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

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During this absence in the East Indies Captain Suckling, in April,
1775, had been named Comptroller of the Navy,--a civil position, but
one that carried with it power and consequent influence. This probably
told for much in obtaining for Nelson, who was but just eighteen, and
had not yet passed the examinations for his first promotion, an acting
appointment as lieutenant. With this he joined a small
ship-of-the-line, the "Worcester," of sixty-four guns, on board which
he remained for six months, engaged in convoy duty between the Channel
and Gibraltar, seeing from her decks for the first time the waters of
the Mediterranean and its approaches, since then indissolubly
associated with his name and his glory. He took with him a letter from
his uncle to the captain of his new ship; but while such introduction,
coming from so influential a quarter, doubtless contributed powerfully
to clear from his path the obstacles commonly encountered by young
men, Nelson had gained for himself a reputation for professional
capacity, which, here as throughout his life, quickly won him the full
confidence of his superiors. In later years, when his admiral's flag
was flying, he recorded, with evident pride in the recollection, that
while on board the "Worcester," notwithstanding his youth, his captain
used to say, "He felt as easy when I was upon deck as any officer of
the ship." It is doubtful, indeed, whether Nelson ever possessed in a
high degree the delicate knack of handling a ship with the utmost
dexterity and precision. He certainly had not the reputation for so
doing. Codrington,--a thorough Nelsonian, to use his own somewhat
factious expression--used to say in later years, "Lord Nelson was no
seaman; even in the earlier stages of the profession his genius had
soared higher, and all his energies were turned to becoming a great
commander." His apprenticeship, before reaching command, was probably
too short; and, as captain, his generous disposition to trust others
to do work for which he knew them fitted, would naturally lead him to
throw the manipulation of the vessel upon his subordinates. But
although, absorbed by broader and deeper thoughts of the
responsibilities and opportunities of a naval commander, to which he
was naturally attracted by both his genius and his temperament, he was
excelled in technical skill by many who had no touch of his own
inspiration, he nevertheless possessed a thoroughly competent
knowledge of his profession as a simple seaman; which, joined to his
zeal, energy, and intelligence, would more than justify the confidence
expressed by his early commander. Of this knowledge he gave full proof
a year later, when, before a board of captains, strangers to him, he
successfully passed his examinations for a lieutenancy. His uncle
Suckling, as Comptroller of the Navy, was indeed on the Board; but he
concealed the fact of relationship until the other members had
expressed themselves satisfied.

His examination was held within a week of his leaving the "Worcester,"
on the 8th of April, 1777; and Suckling once more, but for the last
time in his life, was able to exert his influence in behalf of his
relative by promptly securing for him, not only his promotion to
lieutenant, which many waited for long, but with it his commission,
dated April 10, to the "Lowestoffe," a frigate of thirty-two guns.
This class of vessel was in the old days considered particularly
desirable for young officers, being more active than
ships-of-the-line, while at the same time more comfortable, and a
better school for the forming of an officer, than were the smaller
cruisers; and his uncle probably felt that Nelson, whose service
hitherto had been mainly upon the latter, needed yet to perfect the
habits and methods distinctive of a ship of war, for he now wrote him
a letter upon the proprieties of naval conduct, excellently conceived,
yet embracing particulars that should scarcely have been necessary to
one who had served his time on board well-ordered ships. The
appointment to the "Lowestoffe" was further fortunate, both for him
and for us, as in the commander of the vessel, Captain William Locker,
he found, not only an admirable officer and gentleman, but a friend
for whom he formed a lasting attachment, ending only with Locker's
death in 1800, two years after the Battle of the Nile. To this
friendship we owe the fullest record, at his own hands, of his early
career; for Locker kept the numerous letters written him by Nelson
while still an unknown young man. Of sixty-seven which now remain,
covering the years from 1777 to 1783, all but thirty were to this one
correspondent.

In another respect the appointment to the "Lowestoffe" was fortunate
for Nelson. The ship was destined to the West Indies--or, to speak
more precisely, to Jamaica, which was a command distinct from that of
the eastern Caribbean, or Lesser Antilles, officially styled the
Leeward Islands Station. Great Britain was then fully embarked in the
war with her North American colonies, which ended in their
independence; and the course of events was hastening her to the
rupture with France and Spain that followed within a year. In this
protracted contest the chief scene of naval hostilities was to be the
West Indies; but beyond even the casualties of war, the baneful
climate of that region insured numerous vacancies by prostration and
death, with consequent chances of promotion for those who escaped the
fevers, and found favor in the eyes of their commander-in-chief. The
brutal levity of the old toast, "A bloody war and a sickly season,"
nowhere found surer fulfilment than on those pestilence-stricken
coasts. Captain Locker's health soon gave way. Arriving at Jamaica on
the 19th of July, 1777, we find Nelson in the following month writing
to him from the ship during an absence produced by a serious illness,
from which fatal results were feared. The letter, like all those to
Locker, was marked by that tone of quick, eager sympathy, of genial
inclination always to say the kindest thing, that characterized his
correspondence, and, generally, his intercourse with others,--traits
that through life made him, beyond most men, acceptable and beloved.
He was, from first to last, not merely one of those whose services are
forced upon others by sheer weight of ability, because
indispensable,--though this, too, he was,--but men wanted him because,
although at times irritable, especially after the wounds received in
later years, he was an easy yoke-fellow, pleasant to deal with,
cordial and ready to support those above him, a tolerant and
appreciative master to subordinates. It may even be said that, in
matters indifferent to him, he too readily reflected the feelings,
views, and wishes of those about him; but when they clashed with his
own fixed convictions, he was immovable. As he himself said in such a
case, "I feel I am perfectly right, and you know upon those occasions
I am not famous for giving up a point."

Of his connection with the "Lowestoffe" he himself, in the short
autobiographical sketch before quoted, mentions two circumstances,
which, from the very fact of their remaining so long in his memory,
illustrate temperament. "Even a frigate," he says, "was not
sufficiently active for my mind, and I got into a schooner, tender to
the Lowestoffe. In this vessel I made myself a complete pilot for all
the passages through the [Keys] Islands situated on the north side
Hispaniola." This kind of service, it will be noted, was in direct
sequence, as to training, to his handling of the "Triumph's" long-boat
in the lower waters of the Thames, and would naturally contribute to
increase that "confidence in himself among rocks and sands," which
was afterwards to be so "great a comfort" to him. In his later career
he had frequent and pressing need of that particular form of
professional judgment and self-reliance for which these early
experiences stood him in good stead. As he afterwards wrote to the
First Lord of the Admiralty, when pleading the cause of a daring and
skilful officer who had run his ship ashore: "If I had been censured
every time I have run my ship, or fleets under my command, into great
danger, I should long ago have been _out_ of the service, and never
_in_ the House of Peers." At the critical instants of the Nile and
Copenhagen, as well as in the less conspicuous but more prolonged
anxieties of the operations off Corsica and along the Riviera of
Genoa, this early habit, grafted upon the singularly steady nerve
wherewith he was endowed by nature, sustained him at a height of
daring and achievement to which very few have been able to rise.

The other incident recorded by him as happening while on board the
"Lowestoffe," he himself cites as illustrative of temperament. "Whilst
in this frigate, an event happened which presaged my character; and,
as it conveys no dishonour to the officer alluded to, I shall insert
it. Blowing a gale of wind, and a very heavy sea, the frigate captured
an American letter-of-marque. The first Lieutenant was ordered to
board her, which he did not do, owing to the very heavy sea. On his
return, the Captain said, 'Have I no officer in the ship who can board
the prize?' On which the Master ran to the gangway, to get into the
boat: when I stopped him, saying, 'It is my turn now; and if I come
back, it is yours.' This little incident," he continues, "has often
occurred to my mind; and I know it is my disposition, that
difficulties and dangers do but increase my desire of attempting
them." An action of this sort, in its results unimportant, gives
keener satisfaction in the remembrance than do greater deeds, because
more purely individual,--entirely one's own. It is upon such as this,
rather than upon his victories, that Nelson in his narrative dwells
caressingly. His personal daring at St. Vincent, and against the
gunboats off Cadiz, ministered more directly to his self-esteem, to
that consciousness of high desert which was dear to him, than did the
Battle of the Nile, whose honors he, though ungrudgingly, shared with
his "band of brothers."

When the "Lowestoffe" had been a year upon the station, it became very
doubtful whether Locker could continue in her, and finally he did go
home ill. It was probably due to this uncertainty that he obtained the
transfer of Nelson, in whom he had become most affectionately
interested, to the "Bristol," flagship of Sir Peter Parker, the
commander-in-chief. Here, under the admiral's own eye, warmly
recommended by his last captain, and with a singular faculty for
enlisting the love and esteem of all with whom he was brought into
contact, the young officer's prospects were of the fairest; nor did
the event belie them. Joining the "Bristol" as her third lieutenant,
not earlier than July, 1778, he had by the end of September risen "by
succession"--to use his own phrase--to be first; a promotion by
seniority whose rapidity attests the rate at which vacancies occurred.
Both Parker and his wife became very fond of him, cared for him in
illness, and in later years she wrote to him upon each of the
occasions on which he most brilliantly distinguished himself--after
St. Vincent, the Nile, and Copenhagen. "Your mother," said she after
the first, "could not have heard of your deeds with more affection;
nor could she be more rejoiced at your personal escape from all the
dangers of that glorious day;" and again, after the Nile, "Sir Peter
and I have ever regarded you as a son." The letter following the
victory at Copenhagen has not been published; but Nelson, whose heart
was never reluctant to gratitude nor to own obligation, wrote in
reply: "Believe me when I say that I am as sensible as ever that I
owe my present position in life to your and good Sir Peter's
partiality for me, and friendly remembrance of Maurice Suckling."

This last allusion indicates some disinterestedness in Parker's
patronage, and its vital importance to Nelson at that time. Captain
Suckling had died in July, 1778, and with him departed the only
powerful support upon which the young lieutenant could then count,
apart from his own merits and the friends obtained by them. There was
in those days an immense difference in prospects between the nephew of
the Comptroller of the Navy and a man unknown at headquarters. By what
leading principles, if any, Sir Peter Parker was guided in the
distribution of his favors, can scarcely now be ascertained; but that
he brought rapidly forward two men of such great yet widely differing
merit as Nelson and Collingwood, is a proof that his judgment was
sound and the station one where vacancies were frequent. Collingwood,
who was then a lieutenant on board a sloop-of-war, went to the
"Lowestoffe" in Nelson's place. When the latter, in December, 1778,
was made commander into the brig "Badger," the other was transferred
to the vacant room in the "Bristol;" and when Nelson, on the 11th of
June, 1779, became post-captain in the "Hinchinbrook" frigate,
Collingwood again followed him as commander of the "Badger." Finally,
when through a death vacancy a better frigate offered for Nelson,
Collingwood also was posted into the "Hinchinbrook;" this ship thus
having the singular distinction of conferring the highest rank
obtainable by selection, and so fixing the final position of the two
life-long friends who led the columns at Trafalgar, the crowning
achievement of the British Navy as well as of their own illustrious
careers. The coincidence at the earlier date may have been partly
factitious, due to a fad of the commander-in-chief; but it assumes a
different and very impressive aspect viewed in the light of their
later close association, especially when it is recalled that
Collingwood also succeeded, upon Nelson's death, to the Mediterranean
command, and was there worn out, as his predecessor fell, in the
discharge of his duty upon that important station, which thus proved
fatal to them both. Few historic parallels are so complete. Sir Peter
Parker, living until 1811, survived both his illustrious juniors, and
at the age of eighty-two followed Nelson's coffin, as chief mourner at
the imposing obsequies, where the nation, from the highest to the
lowest, mingled the exultation of triumph with weeping for the loss of
its best-beloved.

Of Nelson's exterior at this time, his early biographers have secured
an account which, besides its value as a portrait, possesses the
further interest of mentioning explicitly that charm of manner which
was one of his best birth-gifts, reflecting, as it did, the generous
and kindly temper of his heart. "The personal appearance of Captain
Nelson at this period of his life, owing to his delicate health and
diminutive figure, was far from expressing the greatness of his
intellectual powers. From his earliest years, like Cleomenes, the hero
of Sparta, he had been enamoured of glory, and had possessed a
greatness of mind. Nelson preserved, also, a similar temperance and
simplicity of manners. Nature, as Plutarch adds of the noble Spartan,
had given a spur to his mind which rendered him impetuous in the
pursuit of whatever he deemed honourable. The demeanour of this
extraordinary young man was entirely the demeanour of a British
seaman; when the energies of his mind were not called forth by some
object of duty, or professional interest, he seemed to retire within
himself, and to care but little for the refined courtesies of polished
life." No saving sense of humor seems to have suggested that the
profane might here ask, "Is this the British seaman?" "In his dress he
had all the cleanliness of an Englishman, though his manner of wearing
it gave him an air of negligence; and yet his general address and
conversation, when he wished to please, possessed a charm that was
irresistible."[2]

In June, 1779, when posted into the "Hinchinbrook," Nelson wanted
still three months of being twenty-one. By the custom of the British
Navy, then and now, promotions from the grade of Captain to that of
Admiral are made by seniority only. Once a captain, therefore, a man's
future was assured, so far as concerned the possibility of juniors
passing over his head,--neither favor nor merit could procure that;
his rank relatively to others was finally fixed. The practical
difficulty of getting at a captain of conspicuous ability, to make of
him a flag-officer, was met by one of those clumsy yet adequate
expedients by which the practical English mind contrives to reconcile
respect for precedent with the demands of emergency. There being then
no legal limit to the number of admirals, a promotion was in such case
made of all captains down to and including the one wanted; and Lord
St. Vincent, one of the most thorough-going of naval statesmen, is
credited with the declaration that he would promote a hundred down the
list of captains, if necessary, to reach the one demanded by the needs
of the country. Even with this rough-riding over obstacles,--for the
other officers promoted, however useful in their former grade, not
being wanted as admirals, remained perforce unemployed,--the advantage
of reaching post-rank betimes is evident enough; and to this chiefly
Nelson referred in acknowledging his permanent indebtedness to Sir
Peter Parker. With this early start, every artificial impediment was
cleared from his path; his extraordinary ability was able to assert
itself, and could be given due opportunity, without a too violent
straining of service methods. He had, indeed, to wait eighteen years
for his flag-rank; but even so, he obtained it while still in the very
prime of his energies, before he was thirty-nine,--a good fortune
equalled by none of his most distinguished contemporaries.[3]

A somewhat singular feature of this early promotion of Nelson is that
it was accorded without the claim of service in actual battle,--a
circumstance that seems yet more remarkable when contrasted with the
stormy and incessant warfare of his later career. While he was thus
striding ahead, his equals in years, Saumarez and Pellew, were
fighting their way up step by step, gaining each as the reward of a
distinct meritorious action, only to find themselves outstripped by
one who had scarcely seen a gun fired in anger. The result was mainly
due to the nature of the station, where sickness made vacancies more
rapidly than the deadliest engagement. But while this is true, and
must be taken into the account, it was characteristic of Nelson that
his value transpired through the simplest intercourse, and amid the
commonplace incidents of service. Locker and Parker each in turn felt
this. A little later, while he and Collingwood were still unknown
captains, the latter, usually measured and formal in his language,
wrote to him in these singularly strong words: "My regard for you, my
dear Nelson, my respect and veneration for your character, I hope and
believe, will never lessen." So, some years afterwards, but before he
became renowned or had wrought his more brilliant achievements, an
envious brother captain said to him, "You did just as you pleased in
Lord Hood's time, the same in Admiral Hotham's, and now again with Sir
John Jervis; it makes no difference to you who is Commander-in-chief."
This power of winning confidence and inspiring attachment was one of
the strongest elements in Nelson's success, alike as a subordinate and
when himself in chief command.

With his mind ever fixed upon glory, or rather upon honor,--the word
he himself most often used, and which more accurately expresses his
desire for fame; honor, which is to glory what character is to
reputation,--the same hard fortune persisted in denying to him, during
the War of the American Revolution, the opportunities for distinction
which he so ardently coveted. In the "Badger" and in the
"Hinchinbrook," during the year 1779, his service was confined to
routine cruising about Jamaica and along the Mosquito coast of Central
America. A gleam of better things for a moment shone upon him in
August of that year, when the French fleet, under Count D'Estaing,
appeared in Haiti, numbering twenty-two ships-of-the-line, with
transports reported to be carrying twenty thousand troops. All Jamaica
was in an uproar of apprehension, believing an attack upon the island
to be imminent; for its conquest was known to be one of the great
objects of the enemy. Nelson was at the time living on shore, the
"Hinchinbrook" seemingly[4] not having returned to the port since his
appointment to her, and he eagerly accepted the duty of commanding the
land batteries. The odds were great,--"You must not be surprised to
hear of my learning to speak French," he wrote, laughingly, to Locker
in England,--but if so, the greater the honor attendant, whether upon
success or defeat. D'Estaing, however, passed on to America to
encounter disaster at Savannah, and Nelson's hopes were again
disappointed.

In January, 1780, an opportunity for service offered, which ended in
no conspicuous or permanent result, but nevertheless conferred
distinction upon one who, to use his own expression, was determined to
climb to the top of the tree, and to neglect no chance, however
slight, that could help him on. War with Spain had then been about
seven months declared, and the British governor of Jamaica had
sagaciously determined to master Lake Nicaragua, and the course of the
river San Juan, its outlet to the Caribbean Sea. The object of the
attempt was twofold, both military and commercial. The route was
recognized then, as it is now, as one of the most important, if not
the most important, of those affording easy transit from the Pacific
to the Atlantic by way of the Isthmus. To a nation of the mercantile
aptitudes of Great Britain, such a natural highway was necessarily an
object of desire. In her hands it would not only draw to itself the
wealth of the surrounding regions, but would likewise promote the
development of her trade, both north and south, along the eastern and
western coasts of the two Americas. But the pecuniary gain was not
all. The military tenure of this short and narrow strip, supported at
either end, upon the Pacific and the Atlantic, by naval detachments,
all the more easily to be maintained there by the use of the belt
itself, would effectually sever the northern and southern colonies of
Spain, both by actual interposition, and by depriving them of one of
their most vital lines of intercommunication. To seek control of so
valuable and central a link in a great network of maritime interests
was as natural and inevitable to Great Britain a century ago, as it
now is to try to dominate the Mediterranean and the Suez Canal, which
fulfil a like function to her Eastern possessions and Eastern
commerce.

Preoccupied, however, with numerous and more pressing cares in many
quarters of the world, and overweighted in a universal struggle with
outnumbering foes, Great Britain could spare but scanty forces to her
West India Islands, and from them Governor Dalling could muster but
five hundred men for his Nicaraguan undertaking. Nelson was directed
to convoy these with the "Hinchinbrook" to the mouth of the San Juan
del Norte, where was the port now commonly called Greytown, in those
days a fine and spacious harbor. There his charge ended; but his
mental constitution never allowed him to look upon a military task as
well done while anything remained to do. In the spirit of his famous
saying, fifteen years later, "Were ten ships out of eleven taken, I
would never call it well done if the eleventh escaped, if able to get
at her," he determined to go with the troops. With his temperament it
was impossible to turn his back upon the little body of soldiers,
whose toilsome advance up the tropical stream might be aided and
hastened by his ready seamen.

The first objective of the expedition was Fort San Juan, a powerful
work controlling the river of the same name, and thereby the only
natural water transit between the sea and Lake Nicaragua. Upon the
possession of this, as a position of vantage and a safe depot for
supplies and reinforcements, Dalling based his hopes of future
advance, both west and south. Nelson took with him forty-seven seamen
and marines from his ship's company; the former, aided by some
Indians, doing most of the labor of forcing the boats against the
current, through shoal and tortuous channels, under his own constant
supervision and encouragement. A small outpost that withstood their
progress was by him intrepidly stormed, sword in hand, by sudden
assault; and upon reaching Fort San Juan he urgently recommended the
same summary method to the officer commanding the troops. The latter,
however, was not one of the men who recognize the necessity for
exceptional action. Regular approaches, though the slower, were the
surer way of reducing a fortified place, and entailed less bloodshed.
Professional rule commonly demanded them, and to professional rule he
submitted. Nelson argued that through delays, which, however incurred,
were now past discussion, the expedition had reached its destination
in April, at the end of the healthy, dry season, instead of shortly
after its beginning, in January. Consequently, owing to the fall of
the water, much additional trouble had been experienced in the
advance, the men were proportionately weakened by toil and exposure,
and the wet months, with their dire train of tropical diseases, were
at hand. Therefore, though more might fall by the enemy's weapons in a
direct attack, the ultimate loss would be less than by the protracted
and sickly labors of the spade; while with San Juan subdued, the force
could receive all the care possible in such a climate, and under the
best conditions await the return of good weather for further progress.

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