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

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Here matters seem to have rested for a time. Smith could scarcely dare
to disregard such orders at once, and Bonaparte was not yet disposed
openly to confess failure by seeking terms. In the autumn of 1799,
however, the Earl of Elgin went to Constantinople as ambassador,
Spencer Smith dropping to secretary of embassy, and his brother
remaining on the Egyptian coast. Elgin was far from being in accord
with Smith's general line of conduct, which was marked with
presumption and self-sufficiency, and in the end he greatly deplored
the terms "granted to the French, so far beyond our expectation;" but
he shared the belief that to rid Egypt of the French was an end for
which considerable sacrifices should be made, and his correspondence
with Smith expressed this conviction. When prepossessions such as this
exist among a number of men associated with one another, they are apt,
as in the case of Admiral Man consulting with his captains, to result
in some ill-advised step, bearing commonly the stamp of concern for
local interests, and forgetfulness of general considerations. The
upshot in this particular instance was the conclusion of a Convention,
known as that of El Arish, between the Turks and the French, signed on
board Smith's ship on the 24th of January, 1800, by which this army of
veterans was to be permitted to return to France unmolested, and free
at once to take the field against the allies of Turkey and Great
Britain, at the moment when Bonaparte's unrivalled powers of
administration were straining every nerve, to restore the French
forces from the disorganization into which they had fallen, and to
prepare for the spring campaign.

Smith, though present, did not sign this precious paper, which, in a
letter to Hamilton, he called "the gratifying termination of his
labours;" but he had in his hand the orders of his immediate superior,
and temporary commander-in-chief, to notify any "foreigner, general,
or admiral," that the execution of such an agreement would not be
permitted by the British Navy, and it would have been his own duty to
stop any ships attempting to carry it out, until other orders were
received. His powers as joint plenipotentiary having ceased, he was
now simply the naval officer. As it happened, Keith, who by this time
had relieved Nelson, brought out from England clear directions from
the Government not to allow any transaction of this kind; and although
he personally favored the policy of evacuation, feeling perhaps the
inconvenience of detaching ships so far from his centre of operations,
he was not a man to trifle with orders. Rumors of what was going on
had evidently reached him, for on the 8th of January, a fortnight
before the convention was signed, he wrote to Kleber a letter, which
he directed Smith to deliver, thus placing it out of the power of that
very independent officer to leave any mistake as to actual conditions
in the mind of the French general. To the latter he said: "I have
positive orders not to consent to any capitulation with the French
troops, at least unless they lay down their arms, surrender themselves
prisoners of war, and deliver up all the ships and stores of the port
of Alexandria to the Allied Powers." Even in such case they would not
be allowed to leave Egypt until exchanged. Any persons that attempted
to return, pursuant to an arrangement with one of the Allies,
exclusive of the others, as the El-Arish Convention was, would be made
prisoners of war.

Nelson's opinions in this matter had never wavered. As rumors of what
was brewing got about, he wrote to the Earl of Elgin, on the 21st of
December, 1800: "I own my hope yet is, that the Sublime Porte will
never permit a single Frenchman to quit Egypt; and I own myself wicked
enough to wish them all to die in that country they chose to invade.
We have scoundrels of French enough in Europe without them." "I never
would consent to one of them returning to the Continent of Europe
during the war," he tells Spencer Smith. "I wish them to _perish_ in
Egypt, and give a great lesson to the world of the justice of the
Almighty." When Elgin, thinking him still commander-in-chief, sent him
the Convention, he replied formally: "I shall forward the papers to
Lord Keith, who will answer your Excellency. But I cannot help most
sincerely regretting that ever any countenance was given to the Turks
to enter into such a treaty with the French; for I ever held it to be
impossible to permit that army to return to Europe, but as prisoners
of war, and in that case, not to France. And was I commander-in-chief,
even when the thing was done, I should have refused to ratify any
consent or approbation of Sir Sidney Smith, and have wrote to both the
Grand Vizir and the French General, the impossibility of permitting a
vanquished army to be placed by one Ally in a position to attack
another Ally." The last phrase put the facts in a nutshell, and
illustrates well Nelson's power of going straight to the root of a
matter, disregardful of confusing side-issues, of policy or timidity.
To Hamilton he wrote passionately concerning the manifold difficulties
caused to all, except the Turks and the Smiths. "If all the wise heads
had left them to God Almighty, after the bridge was broke, all would
have ended well. For I differ entirely with my commander-in-chief, in
wishing they were permitted to return to France; and, likewise, with
Lord Elgin on the great importance of removing them from Egypt."

"I have wrote to Lord Keith, and home," said Nelson to Sir Sidney
Smith on the 15th of January, "that I did not give credit that it was
possible for you to give any passport for a single Frenchman, much
less the Army, after my positive order of March 18th, 1799." The words
show what reports had already got about of the general trend of
policy, on the part of the Porte and the British representatives; but
the irony of the matter as regards Nelson is, that Smith disobeyed his
orders, as he himself, six months before, had disobeyed Keith's; and
for the same reason, that he on the spot was a better judge of local
conditions and recent developments than one at a distance. To one,
Naples was more important than Minorca, more important than a
half-dozen ships in a possible fleet action; to the other, Egypt was
more important than the presence of sixteen thousand veterans, more or
less, on a European battle-field. It is impossible and bootless, to
weigh the comparative degree of culpability involved in breaches of
orders which cannot be justified. It is perhaps safe to say that while
a subordinate has necessarily a large amount of discretion in the
particular matter intrusted to him, the burden of proof rests wholly
upon him when he presumes to depart from orders affecting the general
field of war, which is the attribute of the commander-in-chief. What
in the former case may be simply an error of judgment, in the latter
becomes a military crime.

On the 16th of January, 1800, Nelson, who some days before had been
notified by Keith of his approach, and directed to place himself under
his command, left Palermo for Leghorn, arriving on the 20th. The
commander-in-chief was already there in the "Queen Charlotte." On the
25th they sailed together for Palermo, and after nine days' stay in
that port went on again for Malta, which they reached on the 15th of
February. No incident of particular interest occurred during these
three weeks, but Nelson's letters to the Hamiltons show that he was
chafing under any act in his superior which could be construed into a
slight. "I feel all, and notwithstanding my desire to be as humble as
the lowest midshipman, perhaps, I cannot submit to be much lower, I am
used to have attention paid me from his superiors." "To say how I miss
your house and company would be saying little; but in truth you and
Sir William have so spoiled me, that I am not happy anywhere else but
with you, nor have I an idea that I ever can be." Keith's comment--the
other point of view--is worth quoting. "Anything absurd coming from
the quarter you mention does not surprise me," he wrote to Paget, who
succeeded Hamilton as minister. "The whole was a scene of fulsome
vanity and absurdity all the _long_ eight days I was at Palermo."[3]

When Keith returned, the capture of Malta, and of the two
ships-of-the-line which had escaped from the Battle of the Nile, were,
by common consent, all that remained to do, in order to round off and
bring to a triumphant conclusion Nelson's Mediterranean career.
Fortune strove hard against his own weakness to add all these jewels
to his crown, but she strove in vain. "We may truly call him a
_heaven_-born Admiral, upon whom fortune smiles wherever he goes." So
wrote Ball to Lady Hamilton, alluding to the first of the favors flung
at his head. "We have been carrying on the blockade of Malta sixteen
months, during which time the enemy never attempted to throw in great
succours. His Lordship arrived off here the day they were within a few
leagues of the island, captured the principal ships, and dispersed the
rest, so that not one has reached the port." It was indeed a
marvellous piece of what men call luck. Nelson had never gone near
Malta since October, 1798, till Keith took him there on the 15th of
February, 1800. The division had no sooner arrived at the island, than
a frigate brought word of a French squadron having been seen off the
west end of Sicily. It was then blowing strong from southeast, and
raining. Keith took his own station off the mouth of the harbor,
placed other ships where he thought best, and signalled Nelson to
chase to windward with three ships-of-the-line, which were afterwards
joined by a fourth, then cruising on the southeast of the island. The
next day the wind shifted to northwest, but it was not until the
morning of the 18th that the enemy were discovered. Guns were then
heard to the northward, by those on board the "Foudroyant," which made
all sail in pursuit, and soon sighted the "Alexander" chasing four
French sail. "Pray God we may get alongside of them," wrote Nelson in
his journal; "the event I leave to Providence. I think if I can take
one 74 by myself, I would retire, and give the staff to more able
hands." "I feel anxious to get up with these ships," he wrote to Lady
Hamilton, "and shall be unhappy not to take them myself, for first my
greatest happiness is to serve my gracious King and Country, and I am
envious only of glory; for if it be a sin to covet glory, I am the
most offending soul alive. _But here I am_ in a heavy sea and thick
fog--Oh, God! the wind subsided--but I trust to Providence I shall
have them. 18th in the evening, I have got her--Le Genereux--thank
God! 12 out of 13, onely the Guillaume Telle remaining; I am after the
others." The enemy's division had consisted of this seventy-four, a
large transport, also captured, and three corvettes which escaped.

An account of Nelson on the quarter-deck on this occasion has been
transmitted by an eye-witness, whose recollections, committed to paper
nearly forty years later, are in many points evidently faulty, but in
the present instance reflect a frame of mind in the great admiral in
perfect keeping with the words last quoted from his own letter. The
writer was then a midshipman of the "Foudroyant;" and the scene as
described opens with a hail from a lieutenant at the masthead, with
his telescope on the chase.

"'Deck there! the stranger is evidently a man of war--she is a
line-of-battle-ship, my lord, and going large on the starboard tack.'

"'Ah! an enemy, Mr. Stains. I pray God it may be Le Genereux. The
signal for a general chase, Sir Ed'ard, (the Nelsonian pronunciation
of Edward,) make the Foudroyant fly!'

"Thus spoke the heroic Nelson; and every exertion that emulation could
inspire was used to crowd the squadron with canvas, the Northumberland
taking the lead, with the flag-ship close on her quarter.

"'This will not do, Sir Ed'ard; it is certainly Le Genereux, and to my
flag-ship she can alone surrender. Sir Ed'ard, we must and shall beat
the Northumberland.'

"'I will do the utmost, my lord; get the engine to work on the
sails--hang butts of water to the stays--pipe the hammocks down, and
each man place shot in them--slack the stays, knock up the wedges, and
give the masts play--start off the water, Mr. James, and pump the
ship.' The Foudroyant is drawing a-head, and at last takes the lead in
the chase. 'The admiral is working his fin, (the stump of his right
arm,) do not cross his hawse, I advise you.'

"The advice was good, for at that moment Nelson opened furiously on
the quarter-master at the conn. 'I'll knock you off your perch, you
rascal, if you are so inattentive.--Sir Ed'ard, send your best
quarter-master to the weather wheel.'

"'A strange sail a-head of the chase!' called the look-out man.

"'Youngster, to the mast-head. What! going without your glass, and be
d----d to you? Let me know what she is immediately.'

"'A sloop of war, or frigate, my lord," shouted the young
signal-midshipman.

"'Demand her number.'

"'The Success, my lord.'

"'Captain Peard; signal to cut off the flying enemy--great odds,
though--thirty-two small guns to eighty large ones.'

"'The Success has hove-to athwart-hawse of the Genereux, and is firing
her larboard broadside. The Frenchman has hoisted his tri-colour, with
a rear-admiral's flag.'

"'Bravo--Success, at her again!'

"'She has wore round, my lord, and firing her starboard broadside. It
has winged her, my lord--her flying kites are flying away all
together.' The enemy is close on the Success, who must receive her
tremendous broadside. The Genereux opens her fire on her little enemy,
and every person stands aghast, afraid of the consequences. The smoke
clears away, and there is the Success, crippled, it is true, but,
bull-dog like, bearing up after the enemy.

"'The signal for the Success to discontinue the action, and come under
my stern,' said Lord Nelson; 'she has done well, for her size. Try a
shot from the lower-deck at her, Sir Ed'ard.'

"'It goes over her.'

"'Beat to quarters, and fire coolly and deliberately at her masts and
yards.'

"Le Genereux at this moment opened her fire on us; and, as a shot
passed through the mizen stay-sail, Lord Nelson, patting one of the
youngsters on the head, asked him jocularly how he relished the music;
and observing something like alarm depicted on his countenance,
consoled him with the information, that Charles XII. ran away from the
first shot he heard, though afterwards he was called 'The Great,' and
deservedly, from his bravery. 'I, therefore,' said Lord Nelson, 'hope
much from you in future.'

"Here the Northumberland opened her fire, and down came the
tri-colored ensign, amidst the thunder of our united cannon."[4]

According to Keith, Nelson "on this occasion, as on all others,
conducted himself with skill, and great address, in comprehending my
signals, which the state of the weather led me greatly to suspect."
Nelson's account to Hamilton was, "By leaving my admiral without
signal, for which _I may be broke_, I took these French villains." "I
have wrote to Lord Spencer," he tells his eldest brother, "and have
sent him my journal, to show that the Genereux was taken by me, and my
plan--that my quitting Lord Keith was at my own risk, and for which,
if I had not succeeded, I might have been broke. The way he went, the
Genereux never could have been taken." In a letter to Lord Minto he
attributed his success to his knowledge of all the local conditions,
acquired by seven years' experience. In his anxiety to make this
instance prove his case, in the previous disobedience to Keith, for
which the Admiralty had censured him, Nelson overreached himself and
certainly fell into an ungenerous action. His vaunt of success by the
road of disobedience rested only on the fact that he had failed to see
Keith's signal. This the latter did not know, and evidently considered
he had complied with its spirit. The signal to chase to windward was
not strained to disobedience in being construed to search a fairly
wide area for the enemy, keeping the rendezvous, which was also the
enemy's destination, to leeward, so as to be readily regained. The
"Queen Charlotte," Keith's flagship, covered the inner line, and,
being a first-rate, was competent to handle any force that could come
out of Toulon. There is a good deal of human nature in this captious
unofficial attack on a superior, whose chief fault, as towards
himself, was that he had been the victim of disobedience; but it is
not pleasant to see in a man so truly great.

The "Genereux" carried the flag of a rear-admiral, who was killed in
the action. Nelson seized the opportunity of further conciliating the
Czar, by sending the sword of this officer to him, as Grand Master of
the Order of Malta. Upon rejoining Keith, he reported in person, as
custom demands. "Lord Keith received my account and myself like a
philosopher (but very unlike you)," he wrote to Hamilton; "it did not,
that I could perceive, cause a pleasing muscle in his face." "Had you
seen the Peer receive me," he wrote to Lady Hamilton the same day, "I
know not what you would have done; but I can guess. But never mind. I
told him that I had made a vow, if I took the Genereux by myself, it
was my intention to strike my flag. To which he made no answer." What
could he very well say, if a man chose to throw away his chances,
especially when that man was a subordinate who a short time before had
flatly refused to obey his orders. Soreness and testiness had full
swing in Nelson at this time; at some fancied neglect, he wrote
Troubridge a letter which reduced that gallant officer to tears.

Between Palermo and Malta Keith had received letters from General
Melas, commanding the Austrian army in Piedmont, giving the plan of
the approaching campaign, in which, as the Austrians were to besiege
Genoa, and advance to the Riviera, much depended upon naval
co-operation. Rightly judging that to be the quarter calling for the
naval commander-in-chief, he was anxious to get away. On the 24th of
February he issued an order to Nelson to take charge of the blockade,
and "to adopt and prosecute the necessary measures for contributing to
the complete reduction of Malta." Short of the chief command, which he
coveted and grudged, Nelson himself could not have contrived a
position better fitted to crown his work in the Mediterranean. Within
the harbor of La Valetta, concentrating there the two objects that yet
remained to be attained,--- Valetta itself being one,--was the
"Guillaume Tell," the thirteenth ship, which alone was lacking now to
complete the tale of the trophies of the Nile. Yet the fair prospect
of success, inevitable since the capture of the "Genereux" had
destroyed the French hopes of relief, brought to Nelson nothing but
dismay. "My Lord," he replied the same day, "my state of health is
such, that it is impossible I can much longer remain here. Without
some rest, I am gone. I must, therefore, whenever I find the service
will admit of it, request your permission to go to my friends, at
Palermo, for a few weeks, and leave the command here to Commodore
Troubridge. Nothing but absolute necessity obliges me to write this
letter." "I could no more stay fourteen days longer here, than
fourteen years," he said in a private letter to Keith of the same
date.

By the next day he had recognized that even he could not leave at once
the task appointed him, without discredit. "My situation," he then
wrote to Hamilton, "is to me very irksome, but how at this moment to
get rid of it is a great difficulty. The French ships here ["Guillaume
Tell" and others] are preparing for sea; the Brest fleet, Lord Keith
says, may be daily expected, and with all this I am very unwell....
The first moment which offers with credit to myself I shall assuredly
give you my company.... Lord Keith is commander-in-chief, and I have
not been kindly treated." His tried friends, Troubridge and Ball,
realized the false step he was about to take, but they could not
change his purpose. "Remember, my Lord," wrote the former, "the
prospects are rather good at present of reducing this place, and that
William Tell, Diane,[1] and Justice,[5] are the only three ships left
from the Nile fleet. I beseech you hear the entreaties of a sincere
friend, and do not go to Sicily for the present. Cruizing may be
unpleasant. Leave the Foudroyant outside, and hoist your flag in the
Culloden, to carry on operations with the General. Everything shall be
done to make it comfortable and pleasing to you: a month will do all.
If you comply with my request, I shall be happy, as I shall then be
convinced I have not forfeited your friendship." "I dined with his
Lordship yesterday, who is apparently in good health," wrote Ball to
Lady Hamilton, "but he complains of indisposition and the necessity of
repose. I do not think a short stay here will hurt his health,
particularly as his ship is at anchor, and his mind not harassed.
Troubridge and I are extremely anxious that the French ships, and the
French garrison of La Valetta, shall surrender to him. I would not
urge it if I were not convinced that it will ultimately add both to
his honour and happiness."

The fear of his friends that he would lose honor, by not resisting
inclination, is evident--undisguised; but they could not prevail. On
the 4th of March he wrote to Lady Hamilton: "My health is in such a
state, and to say the truth, an uneasy mind at being taught my lesson
like a school boy, that my DETERMINATION is made to leave Malta on the
15th morning of this month, on the first moment after the wind comes
favourable; unless I am SURE that I shall get hold of the French
ships." Keith's directions had been full and explicit on details, and
this Nelson seems to have resented. Among the particular orders was
one that Palermo, being so distant from Malta, should be discontinued
as the rendezvous, and Syracuse substituted for it; Nelson was,
however, at liberty to use Messina or Augusta, both also on the west
coast of Sicily, if he preferred. It will be remembered that Nelson
himself, before he fell under the influence of Naples, had expressed
his intention to make Syracuse the base of his operations. Coming as
this change did, as one of the first acts of a new commander-in-chief,
coinciding with his own former judgment, it readily took the color of
an implied censure upon his prolonged stay at Palermo--an echo of the
increasing scandal that attended it.

On the 10th of March he left Malta for Palermo in the "Foudroyant,"
sending the ship back, however, to take her place in the blockade, and
hoisting his own flag on board a transport. His mind was now rapidly
turning towards a final retirement from the station, a decision which
was accelerated by the capture of the "Guillaume Tell." This
eighty-gun ship started on the night of March 29th to run out from La
Valetta, to relieve the famished garrison from feeding the twelve
hundred men she carried. Fortunately, the "Foudroyant" had resumed her
station off the island; and it was a singular illustration of the good
fortune of the "heaven-born" admiral, to repeat Ball's expression,
that she arrived barely in time, only a few hours before the event,
her absence from which might have resulted in the escape of the enemy,
and a just censure upon Nelson. The French ship was sighted first by a
frigate, the "Penelope," Captain Blackwood, which hung gallantly upon
her quarters, as Nelson in former days had dogged the "Ca Ira" with
the "Agamemnon," until the heavier ships could gather round the
quarry. The "Guillaume Tell," necessarily intent only on escape from
overpowering numbers, could not turn aside to crush the small
antagonist, which one of her broadsides might have swept out of
existence; yet even so, the frigate decided the issue, for she shot
away the main and mizzen topmasts of the French vessel, permitting the
remainder of the British to come up. No ship was ever more gallantly
fought than the "Guillaume Tell;" the scene would have been well
worthy even of Nelson's presence. More could not be said, but Nelson
was not there. She had shaken off the "Penelope" and the "Lion,"
sixty-four, when the "Foudroyant" drew up at six in the morning. "At
half-past six," says the latter's log, "shot away the [French] main
and mizen-masts: saw a man nail the French ensign to the stump of the
mizen-mast. Five minutes past eight, shot away the enemy's foremast.
Ten minutes past eight, all her masts being gone by the board, the
enemy struck his colours, and ceased firing." The last of the fleet in
Aboukir Bay had surrendered to Nelson's ship, but not to Nelson's
flag.

"I am sensible," he wrote from Palermo to Sir Edward Berry, the
captain of the "Foudroyant," "of your kindness in wishing my presence
at the finish of the Egyptian fleet, but I have no cause for sorrow.
The thing could not be better done, and I would not for all the world
rob you of one particle of your well-earned laurels." In the matter of
glory Nelson might well yield much to another, nor miss what he gave;
but there is a fitness in things, and it was not fitting that the
commander of the division should have been away from his post when
such an event was likely to happen. "My task is done, my health is
lost, and the orders of the great Earl St. Vincent are completely
fulfilled." "I have wrote to Lord Keith," he tells Spencer, "for
permission to return to England, when you will see a broken-hearted
man. My spirit cannot submit patiently." But by this time, if the
forbearance of the First Lord was not exhausted, his patience very
nearly was, and a letter had already been sent, which, while couched
in terms of delicate consideration, nevertheless betrayed the profound
disappointment that had succeeded to admiration for services so
eminent, and for a spirit once so indomitable: "To your letter of the
20th of March, all I shall say is, to express my extreme regret that
your health should be such as to oblige you to quit your station off
Malta, at a time when I should suppose there must be the finest
prospect of its reduction. I should be very sorry that you did not
accomplish that business in person, as the Guillaume Tell is your due,
and that ship ought not to strike to any other. If the enemy should
come into the Mediterranean, and whenever they do, it will be
suddenly, I should be much concerned to hear that you learnt of their
arrival in that sea, either on shore or in a transport at Palermo."

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