“My object was to get to Revel before the frost broke up at Cronstadt, that the twelve Sail of the Line might be destroyed,” he writes to Addington, Pitt’s successor as Prime Minister, on the 5th May. “I shall now go there as a friend, but the two Fleets shall not form a junction, if not already accomplished, unless my orders permit it.” “My little trip into the Gulf of Finland,” he tells Lord St Vincent, “will be, I trust, of National benefit, and I shall be kind or otherwise, as I find the folks.” Revel harbour was bare when he entered it, the squadron having sailed for Cronstadt a few days before. However, on the 17th May, he was able to inform Vansittart, “I left Revel this morning where everybody has been kind to us.” He eventually returned to Kiöge Bay, where he remained until he was relieved at his own request owing to ill-health. “I have been even at Death’s door, apparently in a consumption,” he tells Ball, probably with a touch of exaggeration. On the 19th June he set sail in a brig for home, arriving at Yarmouth on the first day of the following month. His last act before he quitted the fleet was to congratulate the men on the work they had accomplished; his first act when he stepped on shore was to visit the hospitals to which the wounded had been conveyed after the battle of Copenhagen. As for his own reward, the King had seen fit to create him Viscount Nelson of the Nile and Burnham Thorpe.
“Let us think of them that sleep
Full many a fathom deep
By thy wild and stormy deep
Elsinore!”
CHAPTER XVI
The Threatened Invasion of England
(1801)
“Our Country looks to its Sea defence, and let it not be disappointed.”
Nelson.
However much Nelson may have appreciated the visits to London, Box Hill, and Staines, which he now made in the company of Sir William and Lady Hamilton, it was soon evident that his stay on shore would be short. No home ties were severed when he was appointed to a special service on the 24th July 1801, for he had finally separated from his wife six months before. It was a mistaken match in every way. Although it is often said that people of opposite temperaments make the best partners in marriage, it certainly was not so in the case of Nelson and Mrs Nisbet. Some of the reasons for the unhappiness of both have been given in a previous chapter, the prime cause was Lady Hamilton, for whom Nelson continued to entertain a mad infatuation until the day he died. Quite naturally and legitimately Lady Nelson resented the conduct of her husband. Any woman would have done the same. Angry words were spoken on both sides, leading to the final and irrevocable breach, but it is characteristic of Nelson’s generous nature that on their last interview he said: “I call God to witness there is nothing in you or your conduct I wish otherwise.” He was no less generous in the allowance which he made to her.
For some months Napoleon had been intent on the building of a flotilla for the invasion of England. All manner of wild rumours had spread throughout the country as to the imminent peril of the United Kingdom, but we now know that the First Consul’s scheme was comparatively insignificant when compared to his enormous ship-building programme of 1803–5 for the same purpose.[60] Indeed, a month before Lord St Vincent, then First Lord of the Admiralty, communicated to Admiral Lutwidge, the Commander-in-chief in the Downs, that his command would be impinged upon to some extent by Nelson’s new post, and that the enemy’s preparations were “beginning to wear a very serious appearance,” Napoleon had already postponed his plan. This is made abundantly clear by the First Consul’s order of the 23rd June to Augereau, in command of the Army of Batavia: “You will receive instructions for the formation at Flushing of five divisions of gunboats, which, added to the sixteen divisions in Channel ports, will impose on England.” Napoleon perfectly understood that the moment for “leaping the ditch” had not yet arrived. Of the Navy proper at the beginning of 1801 Great Britain had no fewer than 127 sail-of-the-line in commission; France had forty-nine, many in an almost unseaworthy condition. The Admiralty was not to know of the letter to Augereau or of the exact state of the French marine. Boulogne, Calais, and Dunkirk, the ports of concentration, sheltered some 150 boats of various descriptions for the purpose of the projected expedition, and England could afford to run no risks.
Nelson’s command extended from Orfordness, in Suffolk, to Beachy Head, in Sussex. The specific purpose of his squadron was to defend the mouths of the Thames and Medway, and of the coasts of Sussex, Kent, and Essex. He speedily grasped the situation, and surmising that London ought to be the enemy’s object, informed the Admiralty that not only should “A great number of Deal and Dover Boats” be available off Boulogne to “give notice of the direction taken by the enemy,” but that gunboats and flat boats should be kept near Margate and Ramsgate, between Orfordness and the North Foreland, and in Hollesley Bay, these to be aided by floating batteries. “If it is calm when the Enemy row out, all our Vessels and Boats appointed to watch them, must get into the Channel, and meet them as soon as possible: if not strong enough for the attack, they must watch, and keep them company till a favourable opportunity offers. If a breeze springs up,” he goes on, “our Ships are to deal destruction; no delicacy can be observed on this great occasion. But should it remain calm, and our Flotilla not fancy itself strong enough to attack the Enemy on their passage, the moment that they begin to touch our shore, strong or weak, our Flotilla of Boats must attack as much of the Enemy’s Flotilla as they are able—say only one half or two-thirds; it will create a most powerful diversion, for the bows of our Flotilla will be opposed to their unarmed sterns, and the courage of Britons will never, I believe, allow one Frenchman to leave the Beach.” When the enemy comes in sight the various divisions of the flotilla “are to unite, but not intermix.” “Never fear the event.” These notions, embodied in a lengthy Memorandum to the Admiralty, are remarkable because Nelson prophesies “a powerful diversion by the sailing of the Combined Fleet,” a plan developed by Napoleon in the later phase of his gigantic preparations for the invasion of our country. Whatever may have been in his mind in 1801 regarding this scheme he certainly did not confide to any of his admirals or military commanders.