The Admiral: A Romance of Nelson in the Year of the Nile

by Douglas Brooke Wheelton Sladen

For the purpose of attacking the convoy, he divided our own fleet into three squadrons: the Vanguard, the Minotaur, the 50-gun ship Leander, the Audacious, the Defence, and the Zealous under himself; the Orion, Goliath, Majestic, and Bellerophon under Captain Saumarez; and the Culloden, Alexander, Swiftsure, and Theseus under Captain Troubridge. Two of these squadrons were to engage the ships of war, no matter what their force, while the third was to dash among the transports and sink and destroy as many as it could. The scene, even to a man-of-war’s-man, is awful to picture. Transport after transport settling down by the head or stern, the water covered with their boats and black with struggling men; Buonaparte, if he were not already on the largest warship, fleeing to it; half the British war-ships engaging every French fighting-ship till they sank themselves or had sunk, taken or driven their antagonists to desert the convoy, and the others running in among the transports and thrashing them down like apples off a tree.

But it was not to be so: the Admiral’s prophecy was literally fulfilled as far as that convoy, the most momentous which ever left the shores of France, was concerned—“no frigates; to which has been and may again be attributed the loss of the French fleet.”

You may imagine how it weighed upon such a mind, to have the élite of my Lord St. Vincent’s fleet under his command for some weeks, and with the enemy about to strike some vital blow—and yet no sign of him! He wrote to Troubridge—“Do not fret at anything: I wish I never had; but my return to Syracuse in 1798 broke my heart, which on any extraordinary anxiety now shows itself—be that feeling pain or pleasure”; and again, “On the 18th I had near died with the swellings of some of the vessels of the heart. More people, perhaps, die of broken hearts than we are aware of.” And he wrote to his chief, Lord St. Vincent: “Every moment I have to regret the frigates having left me. Your lordship deprived yourself of frigates to make mine certainly the first squadron in the world, and I feel that I have zeal and activity to do credit to your appointment, and yet to be unsuccessful hurts me most sensibly. But if they are above water I will find them out, and if possible bring them to battle. You have done your part in giving me so fine a fleet, and I hope to do mine in making use of them.” And added to this he had the mortification of seeing the Neapolitan Government, whose forces were hardly worthy a place in the line of battle, refusing supplies which was the one service they could perform for the allies without whose fleet they felt like children left in the dark to wolves. The loss of frigates by the pusillanimity of the commander, who returned to Gibraltar because he thought that Nelson must give up, being baffled as to the whereabouts of the French fleet, the ingratitude of the Neapolitans, the malignity of Admirals Parker and Orde, who had been passed over because the safety of Europe depended on the fleet’s winning a decisive victory, weighed heavily on the Admiral’s spirits, and brought on that irritability and sickness which so frequently followed inaction and disappointment in this extraordinary fighter. But for some reason, the fair wind which carried us out of the great harbour of Syracuse blew away these vapours from his brain. He augured that we were on the scent, and the confidence and cheerfulness borne of good omens returned to him. We had a fine stiff sailing breeze, and he crowded on every stitch of canvas we could use, although the flagship, which had never been properly repaired since the gale which had dismasted her off Toulon, was hardly in a condition to bear it. We stood straight for Cerigo, which is the island that lies at the foot of the Morea, as some island lies broken off at the foot of every peninsula. As we neared the Gulf of Koron, having no frigates, the Culloden was detailed to enter it for intelligence; and on her return the next day she brought with her a French brig, and information that the enemy’s fleet had been seen steering south-east from Kandia about fourteen days before. And on the same day Captain Ball of the Alexander obtained the like intelligence from a vessel passing close to the fleet. The Admiral immediately bore up under all sail for Alexandria. We left Syracuse on July 25th, and made such an extraordinary passage that on the evening of the 31st the Admiral made the signal for the fleet to close, we being so near Alexandria. Early on the morning of the 1st, we having no frigates, the Alexander and the Swiftsure were sent ahead to look out; and “at ten a.m. the Alexander made a signal supposed for the land, all the fleet in company.” At four o’clock the Pharos Tower was visible in that clear atmosphere, from where I was standing by the Admiral on the poop, though it was at the distance of four or five leagues to the south-south-west. The Admiral was by this time extraordinarily anxious in scanning every ship in the fleet, and the whole horizon with the eye of an eagle.

Suddenly I saw what I can only describe as a holy joy beam over his face. The Zealous was signalling, and almost before the signalling began he cried out, “My God! it’s the French.”

Sure enough it was the French. And as the signal blew out stiff on the north-west wind—“the French fleet, sixteen sail of the line”—a thrill of joy went through every soul in the ship, and, I can swear, in all the other ships. Men laughed and cried; their hearts were too full for them to cheer. There was but one thought in every breast, that the Lord had delivered the French into the hands of Gideon—Gideon, the little man with only one arm and one eye, and half a constitution, over whom I, the midshipman, standing by his side to take orders, towered.

His first order was a most characteristic one: “Send for Mr. Hardres—this is a moment at which no fighting man should be in disgrace.” His next was to order dinner to be prepared. That we should fight, every one in the fleet took for granted. It was not the Admiral’s habit to leave the enemy time to prepare. To force them to risk he would take any risk himself. In those latitudes, where there is no twilight, day drops dead into night, even on an August day, before seven of the clock. It would be as much as we could do to lay alongside of them before nightfall. We should have to fight them in absolute darkness. But the Admiral reckoned every difficulty in his favour. He had some opinion of French gunnery, but none of their courage as seamen; while of his own captains he had the highest opinion, and placed the firmest reliance on them for valour and conduct. It had been his practice during the whole of the cruise, whenever the weather and circumstances would permit, to have his captains on board the Vanguard, where he would fully develop to them his own ideas as to the different and best modes of attack, and such plans as he proposed to execute upon falling in with the enemy, whatever their position or situation might be, by day or by night. There was no possible position which could be found that he did not take into his calculation, and for the most advantageous attack of which he had not digested or arranged the best possible disposition of the force which he commanded. With the masterly ideas of the Admiral, therefore, on the subject of naval tactics every one of the captains was most thoroughly acquainted; and upon surveying the situation of the enemy they could ascertain with precision what were his ideas and intentions without the aid of any further instructions, by which means signals became almost unnecessary, much time was saved, and the attention of every captain could almost undistractedly be paid to the conduct of his particular ship—a circumstance from which upon this occasion the advantages to the general service were almost incalculable.

We found the enemy laying at anchor in line of battle in a bay upon the larboard, which we afterwards knew to be Aboukir Bay. Having given his orders about Will and the dinner with apparent unconcern, of which I doubt not, now, he had judged the moral effect, he turned to the Captain—“Haul on the wind, Berry!”

A top-gallant breeze was blowing, and the Captain gave orders to take in the royals as we hauled upon the wind. The whole squadron followed suit except the Alexander and Swiftsure, which were some miles to the eastward, scouting; and the Culloden, which was some miles to the westward, towing a prize of which the whole fleet had been talking till it saw the tall masts of the French—a vessel loaded with wine.

“Signal the Alexander and Swiftsure,” said the Admiral; his quick eye had seen that Troubridge had already divined and cast off the wine brig. “Signal, ‘Prepare for battle—attack the van and centre.’”

Every captain knew that the Admiral’s idea was to crush the enemy’s van and centre as they lay at anchor, according to the oft-discussed plan, and then make the best use he could of the victory. Each ship got a bower cable out abaft and bent it forward. We stood in close line of battle, every ship sounding all the time carefully. There was not a chart of the Bay in the whole fleet, except a rude sketch taken by Captain Hallowell in a prize. The French were lying under the shelter of the cape, and with the head of their van up to the island, which had a battery of guns and mortars, and they were flanked by numerous gunboats and four frigates.