Fixed in his mind to return to his command in October, he soon felt that, in the uncertainties of the French movements, a call might come at any moment. Although he nowhere says so, his mind was doubtless made up that, if Villeneuve's twenty-nine sail went to, or near, the Mediterranean, he would go out at once. "Every ship," he writes on the 31st of August, "even the Victory, is ordered out, for there is an entire ignorance whether the Ferrol fleet is coming to the northward, gone to the Mediterranean, or cruizing for our valuable homeward-bound fleet." "Mr. Pitt," he tells a friend as early as the 29th, "is pleased to think that my services may be wanted. I hope Calder's victory (which I am most anxiously expecting) will render my going forth unnecessary." "I hold myself ready," he writes again on the 3d of September, "to go forth whenever I am desired, although God knows I want rest; but self is entirely out of the question."[115]
It was not, therefore, to a mind or will unprepared that the sudden intimation came on the 2d of September—just a fortnight after he left the "Victory." That morning there arrived in town Captain Blackwood of the frigate "Euryalus," which had been despatched by Collingwood to notify the Admiralty that the missing Villeneuve had turned up with his squadron at Cadiz, on the 20th of August. Blackwood was an old friend and follower. It was he who had commanded the "Penelope" in March, 1800, and more than any one present had insured the capture of the "Guillaume Tell," when she ran out from Malta,[116]—the greatest service, probably, rendered to Nelson's reputation by any man who ever sailed under his orders. He stopped first at Merton at five o'clock in the morning, and found Nelson already up and dressed. The latter said at once, "I am sure you bring me news of the French and Spanish fleets, and I think I shall yet have to beat them." Later in the day he called at the Admiralty, and there saw Blackwood again. In the course of conversation, which turned chiefly upon future operations in the Mediterranean, he frequently repeated, "Depend on it, Blackwood, I shall yet give Mr. Villeneuve a drubbing," an expression whose wording evinces animation and resolve,—far removed from the troubled indecision from which, by her own account, Lady Hamilton freed him.
It was speedily determined by the Government that the combined fleets in Cadiz should be held there, or forced to fight if they left; the country had passed through a fortnight of too great anxiety, to risk any chance of its repetition by a renewed evasion. Ignorant of the reasons which dictated Villeneuve's course, and that it was not accordant but contrary to his orders, it was natural to suppose that there was some further object indicated by the position now taken, and that that object was the Mediterranean. Moreover, so large a body of commissioned ships—nearly forty—as were now assembled, could not fail to tax severely the resources of a port like Cadiz, and distress would tend to drive them out soon. Thirty thousand able-bodied men are a heavy additional load on the markets of a small city, blockaded by sea, and with primitive communications by land. Upon this rested Nelson's principal hope of obliging them to come forth, if Napoleon himself did not compel them. Their position, he wrote the Secretary for War soon after he joined the fleet, seemed to favor an attack by rockets; "but I think we have a better chance of forcing them out by want of provisions: it is said hunger will break through stone walls,—ours is only a wall of wood." "It is said that there is a great scarcity of provisions in Cadiz." He then mentioned that the allies were endeavoring to meet this difficulty by sending neutral vessels, loaded with food-stuffs, from French ports to all the small harbors on either side of Cadiz, whence the stores carried by them could be transferred by coasting-boats,—a process which ships were powerless to stop. Collingwood, therefore, had seized the neutrals, and sent them into Gibraltar, a step which Nelson had approved and continued. For it he then demanded the authority of his government. "Should it be thought proper to allow the enemy's fleet to be victualled, I request that I may be informed as soon as possible."
In connection with this subject Nelson made an allusion to a policy with which Castlereagh, the minister he was addressing, was afterwards identified,—that of the celebrated Orders in Council of 1807, and the license system connected with it. This is one of the few intimations we have of the wide range of subjects upon which he conversed with members of the Cabinet while in England; and it is interesting, not only as showing how far back those measures originated, but also as illustrating his own prophetic intuition of the construction which would be placed upon such proceedings. "I can have nothing, as an Admiral, to say upon the propriety of granting licences; but from what your Lordship told me of the intention of Ministers respecting the neutral trade, it strikes me, some day it may be urged that it was not for the sake of blockade, but for the purpose of taking all the trade into her own hands, that Great Britain excluded the Neutrals. Your Lordship's wisdom will readily conceive all that Neutral Courts may urge at this apparent injustice, and of might overcoming right."[117] This shrewdly accurate forecast of a contention which was not to arise till after his death is but one instance among many of Nelson's clearness of judgment, in political as well as in military matters.
Nelson's services, upon this, his final departure from England, were rather requested by the Government than by him volunteered—in the ordinary sense of the word. He went willingly enough, doubtless, but in obedience, proud and glad, to the summons, not only of the popular cry, but of the Cabinet's wish. "I own I want much more rest," he wrote to Elliot, immediately after joining the fleet off Cadiz; "but it was thought right to desire me to come forth, and I obeyed." "I expected to lay my weary bones quiet for the winter," he told another friend in Naples, "but I ought, perhaps, to be proud of the general call which has made me to go forth." The popularly received account, therefore, derived from Lady Hamilton, of her controlling influence in the matter, may be dismissed as being—if not apocryphal—merely one side of the dealing by which he had to reconcile the claims of patriotic duty with the appeals of the affections. As told by Southey, her part in his decision was as follows: "When Blackwood had left him, he wanted resolution to declare his wishes to Lady Hamilton and his sisters, and endeavoured to drive away the thought. He had done enough, he said: 'Let the man trudge it who has lost his budget!' His countenance belied his lips; and as he was pacing one of the walks in the garden, which he used to call the quarter-deck, Lady Hamilton came up to him, and said she saw he was uneasy. He smiled, and said: 'No, he was as happy as possible; he was surrounded by his family, his health was better since he had been on shore, and he would not give sixpence to call the king his uncle.' She replied, that she did not believe him, that she knew he was longing to get at the combined fleets, that he considered them as his own property, that he would be miserable if any man but himself did the business, and that he ought to have them, as the price and reward of his two years' long watching, and his hard chase. 'Nelson,' said she, 'however we may lament your absence, offer your services; they will be accepted, and you will gain a quiet heart by it; you will have a glorious victory, and then you may return here, and be happy.' He looked at her with tears in his eyes: 'Brave Emma! Good Emma! If there were more Emmas, there would be more Nelsons.' His services were as willingly accepted as they were offered."
The fidelity with which Nelson destroyed Lady Hamilton's letters prevents our knowing just what was her attitude towards his aspirations for glory, and her acquiescence in his perils, in view of the entire dependence of her future upon his life; a dependence such as an honored wife could by no means feel, for the widow of Nelson could rely safely upon the love of the nation. Certain it is that his letters to her contain enough appeals to the sense she should have of his honor, to show that he stood in need of no strengthening at her hands; and it seems legible enough, between the lines, that he had rather to resist the pull of her weakness, or her interest, than to look for encouragement in the path of hardship and self-denial. It is certain, too, that some days before Blackwood arrived, Nelson understood that he might be wanted soon, and avowed his entire willingness to go, while not affecting to conceal his hope that circumstances might permit him to remain until October, the time he had fixed to Collingwood for his return. Whatever the inside history, the matter was quickly settled. On September 3d, the day after Blackwood's arrival, he writes to Rose: "I shall rejoice to see you on board the Victory, if only for a moment; but I shall certainly not be an advocate for being at Portsmouth till one of the Victory's anchors are at the bows."[118] The next day, the 4th, Lord Minto writes: "Lord Nelson has been here to-day. He is going to resume the command of the Mediterranean as soon as the Victory is ready, which will be within a week." On the 5th he himself tells a friend, "All my things are this day going off for Portsmouth."
The ten days that followed were for him, necessarily, very busy; but mental preoccupation—definiteness of object—was always beneficial to him. Even the harassing run to and from the West Indies had done him good. "I am but so-so," he had written to his brother upon arrival; "yet, what is very odd, the better for going to the West Indies, even with the anxiety." To this had succeeded the delightful fortnight at home, and now the animation and stir of expected active service. Minto had already noted his exhilaration amid the general public gloom, and after his death, speaking of these last days, said, "He was remarkably well and fresh, and full of hope and spirit." The care of providing him with adequate force he threw off upon the Admiralty. There was, of course, a consultation between him and it as to the numbers and kind of vessels he thought necessary, but his estimate was accepted without question, and the ships were promised, as far as the resources went. When Lord Barham asked him to select his own officers, he is said to have replied, "Choose yourself, my lord, the same spirit actuates the whole profession; you cannot choose wrong." He did, nevertheless, indicate his wishes in individual cases; and the expression, though characteristic enough of his proud confidence in the officers of the navy, must be taken rather as a resolve not to be burdened with invidious distinctions, than as an unqualified assertion of fact.
Nelson, however, gave one general admonition to the Cabinet which is worthy to be borne in mind, as a broad principle of unvarying application, more valuable than much labored detail. What is wanted, he said, is the annihilation of the enemy—"Only numbers can annihilate."[119] It is brilliant and inspiring, indeed, to see skill and heroism bearing up against enormous odds, and even wrenching victory therefrom; but it is the business of governments to insure that such skill and heroism be more profitably employed, in utterly destroying, with superior forces, the power of the foe, and so compelling peace. No general has won more striking successes over superior numbers than did Napoleon; no ruler has been more careful to see that adequate superiority for his own forces was provided from the beginning. Nelson believed that he had fully impressed the Prime Minister that what was needed now, after two and a half years of colorless war, was not a brilliant victory for the British Navy, but a crushing defeat for the foe. "I hope my absence will not be long," he wrote to Davison, "and that I shall soon meet the combined fleets with a force sufficient to do the job well: for half a victory would but half content me. But I do not believe the Admiralty can give me a force within fifteen or sixteen sail-of-the-line of the enemy; and therefore, if every ship took her opponent, we should have to contend with a fresh fleet of fifteen or sixteen sail-of-the-line. But I will do my best; and I hope God Almighty will go with me. I have much to lose, but little to gain; and I go because it's right, and I will serve the Country faithfully." He doubtless did not know then that Calder, finding Villeneuve had gone to Cadiz, had taken thither the eighteen ships detached with him from the Brest blockade, and that Bickerton had also joined from within the Mediterranean, so that Collingwood, at the moment he was writing, had with him twenty-six of the line. His anticipation, however, was substantially correct. Despite every effort, the Admiralty up to a fortnight before Trafalgar had not given him the number of ships he thought necessary, to insure certain watching, and crushing defeat. He was particularly short of the smaller cruisers wanted.
On the 12th of September Minto took his leave of him. "I went yesterday to Merton," he wrote on the 13th, "in a great hurry, as Lord Nelson said he was to be at home all day, and he dines at half-past three. But I found he had been sent for to Carleton House, and he and Lady Hamilton did not return till half-past five." The Prince of Wales had sent an urgent command that he particularly wished to see him before he left England. "I stayed till ten at night," continues Minto, "and I took a final leave of him. He goes to Portsmouth to-night. Lady Hamilton was in tears all day yesterday, could not eat, and hardly drink, and near swooning, and all at table. It is a strange picture. She tells me nothing can be more pure and ardent than this flame." Lady Hamilton may have had the self-control of an actress, but clearly not the reticence of a well-bred woman.
On the following night Nelson left home finally. His last act before leaving the house, it is said, was to visit the bed where his child, then between four and five, was sleeping, and pray over her. The solemn anticipation of death, which from this time forward deepened more and more over his fearless spirit, as the hour of battle approached, is apparent in the record of his departure made in his private diary:—