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

by A. T. Mahan

For his action in this case Nelson has been severely blamed. The point at issue is perfectly simple, however it may be decided. Disregarding subordinate considerations, of which there are many, such as the motives which induced Ruffo and Foote to grant terms, and the question whether they would have been justified, which Nelson denied, in conceding them under any conditions, the matter reduces itself to this: When an agreement has been made, one of the parties to which is acting only as a representative, not as a principal, nor accredited for the specific purpose, has the principal, in person or by proxy, a right to annul the agreement, provided, as in this case, it has not passed into execution, either total or partial? Nelson admitted that the persons of the insurgents would have been entitled to the immunity stipulated, if they had already delivered up the castles. They had not done so; the flags of truce marked only a cessation of hostilities, not the completion of the transaction. By the terms, the evacuation and embarkation were to be simultaneous: "The evacuation shall not take place until the moment of embarkation." The status of the opponents was in no wise altered by a paper which had not begun to receive execution. The one important circumstance which had happened was the arrival of the British squadron, instead of Bruix's fleet which all were expecting. It was perfectly within Nelson's competence to stop the proceedings at the point they had then reached.

[After writing the above, the author, by the courtesy of the Foreign Office, received a copy of Sir William Hamilton's despatch of July 14, 1799, giving his account of the events happening after June 20th, the date when Nelson left Palermo for Naples. In this occurs a statement which would seriously modify, if not altogether destroy, the justification of Nelson's conduct in annulling the capitulation, which rests upon the condition that it had not received any substantial execution. Hamilton says: "When we anchored in this Bay the 24th of June the capitulation of the castles had in some measure taken place.[83] Fourteen large Polacks or transport vessels had taken on board out of the castles the most conspicuous and criminal of the Neapolitan Rebels, that had chosen to go to Toulon, the others had already been permitted with their property to return to their own homes in this kingdom, and hostages selected from the first royalist nobility of Naples had been sent into the castle of St. Elmo that commands the city of Naples, and where a French garrison and the flag of the French Republic was to remain until the news of the arrival of the Neapolitan Rebels at Toulon.... There was no time to be lost, for the transport vessels were on the point of sailing for Toulon, when Lord Nelson ordered all the boats of his squadron to be manned and armed, and to bring those vessels, with all the Rebels on board, directly under the sterns of his ships, and there they remain, having taken out and secured on board His Majesty's ships the most guilty chiefs of the rebellion."

Occurring in an official despatch, from a minister of Nelson's sovereign, his own warm personal friend and admirer, closely associated with him throughout the proceedings, and his colleague and adviser in much that was done, the words quoted, if they could stand accepted as an accurate statement of occurrences, would establish that Nelson had secured the persons of men who had surrendered on the faith of a treaty, and had held them, subject to the tender mercies of the King of the Two Sicilies. They were in his power (accepting Hamilton's statement), only because the King's Vicar-General, his representative so far as they knew, had guaranteed their safety if they came out of the castles. The least they were entitled to, in such case, was to be restored to the castles—not yet evacuated—to be placed as they were before surrendering. It is true that, as the terms of the treaty made embarkation and evacuation coincident, and as the latter had certainly not taken place, it may be argued that they had no claim to immunity when they had precipitated their action, and left the castle of their own motion before the formal evacuation and embarkation; but one would prefer not to rest on such a technical plea the justification of a character generally so upright in his public acts as Lord Nelson.

Fortunately for his fame, there is adequate reason to believe—to be assured—that Hamilton's despatch is very inaccurate in details, and specifically in this one, so damaging as it stands. The incident of arming the boats and bringing out the vessels took place, according to the log of the "Foudroyant," not when the fleet moored, on the morning of June 25th, or even shortly afterwards, but on the morning of the 28th; two days after the castles, as shown by the logs of both the "Foudroyant" and "Seahorse," surrendered and were taken possession of. Miss Helen Maria Williams, whose account of the affair was strongly tinged with sympathy for the revolutionists, says: "While the two garrisons, to the number of fifteen hundred, were waiting for the preparing and, provisioning of the vessels which were to convey them to France, Lord Nelson arrived with his whole fleet in the Bay of Naples [June 24-25]. On the evening of the twenty-sixth of June, the patriots evacuated their forts, and embarked on board the transports prepared for their conveyance to France. The next day [June 27], the transports were moored alongside the English fleet, each under the cannon of an English vessel."[84] These several witnesses may be confidently accepted, and prove that the embarkation and removal of the garrisons took place after Nelson's declaration to them, dated June 25th, in which he said "he would not permit them to embark or quit those places. They must surrender themselves to His Majesty's Royal mercy." Captain Foote, who had signed the capitulation that Nelson condemned, affords evidence which, though not conclusive, is corroborative of the above. Writing to Nelson at 7 A.M. of the 24th of June, fourteen hours before the fleet anchored, but only eight before he knew of its approach, he says: "the Republicans are about to embark," and again, "when the Capitulation is put into effect;" both which expressions show that up to that moment the agreement had not begun to receive execution. On the 22d of June Ruffo wrote to Foote that there were no vessels in Naples on which to embark the revolutionists, and requested him to furnish them; a request that Foote referred to Count Thurn, the senior Neapolitan naval officer, for compliance. It is therefore antecedently probable that the vessels could not have been collected from other ports, and prepared for an unexpected voyage of at least a week's duration, before Nelson arrived, forty-eight hours later.

Hamilton's despatch contains another mistake, affecting the order of events, so circumstantial that, taken with the one just discussed, it shows his accuracy on such points was more than doubtful. "Admiral Caracciolo," he says, was hanged, "the day after the King's squadron came to Naples;" the fact being that the squadron arrived on the night of June 24-25, and that Caracciolo was executed on the evening of the 29th. This error was not a slip of the pen, for he characterizes the alleged fact as "so speedy an act of justice" as to elicit loud applause from the concourse of spectators surrounding the ship in boats.

Hamilton was not only nearly seventy, but he was worn out in health and constitution. Writing a fortnight after the events, and having passed that time in the turmoil and confusion attending the re-establishment of order in Naples, it is not wonderful that he ran together incidents that happened in rapid succession, and failed to realize the importance which might afterwards attach to the date of their occurrence. "I am so worn out," he tells Greville, "by the long despatch I have been obliged to write to-day to Lord Grenville that I can scarcely hold my pen;" and again, "My head is so confused with long writing on this subject that I must refer you to my letter to Lord Grenville.... You will find me much worn and am little more than skin and bone, as I have very little stomach."

Although they were on board ship together, Nelson cannot have seen Hamilton's despatch, or he must have corrected a misstatement which directly contradicted his own account of June 27 to Lord Keith, as well as that he was sending by the same messenger, in a private letter to Earl Spencer. The latter ran thus: "Your Lordship will observe my Note (No. 1), and opinion to the Cardinal (No. 2). The Rebels came out of the Castles with this knowledge, without any honours, and the principal Rebels were seized and conducted on board the ships of the squadron. The others, embarked in fourteen polacres, were anchored under the care of our ships."

Hamilton's statement remaining uncorrected, and being so circumstantial, though erroneous, has made necessary a fuller discussion of the evidence on this point than otherwise might have been required.

Although, in the author's judgment, Nelson acted within his right in disallowing the capitulation, it is essential to note that a fortnight later, when fully cognizant of all the circumstances, he characterized it in a letter to Lord Spencer as "infamous." "On my fortunate arrival here I found a most infamous treaty entered into with the Rebels, in direct disobedience of His Sicilian Majesty's orders."[85] Such an adjective, deliberately applied after the heat of the first moment had passed, is, in its injustice, a clear indication of the frame of mind under the domination of which he was. Captain Foote with his feeble squadron, and the commanders of the undisciplined mob ashore known as the Christian army, expected, as did Nelson himself, the appearance of the French fleet at Naples. In view of that possibility, it was at the least a pardonable error of judgment to concede terms which promised to transfer the castles speedily into their own hands. The most censurable part of the agreement was in the failure to exact the surrender of St. Elmo, which dominates the others. It is to be regretted that Captain Foote, who naturally and bitterly resented the word "infamous," did not, in his "Vindication," confine himself to this military argument, instead of mixing it up with talk about mercy to culprits and Nelson's infatuation for Lady Hamilton.]

On the 27th of June, the day following the surrender of Uovo and Nuovo, Troubridge landed with thirteen hundred men to besiege the French in St. Elmo, an undertaking in which he was joined by five hundred Russians and some royalists. Forty-eight hours later Nelson felt called upon, as representative of the King of the Two Sicilies, to take action more peremptory and extreme than anything he had hitherto done.