The Boys' Nelson

by Harold Wheeler

In describing “our little brush” to his wife, he says it “happened at the moment when part of our Army made their appearance on the hills over Bastia, they having marched over land from St Fiorenzo, which is only twelve miles distant. The General sent an express to Lord Hood at Fiorenzo to tell him of it. What a noble sight it must have been! indeed, on board it was the grandest thing I ever saw. If I had carried with me five hundred troops, to a certainty I should have stormed the Town, and I believe it might have been carried.... You cannot think how pleased Lord Hood has been with my attack on Sunday last, or rather my repelling of an attack which the Enemy made on me.”

Nelson’s ardent temperament, his longing to be up and doing, made him think bitter things of Dundas. He confides to his Journal on the 3rd March 1794 that it is his firm opinion that if the Agamemnon and the attendant frigates could batter down the sea-wall and then land 500 troops they would “to a certainty carry the place.” “God knows what it all means,” he writes to his wife with reference to the general’s retreat. “Lord Hood is gone to St Fiorenzo to the Army, to get them forward again.... My seamen are now what British seamen ought to be, to you I may say it, almost invincible: they really mind shot no more than peas.”

The delay was simply playing into the hands of the enemy, who occupied the time in adding to the defences of the town. One can imagine with what glee Nelson scribbled in his Journal, under date of the 11th March, “Romney joined me from Lord Hood: brought me letters to say that General Dundas was going Home, and that he hoped and trusted the troops would once more move over the Hill.” The crew of the Agamemnon suffered no little privation. “We are absolutely without water, provisions, or stores of any kind, not a piece of canvas, rope, twine, or a nail in the Ship; but we cheerfully submit to it all, if it but turns out for the advantage and credit of our Country.”

Dundas was succeeded by General Abraham D’Aubant, an appointment which gave the Captain of the Agamemnon no satisfaction, for he also thought it improper to attack Bastia. Not to carry to a finish a project already begun was considered by Nelson “a National disgrace.” Hood determined to act contrary to the opinions of his military colleague. “I am to command the Seamen landed from the Fleet,” Nelson tells his brother. “I feel for the honour of my Country, and had rather be beat than not make the attack. If we do not try we never can be successful. I own I have no fears for the final issue: it will be conquest, certain we will deserve it.” “When was a place ever yet taken without an attempt?” he asks Sir William Hamilton. “We must endeavour to deserve success; it is certainly not in our power to command it.... My dear Sir, when was before the time that 2,000 British troops, as good as ever marched, were not thought equal to attack 800 French troops, allowing them to be in strong works? What would the immortal Wolfe have done? as he did, beat the Enemy, if he perished in the attempt. Our Irregulars are surely as good as the Enemy’s; and in numbers we far exceed them. I truly feel sorrow, but I have hope and confidence that all will end well.” Again, “We are but few, but of the right sort: our General at San Fiorenzo not giving us one of the five Regiments he has there lying idle.”

On the 4th April 1794 a definite start was made. Some 1400 troops and sailors, commanded by Lieutenant-Colonel Villettes and Nelson respectively, landed at the tower of Miomo, some three miles to the north of the town. “At noon the Troops encamped about 2,500 yards from the citadel of Bastia, near a high rock.” The night was employed in felling trees for the purpose of constructing an abattis, a temporary defence formed by placing trees with their boughs sharpened to a point in such a position as to obstruct the enemy and at the same time afford a certain amount of cover for the riflemen. The getting up of the guns and ammunition “was performed with an activity and zeal seldom exceeded.” The French began firing on the night of the 9th and kept it up until daylight without inflicting injury on a single man, although the tents were considerably damaged. After sending a flag of truce to no effect, Hood began the siege in earnest on the 11th. On that day the frigate Proselyte was set on fire by the enemy’s red-hot shot, and as her captain could not get her off the shore, he set his ship on fire in several places and burnt her to the water’s edge so that she might not fall into the hands of the hated Frenchmen.

“Only recollect that a brave man dies but once, a coward all his life long,” Nelson writes to his wife at the beginning of May, when fighting was of daily occurrence and many a brave man fell on either side. His only fear was that D’Aubant might alter his mind and advance with his troops “when Bastia is about to surrender, and deprive us of part of our glory.” This is exactly what happened. On the 19th May the troops from San Fiorenzo were seen marching over the hills. Three days later, as the result of negotiations begun by the enemy, the French colours were struck and the Union Jack hoisted, and on the 24th “the most glorious sight that an Englishman can experience, and which, I believe, none but an Englishman could bring about, was exhibited;—4,500 men laying down their arms to less than 1,000 British soldiers, who were serving as Marines.” Nelson gives the number of British killed at 19, wounded 37, and of the enemy 203 killed, wounded 540, “most of whom are dead.” He himself received “a sharp cut in the back.” Not until the end of January 1795 did he confess to his wife that he had information given to him “of the enormous number of Troops we had to oppose us; but my own honour, Lord Hood’s honour, and the honour of our Country, must have all been sacrificed, had I mentioned what I knew; therefore, you will believe, what must have been my feelings during the whole Siege, when I had often proposals made to me by men, now rewarded, to write to Lord Hood to raise the Siege.”

Calvi, in the north-west of Corsica, was next attacked. “Dragging cannon up steep mountains, and carrying shot and shells, has been our constant employment”; “I am very busy, yet own I am in all my glory: except with you, [Mrs Nelson] I would not be any where but where I am, for the world”; “Hallowell[14] and myself take, each one, twenty-four hours of duty at the advanced battery,” are extracts from some of Nelson’s letters and despatches at this period. On the 12th July 1794 he modestly confesses to Hood that “I got a little hurt this morning: not much, as you may judge by my writing,” but in his Journal he notes, “at seven o’clock, I was much bruised in the face and eyes by sand from the works struck by shot.” The “little hurt” proved far otherwise, and Nelson subsequently became permanently blind in the right eye. At the moment he attached little or no importance to the injury: “Hallowell and myself are both well, except my being half blinded by these fellows, who have given me a smart slap in the face, for which I am their debtor, but hope not to be so long”; “My right eye is cut entirely down; but the Surgeons flatter me I shall not entirely lose my sight of that eye. At present I can distinguish light from dark, but no object: it confined me one day, when, thank God, I was enabled to attend to my duty. I feel the want of it; but, such is the chance of War, it was within a hair’s breadth of taking off my head.” To Mrs Nelson he tones down the news considerably: “Except a very slight scratch towards my right eye, I have received no hurt whatever: so you see I am not the worse for Campaigning: but I cannot say I have any wish to go on with it. This day [4th August 1794] I have been four months landed, except a few days when we were after the French Fleet, and I feel almost qualified to pass my examination as a besieging General.”

Nelson not unnaturally felt himself slighted when his name did not appear in the list of wounded. However, he consoled himself by saying, “Never mind, I’ll have a Gazette of my own.”

As the result of negotiations between the enemy and General Stuart, the commander of the 1500 soldiers who had taken part in the siege, the French garrison marched out with the honours of war on the 10th August, a proceeding not at all in keeping with Nelson’s ideas. However, it was not for him to decide, and he had the satisfaction of knowing that he had materially assisted in the conquest of Corsica. He was specially delighted with the thought that in future the enemy’s navy would be deprived of the pine, tar, pitch, and hemp which the island had formerly sent to Toulon.