A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan - The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2)

A >> A. T. (Alfred Thayer) Mahan >> The Life of Nelson, Vol. II. (of 2)

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On the 22d of May he was off Ushant, between which and Cornwallis's
rendezvous he passed twenty-four hours, fuming and fretting over a
delay that was losing him a fresh, fair, northerly wind; the more so,
that he was satisfied Cornwallis neither needed nor wanted the ship.
"From his conduct,"--not being on his rendezvous,--"I am clear there
can be nothing in Brest to demand his attention." On the 23d, however,
he could stand it no longer. "What a wind we are losing!" "If the
wisdom of my superiors had not prevented me," he growled, "at this
moment I should have been off the coast of Portugal. I am aware of the
importance of my getting to the Mediterranean, and think I might
safely have been allowed to proceed in the Victory." At 6 P.M. of that
day, Cornwallis not turning up, he tumbled himself and his suite on
board the frigate "Amphion," which was in company, and continued his
voyage, going out in all the discomfort of "a convict," to use St.
Vincent's expression; "seven or eight sleeping in one cabin," as
Nelson himself described it. "It is against my own judgment but in
obedience to orders," he told the Earl; while to the Prime Minister,
with whom he was in personal correspondence, he lamented the loss,
"for I well know the weight of the Victory in the Mediterranean." As
he anticipated, Cornwallis did not want the ship, and she joined
Nelson two months afterwards off Toulon.

Late in the evening of June 3d, the "Amphion" anchored at Gibraltar,
whither she brought the first certain news of the war, though it had
been declared nearly three weeks before. The next day was actively
employed in giving necessary instructions to the yard officials, and
detailing cruisers to guard the entrance to the Straits, and to
maintain the communications with the Barbary coast, upon which the
Rock depended for supplies of fresh provisions. At 4 P.M. the ship
again sailed for Malta, accompanied by the frigate "Maidstone," to
which, on the 11th of June, was transferred, for direct passage to
Naples by the north of Sicily, the new British minister to the Two
Sicilies, Mr. Elliot, who had embarked with Nelson on board the
"Victory," and afterwards gone with him to the "Amphion." Throughout
the following two years an active correspondence, personal and
diplomatic, was maintained with this gentleman, who, like his brother,
Lord Minto, placed the utmost dependence upon the political sagacity
and tact of the admiral. When the latter, a year later, spoke of
leaving the station on account of his health, Elliot wrote to him:
"Where such great interests are concerned, I shall not presume to
dwell upon my own feelings, although I cannot but recall to your
Lordship that I only consented to depart as abruptly as I did from
England, to undertake this arduous and ruinous mission, from the
expectation that my efforts to direct the councils of this Kingdom
would have been seconded by your pre-eminent talents and judgment."
After the two frigates parted, the "Amphion" kept on to Malta, where
she arrived on the 15th of June.

With the separation of the "Maidstone" Nelson began the extensive
diplomatic correspondence, which employed so much of his time during
this command, and through which we are made familiar with the workings
of his mind on the general political conditions of the Mediterranean.
She carried from him letters to the King and Queen of the Sicilies, to
their Prime Minister, Acton, and to the British minister to the Court
of Sardinia. To these succeeded, upon his arrival in Malta,--as a
better point of departure for the farther East, now that the French
held the west coast of the Adriatic,--despatches to the British
minister to the Porte, to the Grand Vizier and the Capitan Pacha, to
the Republic of the Seven Islands, as the group of Corfu and its
sisters was now styled, and to the British representative to their
government.

All these communications were, of course, tentative, based upon a yet
imperfect knowledge of conditions. For the most part they conveyed,
besides the notification of his having taken the command, chiefly
general assurances of the good-will of the writer's government, and an
undefined intimation that all had best be on their guard against
French scheming and aggressions. To Naples he spoke more definitely,
and indicated at once the considerations that would dictate his
course, and, he intimated, should control theirs also. He had been
instructed, he said, to consider the welfare of the Two Sicilies as
one of the first of British objects, and his Government was convinced
of the advantages that would accrue both to Sicily and Naples, if
their neutrality could be maintained. They had to do, however, with an
enemy that was not only powerful, but wily and unscrupulous; one whose
action would be governed wholly by considerations of interest and
expediency, not by those of right. Great Britain could not, probably,
keep the French out of Naples, but she could out of Sicily, provided,
and only provided, Messina was adequately garrisoned and held. If,
however, there was any hasty overt action taken, looking to the
security of Sicily, it might merely precipitate the seizure of Naples
and the entire conquest of the King's continental dominions; or, "ten
times more humiliating," leave him "an odious commissary to raise
contributions from his unhappy subjects for the French." On the other
hand, if, to avert suspicion, there was too much slackness in the
measures to guard Sicily, Messina might be suddenly seized, the gates
of the island thus thrown open, and, Sicily once lost, "_Naples falls
of course_." "It is a most important point," he wrote to Elliot soon
after, "to decide when Sicily ought to be placed in a state of
security. For the present, I am content to say that Messina need not
be taken possession of; but the strictest watch must be kept by Sir
John Acton that we are not lulled into a fatal security, and thus lose
both Kingdoms. To save for the moment Naples, we risk the two
Kingdoms, and General Acton must join me in this heavy
responsibility." "My whole opinion rests in these few words--_that we
must not risk Sicily too far in trying to save Naples; therefore,
General Acton, yourself and myself must keep a good lookout_."

This summed up the conditions for Naples during the long two years of
watching and waiting, while Bonaparte, concentrating his purposes upon
his invasion scheme, was content to leave things quiet in the South.
To check, as far as might be, the designs of the French towards Morea
or towards Sicily, on either side of the central position they held at
the heel of Italy, Nelson employed a proportionately large number of
cruisers--five--between Messina and the mouth of the Adriatic; while,
to provide for the safety of the royal family, he kept always a
ship-of-the-line in the Bay of Naples, the British minister holding
orders for her captain to embark them at a moment's notice, and take
them to Sicily. "I have kept everything here to save Italy, if in my
power," he wrote Elliot two months later, "and you know I was ordered
to send a squadron outside the Straits. Fourteen days ago, a French
seventy-four got into Cadiz from Santo Domingo, and two French
frigates, with some merchant ships. What will they say at home?
However, I feel I have done right, and care not." "I must place a
squadron between Elba and Genoa," he says again, "to prevent that
expedition from moving, and also send some ships to the Straits'
mouth, and keep enough to watch the ships in Toulon. These are all
important objects, but nothing when compared to the security of the
Sicilies."

Nelson's anxiety for Sicily threw him again into contact with an
instance of that rigid and blind conformity to orders which always
exasperated him. He had brought out directions to the general
commanding in Malta, to hold a detachment of two thousand British
troops in readiness to go at once to Messina, on the appearance of
danger, and to garrison the works there, if he thought they could be
spared from the defence of Malta. Nelson told the Prime Minister that
discretion, as to such a step, was a responsibility greater than the
average officer could bear, and would certainly defeat the object in
view; for he would never feel his charge secure enough to permit such
a diminution. There was at this time in Malta a body of Neapolitan
soldiers, which had been sent there during the peace of Amiens, in
accordance with a stipulation of the treaty. The general received an
order to send them to Messina. Nelson had pointed out to him that if
he did so, in the divided state of feeling in the Neapolitan
dominions, and with the general character of Neapolitan officers, for
both efficiency and fidelity, the citadel would not be safe from
betrayal at their hands. "I have requested him to keep the orders
secret, and not to send them; for if they got into Messina, they would
certainly not keep the French out one moment, and it would give a good
excuse for not asking us to secure Messina." "If General Acton sends
for them we must submit; but at present we need not find means of
sending them away." The British general, however, sent them over, and
then the Neapolitan governor, as Nelson foretold, said it was quite
unnecessary for any British to come. "I must apprise you," wrote
Nelson to Addington, "that General Villettes, although a most
excellent officer, will do nothing but what he receives, 'You are
hereby required and directed;' for to obey, is with him the very acme
of discipline. With respect to Sicily, I have no doubt but that the
French will have it. My former reasons for inducing General Villettes
to keep the Neapolitan troops in Malta, was to prevent what has
happened; but, in a month after my back was turned, Villettes obeyed
his orders, and now the Governor of Messina says, 'We can defend it,
and want no assistance.' His whole conduct, I am bold to say, is
either that of a traitor or a fool."[59]

Upon his own subordinates Nelson laid a distinct charge, that he
should expect them to use their judgment and act upon it with
independence, sure of his generous construction and support of their
action. "We must all in our several stations," he tells one of them,
"exert ourselves to the utmost, and not be nonsensical in saying, 'I
have an order for this, that, and the other,' if the King's service
clearly marks what ought to be done. I am well convinced of your
zeal." In accordance with this, he was emphatic in his expressions of
commendation for action rightly taken; a bare, cold approval was not
adequate reward for deeds which he expected to reproduce his own
spirit and temper, vivifying the whole of his command, and making his
presence virtually co-extensive with its utmost limits. No severer
condemnation, perhaps, was ever implied by him, than when he wrote to
Sidney Smith, unqualifiedly, "I strictly charge and command you never
to give any French ship or man leave to quit Egypt." To deny an
officer discretion was as scathing an expression of dissatisfaction as
Nelson could utter; and as he sowed, so he reaped, in a devotion and
vigor of service few have elicited equally.

In Malta Nelson remained but thirty-six hours. Arriving at 4 P.M. on
the evening of June 15th, he sailed again at 4 A.M. of the 17th. He
had expected partly to find the fleet there; but by an odd
coincidence, on the same day that he hoisted his flag in Portsmouth,
it had sailed, although in ignorance of the war, to cruise between
Sicily and Naples; whence, on the day he left Gibraltar, the
commanding officer, Sir Richard Bickerton, had started for
Toulon,--"very judiciously," said Nelson,--the instant he heard of the
renewal of hostilities.

The "Amphion" passed through the Straits of Messina, and within sight
of Naples, carrying Nelson once more over well-known seas, and in
sight of fondly remembered places. "I am looking at _dear_ Naples, if
it is what it was," he wrote to Elliot from off Capri. "Close to
Capri," he tells Lady Hamilton, "the view of Vesuvius calls so many
circumstances to my mind, that it almost overpowers my feelings." "I
am using force upon myself to keep away," he had already said to
Acton; "for I think it likely, was I to fly to Naples, which I am much
inclined to do, that the French might turn it to some plea against
those good sovereigns." In his anxiety to join the fleet, and get in
touch of the French, the length of the passage, three weeks, caused
him great vexation, and deepened his convictions of the uselessness of
the island to his squadron off Toulon. "My opinion of Malta, as a
naval station for watching the French in Toulon, is well known; and my
present experience of what will be a three weeks' passage, most fully
confirms me in it. The fleet can never go there, if I can find any
other corner to put them in; but having said this, I now declare, that
I consider Malta as a most important outwork to India, that it will
ever give us great influence in the Levant, and indeed all the
southern parts of Italy. In this view, I hope we shall never give it
up." "Malta and Toulon are entirely different services. It takes upon
an average seven weeks to get an answer to a letter. When I am forced
to send a ship there, I never see her under two months."

With Gibraltar, however, Malta gave the British two impregnable and
secure bases of operations, within reasonable distance of one another,
and each in close proximity to points most essential to control.
During Nelson's entire command, the three chief centres of interest
and of danger were the Straits of Gibraltar, the heel of Italy, and
Toulon. The narrowing of the trade routes near the two former rendered
them points of particular exposure for merchant shipping. Around them,
therefore, and in dependence upon them, gathered the largest bodies of
the cruisers which kept down privateering, and convoyed the merchant
ships, whose protection was not the least exacting of the many cares
that fell upon Nelson. Upon the Malta division depended also the watch
over the mouth of the Adriatic and the Straits of Messina, by which
Nelson hoped to prevent the passage of the French, in small bodies, to
either Sicily, the Morea, or the Ionian Islands. Malta in truth, even
in Nelson's time, was the base for operations only less important
than the destruction of the Toulon fleet. The latter he rightly
considered his principal mission, success in which would solve most
other maritime difficulties. "My first object must ever be to keep the
French fleet in check; and, if they put to sea, to have force enough
with me to _annihilate_ them. That would keep the Two Sicilies free
from any attack from sea."

On the 8th of July the "Amphion" joined the fleet off Toulon. It
numbered then nine ships-of-the-line, with three smaller cruisers. "As
far as outside show goes," he reported to St. Vincent, "the ships look
very well; but they complain of their bottoms, and are very short of
men." The fact was, as he afterwards explained, that before the war
came they had been expecting every day to go to England, and
consequently had been allowed to run down gradually, a result which
doubtless had been hastened by St. Vincent's stringent economies.
Gibraltar and Malta were both bare, Nelson wrote six months later, and
it was not the fault of the naval storekeepers. The ships, everywhere,
were "distressed for almost every article. They have entirely eat up
their stores, and their real wants not half complied with. I have
applications from the different line-of-battle-ships for surveys on
most of their sails and running rigging, which cannot be complied
with, as there is neither cordage nor sails to replace the
unserviceable stores, and, therefore, the evil must be combated in the
best manner possible." As the whole Navy had suffered from the same
cause, there was no reserve of ships at home to replace those in the
Mediterranean, which, besides lacking everything, were between eight
and nine hundred men short of their complement, or about one hundred
for each ship-of-the-line. "We can send you neither ships nor men,"
wrote St. Vincent as winter drew on; and even a year later, the
administration which followed his found it impossible to replace the
"crazy" vessels, of which Nelson said only four were fit for winter
cruising. "It is not a storeship a week," he declared, "that would
keep them in repair." The trouble was greater because, when leaving
Malta, they had anticipated only a cruise of three weeks, which for
many of them became two years.

Despite the difficulties, he determined that the fleet as a body
should not go into port; nor should the individual ships-of-the-line,
except when absolutely necessary, and then to Gibraltar, not Malta. "I
have made up my mind never to go into port till after the battle, if
they make me wait a year, provided the Admiralty change the ships who
cannot keep the sea in winter;" nor did the failure of the Admiralty
to meet this proviso alter his resolution. It was the carrying out of
this decision, with ships in such condition, in a region where winds
and seas were of exceptional violence, and supplies of food and water
most difficult to be obtained, because surrounded in all directions by
countries either directly hostile, or under the overmastering
influence of Bonaparte, that made the exercise of Nelson's command
during this period a triumph of naval administration and prevision. It
does not necessarily follow that an officer of distinguished ability
for handling a force in the face of an enemy, will possess also the
faculty which foresees and provides for the many contingencies, upon
which depend the constant efficiency and readiness of a great
organized body; though both qualities are doubtless essential to
constitute a great general officer. For twenty-two months Nelson's
fleet never went into a port, other than an open roadstead on a
neutral coast, destitute of supplies; at the end of that time, when
the need arose to pursue an enemy for four thousand miles, it was
found massed, and in all respects perfectly prepared for so distant
and sudden a call. To quote his own words, written a year before this
summons in reply to an intimation from the Admiralty to be on his
guard against Spain, "I have the pleasure to acquaint you that the
squadron under my command is all collected, except the Gibraltar,[60]
complete in their provisions and stores to near five months, and in a
perfect state of readiness to act as the exigency of the moment may
determine." "With the resources of your mind," wrote St. Vincent, when
unable to reinforce him, "you will do very well;" and Nelson, when he
put off his harness, might have boasted himself that the prediction
was more than fulfilled.

Provisions, water, and supplies of all sorts were brought to the ships
on their station, either at sea, or in unfrequented roadsteads within
the limits of the cruising ground. "I never could have spared the
ships to go to Gibraltar for them," he wrote to St. Vincent, to whom
he expressed his satisfaction with the way the plan worked. He soon
abandoned, in fact, the method of sending individual ships for water,
because of the long absence thus entailed. When water could not be
brought in transports, or rather could not easily be transhipped owing
to the badness of the season, he thought it better to take the whole
fleet to the nearest watering-place than to divide its strength. Fresh
provisions, absolutely indispensable to the health of the ships'
companies, constituted the greatest of difficulties. Opposition to
furnishing them must be expected wherever French influence could be
felt. "The great distance from Malta or Gibraltar renders the getting
such refreshments from those places, in a regular manner, absolutely
impossible;" and from the Spanish ports, Barcelona or Rosas, which
were near his cruising ground, they could be had only "clandestinely."
Government Bills would not be taken there, nor in Barbary or Sardinia,
where bullocks might be got. Hard money must be paid, and about this
there was some routine bureau difficulty. "I certainly hate to have
anything to do with the management of money," he wrote, "but I submit
the propriety of lodging public money on board the fleet, for the
purpose of paying for fresh beef and vegetables, provided, but on _no
account otherwise_, that the simple receipt from the captain of the
ship may be a sufficient voucher for the disbursement of such money."
Absolutely disposed as he was to assume political or military
responsibilities, he was not willing, even for the health of the
fleet, to incur the risk of pecuniary imputations for himself or his
captains.

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 L5,000.

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.

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