The Life of Nelson, Volume 1 / The Embodiment of the Sea Power of Great Britain

by A. T. Mahan

With this incident of the insufficient reinforcement sent, began the friction with Keith which appears more openly in his correspondence with others. To St. Vincent, still commander-in-chief, he wrote: "I send a copy of my letter to Lord Keith, and I have only stated my regret that his Lordship could not have sent me a force fit to face the enemy: but, as we are, I shall not get out of their way; although, as I am, I cannot think myself justified in exposing the world (I may almost say) to be plundered by these miscreants. I trust your Lordship will not think me wrong in the painful determination I conceived myself forced to make," that is, to go back to Palermo, "for agonized indeed was the mind of your Lordship's faithful and affectionate servant."

Nelson appears to have felt that the return to Palermo, though imperative, in view of the relative forces of himself and the French, would not only postpone and imperil the restoration of the royal family, but would bring discredit upon himself for not seeking and fighting the enemy's fleet. "I shall wait off Maritimo," he wrote Keith, "anxiously expecting such a reinforcement as may enable me to go in search of the enemy's fleet, when not one moment shall be lost in bringing them to battle; for," he continues, with one of those flashes of genius which from time to time, unconsciously to himself, illuminate his writings, "I consider the best defence for his Sicilian Majesty's dominions is to place myself alongside the French." "My situation is a cruel one," he wrote to Hamilton, "and I am sure Lord Keith has lowered me in the eyes of Europe, for they will only know of 18 sail, [Ball having joined], and not of the description of them; it has truly made me ill." But, although not justified in seeking them, he had off Maritimo taken a strategic position which would enable him to intercept their approach to either Naples or Sicily, "and I was firmly resolved," he wrote with another of his clear intuitions, "they should not pass me without a battle, which would so cripple them that they might be unable to proceed on any distant service." "On this you may depend," he had written to Lady Hamilton, on the first cruise off Maritimo, three weeks before, "that if my little squadron obeys my signal, not a ship shall fall into the hands of the enemy; and I will so cut them up, that they will not be fit even for a summer's cruise."

On the 20th of June, off Maritimo, he received a despatch from St. Vincent that a reinforcement of twelve ships-of-the-line from the Channel was then approaching Port Mahon, and that Keith, having returned thither, had left again in search of Bruix, whose whereabouts remained unknown. He was also notified that St. Vincent had resigned all his command, leaving Keith commander-in-chief. Nelson was convinced—"I knew," was his expression—that the French intended going to Naples. He determined now to resume his enterprise against the republicans in the city; a decision which caused him great and unexplained mental conflict. "I am agitated," he wrote Hamilton the same day, in a note headed "Most Secret," "but my resolution is fixed. For Heaven's sake suffer not any one to oppose it. I shall not be gone eight days. No harm can come to Sicily. I send my Lady and you Lord St. Vincent's letter. I am full of grief and anxiety. I must go. It will finish the war. It will give a sprig of laurel to your affectionate friend, Nelson." The cause of this distress can only be surmised, but is probably to be found in the fears of the Queen, and in the differences existing at the time between herself and the King. Possibly, too, Lady Hamilton's sympathy with the Queen, in a present fear for Sicily, may have led her, contrary to the request so lately made for the admiral to go to Naples, to second an entreaty that the island should not now be exposed; and to refuse her may have caused him pain. On the 21st he was at Palermo, and after two hours' consultation with their Majesties and Acton, the Prime Minister, he sailed again, accompanied in the "Foudroyant" on this occasion by Sir William and Lady Hamilton, but not by the Hereditary Prince, nor the Sicilian troops. On the 24th, at 9 P.M., he anchored in the Bay of Naples. Flags of truce were at that moment flying on the castles of Uovo and Nuovo, which were in the hands of the Neapolitan republicans, and upon the frigate "Seahorse," whose commander had been the senior British officer present, before Nelson's own appearance.

On the passage from Palermo, Nelson had received information that the royalists,—with whom were co-operating some detachments of Russians and Turks, as well as the British naval forces, under Captain Foote, of the "Seahorse,"—had concluded an armistice with the French and their Neapolitan allies, who were in possession of the castles. The terms of the armistice, thus rumored, were that the castles, if not relieved within twenty-one days, should then be surrendered; the garrisons to march out with the honors of war, and to be transported to Toulon in vessels to be furnished by the King of Naples. This report was erroneous in important particulars, especially as to the period of twenty-one days. What really had happened was, that a capitulation had been concluded, which provided that the Neapolitan insurgents should evacuate the two castles held by them—Uovo and Nuovo—as soon as the transports were ready to take them to Toulon, but not before. The French, in the castle of St. Elmo, were not included in the arrangement, their only part being that it required the ratification of their commander before becoming operative. This ratification was given, and, when Nelson's squadron came in sight,[82] the treaty had received the signature of all the parties interested; the flags of truce indicating a cessation of hostilities until the terms of the capitulation were carried into effect.

Nelson had been given full power by the King of the Two Sicilies to act as his representative. He was also, as commander of the fleet, the representative of the King of Great Britain among the allied forces, which were acting in support of the royalist cause. The double function introduces great confusion into the subsequent transactions, especially as there are on record no formal credentials investing him with the authority he claimed to have from the King of Naples. The omission probably arose from the extreme shortness of his stay in Palermo on the 21st—only two hours and a half elapsing, by the "Foudroyant's" log, between the entering of the ship and her sailing again; a time sufficient for an interview and a clear understanding, but scarcely for drawing up a regular commission. The fact rests upon his own statement, adequately supported, however, by inferences reasonably to be drawn from expressions in letters to him, both from the King and from Acton, the Prime Minister. That his power went so far as to authorize him to remove Cardinal Ruffo, up to that time the King's representative, would alone confirm the assertion of a man habitually truthful. Sir William Hamilton also, writing to Greville, and alluding to his official despatch by the same mail, says, "We had full powers." It may be accepted that Nelson himself was entirely satisfied that he was authorized at the time to act for the King, when emergency required; and it is certain that letters were speedily sent, empowering him to appoint a new government, as well as to arrest Ruffo and to send him to Palermo in a British ship.

Seeing the flags of truce flying, from the two castles and the "Seahorse," and being under the impression that has been stated as to the terms of an armistice, which he called "infamous," Nelson immediately made a signal annulling the truce, "being determined," he wrote to Keith, "never to give my approbation to any terms with Rebels, but that of unconditional submission." As the execution of the capitulation depended upon the embarkation of the garrisons in the transports which were to be provided, Nelson was entirely master of the situation, so far as force went. Next morning, June 25th, he moved his fleet of eighteen sail nearer in, mooring it in a close line of battle before the city, and at the same time sent for twenty-two gun and mortar vessels, then lying at the islands, with which he flanked the ships-of-the-line. In this imposing array, significant at once of inexorable purpose and irresistible power, he sent to Ruffo his "opinion of the infamous terms entered into with the rebels," and also two papers, to be by him forwarded to the insurgents and to the French. From the latter, who had not treated, was required simply an unconditional surrender; but the message to the insurgents, sent, singularly enough, not from the representative of the King of Naples but from the British admiral, ran as follows:—

His Britannic Majesty's Ship Foudroyant, Naples Bay, 25th June, 1799.

Rear Admiral Lord Nelson, K.B., Commander of His Britannic Majesty's Fleet in the Bay of Naples, acquaints the Rebellious Subjects of His Sicilian Majesty in the Castles of Uovo and Nuovo, that he will not permit them to embark or quit those places. They must surrender themselves to His Majesty's royal mercy.

NELSON.

Ruffo refused to send the papers in, and said decisively that, if Nelson saw fit to break the armistice then existing, between the signature of the capitulation and its execution, he would aid neither with men nor guns. Finally, he went on board the "Foudroyant;" but after an animated discussion, which rose nearly to an altercation, neither party yielded his ground. "I used every argument in my power," wrote Nelson, "to convince him that the Treaty and Armistice was at an end by the arrival of the fleet", and this therefore may be taken to summarize his own position. He then gave the Cardinal a written opinion that the treaty was one that "ought not to be carried out without the approbation of His Sicilian Majesty." Neither his powers nor Ruffo's, he argued, extended to granting such a capitulation. Ruffo, indeed, had been expressly forbidden to do so; a fact which rendered the paper void from the first. "Under this opinion," reported Nelson to Keith, "the Rebels came out of the Castles;" "as they ought," he wrote to his friend Davison, "and as I hope all those who are false to their King and Country will, to be hanged, or otherwise disposed of, as their sovereign thought proper." They were then placed in transports, which were anchored under the guns of the fleet; and in the end many of them were put to death.