On the 24th of May Nelson rejoined the admiral off Cadiz, and on the 27th shifted his own flag into the "Theseus." The day before he left the fleet, April 11th, Jervis had decided to institute a strict commercial blockade of Cadiz, with the object of distressing Spanish trade, preventing the entrance of supplies, upon which depended the operations of Spain against Portugal, as well as her naval preparations, and so forcing the Spanish fleet out to fight, in order to rid itself of such embarrassment. Nelson, as commander of the inshore squadron, had then issued the necessary notices to neutrals in the port, and to this charge he now returned. Under Jervis's intelligent partiality, he, the junior flag-officer, was thus intrusted with a command, which in the conduct of details, great and small, and in emergencies, was practically independent. Jervis, knowing his man, was content to have it so, reserving of course to himself the decision of the broad outlines of military exertion. The inshore squadron was gradually increased till it numbered ten sail-of-the-line. The boats of the fleet, which had been rowing guard off the harbor's mouth under the general supervision of the two senior flag-officers, were ordered, shortly after Nelson's arrival, to report to him; and upon him, indeed, devolved pretty nearly all the active enterprises of the fleet. It was his practice to visit the line of boats every night in his barge, to see by personal inspection of these outposts that his instructions were fully observed. "Our inferiority," he wrote about this time, "is greater than before. I am barely out of shot of a Spanish rear-admiral. The Dons hope for peace, but must soon fight us, if the war goes on."
Another motive, perhaps even more imperative than the wish to force the Dons out, now compelled Jervis to seek by all means to increase the activity of his fleet, and to intrust the management of such activities to his most zealous and capable subordinate. These were the months of the great mutinies of the British Navy, in which the seamen of the Channel fleet, and of the North Sea fleet, at the Nore, had taken the ships out of the hands of their officers. The details of Jervis's management, which was distinguished as much by keen judgment and foresight as by iron-handed severity, that knew neither fear nor ruth when it struck, belong to his biography, not to Nelson's; but it is necessary to note the attitude of the latter, a man more sympathetic, and in common life gentler, than his stern superior. Always solicitous for everything that increased the well-being and happiness of his crew,—as indeed was eminently the case with Jervis also,—he did not withhold his candid sympathy from the grievances alleged by the Channel fleet; grievances which, when temperately presented to the authorities, had been ignored. "I am entirely with the seamen in their first complaint. We are a neglected set, and, when peace comes, are shamefully treated; but for the Nore scoundrels," passing on to those who had rebelled after substantial redress had been given, and had made unreasonable demands when the nation was in deadly peril, "I should be happy to command a ship against them." Jervis's measures received full support from him, clear-headed as ever to see the essentials of a situation. The senior vice-admiral, for instance, went so far as to criticise the commander-in-chief for hanging a convicted mutineer on Sunday. "Had it been Christmas Day instead of Sunday," wrote Nelson, "I would have executed them. We know not what might have been hatched by a Sunday's grog: now your discipline is safe." His glorious reputation and his known kindly character, supported by that of his captain, made mutiny impossible under his flag. It had not been up a month on board the "Theseus," which was lately from the Channel and infected with the prevalent insubordination, when a paper was dropped on the quarter-deck, expressing the devotion of the ship's company to their commander, and pledging that the name of the "Theseus" should yet be as renowned as that of the "Captain."
The stringent blockade, and the fears for the specie ships, weighed heavily on the Spaniards, who were not as a nation hearty in support of a war into which they had been coerced by France. Their authorities were petitioned to compel the fleet to go out. Whatever the event, the British would at least have to retire for repairs; while if the Lima and Havana ships—to look for which the Cadiz people every morning flocked to the walls, fearing they might be already in the enemy's hands—should be captured, the merchants of Spain would be ruined. Better lose ten ships-of-the-line, if need be, than this convoy. With rumors of this sort daily reaching him, Nelson's faculties were in a constant state of pleasing tension. He was in his very element of joyous excitement and expectation. "We are in the advance day and night, prepared for battle; bulkheads down, ready to weigh, cut, or slip,[56] as the occasion may require. I have given out a line of battle—myself to lead; and you may rest assured that I will make a vigorous attack upon them, the moment their noses are outside the Diamond. Pray do not send me another ship," he implores; "if you send any more, they may believe we are prepared, and know of their intention." "If they come out," he writes later to a naval friend, when he had ten sail under him, "there will be no fighting beyond my squadron."
To increase yet further the pressure upon the Spanish fleet to come out, a bombardment was planned against the town and the shipping, the superintendence of which also was intrusted to the commander of the inshore squadron. Only one bomb-vessel was provided, so that very extensive results could scarcely have been anticipated; but Nelson saw, with evident glee, that the enemy's gunboats had taken advanced positions, and intended to have a hand in the night's work. "So much the better," wrote he to Jervis; "I wish to make it a warm night in Cadiz. If they venture from their walls, I shall give Johnny[57] his full scope for fighting. It will serve to talk of better than mischief." "It is good," he writes to another, "at these times to keep the devil out of their heads. I had rather see fifty shot by the enemy, than one hanged by us."
The bombardment, which was continued upon two successive nights, did little direct harm; but it led to a sharp hand-to-hand contest between the British and Spanish boats, in which Nelson personally bore a part, and upon which he seems afterwards to have dwelt with even greater pride and self-satisfaction than upon the magnificent victories with which his name is associated. "It was during this period that perhaps my personal courage was more conspicuous than at any other part of my life." On the first night the Spaniards sent out a great number of mortar gunboats and armed launches. Upon these he directed a vigorous attack to be made, which resulted in their being driven back under the walls of Cadiz; the British, who pursued them, capturing two boats and a launch. In the affray, he says, "I was boarded in my barge with its common crew of ten men, coxswain, Captain Freemantle, and myself, by the commander of the gunboats; the Spanish barge rowed twenty-six oars, besides officers,—thirty men in the whole. This was a service hand-to-hand with swords, in which my coxswain, John Sykes, now no more, twice saved my life. Eighteen of the Spaniards being killed and several wounded, we succeeded in taking their commander." In his report he complimented this Spanish officer, Don Miguel Tyrason, upon his gallantry. Near a hundred Spaniards were made prisoners in this sharp skirmish.
Not even the insult of bombardment was sufficient to attain the designed end of forcing the enemy's fleet out to fight. The Spaniards confined themselves to a passive defence by their shore batteries, which proved indeed sufficient to protect the town and shipping, for on the second night they got the range of the bomb-vessel so accurately that the British were forced to withdraw her; but this did not relieve the vital pressure of the blockade, which could only be removed by the mobile naval force coming out and fighting. So far from doing this, the Spanish ships of war shifted their berth inside to get out of the range of bombs. Nelson cast longing eyes upon the smaller vessels which lay near the harbor's mouth, forming a barricade against boat attack, and threatening the offensive measures to which they rarely resorted. "At present the brigs lie too close to each other to hope for a dash at them, but soon I expect to find one off her guard, and then—" For the rest, his sanguine resolve to persist in annoyance until it becomes unbearable, and insures the desired object, finds vent in the words: "if Mazaredo will not come out, down comes Cadiz; and not only Cadiz, but their fleet."
This close succession of varied and exciting active service, unbroken between the day of his leaving Lisbon, March 5th, and the date of the last bombardment, July 5th, had its usual effect upon his spirits. His correspondence is all animation, full of vitality and energy, betraying throughout the happiness of an existence absorbed in congenial work, at peace with itself, conscious of power adequate to the highest demands upon it, and rejoicing in the strong admiration and confidence felt and expressed towards him on all sides, especially by those whose esteem he most valued. He complains of his health, indeed, from time to time; he cannot last another winter; he is suffering for the want of a few months' rest, which he must ask for in the coming October, and trusts that, "after four years and nine months' service, without one moment's repose for body or mind, credit will be given me that I do not sham."
Bodily suffering was his constant attendant, to which he always remained subject, but at this time it was powerless to depress the moral energies which, under less stimulating conditions, at times lost something of their elastic force. They never, indeed, failed to rise equal to imminent emergency, however obscured in hours of gloom, or perplexity, or mental conflict; but now, supported by the concurrence of every favoring influence, they carried him along in the full flow of prosperity and exhilaration. Thanking Earl Spencer, the First Lord of the Admiralty, for a complimentary letter, he says: "The unbounded praises Sir John Jervis has ever heaped, and continues to heap on me, are a noble reward for any services which an officer under his command could perform. Nor is your Lordship less profuse in them." To his wife he writes: "I assure you I never was better, and rich in the praises of every man, from the highest to the lowest in the fleet." "The imperious call of honour to serve my country, is the only thing that keeps me a moment from you, and a hope, that by staying a little longer, it may enable you to enjoy those little luxuries which you so highly merit." "My late affair here[58] will not, I believe, lower me in the opinion of the world. I have had flattery enough to make me vain, and success enough to make me confident."
FOOTNOTES:
[41] It is evident that this must have involved a compliment personal to Nelson.