CHAPTER XVII
The Vigil off Toulon
(1803)
“I shall follow them to the Antipodes.”
Nelson.
For over a year Nelson spent the greater part of his time at Merton Place or at 23 Piccadilly, Sir William Hamilton’s town house. Any monotony there may have been was relieved by a tour of beautiful Wales, made in the months of July and August 1802, when Nelson’s spirits had recovered somewhat from the news of his father’s death at Bath on the 26th of the previous April. The old clergyman’s distinguished son was ill at the time and did not attend the last sad ceremony in the quiet churchyard of Burnham Thorpe, where Nelson said he hoped his bones would eventually be laid to rest, a wish never to be fulfilled. His father, who called Merton “the Mansion of Peace,” had entertained the idea of becoming “one of its inhabitants,” and rooms had been prepared for him. “Sir William and myself are both old men, and we will witness the hero’s felicity in retirement.” Such was his desire.
On their journey to the Principality Nelson was presented with the freedom of Oxford, and both Sir William and the Admiral had the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws conferred upon them by the University. A visit was also paid to Blenheim, the ancestral seat of the Dukes of Marlborough. Gloucester, Ross, Monmouth, Brecon, Milford, Haverfordwest, Swansea, Worcester, Birmingham, Warwick and other provincial cities and towns each accorded its distinguished visitor a most enthusiastic welcome. He afterwards drew up an elaborate report on the Forest of Dean for Mr Addington’s inspection. Properly cultivated it would, in Nelson’s opinion, “produce about 9200 loads of timber, fit for building Ships-of-the-line, every year.” Collingwood, it may be added, was also deeply interested in afforestation. During the rare occasions he was on shore he would walk about his estate and stealthily take an acorn from his pocket and drop it in the earth for later service in his Majesty’s Navy.
On his return to Surrey Nelson vegetated. “I am really so very little in the world,” he tells Davison in October, “that I know little, if anything, beyond [what] Newspaper reports say respecting our conduct on the affairs of the Continent. It is true, I have seen Mr Addington and Lord St Vincent several times; but our conversations were like Swift’s and Lord Oxford’s. Yet it was not difficult to discover, that we felt our importance in the scale of Europe degraded, if Buonaparte was allowed to act as he has lately done; and that it was necessary for us to speak a dignified language.... By the meeting of Parliament many things must come forth.”
The Hamilton-Nelson family forsook Merton for Piccadilly at the beginning of 1803, and there Sir William died on the 6th April, after having been tenderly nursed by his wife and her more than intimate friend. It is impossible to think that the Admiral had any heartfelt sorrow when the former Ambassador breathed his last, but his emotional nature led him to write the kindest things of the dead man. “The world never, never lost a more upright and accomplished gentleman” is one of his expressions at the event.
The Truce of Amiens, for it was nothing more, was described by George III. as “an experimental peace.” Neither side kept strictly to the letter of the Treaty. Before the brilliant illuminations on both sides of the Channel had been entirely forgotten statesmen began to shake their heads and to prophecy the withdrawing of the sword from the scabbard. Napoleon’s continued aggressions on the Continent, his great colonial schemes, his restless activity in matters which did not directly concern him, his threat to invade England showed how unreal were his wishes for a settled understanding. Great Britain declared war on the 16th May 1803, thus ending a peace which had lasted one year and sixteen days. An embargo was immediately laid on French ships and those of her allies in British ports or on the sea; Napoleon had been forestalled, an unusual occurrence. He had admitted to Decaen, who had been sent to India to sum up the political situation and to ascertain the number of troops necessary for the subjugation of England’s oriental Empire, that he anticipated war would not break out before September 1804. He was annoyed, intensely annoyed, and ordered the seizure of every Briton in France on the pretext that two merchant vessels had been captured by English frigates before the declaration of war. This was a gross misrepresentation of facts; the ships mentioned were taken on the 18th May, the day Nelson hoisted his flag on the Victory at Portsmouth as Commander-in-chief of the Mediterranean. Within forty-eight hours he was at sea. His was a tremendous programme, and it is only possible to give an epitome of it here. He was to proceed to Malta, where he would probably find Rear-Admiral Sir Richard Bickerton and his squadron, which were to join him. After having made arrangements with Sir Alexander Ball for the protection and security of the island, Nelson was to take up such a position off Toulon as would enable him to destroy the enemy’s vessels and to detain those belonging to the allied Batavian Republic. Particular attention was to be paid to the proceedings of the French at Genoa, Leghorn, and other ports of western Italy, “for the purpose of gaining the most early information of any armaments that may be formed there, either with a view to an attack upon Egypt or any other port of the Turkish dominions, or against the kingdoms of Naples and Sicily, or the islands of Corfu.” Should such a plan be in contemplation Nelson was to do his best to counteract it, “as well as to afford to the Sublime Porte, and his Sicilian Majesty and their subjects, any protection or assistance which may be in your power, consistently with a due attention to the other important objects entrusted to your care.”