The War of Wars (39 page)

Nelson was enchanted, but left after only six days. Returning to Toulon, he was despatched to establish a British naval base on the island of Corsica where he learnt soon afterwards, to his dismay, that Toulon had been regained by the French, thanks to the enterprise of a daring young French artillery officer, Napoleon Bonaparte, although the name would have scarcely registered at the time with the British officer. Nelson was expected to establish an alternative British naval base on Corsica, where Paoli was in open insurrection against the French. Furious with the army, which advised against laying siege to Calvi, Nelson ordered his sailors to disembark and set up guns outside the port of Bastia, which was bombarded and blockaded by sea. Towards the end of May 1794 the town surrendered.

Nelson now repeated the feat with Calvi, but was twice wounded by enemy fire; his right eye was blinded by splinters in the second attack. Some consider his early fearlessness under fire reflected a morbid death wish; in fact Nelson and many other officers considered that exposing oneself to the dangers experienced by the men was an essential part of leadership; if there was any unusual psychological element it is that Nelson, unlike most men, felt entirely calm under fire and possibly even relished the heat of battle, as have so many natural warriors.

Calvi surrendered in August. The army commander, Colonel John Moore, an extremely able officer, claimed later that both ports could
have been taken by simple blockade – possibly an excuse for his own caution. Nelson and Hood claimed the credit. The former by his ceaselessly activity and reckless bravery had at last had the chance to demonstrate what a leader of men he could be under fire. Nelson had somewhat redeemed the setback suffered with the loss of Toulon. He travelled in style to Genoa and Leghorn, where he acquired a girlfriend – his ‘dolly’, as one fellow captain put it – although he corresponded eagerly with Fanny: it was by no means uncommon for officers away from their wives for long periods to have dalliances in foreign ports.

In March 1795 near Genoa he had experience of fleet action, pursuing the French two-decker
Ça Ira
along with fifteen French lesser warships. The
Agamemnon
, the fastest ship in the fourteen-strong British fleet under the Mediterranean command of Admiral William Hotham, caught up with the
Ça Ira
, which was already being fired upon by a small British frigate, the
Inconstant
, and skilfully manoeuvred to stay out of range before coming up to deliver a full broadside, thus disabling the French ship.

Nelson continued to fire upon her until other French ships came to the rescue, while the rest of the British fleet in the meantime hurried up to reinforce Nelson. Soon both the
Ça Ira
and another French ship struck their colours, some 350 men having been killed or wounded aboard the French ships, compared to just thirteen aboard Nelson’s own.

The impetuous young captain quarrelled with the cautious Hotham and was dismayed when the fearless veteran Hood, with whom he got on much better, was pensioned off, possibly because of his failure to hold Toulon. Hotham was replaced in 1795 by Admiral Sir John Jervis, with whom Nelson immediately got on. Jervis appointed Nelson to command the 74-gun
Captain
, in which he later joined Jervis at the Battle of Cape St Vincent which scattered the Spanish fleet and in which he performed a decisive role (see
page 232
). Nelson described the battle amusingly in a letter to Fanny:

There is a saying in the fleet, too flattering for me to omit telling – viz. ‘Nelson’s Patent Bridge for boarding first rates’, alluding to my passing over an enemy’s 80-gun ship . . . Nelson’s recipe for
cooking Spaniards was: ‘Take a Spanish first rate and an 80-gun ship and after well battering and basting them for an hour keep throwing in your force balls, and be sure to let these be well seasoned . . . then skip into her quarter gallery window sword in hand and let the rest of your boarders follow as they can . . . then you will only have to take a hop skip and jump from your stepping stone and you will find yourself in the middle of a first rate quarter-deck with all the dons at your feet. Your olla podrida may now be considered as completely dished and fit to set before His Majesty.’

Rear-Admiral Sir William Parker suggested that his own ship, the
Prince George
, had been responsible for the surrender of the
San Josef
, but Nelson’s account was the more widely accepted. Nelson was promoted to rear-admiral and made a Knight of the Bath for his heroic part in the battle.

He was at last, at the age of thirty-nine, the popular hero he craved to be. There was no doubt of his courage, dash and naval genius, but he had had to work extremely hard at success, having twice been frustrated by severe illness and once by his own tactlessness. He also met Britain’s growing need for a hero. The thirst for one stemmed from two features of the age: the growing influence of the press, which sought a figure of daring and glamour to excite the reading public; and the need for the government and the Admiralty to bolster its own popularity through a hero’s exploits. Elderly admirals like Howe, and crabby ones like St Vincent, did not fulfil this need. In fearless, handsome young Nelson a figure was at last found which could fit the role: like Robert Clive before him, Nelson was to become a celebrity far exceeding that of film or pop superstars of our own age.

Following Calvi, Genoa and Cape St Vincent, Nelson plunged again headlong into enemy fire – this time with much less justification. After another month of blockade off Cadiz, during which Nelson enthusiastically and unattractively supported Jervis’s draconian actions against mutineers in the fleet, it was learnt that treasure ships from Latin America carrying some £6million worth of bullion were expected to
dock at Tenerife. Nelson promptly suggested that the island should be seized.

This was no easy task. The historian, W.H. Fitchett has eloquently described the daunting nature of the island:

Santa Cruz does not offer many facilities for attack from the sea. The shores are so high that a ship is very apt to be becalmed beneath them: they are pierced by sudden valleys, through which, as through so many funnels, the wind drives; so that a ship, becalmed at one moment, may heel over to a furious gust at the next. The beach is a steep slope of loose rocks and water-worn stones, made slippery with seaweed. On this a great sea breaks almost incessantly, and the loose mass grinds and shifts under its stroke. The shore, it may be added, dips so sharply that the water, at a distance of only half a mile, has a sounding of forty-five fathoms. A ship, in a word, can find no anchorage except close under the overwhelming fire of the forts.

On 21 July 1797 Nelson set out with a force of around 1,000 sailors and marines and launched a surprise night attack on the capital, Santa Cruz, under the command of his friend Thomas Troubridge. But a gale arose when they were still a mile from shore and as dawn broke they were compelled to return. On the following day they succeeded in landing and climbed a hill opposite the citadel but again retired without achievement.

On 24 July Nelson himself led the attack – which as a rear-admiral and flag officer broke with precedent and placed his life in danger. But it is easy to see why he was so impatient after previous failures. He later wrote: ‘The honour of our country called for the attack, and that I should command it. I never expected to return, and am thankful.’

With the enemy now alerted and possessed of some 8,000 troops on the island, instead of the few hundred or so the British believed, and in command of a heavily fortified citadel, the enterprise was doomed from the start. The boats containing Nelson and his 600 men missed the pier in the night darkness and most were smashed into splinters by the surge. Nelson commanded one of the two boats that succeeded in finding the pier – only to discover that it lay directly beneath the
citadel, which opened up with a withering burst of fire. Grapeshot shattered Nelson’s right arm as he stepped ashore. Josiah, his stepson, improvised a tourniquet and he was rowed out to the
Theseus
where it was amputated. Meanwhile Captain Samuel Hood cannonaded the town until the island’s governor offered to help evacuate the remainder of the force and to provide supplies to the ships.

Nelson bore his terrible wound and the failure of the expedition bravely, although he feared it would be the end of his career: no one, he believed, would have any use for a left-handed admiral. St Vincent responded with gruff and uncharacteristic generosity: ‘Mortals cannot command success. You and your company have certainly deserved it.’ Josiah was promoted master and commander by St Vincent for his heroic role in the affair.

Nelson was allowed to return home after more than four years at sea and was reunited with his wife and father at Bath. He had changed hugely: with his missing arm, white hair, frail frame and blind eye, he was almost unrecognizable. The face was no longer pampered and immature. While his good eye continued to blaze forth determination and stern impatience, his cheekbones were more prominent and his nose had become the rudder of a thinner, hungrier visage. His mouth was now pursed and tight-lipped in determination and the familiar slight curl of arrogance, even cruelty, of the later portraits had made its appearance, which made him all the more attractive to women.

If his daring success at Cape St Vincent had made him a name familiar across England, the disaster at Tenerife, which should have destroyed his career for its recklessness and inadequate preparation, cemented his reputation as a great national hero. The romantic image of the dashing fearless seaman who had led his men into battle under murderous fire, and was now armless, his sleeve pinned to his uniform, with a patch piratically slung over one eye (he never in fact wore one) had come to stay.

He still suffered great pain, as his arm remained septic. He was awarded his Knighthood of the Bath and given the Freedom of the City of London. He was received by the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Spencer. His wife Lavinia penned this portrait of him and his devotion to Fanny:

The first time I ever saw Nelson was in the drawing room at the Admiralty; and a most uncouth creature I thought him. He was just returned from Tenerife, after having lost his arm. He looked so sickly, it was painful to see him: and his general appearance was that of an idiot; so much so, that when he spoke, and his wonderful mind broke forth, it was a sort of surprise that riveted my whole attention . . . He told me that his wife had dressed his wounds, and that her care alone had saved his life. In short, he pressed me to see her, with an earnestness of which Nelson alone was capable. In these circumstances, I begged that he would bring her with him that day to dinner. He did so, and his attentions to her were those of a lover. He handed her to dinner, and sat by her; apologising to me, by saying that he was so little with her, that he would not, voluntarily, lose an instant of her company.

This time, as soon as Nelson was fit for service again, he was given a ship, the
Vanguard
, with Edward Berry as his flag captain. He sailed to rejoin St Vincent, who assigned him command of a Mediterranean squadron to discover why the French were assembling a huge fleet in great secrecy at Toulon.

On the way the
Vanguard
nearly foundered in a storm. And the three fast frigates accompanying Nelson, which were crucial to his scouting out the French fleet, were lost. ‘Were I to die at this moment, want of frigates would have been stamped on my heart,’ he remarked. He was given orders to do virtually as he pleased in order to destroy the French Mediterranean Fleet. But all he had was three battleships, now that he had lost the frigates.

Still off Toulon, he was joined at last by a further eleven ships of the line despatched by St Vincent. In a remarkable part of deception, St Vincent met reinforcements which had been sent from England, a long way off Cadiz, had them painted the same colour as his blockading fleet, then swapped them for most of his own fleet, leaving the Spanish unaware that another fleet had been sent to join Nelson.

British intelligence was lamentably defective as to the destination of the huge fleet being prepared at Toulon which the French had dubbed, to confuse the British, the Left Wing of the Army of England. A French
newspaper had deliberately hinted that the force was being prepared for an attack on England or Ireland, and it seemed likely that the idea was to link up with the Brest fleet to attack either.
The Times
considered Portugal or Ireland the most likely targets. Pitt himself opined on 31 May that the destination was Ireland. Accordingly he requested a ‘report on the arrangements which were made, for the internal defence of these kingdoms, when Spain, by its Armada, projected the invasion and conquest of England; and application of the wise proceedings of our ancestors, to the present crisis of public safety.’

This involved all the usual paraphernalia of national defence: the building of blockhouses in each of London’s squares and the placing of barricades, alarm bells and a supply of hand grenades in each street. ‘All obnoxious foreigners [were] to be sent out of the country . . . no foreign servants, male or female [were] to be allowed’ and prisoners of war were to be put into prison ships ‘so that they may be destroyed in cases necessary for the defence of the country’. The Aliens Bill was revived and habeas corpus suspended. Fortunately, very few of these preparations were put into effect. However, the suspicion was now beginning to dawn on Nelson that the French were destined for Egypt. By 17 June, discovering that the French had given him the slip from Toulon, he had travelled down to Naples, where the ever-welcoming Sir William Hamilton had intelligence that the French had gone to Malta. Nelson wrote, with his usual insight: ‘I shall believe that they are going on their scheme of possessing Alexandria, and getting troops to India – a plan concerted with Tippoo Sahib, by no means so difficult as might at first view be imagined.’

Having at last divined the French intention, Nelson turned to attack. Believing the French fleet to be no more than six days’ sailing time ahead, he crowded on the canvas. On 20 June he pushed through the Strait of Messina between Italy and Sicily: the French armada was about 160 miles away. Napoleon to his consternation also learnt of the presence of a new, reinforced British fleet moving towards the eastern Mediterranean and set off towards Crete to baffle his pursuers: