FOOTNOTES:
[59] This sentence refers to the governor; not to Villettes, as the construction might indicate.
[60] Unfit for sea, and kept at Naples for political reasons.
[61] The Honourable Mr. Waldegrave, afterwards Admiral Lord Eadstock.
[62] Five French ships-of-the-line, returning from the West Indies, had taken refuge in Ferrol.
[63] Life of Rev. A.J. Scott, p. 124.
[64] Phillimore's Last of Nelson's Captains, p. 122. A portion of this incident has before been quoted, in another connection (vol. i. p. 355, note). It is repeated, because again applicable, to illustrate a different trait of Nelson's character.
[65] The letter of this gentleman, Dr. Gillespie, from which a quotation has already been made, was published in the London "Times" of October 6, 1894.
[66] This incidental remark may be noted, as bearing upon the statement, now rejected, that his orders were put on especially for battle.
[67] There is here no mention of smoking; nor has any allusion to it, or to tobacco, caught the author's eye in Nelson's letters.
[68] Dr. Beatty's Narrative of the Death of Lord Nelson. Nicolas, vol. vii. p. 259.
[69] Sir William Hotham.
[70] Many of these details are taken with little alteration from the "Life of Rev. A.J. Scott."
[71] Memoir of Sir Thomas Hardy, in Clarke and M'Arthur's Life of Nelson vol. iii. p. 234.
[72] Hillyar was then engaged to a lady in Malta.
[73] As Lady Nelson's first marriage was in 1779, Josiah Nisbet could not have been eighteen when made a commander, in 1797.
[74] Phillimore's "The Last of Nelson's Captains," p. 146.
[75] Flag-officers had a share in all prizes taken by vessels of their squadrons.
[76] Davison.
[77] Ante, p. 192.
[78] Pettigrew, vol. ii. p. 444.
[79] Nicolas, vol. vi. p. 288.
[80] Late British minister to Spain.
[81] Author's italics.
[82] The whole of this account is taken from the Life of Sir William Parker. Phillimore's Last of Nelson's Captains, pp. 125-129.
CHAPTER XX.
THE ESCAPE AND PURSUIT OF THE TOULON FLEET.—NELSON'S RETURN TO ENGLAND.
JANUARY-AUGUST, 1805. AGE, 46.
To understand rightly the movements of Nelson during the first months of 1805, up to his return to England in August, and to appreciate fully the influence of this closing period of his career upon the plans and fortunes of Napoleon, it is necessary to state briefly the projects of the latter, as formulated in his correspondence.
The great object of the Emperor was to invade England, crossing the Channel with the army, 150,000 strong, which for two years past he had been assembling and drilling in the neighborhood of Boulogne. To this end all his plans were subsidiary—to it all movements at this moment were intended to conduce. He had no illusions as to the difficulties of the enterprise; he recognized fully that the odds were against success, but he had too often achieved the apparently impossible to permit the word to stop him in an attempt, which, if accomplished, would cause all other obstacles to disappear from his path of conquest. There were chances in his favor. Warily and steadfastly he advanced, step by step, determined to take no risk that could by the utmost care be changed into security, but equally resolved to dare the hazard, if by the military movements set in action by his unsurpassed genius, he could for a moment obtain the particular combination which would, to use his own phrase, make him master of the world. What if the soldiers of the Grand Army never returned from England? There were still in France men enough, as good as they were before his energizing spirit wrought them into the force which in its might trod the Continent under foot. Like Nelson dying at Trafalgar, it too would have laid down its life, leaving its work finished. Neither man nor army could have a prouder memorial.
The particular combination upon which Napoleon was willing to stake everything was a naval control of the Straits of Dover for a very few days, coincident with the presence there of an army ready and equipped to cross at once. The latter condition was merely a question of preparation—long, tedious, and expensive, but perfectly feasible. In the early months of 1805 it was realized. The army, a substantial, absolute fact, was there, awaiting only the throwing of the bridge. The naval part of the problem was far more difficult. In the face of the naval supremacy of Great Britain, the sought-for control could only be casual and transient—a fleeting opportunity to be seized, utilized, and so to disappear. Its realization must be effected by stratagem, by successful deception and evasion. The coveted superiority would be not actual, but local,—the French fleet in force there, the British fleet, though the greater in force, elsewhere; the weight of the former concentrated at one point by simultaneous movements of its different detachments, which movements had been so calculated and directed that they had misled the British divisions, and, of themselves, diverted them from the decisive centre. Subsidiary to this main effort, Napoleon also contemplated a simultaneous landing of some twenty thousand men in Ireland, which, like the naval movements, would distract and tend to divide the unity of the British resistance. The British admirals considered this project to be easier than the invasion of Great Britain, and it engaged their much more serious attention.
There were three principal French detachments to be united,—in Brest twenty ships, in Toulon ten, in Rochefort five. To these the outbreak of the war between Great Britain and Spain added the forces of the latter kingdom, in Ferrol and Cadiz, aggregating fifteen serviceable ships; but this was not until March, 1805. Of the three French contingents, the one from Rochefort was small; and, as a factor, although important, it was not essential. Its failure might weaken or impede the progress of the general movement, without entirely destroying it; but it was of necessity that the Toulon and Brest divisions both should fulfil their missions, accurately and on time, if the great combination, of which they were parts, was to advance to a triumphant conclusion. This emphasized to the British the importance, which Nelson always so keenly felt, of meeting the enemy immediately after they left port. Once away, and their destination in doubt, the chances in favor of any scheme were multiplied. In their greatest and final effort, Cornwallis, off Brest, was fortunate, in that the plans of the Emperor first, and afterwards unusual weather conditions, retained the French fleet there in harbor; a result to which the material efficiency of his own ships, and their nearness to their base, much contributed.
Upon Nelson, with his crazy ships, on the other hand, fell the burden of counteracting a successful evasion of the Toulon fleet, of foiling, by sagacious and untiring pursuit, through immense and protracted discouragements, the efforts of the one division which had been committed to his watch. Although it became much superior to his own force, he drove it out of the position in the West Indies first appointed for the meeting, followed it back to Europe, arrived before it, and then, finding it had gone to Ferrol, carried his squadron, without orders, counselled simply by his own genius, to the aid of Cornwallis; by which act the British navy, to the number of thirty-five ships-of-the-line, was massed in a central position, separating the two enemy's bodies, and able to act decisively against a foe approaching from either direction. Thus a second time he prevented the enemy from forming a junction, unless they fought for it—an alternative Napoleon wished to avoid. To him fell all the strain of uncertainty, all the doubtful and complicated mental effort, all the active strategic movement, of the campaign, and to him consequently has been attributed justly the greater meed of glory; though care must be taken not to ignore or undervalue the well-played parts of other admirals, which were essential to the success of the great defensive campaign comprehended under the name Trafalgar.
The point selected by the Emperor for the meeting of his naval divisions, in both the unsuccessful attempts made in 1805, was the West Indies. There was the most powerful foreign arsenal, Martinique, left in the hands of France, and there the greatest single interest of the wide-spread commerce upon which depended the life of Great Britain. The latter, therefore, was specially sensitive to anything threatening the safety of the West India Islands. "I should think the West Indies the more likely place for the French to succeed in," wrote Nelson to Ball, on the 6th of September, 1804. "Suppose the Toulon fleet escapes, and gets out of the Straits, I rather think I should bend my course to the westward; for if they carry 7,000 men—with what they have at Martinico and Guadaloupe—St. Lucia, Grenada, St. Vincent, Antigua, and St. Kitts would fall, and, in that case, England would be so clamorous for peace that we should humble ourselves." This is a noteworthy passage, for it shows great sagacity of prediction, and, in announcing beforehand his resolve,—of which this is not the sole previous mention,—it dispels entirely the idea that he was decoyed to the West Indies. It explains, also, the remarkable outburst of gratitude that hailed him on his return from a chase which had been wholly unsuccessful as regards his own chief object—the annihilation of the French fleet. He had failed to find it, but he had driven the enemy out of the West Indies before they could do any serious injury to the vital interests of the country. A man cannot be said to be decoyed, because, in pursuance of a judgment deliberately formed beforehand, he does the thing which the moment demands; unless it can be shown that he has thereby uncovered greater interests. This Nelson did not do. He saved the West Indies, and returned in time to protect Great Britain and Ireland from invasion.
It is through the perplexities of this momentous period that we have now to follow him, and we shall do so to most advantage by taking as our clue his own avowed primary motive of action, the finding and destroying of the French fleet. A man dealing with Napoleon was bound to meet perplexities innumerable, to thread a winding and devious track, branching out often into false trails that led nowhere, and confused by cross-lights which glittered only to mislead. In such a case, as in the doubtful paths of common life, the only sure guide to a man's feet is principle; and Nelson's principle was the destruction of the French fleet. No other interest, his own least of all, could divert him from it. For it he was willing not only to sacrifice fortune, but to risk renown; and so, amid troubles manifold, he walked steadfastly in the light of the single eye.
While Napoleon's object remained the same throughout, his methods received various modifications, as all plans must do when circumstances change. In his original intention the execution of the main effort was intrusted to Latouche Tréville, by far and away the best admiral he had. Upon his death, the Toulon fleet was committed to Villeneuve. Its sailing was to take place as nearly as possible at the same time as that of the Rochefort division. They were to go to the West Indies, proceed at once, independently, to offensive operations, then to unite and return together to Rochefort. Napoleon's calculation was that the British, impressed by this simultaneous departure, and uncertain about the enemy's purpose, must send at once thirty ships-of-the-line in pursuit, in order to secure all the different quarters they would think endangered. This diversion, if realized, would facilitate the operations of the Brest fleet, which was to land an army corps in Ireland, and then to cover the crossing of the main body at Boulogne into England; the precise character of its movements depending necessarily upon conditions of wind at the moment of execution.
The Rochefort ships sailed on the 11th of January. For a week before and a week after that date the winds at Toulon hung between northeast and southeast, favorable, therefore, for a voyage to the Straits of Gibraltar; but Villeneuve argued, judiciously, that a fleet intent on evasion only, and to avoid fighting, should move with great speed until lost to sight—that is, should start with a very fresh breeze, the direction of which was of secondary moment. This view of the matter escaped Nelson's attention, and therefore contributed seriously to mislead him in his reasoning as to the enemy's probable object.
On the 17th of January the wind at Toulon shifted to north-northwest, with signs of an approaching gale, such as the Gulf of Lyons is noted for. The next morning Villeneuve sent a division to drive away Nelson's lookouts. This duty was imperfectly performed. It should have been done by a frigate squadron strong enough to force them out of sight of the main body, and having orders to rejoin the latter at a distant rendezvous. As it was, the British frigates did not lose touch of the hostile fleet, which sailed that evening. They dogged it late into the night, going at times thirteen knots before the blast of the storm, in order to keep clear of the enemy; and at two in the morning of January 19th, being then in the latitude of Ajaccio, satisfied that the French were steering steadily south-southwest, and under a press of sail, which indicated a mission of importance, they parted company and hastened to Nelson, whom they joined twelve hours later, as already stated.
Nelson needed no time to deliberate. His mind was long before fixed to follow, and there was but one way to do so. The enemy's course, as reported, led to the southern end of Sardinia, after reaching which the wind was fair for Naples, Sicily, and the East. The British ships were moored—two anchors down. At half-past four they were under way, standing in single column for the narrow passage between Biche and Sardinia, the "Victory" leading, each vessel steering by the stern lights of the one ahead of her. At seven P.M. all were clear, and the fleet hauled up along the east coast of Sardinia, which made a lee for them. "At midnight," Nelson notes in his journal, "moderate breezes and clear." During the same hours the untrained squadron of Villeneuve was losing topmasts in the fury of the gale.
The following afternoon,[83] as the British drew out from under the lee of Sardinia, they found the wind blowing a hard gale from south-southwest, which lasted all that night. The fleet could make no way against it, but neither could the French utilize it, unless, which was unlikely, they had got much farther to the southward than Nelson had. When he left Madalena, he had sent a frigate ahead, with orders to round Sardinia by the south and try to get sight or word of the enemy. On the morning of the 22d she rejoined, the fleet having then drifted to fifty miles east of Cape Carbonara, the southeastern point of Sardinia. At 11 A.M. her captain informed Nelson that the afternoon before he had seen a French frigate standing into the Gulf of Cagliari, but, the weather being thick, giving an horizon of only three miles, nothing more had been discovered. The admiral had sent word of the French sailing to Acton at Palermo, and through him to Naples and Malta, Ball being requested to seek for information in every practicable direction. Naples was for the moment safe, as the British squadron stood across any possible road by which the French could approach it.
The gale, hauling gradually to the westward, lasted in its force until the morning of January 25th. During these three days Nelson received no news, but he did much thinking and had made up his mind. The French might be intending to land in Cagliari, to windward of which they had been during these four days that he had been to leeward. With Cagliari, therefore, he must communicate; the Viceroy of Sardinia would know if any landing had been attempted or threatened. If Sardinia was safe, he would next go or send to Palermo for news, and thence push for the Faro of Messina, where he would cover both that important fortress and the approaches to Naples from either side of Sicily. "You will believe my anxiety," he wrote to Acton in Palermo, on the 25th. "I have neither ate, drank, or slept with any comfort since last Sunday" (the 20th). "I am naturally very anxious," he tells Ball, "therefore you must forgive my short letter. We have a dead foul wind and heavy sea. I cannot, for want of frigates, send off this letter." The lack of small cruisers; so often lamented in quieter days, now embarrassed him cruelly. The few he had were dispersed in all directions in search of news, and to communicate with Acton he had to detach one of his fastest ships-of-the-line, the "Leviathan," intending himself to follow her with the fleet to Palermo. At the latter point he could obtain all the intelligence of the common enemy which might have reached any Sicilian port, before he carried out his already formed purpose of chasing to leeward, to the Morea and Egypt. With firm grip, though in agony of mind, he held himself in hand, determined, burning as he was to pursue somewhere, not to yield the advantage of the wind till he had reached a reasonable certainty—as in 1798—that the circumstances justified it. "I hope," he says to Acton, "that the governor of Augusta[84] will not give up the post to the French fleet; but if he does, I shall go in and attack them; for I consider the destruction of the enemy's fleet of so much consequence, that I would gladly have half of mine burnt to effect their destruction. I am in a fever. God send I may find them!" Throughout the long chase which followed, all, so to say, slept on their arms. On the 11th of March he wrote: "Ever since January 21st we have been prepared for battle: not a bulkhead[85] up in the fleet. Night or day, it is my determination not to lose one moment in attacking them."
On the 26th Nelson communicated with Cagliari, and learned that no landing had been attempted in Sardinia. The same day the frigate "Phoebe" rejoined, with information that a French eighty-gun ship had anchored in Ajaccio on the evening of the 19th, dismasted and crippled. Putting these facts together, and in connection with his own movements, he inferred conclusively that either the French had gone back to Toulon in consequence of injuries, or that they had given him the slip, had got round Sicily, and proceeded to the eastward. The latter was improbable, because the westerly gales, as he had noted, could scarcely have allowed them to weather Maritimo[86]; it was not, however, impossible. A return to Toulon was, antecedently, equally improbable, although it proved to be the alternative adopted by Villeneuve. "Although I knew one of the French ships was crippled, yet I considered the character of Bonaparte; and that the orders given by him, on the banks of the Seine, would not take into consideration winds or weather; nor indeed could the accident of three or four ships alter, in my opinion,[87] a destination of importance: therefore such an accident did not weigh in my mind, and I went first to the Morea and then to Egypt." This quotation is especially interesting, as it proves how closely Nelson scanned every known element in a problem, even to the temperament of his opponent; and it also shows the substantial agreement in judgment between him and Napoleon. The latter, Thiers writes, "was sensibly displeased on hearing of this resultless sortie. 'What is to be done,' he said, 'with admirals who allow their spirits to sink, and determine to hasten home at the first damage they receive? All the captains ought to have had sealed orders to meet off the Canary Islands. The damages should have been repaired en route. A few topmasts carried away, some casualties in a gale of wind, were every-day occurrences. But the great evil of our Navy is, that the men who command it are unused to all the risks of command.'"
Still without definite tidings, compelled to act upon his own inferences—for merely doing nothing was action under such circumstances—Nelson reasoned that, if the French had returned, he could not overtake them, and if they had gone east, he had no time to lose before following. He fell back therefore from his windward position to the Straits of Messina, through which the whole squadron beat on the 31st of January—"a thing unprecedented in nautical history," he wrote to the Admiralty, "but although the danger from the rapidity of the current was great, yet so was the object of my pursuit; and I relied with confidence on the zeal and ability of the fleet under my command." The same day, knowing now that Sicily and Naples were not threatened, he despatched six cruisers for intelligence, "in all directions from Tunis to Toulon;" three of them being frigates, which were to rendezvous off the latter port and resume the watch of the French, if found there. A seventh vessel was sent ahead of the squadron to Koron, off which he appeared on the 2d of February, and, still getting no news, went on to Alexandria, where he communicated with the British consul on the 7th. "I beg the boat may not be detained, nor must any communication be had with the officer, so as to put the ship in quarantine. The officer is ordered not to wait more than thirty minutes; for you will readily believe my anxiety to find out the enemy's fleet." No news was to be had; but it was ascertained that Egypt was practically defenceless against any renewed attempts of the French.
Nelson at once started back to the westward. On the 19th of February, twelve days after leaving Alexandria, he was off Malta, and there for the first time received information that the enemy had returned to Toulon in a very crippled state. It was now necessary to regain his station as speedily as possible, and also to resume the operation of victualling the squadron, which had been interrupted at Madalena by the news of the enemy's sailing. The captain left there in charge of the transports had taken them for safety to Malta, in pursuance of the orders left with him, and they would have to be convoyed again to the Gulf of Palmas, which was appointed for their joining. The incident shows at once the forehandedness of Nelson, in that he was able immediately to go on so long a chase, and also the difficulties attendant upon the administration of the fleet. Against the prevailing winds the convoy did not reach Palmas until the 14th of March. The fleet had preceded it there by a week. After a tedious beat, in which eight days were consumed to make the three hundred and fifty miles to windward, Nelson anchored on the 27th of February in Pula Roads, Gulf of Cagliari, just to hold on. "What weather!" wrote he to Bickerton, when the anchor dropped. "Did you ever see such in almost any country? It has forced me to anchor here, in order to prevent being drove to leeward, but I shall go to sea the moment it moderates." Palmas is only forty miles to windward of Pula, but it was not till the 8th of March, after three or four ineffectual efforts, that the squadron got there. "From the 19th of February to this day," wrote Nelson to Ball, "have we been beating, and only now going to anchor here as it blows a gale of wind at northwest. It has been without exception, the very worst weather I have ever seen." Bad as it was, it was but a sample of that he was to meet a month later, in the most wearing episode of his anxious life.
Besides the weary struggle with foul winds and weather, other great disappointments and vexations met Nelson at Palmas. During his absence to the eastward, one despatch vessel had been wrecked off Cadiz and fallen into the hands of the Spaniards, another had been intercepted by the battered French fleet as it approached Toulon, and a convoy, homeward-bound from Malta, had been waylaid, the two small ships of war which formed the escort had been taken, and the merchant ships dispersed. This last misfortune he ascribed unhesitatingly to the division of the command. "It would not have happened, could I have ordered the officer off Cadiz to send ships to protect them." The incident was not without its compensations to one who valued honor above loss, for his two petty cruisers had honored themselves and him by such a desperate resistance, before surrendering to superior force, that the convoy had time to scatter, and most of it escaped. There was reason to fear that the despatch vessel taken off Toulon had mistaken the French fleet for the British, which it had expected to find outside, and that her commander might have had to haul down his flag before getting opportunity to throw the mail-bags overboard. In that case, both public and private letters had gone into the enemy's possession. "I do assure you, my dearest Emma," he wrote Lady Hamilton, "that nothing can be more miserable, or unhappy, than your poor Nelson." Besides the failure to find the French, "You will conceive my disappointment! It is now[88] from November 2nd that I have had a line from England."
A characteristic letter was elicited from Nelson by the loss of the despatch-vessel off Cadiz, the brig "Raven," whose commander, Captain Layman, had gained his cordial professional esteem in the Copenhagen expedition, in connection with which he has already been mentioned. As usual in the case of a wreck, a court-martial was held. This censured the captain, much to Nelson's vexation; the more so because, at his request, Layman had not produced before the court certain orders for the night given by him, the proved neglect of which would have brought a very heavy punishment upon the officer of the watch. In weighing the admiral's words, therefore, allowance may be made for a sense of personal responsibility for the finding of the court; but the letter, which was addressed to the First Lord, contains expressions that are most worthy of attention, not only because illustrative of Nelson's temperament and mode of thought, but also for a point of view too rarely taken in the modern practice, which has grown up in peace.
MY DEAR LORD,—Give me leave to recommend Captain Layman to your kind protection; for, notwithstanding the Court Martial has thought him deserving of censure for his running in with the land, yet, my Lord, allow me to say, that Captain Layman's misfortune was, perhaps, conceiving other people's abilities were equal to his own, which, indeed, very few people's are.
I own myself one of those who do not fear the shore, for hardly any great things are done in a small ship by a man that is; therefore, I make very great allowances for him. Indeed, his station was intended never to be from the shore in the straits: and if he did not every day risk his sloop, he would he useless upon that station. Captain Layman has served with me in three ships, and I am well acquainted with his bravery, zeal, judgment, and activity; nor do I regret the loss of the Raven compared to the value of Captain Layman's services, which are a national loss.[89]
You must, my dear Lord, forgive the warmth which I express for Captain Layman; but he is in adversity, and, therefore, has the more claim to my attention and regard. 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.
I am, my dear Lord, most faithfully, your obedient servant,
NELSON AND BRONTE.
It is something to meet with the clear recognition that a man may be of more value than a ship. As Clarendon said, it is not all of an officer's duty to bring his ship safe home again.
On the voyage back from Alexandria be had busied himself with vindications of his course in going there, manifesting again that over-sensitiveness to the judgment of others, which contrasts so singularly with his high resolve and self-dependence when assuming the greatest responsibilities. To Ball, to the Admiralty, and to the First Lord privately, he sent explanations of his action, accompanied by a summary of his reasons. As the latter have been given, one by one, as each step was taken, it is not necessary here to say more than that, in the author's judgment, each successive movement was made upon good; grounds, and rightly timed. This is true, although Nelson was entirely misled as to Bonaparte's object. The ruse of the latter, as put into effect by Villeneuve, not only deceived the British admiral, but, in its issue, confounded the French. The critical moment of decision, for the whole fruitless campaign, was when Nelson determined to go first off Messina, then to the Morea, and finally to Egypt, upon the inference that by this time one of three things must have happened. Either (1) he must have met the French fleet, personally or by his lookouts, or (2) it had returned to Toulon, or (3) it had gone on to Egypt. The first being eliminated, the choice he made between the others, wide as was the flight for which it called, was perfectly accurate. It is difficult to know which most to admire,—the sagacity which divined the actual, though not the intended, movements of the enemy, the fiery eagerness which gave assurance of a fierce and decisive battle, or the great self-restraint which, in all his fever of impatience, withheld him from precipitating action before every means of information was exhausted. There will be occasion to note again the same traits in the yet sharper trial he was soon to undergo.
His conclusion upon the whole matter, therefore, though erroneous as to the fact, may be accepted as entirely justified by all the indications; and it must be added that, with the dispositions he took, nothing could have saved the French fleet but its prompt retreat to Toulon. "Had they not been crippled," he wrote Davison, "nothing could have hindered our meeting them on January 21st, off the south end of Sardinia." "I have not the smallest doubt," he concluded his letter to the Admiralty, "but that the destination of the French armament which left the coast of France on the 18th of January, was Alexandria; and, under all the circumstances which I have stated, I trust their Lordships will approve my having gone to Egypt in search of the French fleet." There was, however, no occasion for him to be forward in suggesting the sacrifice of himself, as he did to Melville. "At this moment of sorrow I still feel that I have acted right. The result of my inquiries at Coron and Alexandria confirm me in my former opinion; and therefore, my Lord, if my obstinacy or ignorance is so gross, I should be the first to recommend your superseding me." It may be noted here that Nelson never realized—he did not live long enough to realize—how thoroughly Bonaparte had learned from Egypt his lesson as to the control of the sea by sea-power, and what it meant to a maritime expedition which left it out of the account. To the end of his reign, and in the height of his sway, he made no serious attempt to occupy Sardinia or even Sicily, narrow as was the water separating the latter from Naples, become practically a French state, over which his brother and brother-in-law reigned for six years. Nelson to the last made light of the difficulties of which Bonaparte had had bitter experience. "France," he wrote to the Secretary for War, "will have both Sardinia and Sicily very soon, if we do not prevent it, and Egypt besides." "We know," he said in a letter to Ball, "there would be no difficulty for single polaccas to sail from the shores of Italy with 300 or 400 men in each, (single ships;) and that, in the northerly winds, they would have a fair chance of not being seen, and even if seen, not to be overtaken by the Russian ships. Thus, 20,000 men would be fixed again in Egypt, with the whole people in their favour. Who would turn them out?"
Nelson left the Gulf of Palmas as soon as the wind served, which was on the 9th of March. It was necessary to revictual; but, as the time of the storeships' arrival was uncertain, he thought best to make a round off Toulon and Barcelona, to renew the impression of the French that his fleet was to the westward. This intention he carried out, "showing myself," to use his own words, "off Barcelona and the coast of Spain, and the islands of Majorca and Minorca, until the 21st of March." "I shall, if possible," he wrote to a captain on detached service, "make my appearance off Barcelona, in order to induce the enemy to believe that I am fixed upon the coast of Spain, when I have every reason to believe they will put to sea, as I am told the troops are still embarked. From Barcelona I shall proceed direct to Rendezvous 98."[90] Accordingly, on the 26th of March he anchored at Palmas, and began at once to clear the transports. "By the report of the Fleet Captain, I trust [it will be evident that] it could not with propriety be longer deferred." Still satisfied that the French were bound to Egypt, he would here be close to their necessary route, and with a lookout ship thirty miles to the westward felt assured they would not escape him. Four days after he anchored, Villeneuve started on his second venture, and thinking, as Nelson had plotted, that the British fleet was off Cape San Sebastian, he again shaped his course to pass east of the Balearics, between them and Sardinia. The news of his sailing reached Nelson five days later, on April 4th, at 10 A.M. He had left Palmas the morning before, and was then twenty miles west of it, beating against a head wind. The weary work of doubt, inference, and speculation was about to begin once more, and to be protracted for over three months.
In the present gigantic combination of Napoleon, the Brest squadron, as well as those of Rochefort and Toulon, was to go to the West Indies, whence the three should return in mass to the English Channel, to the number of thirty-five French ships-of-the-line. To these it was hoped to add a number of Spanish ships, from Cartagena and Cadiz. If the movements were successful, this great force would overpower, or hold in check, the British Channel Fleet, and secure control of the Straits of Dover long enough for the army to cross. It is with the Toulon squadron that we are immediately concerned, as it alone for the present touches the fortunes of Nelson. Villeneuve's orders were to make the best of his way to the Straits of Gibraltar, evading the British fleet, but calling off Cartagena, to pick up any Spanish ships there that might be perfectly ready to join him. He was not, however, to delay for them on any account, but to push on at once to Cadiz. This port he was not to enter, but to anchor outside, and there be joined by the "Aigle," the ship that had so long worried Nelson, and also by six or eight Spanish ships believed to be ready. As soon as these came out, he was to sail with all speed for Martinique, and there wait forty days for the Brest squadron, if the latter, whose admiral was to be commander-in-chief of the allied fleets, did not appear sooner. Villeneuve had other contingent instructions, which became inoperative through the persistent pursuit of Nelson.
The French fleet sailed during the night of March 30, with a light northeast wind, and steered a course approaching due south, in accordance with Villeneuve's plan of going east of Minorca. The British lookout frigates, "Active" and "Phoebe," saw it at eight o'clock the next morning, and kept company with its slow progress till eight P.M., when, being then sixty miles south by west, true, from Toulon, the "Phoebe" was sent off to Nelson. During the day the wind shifted for a time to the northwest. The French then hauled up to southwest, and were heading so when darkness concealed them from the British frigates, which were not near enough for night observations. After the "Phoebe's" departure, the "Active" continued to steer as the enemy had been doing when last seen, but at daybreak they were no longer in sight. Just what Villeneuve did that night does not appear; but no vessel of Nelson's knew anything more about him till April 18th, when information was received from a chance passer that he had been seen on the 7th off Cape de Gata, on the coast of Spain, with a fresh easterly wind steering to the westward.
Villeneuve doubtless had used the night's breeze, which was fresh, to fetch a long circuit, throw off the "Active," and resume his course to the southward. It was not till next day, April 1st, that he spoke a neutral, which had seen Nelson near Palmas. Undeceived thus as to the British being off Cape San Sebastian, and the wind having then come again easterly, the French admiral kept away at once to the westward, passed north of the Balearic Islands, and on the 6th appeared off Cartagena. The Spanish ships there refusing to join him, he pressed on, went by Gibraltar on the 8th, and on the 9th anchored off Cadiz, whence he drove away Orde's squadron. The "Aigle," with six Spanish ships, joined at once, and that night the combined force, eighteen ships-of-the-line, sailed for Martinique, where it arrived on the 14th of May. By Villeneuve's instructions it was to remain in the West Indies till the 23d of June.
When the captain of the "Active" found he had lost sight of the French, he kept away for Nelson's rendezvous, and joined him at 2 P.M. of April 4th, five or six hours after the "Phoebe." Prepossessed with the opinion that Naples, Sicily, or Egypt was the enemy's aim, an opinion which the frigate's news tended to confirm, Nelson at once took the fleet midway between Sardinia and the Barbary coast, spreading lookouts on either side. Thus, without yielding ground to leeward, he covered all avenues leading to the eastward. He summed up his purpose in words which showed an entire grasp of the essentials of his perplexing situation. "I shall neither go to the eastward of Sicily, or to the westward of Sardinia, until I know something positive." Amid the diverse objects demanding his care, this choice of the strategic position was perfectly correct; but as day followed day without tidings, the distress of uncertainty, and the strain of adhering to his resolve not to move without information to guide him, became almost unbearable—a condition not hard to be realized by those who have known, in suspense, the overpowering impulse to do something, little matter what. It is an interesting illustration of the administrative difficulties of the fleet, that three supply-ships joined him on the 5th of April, and their stores were transferred at sea while momentarily expecting the enemy's appearance; one at least being completely discharged by the night of the 6th.
On this date, Nelson, having waited forty-eight hours to windward of Sicily, decided to fall back on Palermo; reckoning that if any attempt had been made upon Naples or Sicily, he should there hear of it. The lookouts which were scattered in all directions were ordered to join him there, and a frigate was sent to Naples. On the 9th and 10th he was off Palermo, and, though he got no word of the French, received two pieces of news from which his quick perceptions jumped to the conclusion that he had been deceived, and that the enemy had gone west. "April 10, 7 A.M. Hallowell is just arrived from Palermo. He brings accounts that the great Expedition is sailed,[91] and that seven Russian sail-of-the-line are expected in the Mediterranean; therefore I may suppose the French fleet are bound to the westward. I must do my best. God bless you. I am very, very miserable, but ever, my dear Ball," etc.
A week more was to elapse before this dreadfully harassing surmise was converted into a certainty. On the 9th he started back from Palermo, intending to go towards Toulon, to make sure that the French had not returned again. Meeting a constant strong head wind, he was nine days getting again to the south of Sardinia, a distance of less than two hundred miles. There, on the 18th, the vessel was spoken which informed him that she had seen the French off Cape de Gata, three hundred miles to the westward, ten days before. "If this account is true," he wrote to Elliot, "much mischief may be apprehended. It kills me, the very thought." Yet, now that the call for decision sounds, he knows no faltering, nor does he, as in hours of reaction, fret himself about the opinions of others. "I am going out of the Mediterranean," he says in farewell. "It may be thought that I have protected too well Sardinia, Naples, Sicily, the Morea, and Egypt; but I feel I have done right, and am, therefore, easy about any fate which may await me for having missed the French fleet."
The following day a vessel joined from Gibraltar, with certain information that the enemy had passed the Straits. Nelson had no need to ponder the next step. His resolve had been taken long before to follow to the Antipodes. He comforted himself, mistakenly, that his watchfulness was the cause that the French had abandoned the attempt against Egypt in force. "Under the severe affliction which I feel at the escape of the French fleet out of the Mediterranean," he wrote the Admiralty, "I hope that their Lordships will not impute it to any want of due attention on my part; but, on the contrary, that by my vigilance the enemy found it was impossible to undertake any expedition in the Mediterranean." Mindful, also, that Bonaparte's great attempt of 1798 had depended upon the absence of the British fleet, he left a squadron of five frigates to cruise together to the windward of Sicily, lest the French even now might try to send transports with troops to the eastward, under the protection of small armed vessels.
The number of letters written on the 18th and 19th of April show how thoroughly his mind was prepared for contingencies. Despatched, in all directions, they outline his own intended course, for the information of those who might have to co-operate, as well as that which he wished to be pursued by the officers under his orders. They are issued neat and complete, at one cast, and no other follows for a week. He surmises, from the fact of the Spanish ships accompanying the movement, that it is directed, not against the West Indies, but for either Ireland or Brest; not a bad "guess," which is all he would have claimed for it, for the West Indies were actually only a rallying-point on the roundabout road to the Channel prescribed by Napoleon. "Therefore," he wrote to the Admiralty, "if I receive no intelligence to do away my present belief, I shall proceed from Cape St. Vincent, and take my position fifty leagues west from Scilly, approaching that island slowly, that I may not miss any vessels sent in search of the squadron with orders. My reason for this position is, that it is equally easy to get to either the fleet off Brest, or to go to Ireland, should the fleet be wanted at either station." The suitableness of this position to any emergency arising about the British Islands can be realized at a glance, bearing in mind that westerly winds prevail there. A copy of the letter was sent to Ireland, and another to the commander of the Channel fleet off Brest. "I have the pleasure to say," he concludes, "that I shall bring with me eleven as fine ships of war, as ably commanded, and in as perfect order, and in health, as ever went to sea."
It will be interesting to support even Nelson's opinion of his own squadron by that of an unbiassed and competent witness. Sir Edward Codrington was associated with it, still nearly entire, some three months later, after the return from the West Indies; the "Orion," which he commanded, being one of a detachment of eighteen ships-of-the-line sent off from Brest by Admiral Cornwallis. "Lord Nelson's squadron (of which we have now eight with us) seems to be in very high order indeed; and although their ships do not look so handsome as objects, they look so very warlike and show such high condition, that when once I can think Orion fit to manoeuvre with them, I shall probably paint her in the same manner." There was, it would seem, a Nelson pattern for painting ships, as well as a "Nelson touch" in Orders for Battle. "I have been employed this week past," wrote Captain Duff of the "Mars," "to paint the ship à la Nelson, which most of the fleet are doing." This, according to the admiral's biographers, was with two yellow streaks, but the portholes black, which gave the sides an appearance of being chequered.
The frigate "Amazon," sent ahead with the letters, was ordered to go on to Lisbon, get all the news she could, and rejoin at Cape St. Vincent. She passed Gibraltar on the 29th, and, getting decisive information just outside the Straits, held on there. It was not till the 6th that Nelson reached Gibraltar, where he anchored for only four hours. This gain of a week by a frigate, in traversing ground for which the fleet took seventeen days, may well be borne in mind by those unfamiliar with the delays attending concerted movements, that have to be timed with reference to the slowest units taking part in the combination.
The days of chase, over which we have hurried in a few lines, passed for Nelson not only wearily, but in agony of soul. Justified as his action was to his own mind, and as it must be by the dispassionate review of military criticism, he could not but be tormented by the thought of what might have been, and by his temper, which lacked equanimity and fretted uncontrollably to get alongside the enemy—to do the duty and to reap the glory that he rightly conceived to be his own. "I am entirely adrift," he complained, "by my frigates losing sight of the French fleet so soon after their coming out of port." His purpose never faltered, nor did the light that led him grow dim. His action left nothing to be desired, but the chafing of his spirit approached fury. Lord Radstock, writing from London to his son, says: "I met a person yesterday, who told me that he had seen a letter from Lord Nelson, concluding in these words: 'O French fleet, French fleet, if I can but once get up with you, I'll make you pay dearly for all that you have made me suffer!' Another told me that he had seen a letter from an officer on board the Victory, describing his chief 'as almost raving with anger and vexation.' This," continues Radstock, who knew him very well, "I can readily credit, so much so, indeed, that I much fear that he will either undertake some desperate measure to retrieve his ground, or, should not such an opportunity offer, that he will never suffer us to behold him more."
Being in London, the writer just quoted was in close touch with the popular feeling of anxiety, a suspicion of which he could well imagine Nelson also had, and which added to his burden. "It is believed here," he says on the 21st of May, "that the combined fleet from Cadiz is bound to the West Indies. This is by no means improbable.... The City people are crying out against Sir J.O.,[92] and, as usual, are equally absurd and unjust. Some are so ridiculous as to say that he ought to have captured some of the Toulon squadron, whilst others, more moderate, think that he might at all events, have so crippled the enemy as to have checked the expedition.[93] You may readily guess that your chief is not out of our thoughts at this critical moment. Should Providence once more favour him, he will be considered our guardian angel; but, on the other hand, should he unfortunately take a wrong scent, and the Toulon fleet attain their object, the hero of the 14th of February and of Aboukir will be—I will not say what, but the ingratitude of the world is but too well known on these occasions."
A week before, on the 13th of May, the same officer had written: "Where are you all this time?[94] for that is a point justly agitating the whole country more than I can describe. I fear that your gallant and worthy chief will have much injustice done him on this occasion, for the cry is stirring up fast against him, and the loss of Jamaica would at once sink all his past services into oblivion. All I know for certain is that we ought never to judge rashly on these occasions, and never merely by the result. Lord Barham[95] told me this morning that the Board had no tidings of your squadron. This is truly melancholy, for certainly no man's zeal and activity ever surpassed those of your chief.... The world is at once anxious for news and dreading its arrival." The Admiralty itself, perplexed and harassed by the hazards of the situation, were dissatisfied because they received no word from him, being ignorant of the weather conditions which had retarded even his frigates so far beyond the time of Villeneuve's arrival at Cadiz. Radstock, whose rank enabled him to see much of the members of the Board, drew shrewd inferences as to their feelings, though mistaken as to Nelson's action. "I fear that he has been so much soured by the appointment of Sir John Orde, that he has had the imprudence to vent his spleen on the Admiralty by a long, and, to the Board, painful silence. I am sure that they are out of humour with him, and I have my doubts whether they would risk much for him, were he to meet with any serious misfortune."
Through such difficulties in front, and such clamor in the rear, Nelson pursued his steadfast way, in anguish of spirit, but constant still in mind. "I am not made to despair," he said to Melville, "what man can do shall be done. I have marked out for myself a decided line of conduct, and I shall follow it well up; although I have now before me a letter from the physician of the fleet, enforcing my return to England before the hot months." "Brokenhearted as I am, at the escape of the Toulon fleet," he tells the governor of Gibraltar, "yet it cannot prevent my thinking of all the points intrusted to my care, amongst which Gibraltar stands prominent." "My good fortune seems flown away," he cries out to Ball. "I cannot get a fair wind, or even a side wind. Dead foul!—dead foul! But my mind is fully made up what to do when I leave the Straits, supposing there is no certain information of the enemy's destination. I believe this ill-luck will go near to kill me; but as these are times for exertions, I must not be cast down, whatever I feel." A week later, on the 26th of April, he complains: "From the 9th I have been using every effort to get down the Mediterranean, but to this day we are very little advanced. From March 26th, we have had nothing like a Levanter,[96] except for the French fleet. I have never been one week without one, until this very important moment. It has half killed me; but fretting is of no use." On the 1st of May he wrote to the Admiralty, "I have as yet heard nothing of the enemy;" beyond, of course, the fact of their having passed the Straits.
On the 4th of May the squadron was off Tetuan, on the African coast, a little east of Gibraltar, and, as the wind was too foul for progress, Nelson, ever watchful over supplies, determined to stop for water and fresh beef, which the place afforded. There he was joined by the frigate "Decade" from Gibraltar, and for the first time, apparently, received a rumor that the allied fleets had gone to the West Indies. He complains, certainly not unreasonably, and apparently not unjustly, that Sir John Orde, who had seen the French arrive off Cadiz, had not dogged their track and ascertained their route; a feat certainly not beyond British seamanship and daring, under the management of a dozen men that could be named off-hand. "I believe my ill luck is to go on for a longer time, and I now much fear that Sir John Orde has not sent his small ships to watch the enemy's fleet, and ordered them to return to the Straits mouth, to give me information, that I might know how to direct my proceedings: for I cannot very properly run to the West Indies, without something beyond mere surmise; and if I defer my departure, Jamaica may be lost. Indeed, as they have a month's start of me, I see no prospect of getting out time enough to prevent much mischief from being done. However, I shall take all matters into my most serious consideration, and shall do that which seemeth best under all circumstances." "I am like to have a West India trip," he wrote to Keats, one of his favorite captains; "but that I don't mind, if I can but get at them."
The wind hauling somewhat to the southward on the 5th, allowed the fleet to lay a course for Gibraltar. The operation of getting bullocks was stopped at once, and the ships weighed. In this brief stay, the water of the fleet had been completed and another transport cleared. Next day Gibraltar was reached. The wind, westerly still, though fair for this stretch, remained foul for beating out of the Straits against a current which ever sets to the eastward; and many of the officers, presuming on a continuance of the weather that had so long baffled them, hurried their washing ashore. Nelson, however, keenly vigilant and with long experience, saw indications of a change. "Off went a gun from the Victory, and up went the Blue Peter,[97] whilst the Admiral paced the deck in a hurry, with anxious steps, and impatient of a moment's delay. The officers said, 'Here is one of Nelson's mad pranks.' But he was right."[98] The wind came fair, a condition with which the great admiral never trifled. Five hours after the anchors dropped they were again at the bows, and the fleet at last standing out of the Mediterranean; the transports in tow of the ships of war. Nelson's resolve was fast forming to go to the West Indies. In fact, at Tetuan, acting upon this possibility, he had given conditional orders to Bickerton to remain in command of the Mediterranean squadron, assigning to that service half a dozen frigates and double that number of smaller cruisers, and had transferred to him all station papers necessary for his guidance,—a promptness of decision which sufficiently shows one of the chief secrets of his greatness. "If I fail," said he to Dr. Scott, "if they are not gone to the West Indies, I shall be blamed: to be burnt in effigy or Westminster Abbey is my alternative." Evidently he was not unmindful of the fickle breath of popular favor, whose fluctuations Radstock was noting. Dr. Scott, who witnessed his chief's bearing at this time, always considered that he never exhibited greater magnanimity than in this resolution, which Jurien de la Gravière also has called one of his finest inspirations.
Great, indeed, was his promptitude, alike in decision and in act; but he was no less great in his delays, in the curb he placed on his natural impetuosity. "God only knows, my dear friend," he wrote at this moment to Davison, "what I have suffered by not getting at the enemy's fleet;" but, in all his impatience, he would not start on that long voyage until he had exhausted every possibility of further enlightenment. "Perseverance and patience," he said, "may do much;" but he did not separate the one from the other, in deed or in word. Circumspection was in him as marked a trait as ardor. "I was in great hopes," he wrote the Admiralty, "that some of Sir John Orde's frigates would have arrived at Gibraltar, from watching the destination of the enemy, from whom I should have derived information of the route the enemy had taken, but none had arrived." Up to April 27th nothing had been heard of them at Lisbon. "I am now pushing off Cape St. Vincent, and hope that is the station to which Sir John Orde may have directed his frigates to return from watching the route of the enemy. If nothing is heard there, I shall probably think the rumours which are spread are true, that their destination is the West Indies, and in that case think it my duty to follow them." "I am as much in the dark as ever," he wrote on the same date, May 7th, to Nepean, one of the puisne lords. "If I hear nothing, I shall proceed to the West Indies."
The wind continued fair for nearly forty-eight hours, when it again became westerly; but the fleet was now in the Atlantic. On the 9th of May the "Amazon" rejoined, bringing a letter from another ship of war, which enclosed a report gathered from an American brig that had left Cadiz on the 2d. According to this, while there were in Cadiz diverse rumors as to the destination of the allied fleets, the one most generally accepted was that they were bound to the West Indies. That night the fleet anchored in Lagos Bay, to the eastward of Cape St. Vincent, and the unending work of discharging transports was again resumed. Nelson, shortly before leaving Gibraltar, had received official notification that a convoy carrying five thousand troops was on its way to the Mediterranean, and would depend upon him for protection. He felt it necessary to await this in his present position, and he utilized the time by preparing for a very long chase.
At Lagos, Rear-Admiral Campbell of the Portuguese Navy, who had served with the British in the Mediterranean six years before, visited the "Victory," and certain intelligence that Villeneuve was gone to the West Indies was by him given to Nelson. The latter had now all the confirmation needed, by such an one as he, to decide upon his line of action. "My lot is cast, my dear Ball, and I am going to the West Indies, where, although I am late, yet chance may have given them a bad passage, and me a good one: I must hope the best." "Disappointment has worn me to a skeleton," he writes to his late junior in the Mediterranean, Campbell, "and I am in good truth, very, very far from well." "If I had not been in pursuit of the enemy's fleet, I should have been at this moment in England, but my health, or even my life, must not come into consideration at this important crisis; for, however I may be called unfortunate, it never shall be said that I have been neglectful of my duty, or spared myself." "It will not be supposed I am on a party of pleasure," he wrote to the Secretary of the Admiralty, "running after eighteen sail of the line with ten, and that to the West Indies;" but, he summed up his feelings to Davison, "Salt beef and the French fleet, is far preferable to roast beef and champagne without them."
On the 10th of May only was his purpose finally and absolutely formed, for on that day he sent a sloop to Barbadoes, his intended point of arrival, to announce his coming; requesting that an embargo might be laid at once on all vessels in port, to prevent the news reaching the enemy at Martinique or elsewhere. In the morning of the 11th the fleet weighed, and at 4 P.M. the expedition from England arrived. It was accompanied by two ships-of-the-line, to which Nelson joined a third, the "Royal Sovereign," which sailed so badly, from the state of her bottom, that she would retard a movement already too long delayed. At seven that evening the fleet was under full sail for the West Indies.
The voyage across was uneventful; the ships, as customary for this passage, stood to the southward and westward into the trade winds, under whose steady impulse they advanced at a daily average speed of one hundred and thirty-five miles, or between five and six miles an hour. This rate, however, was a mean between considerable extremes,—a rate of nine miles being at times attained. The slackest winds, which brought down the average, are found before reaching the trades, and Nelson utilized this period to transmit to the fleet his general plan for action, in case he found the allies at sea. The manner in which this was conveyed to the individual ships is an interesting incident. The speed of the fleet is necessarily that of its slowest member; the faster ships, therefore, have continually a reserve, which they may at any moment bring into play. The orders being prepared, a frigate captain was called on board the "Victory" and received them. Returning to his own vessel, he made all sail until on the bow[99] of one of the ships-of-the-line. Deadening the way of the frigate, a boat was dropped in the water and had only to pull alongside the other vessel as it came up. The frigate remained slowed until passed, and the boat, having delivered its letter, came easily alongside again,—the whole operation being thus conducted with the least expenditure of time and exertion.[100]
There was in the fleet one ship that had been steadily in commission since 1801, and was now in very shaky condition. This was the "Superb," seventy-four. She had only been kept out by the extreme exertions of her commander, Keats, one of the most distinguished captains of the day, and he had entreated that he should not be sent away now, when the moment of battle seemed near. By a singular irony of fate, this zealous insistence caused him to miss Trafalgar, at which the "Royal Sovereign," that parted at Lagos, was present, repaired and recoppered,—a new ship. Keats, whose energy and readiness made him a great favorite with Nelson, obtained permission not to stop when other ships did, but always to carry a press of sail; and he lashed his studding-sail booms to the yards, as the constant direction of the trade-winds allows them to be carried steadily. Notwithstanding all that could be done, the "Superb" seems to have set the pace, and slower than could have been wished; which drew from Nelson's customary kindly thoughtfulness a few lines too characteristic to be omitted.
MY DEAR KEATS,—I am fearful that you may think that the Superb does not go so fast as I could wish. However that may be, (for if we all went ten knots, I should not think it fast enough,) yet I would have you be assured that I know and feel that the Superb does all which is possible for a ship to accomplish; and I desire that you will not fret upon the occasion.... Whatever may happen, believe me ever, my dear Keats, your most obliged and sincere friend,
NELSON AND BRONTE.
A week seems to have elapsed before he could get a suitable opportunity for sending this, and he then, on the 27th of May, added: "Our passage, although not very quick, has been far from a bad one;" and he thought that they would gain fourteen days upon the allies. The actual gain was ten, the latter being thirty-four days from Cadiz to Martinique, the British twenty-four to Barbadoes. The enemy were therefore three weeks in the West Indies before Nelson arrived; but in that time they neither accomplished nor undertook anything but the recapture of Diamond Rock, a precipitous islet off the south end of Martinique, which the British had held for some time, to the great annoyance of the main island.
Reaching Barbadoes on the afternoon of June 4th, Nelson found that the day before information had been received from General Brereton, commanding the troops at Santa Lucia, that the allied fleets had passed there, going south, during the night of May 28-29. The intelligence was so circumstantial that it compelled respect, coming from the quarter it did. "There is not a doubt in any of the Admirals' or Generals' minds," wrote Nelson to the Admiralty, in the despatch announcing his arrival, "but that Tobago and Trinidada are the enemy's objects." Nelson himself was sceptical,—the improbability seemed great to his sound military perceptions; but, confident as he was in his own conclusions in dilemmas, his mind was too sane and well balanced to refuse direct and credible evidence. Summing up the situation with lamentations, six weeks later, he said to Davison: "When I follow my own head, I am, in general, much more correct in my judgment, than following the opinion of others. I resisted the opinion of General Brereton's information till it would have been the height of presumption to have carried my disbelief further. I could not, in the face of generals and admirals, go N.W., when it was apparently clear that the enemy had gone south." His purpose had been not to anchor, but to pick up such ships-of-the-line as he found there,—two seventy-fours,[101] as it turned out,—and to proceed with them to Martinique, which he naturally assumed to be the enemy's headquarters. As it was, receiving a pressing request from the commanding general at Barbadoes to let him accompany the fleet with two thousand troops, he anchored in Carlisle Bay at 5 P.M. At half-past nine the next morning he was again under way for Trinidad. Some curious misunderstandings maintained this mistaken impression as to the enemy's actions, until communication with Trinidad was had on the evening of June 7th. It was found then that no hostile force had appeared, although the British fleet for a moment had been believed to be such.
Nelson at once started north again. A report reached him that a second squadron, of fourteen French and Spanish ships from Ferrol, had arrived at Martinique. He said frankly that he thought this very doubtful, but added proudly: "Powerful as their force may be, they shall not with impunity make any great attacks. Mine is compact, theirs must be unwieldy, and although a very pretty fiddle, I don't believe that either Gravina or Villeneuve know how to play upon it." On the 9th he for the first time got accurate information. An official letter from Dominica[102] announced that eighteen ships-of-the-line, with smaller vessels, had passed there on the 6th of June. But for the false tidings which on the 4th had led him, first to pause, and then to take a wrong direction, Nelson argued, and not unjustly, that he would have overtaken them at this point, a bare hundred miles from Barbadoes. "But for wrong information, I should have fought the battle on June 6th where Rodney fought his." The famous victory of the latter was immediately north of Dominica, by which name it is known in French naval history. "There would have been no occasion for opinions," wrote Nelson wrathfully, as he thought of his long anxieties, and the narrow margin by which he failed, "had not General Brereton sent his damned intelligence from St. Lucia; nor would I have received it to have acted by it, but that I was assured that his information was very correct. It has almost broke my heart, but I must not despair." It was hard to have borne so much, and then to miss success from such a cause. "Brereton's wrong information could not be doubted," he told his intimates, "and by following it, I lost the opportunity of fighting the enemy." "What a race I have run after these fellows; but God is just, and I may be repaid for all my moments of anxiety."
When Villeneuve, with his ill-trained and sickly[103] fleet, left Martinique on the 4th of June, he had, of course, no knowledge of Nelson's approach. Nearly up to that date it was not known, even in London, where the latter had gone. A frigate had reached the French admiral on the 29th of May, with orders from Napoleon to make some attempts against the British islands during the time he was awaiting the Brest squadron. For this reason he sailed, and just outside the harbor was joined by two ships from France, raising his force to twenty of the line. He steered north, intending to gain to windward, and thence return upon Barbadoes, his first proposed conquest. On the 8th of June, off Antigua, were captured fourteen British merchant-ships, which had imprudently put to sea from that island. From these Villeneuve got a report that Nelson had arrived with fourteen ships-of-the-line, to which his imagination added five he believed to be at Barbadoes. He decided at once to return to Europe, abandoning all his projects against the British possessions. Transferring hastily a number of troops to frigates, as garrisons for the French islands, he sailed the next day for the northward to gain the westerly winds which prevail in the higher latitudes. Of the forty days he was to remain in the West Indies—reduced to thirty-five by subsequent instructions—only twenty-six had passed. Whatever else might result in the future, Nelson was justified in claiming that his pursuit, effected under such discouragements, had driven the enemy out of the West Indies, saved the islands, and, as he added, two hundred sail of sugar ships. Only extreme imprudence, he fairly maintained, was responsible for the loss of the fourteen from Antigua.
Nelson himself was off Antigua on the 12th of June, exactly one week after he left Barbadoes. There he received all the information that has just been mentioned as to the enemy's movements. A rapid decision was necessary, if he might hope yet to overtake his fortune, and to baffle finally the objects of the allies, whatever they might be. "I must be satisfied they have bent their course for Europe before I push after them, which will be to the Straits' mouth;" but later in the same day he has learned that they were standing to the northward when last seen, and had sent back their troops to Guadaloupe, therefore, "I hope to sail in the morning after them for the Straits' mouth." That night the troops were landed, and a brig of war, the "Curieux," was despatched to England with word of his intentions. At the same time, while believing the allies were bound back to the Mediterranean, he recognized that it was possible they might be going farther north, to one of the Biscay ports, and consequently took measures to notify the commanding officer off Ferrol to be on his guard. The frigate charged with this communication was kept with the fleet until the 19th, by which time he had obtained at sea additional and more precise knowledge of Villeneuve's direction. This important warning was duly received, and in advance of the enemy's appearance, by the admiral for whom it was intended.
In taking this second decision, to abandon the West Indies once more to themselves, as a month before he had abandoned the Mediterranean, Nelson had to rely only upon his own natural sagacity and practised judgment. "I hear all, and even feel obliged, for all is meant as kindness to me, that I should get at them. In this diversity of opinions I may as well follow my own, which is, that the Spaniards are gone to the Havannah, and that the French will either stand for Cadiz or Toulon—I feel most inclined to the latter place; and then they may fancy that they will get to Egypt without any interruption." "So far from being infallible, like the Pope, I believe my opinions to be very fallible, and therefore I may be mistaken that the enemy's fleet has gone to Europe; but I cannot bring myself to think otherwise, notwithstanding the variety of opinions which different people of good judgment form."
Still, as before, his judgments, if rapid, are not precipitate. Though characterized by even more of insight than of reasoning, no conditions are left out of sight, nor, as he declared, was a deaf ear turned to any suggestion. Upon the whole, one is more struck by the accuracy of the inferences than by the antecedent processes as summarized by himself; yet the weight of evidence will be found on the side he espouses. Erroneous in particulars, the general conclusions upon which he bases his future course are justified, not only by the results now known to us, but to impartial review of their probability at the moment. Most impressive of all, however, is the strength of conviction, which lifts him from the plane of doubt, where unaided reason alone would leave him, to that of unhesitating action, incapable of looking backward. In the most complete presentation of all his views, the one he wished brought before the Prime Minister, if his conduct on this momentous occasion were called in question, he ends thus: "My opinion is firm as a rock, that some cause, orders, or inability to perform any service in these seas, has made them resolve to proceed direct for Europe, sending the Spanish ships to the Havannah." It is such conviction, in which opinion rather possesses a man than is possessed by him, that exalts genius above talent, and imbues faith with a power which reason has not in her gift.
There were among his conclusions certain ones which placed Nelson's mind, however fretted by disappointment, at ease concerning any future harm the enemy might be able to do. Another wreath of laurel, which seemed almost within his grasp, had indeed evaded him, and no man felt more keenly such a loss; but he was reasonably sure that, if Villeneuve were gone to Europe, he could not outstrip pursuit by long enough to do much harm. The harassing fear, which he had borne through the long beat down the Mediterranean and the retarded voyage to Martinique, had now disappeared. Going out he had gained ten days upon the allies; they had only five days' start of him in the return. He recognized, moreover, the great significance of their inactivity during the three weeks they had the Windward Islands, if not all the West Indies, defenceless before them. "If they were not able to make an attack for three weeks after their arrival, they could not hope for greater success after our means of resistance increased, and their means of offence were diminished." If this consideration, on the one hand, showed the improbability of their proceeding against Jamaica, after Nelson's coming, when they had not ventured before, it gave also an inkling of their probable efficiency for immediate action in Europe. "They will not give me credit for quitting the West Indies for a month to come;" therefore it was unlikely that they would think it necessary to proceed at once upon their next enterprise, after reaching port. "I must not despair of getting up with them before they enter the Straits," he writes Elliot. "At least, they will have no time to carry any of their future plans into execution, and do harm to any of the countries under my charge." If his thirst for glory was unslaked, his fears of disaster had disappeared.
Villeneuve, guided by instructions recently received from Napoleon, to meet the case of the Brest squadron not getting away, had gone actually for Ferrol, where he was to join a squadron of five French and nine Spanish ships, which would raise his own force to thirty-four of the line; but Nelson, unable to know this, argued correctly that, in the uncertainty, he must leave this chance to the Biscay ships, and that for himself the Mediterranean possessed the first claim. At noon of June 13th, nine days after reaching Barbadoes, he got away from Antigua. The necessity for gaining the westerly winds made his course for some time the same as that of Villeneuve, and left him not without hopes that he might yet fall in with the allies, especially if, as he thought, they were destined to the Straits. On the 17th an American schooner was spoken, which had seen the combined squadron two days before, steering also to the northward. This report, wrote Nelson to the Admiralty, "can leave me no room to doubt but that I am hard upon the heels of the enemy's fleet. I think we cannot be more than eighty leagues from them at this moment, and by carrying every sail, and using my utmost efforts, I shall hope to close with them before they get to either Cadiz or Toulon." The news was sent ahead by two vessels, which parted from the fleet on the 19th of June,—one for Gibraltar, with despatches and letters for the admiral and ministers in the Mediterranean; one for Lisbon, whence this important intelligence would be forwarded to England and to the commanding officer off Ferrol. Still believing them bound for the Straits, Nelson expressed in the fleet the opinion that they would keep well to the southward of the Azores, so as not to be seen by British cruisers centred there. In this he was mistaken, as he was in their final destination; both fleets sighted the islands,—- the French on the 30th of June to the northward of the group, while the British passed through it on the 8th of July. He admitted, however, that he was doubtful in the matter. "It is very uncertain whether they will go to Ferrol or Cadiz;" and nothing can indicate more clearly his perplexity, and his sense of the urgency of the case, than his parting on the same day with two of the four small cruisers he had with him, in order to insure that Ferrol as well as Gibraltar should have prompt warning.
It was at about this time that Nelson expressed, to one or more of his captains, his views as to what he had so far effected, what he had proposed to do if he had met the hostile fleets, and what his future course would be if they were yet found. "I am thankful that the enemy have been driven from the West India Islands with so little loss to our Country. I had made up my mind to great sacrifices; for I had determined, notwithstanding his vast superiority, to stop his career, and to put it out of his power to do any further mischief. Yet do not imagine I am one of those hot brained people, who fight at an immense disadvantage, without an adequate object.[1] My object is partly gained," that is, the allies had been forced out of the West Indies." If we meet them, we shall find them not less than eighteen, I rather think twenty sail of the line, and therefore do not be surprised if I should not fall on them immediately: we won't part without a battle.[104] I think they will be glad to leave me alone, if I will let them alone; which I will do, either till we approach the shores of Europe, or they give me an advantage too tempting to be resisted."
It is rare to find so much sagacious appreciation of conditions, combined with so much exalted resolution and sound discretion, as in this compact utterance. Among the external interests of Great Britain, the West Indies were the greatest. They were critically threatened by the force he was pursuing; therefore at all costs that force should be so disabled, that it could do nothing effective against the defences with which the scattered islands were provided. For this end he was prepared to risk the destruction of his squadron. The West Indies were now delivered; but the enemy's force remained, and other British interests. Three months before, he had said, "I had rather see half my squadron burnt than risk what the French fleet may do in the Mediterranean." In the same spirit he now repeats: "Though we are but eleven to eighteen or twenty, we won't part without a battle." Why fight such odds? He himself has told us a little later. "By the time the enemy has beat our fleet soundly, they will do us no harm this year." Granting this conclusion,—the reasonableness of which was substantiated at Trafalgar,—it cannot be denied that the sacrifice would be justified, the enemy's combinations being disconcerted. Yet there shall be no headlong, reckless attack. "I will leave them alone till they offer me an opportunity too tempting to be resisted,"—that speaks for itself,—or, "until we approach the shores of Europe," when the matter can no longer be deferred, and the twenty ships must be taken out of Napoleon's hosts, even though eleven be destroyed to effect this. The preparedness of mind is to be noted, and yet more the firmness of the conviction, in the strength of which alone such deeds are done. It is the man of faith who is ever the man of works.
Singularly enough, his plans were quickly to receive the best of illustrations by the failure of contrary methods. Scarcely a month later fifteen British ships, under another admiral, met these twenty, which Nelson with eleven now sought in vain. They did not part without a battle, but they did part without a decisive battle; they were not kept in sight afterwards; they joined and were incorporated with Napoleon's great armada; they had further wide opportunities of mischief; and there followed for the people of Great Britain a period of bitter suspense and wide-spread panic. "What a game had Villeneuve to play!" said Napoleon of those moments. "Does not the thought of the possibilities remaining to Villeneuve," wrote Lord Radstock of Calder's fruitless battle, "make your blood boil when you reflect on the never to be forgotten 22d of July? Notwithstanding the inferiority of Lord Nelson's numbers," he says at the same time, with keen appreciation of the man he knew so well, "should he be so lucky as to fall in with the enemy, I have no doubt that he would never quit them[105] until he should have destroyed or taken some of the French ships; and that he himself would seek the French admiral's ship, if possible, I would pledge my life on it." "There is such an universal bustle and cry about invasion, that no other subject will be listened to at present by those in power. I found London almost a desert, and no good news stirring to animate it; on the contrary, the few faces I saw at the Admiralty at once confirmed the truth of the report of the combined squadron having safely arrived at Ferrol." This was after Calder had met and fought them, and let them get out of his sight.
Lord Minto, speaking of the same crisis, says: "There has been the greatest alarm ever known in the city of London, since the combined fleet [Villeneuve's] sailed from Ferrol. If they had captured our homeward-bound convoys, it is said the India Company and half the city must have been bankrupt." These gleams of the feelings of the times, reflected by two men in close contact with the popular apprehensions, show what Nelson was among British admirals to the men of his day, and why he was so. "Great and important as the victory is," wrote Minto, three months later, after the news of Trafalgar, "it is bought too dearly, even for our interest, by the death of Nelson. We shall want more victories yet, and to whom can we look for them? The navy is certainly full of the bravest men, but they are mostly below the rank of admiral; and brave as they almost all are, there was a sort of heroic cast about Nelson that I never saw in any other man, and which seems wanting to the achievement of impossible things which became easy to him, and on which the maintenance of our superiority at sea seems to depend against the growing navy of the enemy." "The clamour against poor Sir Robert Calder is gaining ground daily," wrote Radstock, condemnatory yet pitiful towards the admiral who had failed duly to utilize the opportunity Nelson then was seeking in vain, "and there is a general cry against him from all quarters. Thus much one may venture to say, that had your old chief commanded our squadron, the enemy would have had but little room for lying or vapouring, as I have not a shadow of a doubt but that he would either have taken or destroyed the French admiral."
But there was but one Nelson, and he meantime, faint yet pursuing, toiled fruitlessly on, bearing still the sickness of hope deferred and suspense protracted. "Midnight," he notes in his private diary of June 21st. "Nearly calm, saw three planks which I think came from the French fleet. Very miserable, which is very foolish." "We crawled thirty-three miles the last twenty-four hours," he enters on the 8th of July. "My only hope is, that the enemy's fleet are near us, and in the same situation. All night light breezes, standing to the eastward, to go to the northward of St. Michael's.[106] At times squally with rain." Amid these unavoidable delays, he was forecasting and preparing that no time should be lost when he reached the Straits and once more came within the range of intelligence. The light winds, when boats could pass without retarding the ships, were utilized in preparing letters to the officials at Gibraltar and Tangiers, to have ready the stores necessary for the fleet upon arrival. These papers were already on board the two frigates remaining with him, with the necessary instructions for their captains, so that they might part at any moment judged fitting, irrespective of weather conditions. Again he cautions the authorities to keep his approach a profound secret. No private letters for Gibraltar were permitted in the mail-bags, lest they should unwittingly betray counsel. The vessels were directed to rejoin him forty miles west of Cape Spartel, giving him thus time to decide upon his course before he reached Gibraltar; for it was quite on the cards that he might find it imperative to hurry north without anchoring. On the 13th of July, five hundred miles from Cape St. Vincent, one of these ships left him, probably the last to go.
On the 18th of July, Cape Spartel was sighted. "No French fleet," wrote the admiral in his diary, "nor any information about them: how sorrowful this makes me, but I cannot help myself!" "I am, my dear Mr. Marsden," he wrote to the Secretary of the Admiralty, "as completely miserable as my greatest enemy could wish me; but I blame neither fortune or my own judgment. Oh, General Brereton! General Brereton!" To his friend Davison he revealed yet more frankly the bitterness of his spirit, now that the last hope was dashed, and it was even possible that the mis-step of going to Trinidad had caused him to incur a further mistake, by leaving the allies in the West Indies. "But for General Brereton's damned information, Nelson," he said, half prophetically, "would have been, living or dead, the greatest man in his profession that England ever saw. Now alas! I am nothing—perhaps shall incur censure for misfortunes which may happen, and have happened."
But if he himself were disappointed, and foreboded the discontent of others, the greatness of what he had done was quickly apparent, and received due recognition from thoughtful men. "Either the distances between the different quarters of the globe are diminished," wrote Mr. Elliot from Naples, "or you have extended the powers of human action. After an unremitting cruise of two long years in the stormy Gulf of Lyons, to have proceeded without going into port to Alexandria, from Alexandria to the West Indies, from the West Indies back again to Gibraltar; to have kept your ships afloat, your rigging standing, and your crews in health and spirits—is an effort such as never was realised in former times, nor, I doubt, will ever again be repeated by any other admiral. You have protected us for two long years, and you saved the West Indies by only a few days." Thus truly summarized, such achievements are seen to possess claims to admiration, not to be exceeded even by the glory of Trafalgar.
Although no French fleet was visible, as Nelson approached the Straits, there were a half-dozen British ships-of-the-line, under the command of his old friend Collingwood, blockading Cadiz. When Orde was driven off that station by Villeneuve on the 9th of April, and retired upon Brest, he had already sent in an application to be relieved from a duty which he himself had sought, and had held for so short a time; alleging a bundle of grievances which show clearly enough the impracticable touchiness of the man. His request was at once granted. Early in May, Collingwood was sent from England with eight sail-of-the-line for the West Indies; but learning on the way that Nelson had gone thither, he detached to him two of his swiftest seventy-fours, and, with great good judgment, himself took position off Cadiz, where he covered the entrance of the Mediterranean, and effectually prevented any ships from either Cartagena or Ferrol concentrating in the neighborhood of the Straits.
Nelson received word from some of his lookouts appointed to meet him here, that nothing had been heard of the allied squadrons. The anxiety which had never ceased to attend him was increased by this prolonged silence. He had no certainty that the enemy might not have doubled back, and gone to Jamaica. He would not stop now to exchange with Collingwood speculations about the enemy's course. "My dear Collingwood, I am, as you may suppose, miserable at not having fallen in with the enemy's fleet; and I am almost increased in sorrow by not finding them [here]. The name of General Brereton will not soon be forgot. I must now only hope that the enemy have not tricked me, and gone to Jamaica; but if the account,[107] of which I send you a copy, is correct, it is more than probable that they are either gone to the northward, or, if bound to the Mediterranean, not yet arrived." His surmise remains accurate. He then continues, with that delicate and respectful recognition of the position and ability of others, which won him so much love: "The moment the fleet is watered, and got some refreshments, of which we are in great want, I shall come out and make you a visit; not, my dear friend, to take your command from you, (for I may probably add mine to you,) but to consult how we can best serve our Country, by detaching a part of this large force." Circumstances prevented his neighborly intention from taking effect. A week later Nelson returned north with his squadron, and the friends did not meet until shortly before Trafalgar.
Admiral Collingwood
In reply to Nelson's letter, Collingwood summed up his view of the situation as so far developed. "I have always had an idea that Ireland alone was the object they had in view, and still believe that to be their ultimate destination—that they will now liberate the Ferrol squadron from Calder, make the round of the Bay,[108] and, taking the Rochefort people with them, appear off Ushant—perhaps with thirty-four sail, there to be joined by twenty more. Admiral Cornwallis collecting his out squadrons may have thirty and upwards. This appears to be a probable plan; for unless it is to bring their great fleets and armies to some point of service—some rash attempt at conquest—they have been only subjecting them to chance of loss, which I do not believe the Corsican would do, without the hope of an adequate reward."
It is upon this letter, the sagacious and well-ordered inferences of which must be candidly admitted, that a claim for superiority of discernment over Nelson has been made for its writer. It must be remembered, however, not as a matter of invidious detraction from one man, but in simple justice to the other, whose insight and belief had taken form in such wonderful work, that Nelson also had fully believed that the enemy, if they left the Mediterranean, would proceed to Ireland; and further, and yet more particularly, Collingwood's views had been confirmed to him by the fact, as yet unknown to Nelson, that the Rochefort squadron, which sailed at the time Villeneuve first escaped in January, had since returned to Europe on the 26th of May. "The flight to the West Indies," Collingwood said, in a letter dated the day after the one just quoted, "was to take off our naval force, which is the great impediment to their undertaking. The Rochefort Squadron's return confirmed me." "I well know what your lordship's disappointment is," he wrote, with generous sympathy; "and I share the mortification of it. It would have been a happy day for England, could you have met them; small as your force was, I trust it would have been found enough. This summer is big with events. Sincerely I wish your Lordship strength of body to go through—and to all others, your strength of mind." Testy even to petulance as these two great seamen were at times in small matters, when overwrought with their manifold anxieties, they nowhere betray any egotistic concern as to the value attached by others to their respective speculations, the uncertainties of which none knew better than they, who had to act upon their conclusions.
Meantime, at the very moment they were exchanging letters, pregnant movements were taking place, unknown to either. The brig "Curieux," despatched to England by Nelson the night before he left Antigua, had fallen in with the allied squadrons, nine hundred miles north-northeast from Antigua, on the 19th of June—just a week after she sailed. Keeping company with them long enough to ascertain their course and approximate numbers, the captain then hastened on, anchoring in Plymouth on the 7th of July. "I am sorry," wrote Nelson when he heard of this meeting, "that Captain Bettesworth did not stand back and try to find us out;" but grateful as the word would have been to him, the captain was better advised to make for a fixed and certain destination. At daylight of the 9th the news was in the hands of the First Lord, who issued instant orders for the blockading squadrons off Rochefort and Ferrol to unite, and to take post one hundred miles west of Cape Finisterre. On the 19th of July Admiral Calder was in this position, with fifteen ships-of-the-line, and received through Lisbon the information of the French movements, which Nelson had forwarded thither an exact month before. On the 20th Nelson's fleet anchored at Gibraltar, and he went ashore, "for the first time since the 16th of June, 1803." On the 22d Calder and Villeneuve met and fought. Two Spanish ships-of-the-line were captured, but the battle was otherwise indecisive. Calder hesitated to attack again, and on the 26th lost sight of the enemy, who, on the 28th, put into Vigo Bay; whence, by a lucky slant of wind, they reached Ferrol on the first of August with fifteen ships, having left three in Vigo. Calder sent five of his fleet to resume the blockade of Rochefort, and himself with nine joined Cornwallis off Brest, raising the force there to twenty-six. This junction was made August 14th. The next day appeared there the indefatigable Nelson, with his unwearied and ever ready squadron of eleven ships—veterans in the highest sense of the word, in organization, practice, and endurance; alert, and solid as men of iron.
This important and most opportune arrival came about as follows. Anchoring on the 19th of July at Gibraltar, Nelson found everything ready for the re-equipment of his ships, owing to his foresight in directing it. All set to work at once to prepare for immediate departure. When I have "completed the fleet to four months' provisions, and with stores for Channel service," he wrote to the Admiralty, "I shall get outside the Mediterranean, leaving a sufficient force to watch Carthagena, and proceed as upon a due consideration, (on reading Vice-Admiral Collingwood's orders, and those which Rear-Admiral Sir Richard Bickerton may have received during my absence,) may suggest to be most proper. Should I hear that the enemy are gone to some of the ports in the Bay, I shall join the squadron off Ferrol, or off Ushant, as I think the case requires." There will be observed here the same striking combination of rapidity, circumspection, and purpose prepared by reflection for instant action in emergencies, that characterized him usually, and especially in these four months of chase. "The squadron is in the most perfect health," he continues, "except some symptoms of scurvy, which I hope to eradicate by bullocks and refreshments from Tetuan, to which I will proceed to-morrow." The getting fresh beef at Tetuan, it will be remembered, had been stopped by a fair wind on the 5th of May. Since then, and in fact since a month earlier, no opportunity of obtaining fresh provisions had offered during his rapid movements. "The fleet received not the smallest refreshment, not even a cup of water in the West Indies," he told the Queen of Naples. The admiral himself got only a few sheep, in the nine days' round.
Even now, the intention to go to Tetuan, advisable as the step was, was contingent upon the opportunity offering of reaching a position whence he could move with facility. Nelson did not mean to be back-strapped again within the Mediterranean, with a west wind, and a current setting to leeward, if the enemy turned up in the Atlantic. "If the wind is westerly," he wrote on the early morning of the 22d, "I shall go to Tetuan: if easterly, out of the straits." At half-past nine that day the fleet weighed, and at half-past seven in the evening anchored at Tetuan, whither orders had already gone to prepare bullocks and fresh vegetables for delivery. At noon of the 23d the ships again lifted their anchors, and started. "The fleet is complete," he wrote the First Lord that day, "and the first easterly wind, I shall pass the Straits." Fortune apparently had made up her mind now to balk him no more. Thirty-six hours later, at 3.30 A.M. of July 25th, being then off Tarifa, a little west of Gibraltar, the sloop-of-war "Termagant," one of his own Mediterranean cruisers, came alongside, and brought him a newspaper, received from Lisbon, containing an account of the report carried to England by the "Curieux." "I know it's true," he wrote to the Admiralty, "from my words being repeated, therefore I shall not lose a moment, after I have communicated with Admiral Collingwood, in getting to the northward to either Ferrol, Ireland, or Ushant; as information or circumstances may point out to be proper." In his haste to proceed, and wishing to summon the "Amazon" frigate to rejoin him, he sent the "Termagant" at once to Gibraltar, without understanding that she was just from there and had on board his clothes left for washing; in consequence of which precipitancy she "carried all my things, even to my last shirt, back again." "As I fancied he came from Lisbon," he explained, "I would not allow him to stop." "My dear Parker," he wrote the frigate-captain, "make haste and join me. If all places fail you will find me at Spithead." Parker, who was a favorite of the admiral's, followed out the careful detailed instructions which accompanied this note, but could not overtake the fleet, and from incidents of the service never met Nelson again.
With a fresh easterly gale the squadron pressed again into the Atlantic. As it went on for Cape St. Vincent, Collingwood's division was seen some distance to leeward, but, as not infrequently happens in and near the Mediterranean, the wind with it came from the opposite quarter to that which Nelson had. The latter, therefore, would not stop, nor lose a mile of the ground over which his fair breeze was carrying him. "My dear Collingwood," he wrote, "We are in a fresh Levanter. You have a westerly wind, therefore I must forego the pleasure of taking you by the hand until October next, when, if I am well enough, I shall (if the Admiralty please) resume the command. I am very far from well; but I am anxious that not a moment of the services of this fleet should be lost." Matters therefore were left standing much as they were when he passed in a week before. He had taken upon himself, however, with a discretion he could now assume freely, to change the Admiralty's orders, issued during his absence, withdrawing most of the small cruisers from about Malta, to reinforce Collingwood's division. When he first learned of this step, he said it was a mistake, for double the number he had left there were needed; "but the orders of the Admiralty must be obeyed. I only hope officers will not be blamed for the events which it is not difficult to foresee will happen." With the crowd of enemy's privateers in those waters, Malta, he was assured, would be cut off from all communication. He soon made up his mind that he would use his own discretion and modify the dispositions taken. "Malta cannot more than exist, and our troops would be placed in a position of great distress," he told the Admiralty. "I transmit a statement of the force I think necessary to the eastward of Carthagena for performing the services intrusted to my care, and when I get the lists I shall apportion them as far as their number will allow, and my judgment will admit." "I hope the Board will consider this as not wishing to alter any arrangement of theirs, but as a measure absolutely necessary." Within his own field Nelson was now, by proved professional genius, above the restraint of Boards; and when he reached England the new First Lord had the wisdom to admit it, in this supreme crisis, by giving him full control, within the resources of the country, over the constitution of the fleet with which he fought Trafalgar.
Map of the North Atlantic
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Letters left for Bickerton and Collingwood placed them in possession of his ideas, including the revocation of the Admiralty's order; and, in an official letter, he earnestly recommended the latter officer to adhere to his arrangements. Word was also sent forward to Cornwallis, and to the commander-in-chief at Cork, as well as to the Admiralty, to notify them of his approach. To the northward of Cape St. Vincent he met the northerly winds that prevail on the Portuguese coast. Delayed by these, he was three full weeks making the passage from Gibraltar to the Channel Fleet, which he joined at 3 P.M. of August 15th, twenty-five miles west of Ushant. To this point his movements were finally determined by a frigate, which was spoken on the 12th of August, and informed him that up to three days before no intelligence had been received of the enemy's arrival in the Bay of Biscay, or on the Irish coast. Cornwallis excused him from the customary personal visit, and authorized him to proceed at once to Portsmouth with the "Victory," in pursuance of the Admiralty's leave which he so long had had in his hands. On the morning of August 18th, the long and fruitless chase of the allied fleet was brought to an end by the dropping of the "Victory's" anchor at Spithead. To Davison Nelson summed up his disappointment in the exasperated expression, "—n General Brereton."[109]
From newspapers received off Ushant he first learned of Calder's battle, and the public dissatisfaction with the results. He had undergone too much frustration and anxiety himself not to feel for an officer who had made a mistake, although it may safely be said that Calder's mistake was not only one Nelson could not have made, but was the exact opposite of the course which Nelson by anticipation had said he would adopt. He expressed himself in words of generous sympathy. "I was bewildered by the account of Sir Robert Calder's victory, and the joy of the event; together with the hearing that John Bull was not content, which I am sorry for. Who can, my dear Freemantle, command all the success which our Country may wish? We have fought together, and therefore well know what it is. I have had the best disposed fleet of friends, but who can say what will be the event of a battle? and it most sincerely grieves me, that in any of the papers it should be insinuated, that Lord Nelson could have done better. I should have fought the enemy, so did my friend Calder; but who can say that he will be more successful than another? I only wish to stand upon my own merits, and not by comparison, one way or the other, upon the conduct of a brother officer. You will forgive this dissertation, but I feel upon the occasion." These words, which spoke the whole of his honest heart, were the more generous, because he believed Calder to be one of the few professional enemies that he had.
From the place where Villeneuve was met, Nelson reasoned, again, that the primary intention of the allies, returning from the West Indies, had been to enter the Straits. "By all accounts I am satisfied their original destination was the Mediterranean, but they heard frequently of our track." This persistence in his first view was partly due to the confidence with which he held to his own convictions,—the defect of a strong quality,—partly, doubtless, to the fact that Villeneuve had blundered in his homeward course, and fetched unnecessarily to leeward of his port, with reference to winds perfectly understood by seamen of that day. In fact he had no business to be where he brought up, except on the supposition that he was making for the Straits.