned north with his squadron, and the friends did not meet until shortly before Trafalgar.

Admiral Collingwood

In reply to Nelson's letter, Collingwood summed up his view of the situation as so far developed. "I have always had an idea that Ireland alone was the object they had in view, and still believe that to be their ultimate destination—that they will now liberate the Ferrol squadron from Calder, make the round of the Bay,108 and, taking the Rochefort people with them, appear off Ushant—perhaps with thirty-four sail, there to be joined by twenty more. Admiral Cornwallis collecting his out squadrons may have thirty and upwards. This appears to be a probable plan; for unless it is to bring their great fleets and armies to some point of service—some rash attempt at conquest—they have been only subjecting them to chance of loss, which I do not believe the Corsican would do, without the hope of an adequate reward."

It is upon this letter, the sagacious and well-ordered inferences of which must be candidly admitted, that a claim for superiority of discernment over Nelson has been made for its writer. It must be remembered, however, not as a matter of invidious detraction from one man, but in simple justice to the other, whose insight and belief had taken form in such wonderful work, that Nelson also had fully believed that the enemy, if they left the Mediterranean, would proceed to Ireland; and further, and yet more particularly, Collingwood's views had been confirmed to him by the fact, as yet unknown to Nelson, that the Rochefort squadron, which sailed at the time Villeneuve first escaped in January, had since returned to Europe on the 26th of May. "The flight to the West Indies," Collingwood said, in a letter dated the day after the one just quoted, "was to take off our naval force, which is the great impediment to their undertaking. The Rochefort Squadron's return confirmed me." "I well know what your lordship's disappointment is," he wrote, with generous sympathy; "and I share the mortification of it. It would have been a happy day for England, could you have met them; small as your force was, I trust it would have been found enough. This summer is big with events. Sincerely I wish your Lordship strength of body to go through—and to all others, your strength of mind." Testy even to petulance as these two great seamen were at times in small matters, when overwrought with their manifold anxieties, they nowhere betray any egotistic concern as to the value attached by others to their respective speculations, the uncertainties of which none knew better than they, who had to act upon their conclusions.

Meantime, at the very moment they were exchanging letters, pregnant movements were taking place, unknown to either. The brig "Curieux," despatched to England by Nelson the night before he left Antigua, had fallen in with the allied squadrons, nine hundred miles north-northeast from Antigua, on the 19th of June—just a week after she sailed. Keeping company with them long enough to ascertain their course and approximate numbers, the captain then hastened on, anchoring in Plymouth on the 7th of July. "I am sorry," wrote Nelson when he heard of this meeting, "that Captain Bettesworth did not stand back and try to find us out;" but grateful as the word would have been to him, the captain was better advised to make for a fixed and certain destination. At daylight of the 9th the news was in the hands of the First Lord, who issued instant orders for the blockading squadrons off Rochefort and Ferrol to unite, and to take post one hundred miles west of Cape Finisterre. On the 19th of July Admiral Calder was in this position, with fifteen ships-of-the-line, and received through Lisbon the information of the French movements, which Nelson had forwarded thither an exact month before. On the 20th Nelson's fleet anchored at Gibraltar, and he went ashore, "for the first time since the 16th of June, 1803." On the 22d Calder and Villeneuve met and fought. Two Spanish ships-of-the-line were captured, but the battle was otherwise indecisive. Calder hesitated to attack again, and on the 26th lost sight of the enemy, who, on the 28th, put into Vigo Bay; whence, by a lucky slant of wind, they reached Ferrol on the first of August with fifteen ships, having left three in Vigo. Calder sent five of his fleet to resume the blockade of Rochefort, and himself with nine joined Cornwallis off Brest, raising the force there to twenty-six. This junction was made August 14th. The next day appeared there the indefatigable Nelson, with his unwearied and ever ready squadron of eleven ships—veterans in the highest sense of the word, in organization, practice, and endurance; alert, and solid as men of iron.

This important and most opportune arrival came about as follows. Anchoring on the 19th of July at Gibraltar, Nelson found everything ready for the re-equipment of his ships, owing to his foresight in directing it. All set to work at once to prepare for immediate departure. When I have "completed the fleet to four months' provisions, and with stores for Channel service," he wrote to the Admiralty, "I shall get outside the Mediterranean, leaving a sufficient force to watch Carthagena, and proceed as upon a due consideration, (on reading Vice-Admiral Collingwood's orders, and those which Rear-Admiral Sir Richard Bickerton may have received during my absence,) may suggest to be most proper. Should I hear that the enemy are gone to some of the ports in the Bay, I shall join the squadron off Ferrol, or off Ushant, as I think the case requires." There will be observed here the same striking combination of rapidity, circumspection, and purpose prepared by reflection for instant action in emergencies, that characterized him usually, and especially in these four months of chase. "The squadron is in the most perfect health," he continues, "except some symptoms of scurvy, which I hope to eradicate by bullocks and refreshments from Tetuan, to which I will proceed to-morrow." The getting fresh beef at Tetuan, it will be remembered, had been stopped by a fair wind on the 5th of May. Since then, and in fact since a month earlier, no opportunity of obtaining fresh provisions had offered during his rapid movements. "The fleet received not the smallest refreshment, not even a cup of water in the West Indies," he told the Queen of Naples. The admiral himself got only a few sheep, in the nine days' round.

Even now, the intention to go to Tetuan, advisable as the step was, was contingent upon the opportunity offering of reaching a position whence he could move with facility. Nelson did not mean to be back-strapped again within the Mediterranean, with a west wind, and a current setting to leeward, if the enemy turned up in the Atlantic. "If the wind is westerly," he wrote on the early morning of the 22d, "I shall go to Tetuan: if easterly, out of the straits." At half-past nine that day the fleet weighed, and at half-past seven in the evening anchored at Tetuan, whither orders had already gone to prepare bullocks and fresh vegetables for delivery. At noon of the 23d the ships again lifted their anchors, and started. "The fleet is complete," he wrote the First Lord that day, "and the first easterly wind, I shall pass the Straits." Fortune apparently had made up her mind now to balk him no more. Thirty-six hours later, at 3.30 A.M. of July 25th, being then off Tarifa, a little west of Gibraltar, the sloop-of-war "Termagant," one of his own Mediterranean cruisers, came alongside, and brought him a newspaper, received from Lisbon, containing an account of the report carried to England by the "Curieux." "I know it's true," he wrote to the Admiralty, "from my words being repeated, therefore I shall not lose a moment, after I have communicated with Admiral Collingwood, in getting to the northward to either Ferrol, Ireland, or Ushant; as information or circumstances may point out to be proper." In his haste to proceed, and wishing to summon the "Amazon" frigate to rejoin him, he sent the "Termagant" at once to Gibraltar, without understanding that she was just from there and had on board his clothes left for washing; in consequence of which precipitancy she "carried all my things, even to my last shirt, back again." "As I fancied he came from Lisbon," he explained, "I would not allow him to stop." "My dear Parker," he wrote the frigate-captain, "make haste and join me. If all places fail you will find me at Spithead." Parker, who was a favorite of the admiral's, followed out the careful detailed instructions which accompanied this note, but could not overtake the fleet, and from incidents of the service never met Nelson again.

With a fresh easterly gale the squadron pressed again into the Atlantic. As it went on for Cape St. Vincent, Collingwood's division was seen some distance to leeward, but, as not infrequently happens in and near the Mediterranean, the wind with it came from the opposite quarter to that which Nelson had. The latter, therefore, would not stop, nor lose a mile of the ground over which his fair breeze was carrying him. "My dear Collingwood," he wrote, "We are in a fresh Levanter. You have a westerly wind, therefore I must forego the pleasure of taking you by the hand until October next, when, if I am well enough, I shall (if the Admiralty please) resume the command. I am very far from well; but I am anxious that not a moment of the services of this fleet should be lost." Matters therefore were left standing much as they were when he passed in a week before. He had taken upon himself, however, with a discretion he could now assume freely, to change the Admiralty's orders, issued during his absence, withdrawing most of the small cruisers from about Malta, to reinforce Collingwood's division. When he first learned of this step, he said it was a mistake, for double the number he had left there were needed; "but the orders of the Admiralty must be obeyed. I only hope officers will not be blamed for the events which it is not difficult to foresee will happen." With the crowd of enemy's privateers in those waters, Malta, he was assured, would be cut off from all communication. He soon made up his mind that he would use his own discretion and modify the dispositions taken. "Malta cannot more than exist, and our troops would be placed in a position of great distress," he told the Admiralty. "I transmit a statement of the force I think necessary to the eastward of Carthagena for performing the services intrusted to my care, and when I get the lists I shall apportion them as far as their number will allow, and my judgment will admit." "I hope the Board will consider this as not wishing to alter any arrangement of theirs, but as a measure absolutely necessary." Within his own field Nelson was now, by proved professional genius, above the restraint of Boards; and when he reached England the new First Lord had the wisdom to admit it, in this supreme crisis, by giving him full control, within the resources of the country, over the constitution of the fleet with which he fought Trafalgar.

Map of the North Atlantic

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Letters left for Bickerton and Collingwood placed them in possession of his ideas, including the revocation of the Admiralty's order; and, in an official letter, he earnestly recommended the latter officer to adhere to his arrangements. Word was also sent forward to Cornwallis, and to the commander-in-chief at Cork, as well as to the Admiralty, to notify them of his approach. To the northward of Cape St. Vincent he met the northerly winds that prevail on the Portuguese coast. Delayed by these, he was three full weeks making the passage from Gibraltar to the Channel Fleet, which he joined at 3 P.M. of August 15th, twenty-five miles west of Ushant. To this point his movements were finally determined by a frigate, which was spoken on the 12th of August, and informed him that up to three days before no intelligence had been received of the enemy's arrival in the Bay of Biscay, or on the Irish coast. Cornwallis excused him from the customary personal visit, and authorized him to proceed at once to Portsmouth with the "Victory," in pursuance of the Admiralty's leave which he so long had had in his hands. On the morning of August 18th, the long and fruitless chase of the allied fleet was brought to an end by the dropping of the "Victory's" anchor at Spithead. To Davison Nelson summed up his disappointment in the exasperated expression, "—n General Brereton."109