Nelson: The Essential Hero (50 page)

The war with France had been resumed on 18 May 1803. Napoleon, who had only wished for a breathing space by the Treaty of Amiens, now felt himself ready to crush Britain, his last and eternal enemy. On the very same day that war was declared the blue ensign was hoisted at the stern of the 100-gun
Victory
, lying at Portsmouth, and Nelson’s flag as Vice-Admiral of the Red lifted in the wind at the fore. Two days later the
Victory
was under full sail to rendezvous with the Channel fleet, where Nelson transferred his flag to the frigate
Amphion
under Captain Hardy for a swift passage to Gibraltar. Before leaving, he found time to write a last letter to Emma: ‘You will believe that although I am glad to leave that horrid place, Portsmouth, yet the being afloat makes me now feel that we do not tread the same element. But already ‘the great embraces of the sea held him rather than those of the shore. It would be over two years before he would see Emma again in the garden of Merton.

Meantime he was happy as the frigate struck down the Biscay swell. It was good to have Hardy with him as Captain. In the short space of time that he had been aboard the
Victory
under her Captain, Samuel Sutton, he had recorded, ‘A good man but not so active as Hardy. As on previous occasions, Nelson was optimistic that it would only be a short war, ‘long enough to make me independent in pecuniary matters. He viewed his return to the Mediterranean as a time when he could at last clear the French from the sea, capture many of their merchantmen, and ensure that peaceful retirement which for a moment he had thought to have already found. It seemed a good augury that after a sparkling run from Cape St Vincent to the Straits the
Amphion
seized a French brig shortly before bringing up in Rosia Bay. The Rock, where he had first set foot ashore so many years before as a young lieutenant, was to see little of him now. Within twenty-four hours he was under way again - ‘I am anxious to get to the Fleet. His orders from St Vincent were that, while Cornwallis held the Channel against the massive French preparations which were under way there, Nelson’s duty was to watch Toulon. He was also, as before, to keep an eye on the East, for Napoleon's dreams of a vast Oriental empire had far from diminished now that, as Consul for life, he had an entire Continental empire behind him. Nelson was, of course, ‘to take, sink, burn, or otherwise destroy any French shipping of whatsoever description that his ships might encounter.

His first concern was for Malta, where he expected to find the Mediterranean Fleet under Rear-Admiral Sir Richard Bickerton awaiting him. But he found the blue waters of that superlative harbour empty, for Bickerton had wisely taken the fleet to sea to cruise between Sicily and Naples. This was an intelligent but purely precautionary measure, for Nelson found that in Malta, as in Gibraltar, the news that the war had reopened had not yet arrived. After a brief visit to Sir Alexander Ball, that old friend, whom he had years ago in France designated a ‘coxcomb for wearing epaulettes, and who was now Governor of Malta, Nelson sailed for Sicily and the Straits of Messina. Every mile of sea that the
Amphion
covered was full of memories -even for a man who lived as much in the present as he did. Malta itself, limestone-golden, and with the great battlements of Valetta now securely in British hands - where he had found the Maltese ‘in the highest spirits, and sincerely hope that they will now never be separated from England - must have reminded him of that cruise in the
Foudroyant
during which young Horatia had been conceived.

In a long letter to the Prime Minister Addington, which was begun on 28 June, ‘between Sardinia and Naples, he analysed the whole Mediterranean situation as he saw it - and who could know it better than the ‘Old Mediterranean Man? After touching on the composition of the troops in Gibraltar, he commented on the situation at Algiers, agreeing with the British Consul's statement that, if the Dey were given way to in the slightest, his insolence would increase. He was happy with the situation in Malta, but was convinced that the island was useless, being so remote, for keeping a watch on Toulon. Of Sicily he remarked that its state was ‘as bad as a civilized country can be. Its troops were demoralised, the nobility oppressors, the middle classes looking for a change, and the peasantry starving. Sardinia was declared neutral, but he doubted if this neutrality could be maintained if the French were determined on invasion. Tuscany was in an invidious state, with the French besieging Leghorn, so he suggested that the Government should consider placing it under blockade. As for Genoa, it was as much French as the Republic itself. He recalled from his earlier experience how Genoa had proved the granary of southern France, and suggested that it should be blockaded immediately. On the subject of the Morea, he had no doubt that French agents were at work there, either inducing the Greeks to revolt against the Porte, or preparing them for the reception of a French army. This undoubtedly pointed to a further French attempt against Egypt and the East. All in all, it was not a very happy picture. He concluded the letter on 9 July, ‘I joined our Fleet yesterday. With the casual absence of one or two Ships, we shall always be seven Sail of the Line; and as the French have at least seven - I believe nine - nearly ready, we are in hopes that Buonaparte may be angry, and order them out, which, I have no doubt, will put our Ships in high feather; for I never knew any wants after a Victory, although we are always full of them before.’

The British fleet consisting of nine sail-of-the-line, a frigate and two sloops was to be augmented on 30 July by the arrival of the
Victory.
Nelson immediately transferred his flag to her, while Hardy went with him, superseding Captain Sutton. Now he could really feel happy that, despite the immense supply and maintenance problems attendant upon keeping the fleet at sea so far from a home port, he had the measure of his enemy. The French fleet at Toulon was commanded by Rear-Admiral Latouche-Treville, one of the finest officers to serve in Napoleon’s fleet, an aristocrat turned Republican who had already given proof of his ability by his repulse of Nelson’s attack on Boulogne. One of Nelson’s first actions on taking command was to withdraw the fleet from its position of close watch-and-ward off Toulon to a position thirty miles or more to the west of the harbour. Sir Richard Bickerton, who had already happily greeted Nelson’s arrival, and asked him to inform the Admiralty that he was very happy to stay on service in the Mediterranean, will have quickly appreciated his chief’s reasons for this change. The first was that the French from their positions ashore, or by sending out a frigate, could readily enough establish that the great topsails were still passing and repassing along their patrol line. The second was that it was easier for the British to withdraw one or two ships at a time for repairs, watering or revictualling, without the fact being obvious to the enemy. When they were on inshore patrol, their numbers were readily apparent. ‘It is not my intention’, Nelson wrote, ‘to close-watch Toulon, even with frigates.’

He hoped, indeed, that one day when the visibility was down, or his fleet out of sight at the far extent of its patrol-line, Latouche-Treville might be tempted to think the British gone, and sally out from the harbour. This technique of distant patrol also enabled him to make use of the Maddalena islands to the north-east of Sardinia. Here he had found ‘one of the best anchorages I have met with’, and here individual ships could be sent to water and buy livestock, as well as fresh fruit and vegetables. Of Maddalena he wrote : ‘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 short, it covers Egypt, Italy, and Turkey.’ He urged the Government to take possession of Sardinia before the French. Meanwhile, for week after week, month after month, exceeding in sea-time even those ships of the Second World War in the Pacific with all their modern lines of communication and fleet-trains in attendance, the British men-of-war maintained their ceaseless watch off Toulon. ‘The fleet put to sea’, Nelson wrote, ‘on 18 May [1803], and is still at sea; not a ship has been refitted, or recruited, excepting what has been done at sea.’ This was dated nearly a year later, in March 1804.

As during his previous watch over Toulon and the French coast, the routine aboard his flagship and the others in the fleet followed much the same pattern. His Chaplain, the Reverend Alexander Scott, whom Nelson designated ‘Doctor’ to distinguish him from his official Secretary Mr John Scott, left his
Recollections of Life in the Victory
, while Dr Gillespie, who was Physician to the Fleet and Surgeon aboard the flagship, also recorded his impressions of life on board.

There was an almost amazing regularity - like a perfect chronometer - only to be broken on the few occasions when the French ventured out of harbour, or when the ship changed her station. Dr Gillespie, like Nelson himself, was called at 6 a.m. and informed of the state of the weather and the ship’s course. About half an hour afterwards, along with Murray, the Captain of the Fleet, Hardy, the two Scotts, and other ship’s officers chosen in rotation, he breakfasted with the Admiral. The menu was inevitably the same: tea, hot rolls, toast, and tongue. ‘. . . When finished we repair upon deck to enjoy the majestic sight of the rising sun (scarcely ever obscured by clouds in this fine climate) surmounting the smooth and placid waves of the Mediterranean, which supports the lofty and tremendous bulwarks of Britain. . . .’ Dr Gillespie clearly picked his weather, for Nelson in a letter to Emma (who had suggested she would like to join the fleet) was more accurate when he wrote : ‘Even in summer-time we have a hard gale every week, and two days heavy swell.’

Professional duties occupied everybody aboard from seven until two in the afternoon at which time a band struck up and would play until quarter to three. Then ‘the drum beats the tune called “The Roast Beef of Old England”, to announce the Admiral’s dinner, which is served up at exactly three o’clock, and which generally consists of three courses and a dessert of the choicest fruit, together with three or four of the best wines, champagne and claret not excepted. If a person does not feel himself perfectly at his ease it must be his own fault, such is the urbanity and hospitality which reign here. . . .’ After coffee and liqueurs the company usually walked the deck while the band played for nearly an hour. Between six and seven o’clock tea was served and, continues the doctor :

the party continue to converse with his lordship, who at this time generally unbends himself, though he is at all times as free from stiffness and pomp as a regard to proper dignity will admit, and is very communicative. At 8 o’clock a rummer of punch with cake or biscuit is served up, soon after which we wish the Admiral a good night (who is generally in bed before 9 o’clock). Such is the journal of a day at sea in fine or at least moderate weather, in which this floating castle goes through the water with the greatest imaginable steadiness.

The ‘floating castle’ which bore Nelson’s flag was of course the same as he had seen as a small boy of twelve when he had first joined the
Raisonable
at Chatham. The description was not inaccurate for, although designed to be a little over 2,000 tons, it has been estimated that in fact she displaced over 3,000. Launched from Old Single Dock in Chatham in 1765, she was the fifth ship of the Navy to bear the name
Victory -
the first having been the flagship of Sir John Hawkins during the Spanish Armada campaign. It was William Pitt the Elder, later the first Earl of Chatham, who had been responsible for the Bill of 1758 which had ensured the laying down of twelve ships of the line, the list being headed by a ‘First Rate of 100 Guns’. This was the
Victory
, over 200 feet long (226 from her figurehead to her taffrail), with a hull made of English oak over two feet thick. Completed in 1778, she had first been the flagship of Admiral Keppel and subsequently of Lord Hood, Lord Hotham, and of Lord St Vincent. Painted with black bands between the varnish-yellow of the gun-decks, she presented a chequered look when the dark gun-ports were down. This style of painting was soon to be followed by most other first-rates in the Navy, and was to be known as
a la Nelson.
A floating fortress, with a crew of 850 men (Nelson, unlike some commanders, would tolerate no women on board), she mounted thirty 32-pounders on her lower gun-deck, twenty-eight 24-pounders on her middle deck, thirty 12-pounders on the upper deck, ten 12-pounders on the half-deck, and two 12-pounders on the fo’c’sle deck as well as two massive 68-pounder carronades (for close-quarter work, and called after Carron in Scotland where such guns were first made).

‘Dreadfully seasick,’ as he wrote, ‘always tossed-about and always seasick’, but he had worse physical problems: ‘A few years must, as I have always predicted, render me blind.; . . .’ Yet his attention to his fleet and to the men themselves was unremitting. This was the Nelson that men loved, the Nelson whose shadow looms so much longer than those of the other great sea-captains or commanders. ‘He governed men’, as Southey wrote, ‘by their reason and their affections; they knew that he was incapable of caprice or tyranny; and they obeyed him with alacrity and joy, because he possessed their confidence as well as their love.’ His concern about the men’s clothing, their quarters, and above all their victualling would not have been unusual in the twentieth century but, at the time when he lived, it was so rare as to be almost eccentric. He had never forgotten what the squirearchy of Norfolk had never even noticed - the condition of the working man upon whom, in the final analysis, the country depended. There, in those long acres of chocolate-brown earth, it was the agricultural labourer who carried the burden through the seasons of the year - dank autumn, piercing winter, uncertain spring and (sometimes) hot and gnat-ridden summer. Here it was the seamen, unknown to the fops of Bath or the merchants of London, who furled the sails in high-rising wind, lived in cramped quarters where only a short man could stand erect, and - when the enemy’s topsails were sighted - ran out the guns and tied their sweaty handkerchiefs round their ears. He cared for them: ‘The great thing in all military service is health, and you will agree with me, that it is easier for an officer to keep men healthy, than for a physician to cure them.’ So he wrote to his old friend Dr Moseley whom he had known since 1780, in his days on the Mosquito coast: