A victory so signal entailed, as a matter of course, a number of those rewards and titles with which Great Britain judiciously fostered the spirit of emulation in her Navy. These were to a considerable extent affairs of routine and precedent, and Nelson, knowing that junior flag-officers had on several previous occasions been made baronets, wished to avoid this hereditary dignity because inconsistent with his means. His love of distinction also prompted him to desire one of those Orders which carry with them the outward token of merit. Meeting Drinkwater the day after the battle, he expressed his reluctance to the baronetage, and upon the other's asking him whether he would prefer to be a Knight of the Bath, he replied, "Yes; if my services have been of any value, let them be noticed in a way that the public may know them." To Elliot, who was about to return at once to England, he wrote, asking him to make known his wishes to the Admiralty. "If you can be instrumental in keeping back what I expect will happen, it will be an additional obligation. I conceive to take hereditary honours without a fortune to support the dignity, is to lower that honour it would be my pride to support in proper splendour. There are other honours which die with the possessor, and I should be proud to accept, if my efforts are thought worthy of the favour of my King."
Elliot started for England a few days afterwards, and reached London at a time when the whole country was ringing with the news of the victory. Arriving at such a propitious moment, there could have been for Nelson no better advocate than this man, placed high in political councils, and having to give to the Ministry a long account of his career in the Mediterranean, throughout the whole of which the two had been in intimate contact and constant correspondence. Himself an eye-witness, and filled with enthusiasm for Nelson's latest exploit, Elliot knew better than any one that it was no sporadic outburst, but only a signal manifestation of the intuitive sagacity, the flashing promptness, and the sustained energy, whose steady fires he had known to burn, without slackening of force or change of motive, through two years of close personal association in public action to a common end. The government thus learned more of him than can easily transpire under ordinary service conditions, or be shown even by an incident like that at St. Vincent; and Elliot's admiration, free from all bias of professional partiality or professional jealousy, doubtless was more useful to Nelson than any narrative of his own could have been. Even the royal favor was conciliated, despite the obstinate temper which yielded prejudices with difficulty. "I must rejoice," wrote Nelson to the Duke of Clarence, who had mentioned to him the King's approval, "in having gained the good opinion of my Sovereign, which I once was given to understand I had no likelihood of enjoying."[54] It was to the honor of the monarch that he was thus as pliant to admit merit in an officer as yet only rising to distinction, as he was firm at a later day to stamp with the marks of his displeasure the flagrant moral aberration of the then world-renowned admiral.
The coveted Knighthood of the Bath was accorded on the 17th of March, "in order," wrote the First Lord, "to mark the Royal approbation of your successful and gallant exertions on several occasions during the course of the present war in the Mediterranean, and more particularly of your very distinguished conduct in the glorious and brilliant victory obtained over the fleet of Spain by His Majesty's fleet, on the 14th of February last." Nelson's delight was great and characteristic. Material rewards were not in his eyes the most real or the richest. "Chains and Medals," he wrote to his brother, "are what no fortune or connexion in England can obtain; and I shall feel prouder of those than all the titles in the King's power to bestow." To his wife he said: "Though we can afford no more than a cottage—yet, with a contented mind, my chains, medals, and ribbons are all sufficient." To receive honor was second to no possession, except that of knowing he had deserved it.
On the evening of the Battle of St. Vincent, soon after the firing ceased, Nelson shifted his commodore's pendant to the "Irresistible," of seventy-four guns, the "Captain" being unmanageable from the damage done to her spars and rigging. Her hull also had been so battered, that he wrote a few days later she would never be able to receive him again, which proved to be true; for although, after she had been patched up, he returned to her temporarily, a newly fitted ship, the "Theseus," seventy-four, was assigned to his flag, as soon as a reinforcement arrived from England.
After a vain effort to reach the Tagus against contrary winds, with disabled ships, Jervis decided to take his fleet into Lagos Bay, an open roadstead on the southern coast of Portugal, and there to refit sufficiently to make the passage to Lisbon. While lying at Lagos Nelson became a Rear-Admiral of the Blue, by a flag-promotion dated on the 20th of February, although his flag was not hoisted until the first of April, when the official notification of his advancement was received by him. He was then thirty-eight and a half years of age. In this rank he remained until after the Battle of the Nile was fought, but it mattered comparatively little where he stood on the list of flag-officers, while Jervis commanded; that he was an admiral at all made it possible to commit to him undertakings for which he was pre-eminently qualified, but which could scarcely have been intrusted to a simple captain by any stretching of service methods, always—and not improperly—conservative.
On the 23d of February the fleet sailed again, and on the 28th anchored in the Tagus. The same day Nelson wrote to his wife that he was to go to sea on the 2d of March, with three ships-of-the-line, to look out for the Viceroy of Mexico, who was reported to be on his way to Cadiz, also with three ships-of-the-line, laden with treasure. "Two are first-rates," said he, "but the larger the ships the better the mark, and who will not fight for dollars?" Foul winds prevented his getting away until the 5th. From that date until the 12th of April he remained cruising between Cape St. Vincent and the coast of Africa, covering the approaches to Cadiz; frigates and smaller vessels being spread out to the westward, to gain timely notice of the approach of the specie ships, upon whose safe arrival Spain depended both for her commercial affairs and her naval preparations.
But while thus actively employed, and not insensible to the charm of dollars, the immediate business on board was not in itself so engrossing, nor to him so attractive, as to obtain that exclusiveness of attention which he prided himself upon giving to matters more military in character, and more critical in importance. "The Spaniards threaten us they will come out, and take their revenge," he writes to an occasional correspondent. "The sooner the better; but I will not believe it till I see it; and if they do, what will the mines of Mexico and Peru signify, compared with the honour I doubt not we shall gain by fighting an angry Don? They will have thirty sail of the line, we twenty or twenty-two; but fear we shall have a peace before they are ready to come out. What a sad thing that will be!" His mind reverts to the troops in Elba, which had been left in a most exposed position, and were now about to withdraw under the protection of some frigates, passing through a thousand miles of hostile sea open to the line-of-battle ships at Toulon. He is more concerned about them than about his possible prize-money in the rich ships from Vera Cruz and Havana, whose danger from his own squadron was agitating all Spain. "Respecting myself," he writes to Jervis, "I wish to stay at sea, and I beg, if line-of-battle ships are left out,[55] either on this side the Gut, or to the eastward of Gibraltar, that I may be the man. This brings forward a subject which I own is uppermost in my mind,—that of the safety of our troops, should they embark from Elba. The French have a number of ships at Toulon. They may get two, three, or four ready, with a number of frigates, and make a push for our convoy. I am ready, you know, to go eastward to cover them, even to Porto Ferrajo, or off Toulon, or Minorca, as you may judge proper."
This exposed detachment continued to occupy his thoughts. A month later, on the 11th of April, he again writes: "I own, Sir, my feelings are alive for the safety of our army from Elba. If the French get out two sail of the line, which I am confident they may do, our troops are lost, and what a triumph that would be to them! I know you have many difficulties to contend with, but I am anxious that nothing should miscarry under your orders. If you think a detachment can be spared, I am ready to go and do my best for their protection." In both letters he apologizes for this freedom of urgency with his superior: "I have said much, but you have spoiled me by allowing me to speak and write freely. I trust you will not imagine that my taking the great liberty of thus mentioning my thoughts, arises from any other motive than affection towards you."
Jervis had already joined him on the 1st of April, before the second letter was written. His hesitation about sending the detachment suggested by Nelson had arisen, not from doubt as to the danger of the troops, but from the imminent expectation of the Spanish fleet coming out. The British force was already too inferior, numerically, to risk any diminution, in view of such a contingency. Confronted with divergent objects, Jervis would not be drawn into the snare of dividing his force; but after reconnoitring the port, he was satisfied that the Spaniards could not sail before Nelson had time to fulfil the proposed mission, and on the 12th of April he gave him the necessary orders. The latter transferred his own squadron to the command of Sir James Saumarez, and started at once. He had now returned to the "Captain," which had doubtless come down with Jervis. "She is little better than a wreck," he wrote to a friend; but the cripples had to be kept to the front, pending the arrival of fresh ships. Besides her, he had the "Colossus," seventy-four, and "Leander," fifty, with a suitable number of smaller cruisers. Passing within gunshot of Port Mahon in Minorca, he heard from several passing vessels that a French squadron of four ships-of-the-line was at sea, as he had anticipated; and these, he afterwards learned, were seen off Minorca only twenty-two hours before he passed. Fortunately a fresh northwest gale had carried them to the southward, and on the 21st of April, sixty miles west of Corsica, he joined the convoy, which carried over three thousand soldiers. He reached Gibraltar with it in safety in the early days of May, without adventures of any kind. "I observed a man-of-war brig evidently looking at us; but my charge was too important to separate one ship in chase of her, especially as three frigates had parted company; for until this garrison is safe down, I do not think our business is well finished." Its arrival completed the evacuation of the Mediterranean.
At Gibraltar several days were spent, evidently crowded with administrative details concerning the coming and going of convoys, for there is here an almost total cessation of Nelson's usually copious letter-writing. An interesting and instructive incident is, however, made known to us by one of the three letters dated during these ten days. The Consul of the United States of America had to apply to him for the protection of twelve American merchant ships, then at Malaga, against the probable depredations of French privateers lying in that port, which, under the edicts of the government of the French Republic, with whom the United States was at peace, were expected to overhaul and capture them when they sailed. Nelson at once complied, ordering a British frigate to go to Malaga and escort the vessels to the Barbary coast, and even out of the Straits, if necessary. In doing this, he wrote courteously to the Consul: "I am sure of fulfilling the wishes of my Sovereign, and I hope of strengthening the harmony which at present so happily subsists between the two nations."