Tested by Fate (9 page)

T
HOUGH THE DISPUTE
over enforcement of the Navigation Acts had been resolved in Nelson’s favour, the Admiralty backing him to the hilt, several obstacles still hampered his pursuit of Fanny Nisbet. With Sir Richard Hughes now departed there were his duties, as the commander on station between admirals. Second, there was her uncle, who still seemed to blow hot and cold, sometimes a touch of both on the same day. Would he give her a dowry? He declined to be drawn. Did she have expectations for his estate? Perhaps! How went Nelson’s own requests to his family for financial assistance? How could he answer when a reply might be six months in coming?

Then there was the difficulty of explaining his feelings when he was mostly confined to letters, his fulsome and excitable, hers sweet and full of gossip. A dashed visit to Nevis, with a brusque demand for clarification, extracted from Mr Herbert permission that they might become engaged, provided his niece had no objection. That was a difficult moment, one which Nelson dreaded. But Fanny assented to his suit, and even allowed him a gentle kiss to seal their bargain.

But if any cause could be laid at the root of his difficulties it was His Royal Highness, Captain Prince William Henry of Hanover. The slender youth of previous acquaintance, full of respect and wonder for a senior naval officer, had quite gone. Instead, Nelson had to contend with a porcine, gluttonous creature, who could never be brought to admit he was in the wrong profession, a potentially fatal trait in one who, though he commanded a frigate, should never have been entrusted with a coracle; a man who had achieved his
rank because of his blood, not his ability. Whoever had chosen his officers had done so on the grounds that seamanship was necessary, and a Germanic background was an asset. Where they had failed was in the notion that in dealing with someone like Prince William, tact was also required.

On arrival at Antigua, Prince William delivered a brusque and rude demand for a court-martial. He wanted his first lieutenant, Schomberg, removed for failure to show due respect to a superior officer. Horatio Nelson wanted to remind the Prince that he was signally failing in that respect himself. Barking at the senior captain on the station was not a right even gifted to a king’s blood relative. But the need for tact applied to him as well. It was nothing new for a first lieutenant to fall out with his captain—it happened all the time, the confines of a ship almost inviting conflict between the two senior officers if there was any grit in the oyster of their relationship. Those faced with solving such a confrontation knew that a court was a poor solution, since neither party would emerge unscathed.

Prince William didn’t know that Nelson had on his desk a letter from Schomberg detailing his own accusations against his captain: failure to keep proper logs; arbitrary misuse of his power to release rations and accusations of collusion with the purser to deny the rights of his crew; drunkenness; a wanton disregard for the safety of the ship; and a failure to heed the advice of his officers, as well as the ship’s master.

The list was endless and, if Nelson recalled his visitor properly from their time spent together in the Caribbean, probably true. When serving under Lord Hood, Nelson had tried to bring on the Prince’s nautical education, with little success. The boy was dogged but useless at mathematics, slipshod in his attentions to the needs of his division, an embarrassment at sword practice, and something of a boor at the dining board. In the circle of those who could speak openly to each other, it was agreed that such things mattered little. No royal prince would forsake home for life aboard
a man-o’-war. This one had confounded them by pursuing a naval career, though whether the notion had been his or his father’s was not known.

“Now, Nelson—”

“Captain Nelson, Your Royal Highness. Or sir, if you prefer.”

Unaccustomed to being checked, Prince William managed a stuttering reply. If he blushed, which he should have done, it was not obvious on such a rotund, high-coloured face. “Yes … Yes. I wanted to ask you about the tour of the islands.”

“Which part in particular?”

“Your suggestion that we use your ship. I’d much rather captain my own. Let my father’s subjects see a prince who is not some stuffed affair, but a real man with a job to do.”

That was the last thing Nelson wanted. He knew Schomberg and esteemed him as a very competent sailor, honest though somewhat dour of temperament. Added to what he had experienced of the Prince, the accusations he had made were likely to be more truthful than spiteful. Not that it mattered much; no one, least of all Captain Horatio Nelson, was going to bring charges against a member of the royal family. That would be professional suicide even for an Admiral of the Fleet. But he knew if he agreed to sail in Prince William’s own ship, he might find himself in the same bind as Schomberg, forced to interfere in the running of the frigate, especially in entering and leaving the difficult West Indian harbours. That was where the Prince’s lack of even the rudiments of seamanship would be most exposed.

“I fear you will find the journey exhausting enough, sir, without the need to captain a vessel as well.”

“Nonsense, Nelson,” Prince William replied, angering his host again with his lack of respect. Yet that turned to amusement as he wondered whether the son of His Majesty could be guilty of
lèse-m
ajest
é
.
This clearly showed on his face, since his guest enquired with furrowed bow, “Something amuses you, sir?”

“I was anticipating the pleasure you’ll bring to your father’s subjects.”

“Especially in my own ship!”

What followed was pure inspiration. “Even with Lieutenant Schomberg on board?”

“He must be removed, naturally.”

“That, as you know, Prince William, is beyond my power to do. Schomberg was appointed by the First Lord. Only he can remove him.”

In the weeks that followed, Nelson had constantly to remind himself that he was Christian, and that since he had claimed a kind of friendship with the Prince, it was his duty to forgive his royal passenger a great deal. His misfortune was that William of Hanover would have tested the patience of a whole bevy of saints. Inclined to boorishness when sober, he became a positive menace when
inebriated
, which was frequent.

On deck when Nelson wasn’t present, he interfered in the way the ship was run, which cut down what little time the Captain of the
Boreas
had to himself. He was exhausting, not least in the endless gaffes he committed socially by seeking to seduce every attractive woman he met. Few were unmarried; all the unattached had fathers; princes did not apologise, so it fell to Nelson to mollify the locals this sprig of Hanover offended. He undertook his duty with a sore head, since his guest was addicted to the tavern and the whore-house. Nelson tried to be abstemious, but that was a hard task in the company of a man determined to prove he had hollow legs, to prove that the Navy could not be bested in the article of consumption by “these damned planters.”

Worse, Nelson’s duty to visiting royalty threatened to keep him away from Nevis. There was a pecking order in the West Indian islands, though to persuade the inhabitants to agree to a listing would have been impossible. Jamaica was the largest British possession, the jewel of the Caribbean, which must be visited first. But what came next was at Nelson’s discretion and, still unpopular over his enforcement of the Navigation Acts, he took advantage of that to push Nevis well up in the itinerary.

John Herbert was thrilled to receive a royal prince in his capacity as president of the council, and by the time they landed Prince William was aware of Nelson’s attachment to his niece, which added a
frisson
of deeper excitement to the visit. And the way the Prince flattered Fanny held none of the innuendo for which Nelson had been forced to apologise on other islands. For once acting like a gentleman, Prince William absented himself so that Nelson and Fanny could spend some time together. The gardens at Montpelier were big enough to find a secluded spot where they could sit and talk, though not so cut off from view as to offend propriety.

“He seems to think highly of you, your prince.”

“I flatter myself that he thinks me a friend. Indeed he has shown me the content of the letters he sends home to his father, which say so.”

“Who could have a better friend than you, Captain Nelson?”

“Fanny,” he replied earnestly, “you know my feelings for you.”

She dropped her head slightly, in a way that he found enchanting. “I blush to recall some of the things you have written.”

“All true, I do assure you. It is my heart that pens my letters.”

“Who can doubt that? I fear my replies must seem dull.”

Just like his reply regarding the Prince, Nelson had to sacrifice truth to the greater goal. Fanny’s letters indeed lacked the depth of passion he had hoped for. In his own daily missives no image of bliss had been excluded: rose bedecked cottages and ebullient children; her on his arm as he accepted the greetings of neighbours that went with his status as a senior naval captain; the fact that he would astound the world with his exploits and that she would find herself betrothed to an admiral and a hero. Even the bliss of conjugality had been gently alluded to, in an attempt to draw her out into admitting that she too craved the physical side of marriage.

Yet for all his passion Nelson admired the sense of proper behaviour that debarred the woman he sought to marry from responding in a like manner. The desire for respectability was strong and what could do more to grant to him that status than a woman of such
accomplishments as Fanny, with her French, her music, her embroidery, and her kind, gentle manners?

“Your letters, Fanny, are meat and drink to an aching heart. I own up to my emotional nature, of which you are tolerant. I confess that when we are apart I am afire with curiosity. Where are you? What are you doing? Is some other creature paying court to you in my absence? When you write, and when I receive what you have written, it calms me. I swear it is no secret to my officers and my men, all of whom wish nothing but happiness for you and me and young Josiah. They know that I am a different man after a packet of letters from Nevis. Only the reservation of your uncle stands between me, even us, and bliss.”

“You must forgive him, Captain Nelson. It is not that he does not consider you worthy, it is more his concern for my happiness, for which I cannot do other than respect him.”

But Nelson harboured the suspicion that Herbert thought him not good enough for his niece. As a direct descendant of an earl of Pembroke perhaps he felt the Nelson bloodline less blue. Or was it just parsimony, the knowledge that by giving permission he would have to open his purse to an unrestricted commitment?

“You do wish for us to be married?” he asked, deliberately sounding doubtful.

“With all my heart.”

“Then if you can forgive your uncle, Fanny,” he lied, “so can I.”

Herbert, happy to receive Prince William, was less than enamoured of the abrupt way in which he departed. Nelson heard all the reasons as they weighed, none of which sounded even remotely like the truth, which was that Nevis did not enjoy much in the way of entertainment. The inhabitants were sober and industrious, and because the island was not a port for ocean-going vessels it lacked the kind of palaces of entertainment so beloved by sailors. In short, there were no whores, no riotous establishments, and few women to whom His Highness could pay court.

So, as they continued their tour, touching at the other Caribbean possessions of the King, it was back to letters to Fanny and attempts to pin down her uncle on the matter of a dowry or some future allowance. Herbert’s replies deftly turned that responsibility back on Nelson, reinforcing the feeling that though Herbert had agreed to a match he was not settled as to its entire suitability. Worn down by that and his attendance on his charge, liverish in the extreme from over consumption, Nelson became so melancholy that others saw his distress.

Even the Prince noticed, and quizzed him on the state of his suit. “You are sure that this lady is the one you wish to wed?”

Nelson was thinking two things: first that it was really none of his business, and second, how like a parent Prince William sounded. He might have been the Reverend Edmund Nelson, except that he was round and red, instead of tall and saturnine.

“Because if you are, Nelson,” the Prince continued, “I may have the means to effect a conclusion to this affair.”

“In what way?”

There was a long pause, and much pacing to and fro designed to convey that Prince William was giving his reply careful thought. “Have you engaged anyone to stand as your best man?”

“I would have hoped for a fellow captain but, failing that, I intended to approach Ralph Millar.”

“In listening to you explain the situation and, if you will forgive me from what I have gleaned in conversation with your officers, it seems to me that you require some lever to force Herbert’s hand.”

“He will consent to it in time.”

“I am surprised, Nelson, that you did not see fit to approach me.”

“You?”

“Does the thought of a prince of the blood as your guarantor depress you so?”

“I could not have presumed to make such a request.”

“I can see how my position might debar you,” the Prince replied portentously, “but what if I offer my services, man?”

“It’s not an offer any loyal subject of the King could refuse.”

That threw the King’s son, who had clearly been expecting a more fulsome response. He cleared his throat. “Well the offer is there, Nelson. Take it, if you will, and convey to Mr Herbert that my duties do not allow me much time to act in that capacity. That if he wants to see you wed with me alongside he must make some haste.”

When such an offer was put to him Herbert’s response was swift. Fanny Nisbet and Captain Horatio Nelson could be married at the Prince’s convenience. The financial matters, however, were not dealt with, so Nelson was left with the prospect of the nuptials yet no idea if he would have the means to sustain the married estate. But there was no going back. In his hearty manner Prince William had taken to the notion of a wedding so it was not only his intended bride’s feelings he had to consider.