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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The French having eight sail-of-the-line certainly ready for sea, and
two or three more nearly so--how nearly Nelson was not sure--he now
endeavored to lure them out. "I have taken a method of making Mr. La
Touche Treville angry. I have left Sir Richard Bickerton, with part of
the fleet, twenty leagues from hence, and, with five of the line, am
preventing his cutting capers, which he has done for some time past,
off Cape Sicie." "He seems inclined to try his hand with us," he
writes a week later, "and by my keeping so great an inferiority close
to him, perhaps he may some day be tempted." Nelson had near Toulon at
the time nine ships-of-the-line. Had he succeeded in bringing Latouche
Treville to attack his five, he would have hoped, even with such odds,
for a decisive victory; but, failing that, he was assured that the
Toulon fleet would be out of the game for that summer. It was
important to bring matters to an issue, for, as he wrote Elliot, his
force was diminishing daily through the deterioration of ships never
from the first fit for their work. Measured by the standard of the
ships in the Channel, "I have but four sail fit to keep the sea. I
absolutely keep them out by management." Except the four, all needed
docking, and there was not a dock open to the British west of
Constantinople.

But, while thus keenly anxious to force an action, he was wary to
obtain tactical conditions that should insure a success, adequate both
to the risk he ran, and to the object at which he aimed. "I think
their fleet will be ordered out to fight close to Toulon, that they
may get their crippled ships in again, and that we must then quit the
coast to repair our damages, and thus leave the coast clear; but my
mind is fixed not to fight them, unless with a westerly wind, outside
the Hieres, and with an easterly wind, to the westward of Sicie."
Crippled there, to leeward of their port, the other British division
coming up fresh, as a reserve, from the southward, where it lay
concealed, would both cut them off, and rescue any of their own fleet
that might have been overpowered. Bickerton's orders were to remain
due south from Port Cros, one of the Hyeres, at a distance such that,
with the upper canvas furled, his ships could not be seen from the
islands, but could keep the main division in sight from their
mastheads. In all cases of anticipated battle, Nelson not only took
his measures thus thoughtfully, but was careful to put his
subordinates in possession both of his general plans, and, as far as
possible, of the underlying ideas. Thus, in a memorandum issued about
this time to the captains, he says: "As it is my determination to
attack the French fleet in any place where there is a reasonable
prospect of getting fairly alongside of them, I recommend that every
captain will make himself, by inquiries, as fully acquainted as
possible with the following places, viz., Hieres Bay, [with its three
entrances], Gourjean Bay, (of which I send a chart from the latest
surveys made,) Port Especia, and, in particular the northern Passage
into Leghorn Roads, from which side it is only, in my opinion,
possible to attack an enemy's fleet to advantage; and with the Gulf of
Ajaccio." To these instructions he adds some details of practical
preparation for anchoring under fire, and the reasons therefor. In the
same spirit, when expecting the Brest fleet in the Mediterranean, he
says: "I am perfectly prepared how to act with either a superior or an
inferior force. My mind is firm as a rock, and my plans for every
event fixed in my mind." No man ever was served better than Nelson by
the inspiration of the moment; no man ever counted on it less.

In communicating his ideas to his subordinates Nelson did not confine
himself to official intercourse; on the contrary, his natural
disposition impelled him rather to familiar conversation with them on
service subjects. "Even for debating the most important naval
business," we learn through his confidential secretary at this period,
"he preferred a turn on the quarter-deck with his captains, whom he
led by his own frankness to express themselves freely, to all the
stiffness and formality of a council of war."[63] An interesting
instance of these occasional counsels has been transmitted to us by
one of his captains, then little more than a youth, but the last to
survive of those who commanded ships under him. "Throughout the month
of October, 1804, Toulon was frequently reconnoitred, and the Phoebe
and Amazon were ordered to cruize together. Previous to their going
away Lord Nelson gave to Captains Capel and Parker several
injunctions, in case they should get an opportunity of attacking two
of the French frigates, which now got under weigh more frequently. The
principal one was, that they should not each single out and attack an
opponent, but 'that both should endeavour together to take _one
frigate_; if successful, chase the other: but if you do not take the
second, still you have won a victory, and your country will gain a
frigate.' Then, half laughing, and half snappishly, said kindly to
them as he wished them good-bye, 'I daresay you consider yourselves a
couple of fine fellows, and when you get away from me you will do
nothing of the sort, but think yourselves wiser than I am!'"[64]

The game of cat and mouse, off Toulon, occasioned one incident which
greatly upset Nelson's composure, and led to a somewhat amusing
display of ire, excited by a statement of the French admiral,
published throughout Europe, that his renowned antagonist had run away
from him. On the 13th of June, two French frigates and a brig were
seen under the Hyeres Islands, where they had been sent by Latouche
Treville, upon the report that some enemy's cruisers were in the
neighborhood. Nelson despatched two frigates after them, which, owing
to light winds, did not get near until the next day. The French
vessels being then seen from the "Victory" to be close in with the
batteries, the "Excellent," 74, was sent to support the frigates, and
some time afterwards the other four ships also bore up for the main
entrance to the islands. Upon this, Latouche Treville got under way,
and at about 5 P.M. came out of the harbor with his eight
sail-of-the-line. Nelson's division reduced their canvas, hauling to
the wind in line of battle, on the starboard tack, which, with the
then wind, was with their heads off shore, and the "Excellent" was
recalled, although she could not rejoin till midnight. In this order
they hove-to (stopped), with two reefs in the topsails and the main
yards square, at 7.30 P.M., which at that time of the year was broad
daylight, and in this general position remained till next morning.

As the distance between the hostile bodies was apparently from twelve
to fifteen miles, the French admiral's observations may have failed to
recognize that the enemy, by backing his topsails, had offered a fair
challenge; else, in his report of this very commonplace occurrence, he
could scarcely have used, concerning the movement of heading south,
the expression, _prit chasse_, which, whether rendered "retired," or
"retreated," or, as Nelson did, "ran away," was a misrepresentation of
the facts, and heightened by the assertion that he pursued till
nightfall, and next morning could not see the enemy. Writing to Elliot
four days after the affair happened, Nelson mentioned casually his
view of the matter. "Monsieur La Touche came out with eight sail of
the line and six frigates, cut a caper off Sepet, and went in again. I
brought-to for his attack, although I did not believe anything was
meant serious, but merely a gasconade." "On the morning of the 15th,"
he tells Acton on the same day, "I believe I may call it, we chased
him into Toulon." His purpose evidently was, as has been shown, to
fight, if the enemy meant business, to leeward of the port, and far
enough off to give Bickerton a chance to come up. Great was his wrath,
two months later, when Latouche's statement reached him, and he found
that not only no mention was made of the relative numbers, but that
the offensive expression quoted had been used. "I do assure you," he
wrote to the Admiralty, enclosing a copy of the day's log, "I know not
what to say, except by a flat contradiction; for if my character is
not established by this time for not being apt to run away, it is not
worth my time to attempt to put the world right." He might well have
rested there,--an imputation that might have injured an untried man
could provoke only a smile when levelled at his impregnable renown;
but his ruffled mind would not let him keep quiet, and in private
correspondence he vented his rage in terms similar to those used of
the Danish commodore after Copenhagen. "You will have seen Monsieur La
Touche's letter of how he chased me and how I _ran_. I keep it; and,
by G--d, if I take him, he shall _eat_ it." He is a "poltroon," a
"liar," and a "miscreant." It may be added that no admiral, whether a
Nelson or not, could have abandoned the "Excellent" under the
conditions.

Immediately after this abortive affair, Nelson, convinced by it that
something more than a taunt was needed to bring his enemy under his
guns, stationed frigates at the Hyeres, and to cruise thence to the
eastward as far as Cape Taillat, to intercept the commerce between
Italy and Toulon and Marseilles. For this purpose he had recommended,
and the Government had ordered, a blockade of all Genoese ports
including Spezia; Genoa, now the Ligurian Republic, being considered
as much France as Toulon. Nothing, he said, could distress France
more. This blockade had been but feebly enforced, owing to the lack
of small cruisers; but he hoped to attain the same end by the frigates
off the Hyeres. "I really am of opinion," he told their commander,
"that it will force La Touche out." In the latter, however, he had to
do with an opponent of skill as well as of resolution. Firmly imbued
with the French tradition, and with Bonaparte's instructions, which
subordinated his local action entirely to the great scheme in which
the Toulon fleet had its appointed part, Latouche Treville was neither
to be provoked nor betrayed into an action, by which, however tempting
the promise, his fleet might be made unfit for their intended service.
Nelson did him no more than justice, when he said, "I am confident,
when he is ordered for any service, that he will risk falling in with
us, and the event of a battle, to try and accomplish his orders;" but,
short of the appointed time, nothing else could entice him. In vain
did the British admiral bait his trap by exposing frigates, without
visible support, to draw him to leeward, while the hostile fleet
hovered out of sight to windward. The shrewd Frenchman doubtless felt
the temptation, but he distrusted the gifts too plausibly tendered.

Besides the interest of the public service, Nelson had the strongest
personal motives for bringing matters to an issue. The prolonged
suspense and the anxiety were exhausting him, the steady tension even
of the normal conditions fretted him beyond endurance; but when a
crisis became accentuated by an appearance that the enemy had eluded
him, his feelings of distress, acting upon an enfeebled organization,
and a nervous temperament so sensitive that he started at the mere
dropping of a rope beside him, drove him almost to distraction. On
such an occasion he wrote: "I am absolutely beginning this letter in a
fever of the mind. It is thick as butter-milk, and blowing a Levanter;
and the Narcissus has just spoke me to say, 'she boarded a vessel,
and they understood that the men had seen, a few days before, twelve
sail of ships of war off Minorca. It was in the dusk, and he did not
know which way they were steering.' This is the whole story, and a
lame one. You will imagine my feelings, although I cannot bring my
mind to believe. To miss them, God forbid.... If I should miss these
fellows, my heart will break: I am actually only now recovering the
shock of missing them in 1798. God knows I only serve to fight those
scoundrels; and if I cannot do that, I should be better on shore."
When the weather cleared, and a reconnoissance showed the news was
false, his intense relief found expression in the words: "I believe
this is the only time in my life, that I was glad to hear the French
were in port." "The French ships," he says at another time, "have
either altered their anchorage, or some of them have got to sea in the
late gales: the idea has given me half a fever. If that admiral were
to cheat me out of my hopes of meeting him, it would kill me much
easier than one of his balls. Since we sat down to dinner Captain
Moubray has made the signal, but I am very far from being easy."

On the 12th of May, 1804, there was a change of administration in
England. Earl St. Vincent left the Admiralty, as First Lord, and was
succeeded by Lord Melville. A few days before this Nelson, by a
general promotion, had become Vice-Admiral of the White, the rank in
which he died eighteen months later.

The return of summer had improved his health from the low condition
into which it had fallen during the winter, but he did not flatter
himself as to the future. The combination of colorless monotony with
constant racking anxiety slackened the springs of moral energy, which,
and which alone, responding joyously to a call to action, afforded the
stimulus capable of triumphing over his bodily weakness, and causing
it for the moment to disappear. "This is an odd war," he said, "not a
battle!" Tying himself to the ship, in profound sympathy with the
crews, he never went ashore from the time he left Malta in June, 1803,
until he reached Gibraltar in July, 1805; nor was he ever outside of
the "Victory" from July 30, 1803, the day he went on board her from
the "Amphion." "Always shut up in the Victory's cabin," as he himself
wrote, "cannot be very good for the constitution. I think you will
find me grown thin, but never mind." Other officers, especially of the
frigates, got their occasional runs ashore; but his slight figure was
continually in view, walking the front of the poop, to the unconscious
contentment of the men, thus reminded ever that their admiral shared
their deprivations. This profound seclusion to the narrow circle of
the flagship, although often broken by the presence of officers from
the other vessels, who, whether cruising in company with the fleet, or
arriving with tidings from different ports, were daily partakers of
the admiral's hospitable table, could not but depress him; and there
was with him the constant sense of loss, by absence from those he held
most dear. "I have not a thought except on you and the French fleet,"
he tells Lady Hamilton; "all my thoughts, plans, and toils tend to
those two objects. Don't laugh at my putting you and the French fleet
together, but you cannot be separated."

Yet even towards her his mind is fixed as of old, that she must take a
place second to duty. She had, it appears, insisted upon her wish to
come out to the station to be near him. Malta and Italy were both, he
said, out of the question. His place was off Toulon, as long as the
French fleet was there; therefore he could not go into harbor; nay, "I
might absolutely miss you, by leaving the Mediterranean without
warning. The other day we had a report the French were out, and seen
steering to the westward. We were as far as Minorca when the alarm
proved false." As for coming on board the "Victory" to live, which
she seems to have suggested, "Imagine what a cruize off Toulon is;
even in summer time we have a hard gale every week, and two days'
heavy swell. It would kill you; and myself to see you. Much less
possible to have Charlotte, Horatia, &c., on board ship! And I, that
have given orders to carry no women to sea in the Victory, to be the
first to break them! I know, my own dear Emma, if she will let her
reason have fair play, will say I am right; but she is like Horatia,
very angry if she cannot have her own way." "Horatia is like her
mother; will have her own way, or kick up a devil of a dust,"--an
observation both Greville and Hamilton had had to make. "Your Nelson,"
he concludes, "is called upon, in the most honourable manner, to
defend his country. Absence to us is equally painful: but, if I had
either stayed at home, or neglected my duty abroad, would not my Emma
have blushed for me? She could never have heard my praises, and how
the country looks up." "The call of our country," he says again,
"makes it indispensable for both our honours--the country looks up to
the services of the poorest individual, much more to me, and are you
not a sharer of my glory?"

Of his daily life on board, and intercourse with others, we have
intimations, fragmentary yet sufficient. "Our days," he himself says,
"pass so much alike that, having described one, you have them all. We
now [October] breakfast by candle light; and all retire, at eight
o'clock, to bed." "We cruise, cruise, and one day so like another that
they are hardly distinguishable, but _hopes_, blessed _hopes_, keeps
us up, that some happy day the French may come out, then I shall
consider my duty to my country fulfilled." Of one of these monotonous
days we have received a description from an officer,[65] a member of
the admiral's mess, who had then too lately entered upon them to feel
the full weight of their deadly sameness.

"At 6 o'clock my servant brings a light and informs me of the hour,
wind, weather, and course of the ship, when I immediately dress and
generally repair to the deck, the dawn of day at this season and
latitude being apparent at about half or three-quarters of an hour
past six. Breakfast is announced in the Admiral's cabin, where Lord
Nelson, Rear Admiral Murray, (the Captain of the Fleet,) Captain
Hardy, commander of the Victory, the chaplain, secretary, one or two
officers of the ship, and your humble servant assemble and breakfast
on tea, hot rolls, toast, cold tongue, &c, which 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, following in regular train
their admiral in the Victory. Between the hours of 7 and 2 there is
plenty of time for business, study, writing, and exercise, which
different occupations I endeavour to vary in such a manner as to
afford me sufficient employment. At 2 o'clock a band of music plays
till within a quarter of 3, when the drum beats the tune called, 'The
Roast Beef of Old England' to announce the Admiral's dinner, which is
served up exactly at 3 o'clock, and which generally consists of three
courses and a dessert of the choicest fruit [a fact which bespeaks the
frequency of communications with the land], 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, notwithstanding
the numerous titles, the four orders of Knighthood, worn by Lord
Nelson,[66] and the well earned laurels which he has acquired. Coffee
and liqueurs close the dinner about half-past 4 or 5 o'clock, after
which the company generally walk the deck, where the band of music
plays for nearly an hour.[67] A 6 o'clock tea is announced, when the
company again assemble in the Admiral's cabin, where tea is served up
before 7 o'clock, and, as we are inclined, 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."

Another medical officer, who served on board the "Victory" soon after
the writer of the lines just quoted, has transmitted some other
interesting particulars of Nelson's personal habits and health, which
relate to the general period now under narration.

"An opinion has been very generally entertained, that Lord Nelson's
state of health, and supposed infirmities arising from his former
wounds and hard services, precluded the probability of his long
surviving the battle of Trafalgar, had he fortunately escaped the
Enemy's shot: but the writer of this can assert that his Lordship's
health was uniformly good, with the exception of some slight attacks
of indisposition arising from accidental causes; and which never
continued above two or three days, nor confined him in any degree with
respect to either exercise or regimen: and during the last twelve
months of his life, he complained only three times in this way. It is
true, that his Lordship, about the meridian of life, had been subject
to frequent fits of the gout; which disease, however, as well as his
constitutional tendency to it, he totally overcame by abstaining for
the space of nearly two years from animal food, and wine, and all
other fermented drink; confining his diet to vegetables, and commonly
milk and water. And it is also a fact, that early in life, when he
first went to sea, he left off the use of salt, which he then believed
to be the sole cause of scurvy, and never took it afterwards with his
food.

"His Lordship used a great deal of exercise, generally walking on deck
six or seven hours in the day. He always rose early, for the most part
shortly after daybreak. He breakfasted in summer about six, and at
seven in winter: and if not occupied in reading or writing despatches,
or examining into the details of the Fleet, he walked on the
quarter-deck the greater part of the forenoon; going down to his cabin
occasionally to commit to paper such incidents or reflections as
occurred to him during that time, and as might be hereafter useful to
the service of his country. He dined generally about half-past two
o'clock. At his table there were seldom less than eight or nine
persons, consisting of the different Officers of the Ship: and when
the weather and the service permitted, he very often had several of
the Admirals and Captains in the Fleet to dine with him; who were
mostly invited by signal, the rotation of seniority being commonly
observed by his Lordship in these invitations. At dinner he was alike
affable and attentive to every one: he ate very sparingly himself; the
liver and wing of a fowl, and a small plate of macaroni, in general
composing his meal, during which he occasionally took a glass of
champagne. He never exceeded four glasses of wine after dinner, and
seldom drank three; and even those were diluted with either Bristol or
common water.

"Few men subject to the vicissitudes of a Naval life, equalled his
Lordship in an habitual systematic mode of living. He possessed such a
wonderful activity of mind, as even prevented him from taking ordinary
repose, seldom enjoying two hours of uninterrupted sleep; and on
several occasions he did not quit the deck during the whole night. At
these times he took no pains to protect himself from the effects of
wet, or the night air; wearing only a thin great coat: and he has
frequently, after having his clothes wet through with rain, refused to
have them changed, saying that the leather waistcoat which he wore
over his flannel one would secure him from complaint. He seldom wore
boots, and was consequently very liable to have his feet wet. When
this occurred he has often been known to go down to his cabin, throw
off his shoes, and walk on the carpet in his stockings for the purpose
of drying the feet of them. He chose rather to adopt this
uncomfortable expedient, than to give his servants the trouble of
assisting him to put on fresh stockings; which, from his having only
one hand, he could not himself conveniently effect.

"From these circumstances it may be inferred, that though Lord
Nelson's constitution was not of that kind which is generally
denominated strong, yet it was not very susceptible of complaint from
the common occasional causes of disease necessarily attending a Naval
life. The only bodily pain which his Lordship felt in consequence of
his many wounds, was a slight rheumatic affection of the stump of his
amputated arm on any sudden variation in the state of the weather;
which is generally experienced by those who have the misfortune to
lose a limb after the middle age. His Lordship usually predicted an
alteration in the weather with as much certainty from feeling
transient pains in his stump, as he could by his marine barometer;
from the indications of which latter he kept a diary of the
atmospheric changes, which was written with his own hand.

"His Lordship had lost his right eye by a contusion which he received
at the siege of Calvi, in the island of Corsica. The vision of the
other was likewise considerably impaired: he always therefore wore a
green shade over his forehead, to defend this eye from the effect of
strong light; but as he was in the habit of looking much through a
glass while on deck, there is little doubt that had he lived a few
years longer, and continued at sea, he would have lost his sight
totally."[68]

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