In the January of that year Nelson’s second daughter was born—another “little Emma,” for, all unknowing of the first, that name commended itself to him. Her life, however, was brief, and the charming mother resumed her gaieties untrammelled. With this, and the threatening of blindness, he had enough to trouble him on his apparently hopeless quest of the French Fleet, and never was his triumphant greatness in public affairs better shown than in that long and dogged patience. He never went ashore from June, 1803, until July, 1805. All his thoughts were concentrated on Emma and on the French Fleet, and in truth they meant the same thing for without the conquest of the one he could not hope to see the other, so firmly were the country’s eyes fixed on him. It is a relief to turn from that hectic life of Emma’s, with its noisy assumption and petty cruelties to the deserted wife, to the pure austerity of his life on the high seas. Gradually, the man was escaping from her clutch, resolving, as a cloud does in approaching the sun, into pure glory. There is a clear wind blowing now, the wind of the great oceans and the noble deeds of men. Who can read the account of that long passionate hope-deferred chase without a pang of sympathy? Let us turn to it.
I who write have heard the tale of it as a child from an old, old man of my own blood, who was serving as a young midshipman in the gallant Captain Parker’s Amazon—Parker, a nephew of the great Lord St. Vincent, Nelson’s teacher and friend. Who could forget that gallant story who has heard it from the lips of one who shared it all? Nelson, misled by a false report that Villeneuve, the French Admiral, was about to attack the West Indies, made what speed he might for the Gulf of Para. Ten sail of the line pursuing eighteen. At Barbados he was reinforced by two line of battleships, and thence made what speed he could for Trinidad.
Reaching the Gulf of Para, he summoned his captains on board the Victory, and my relative accompanied Captain Parker as midshipman of his boat, carrying some official papers with them with which he followed him to the poop. The officers gathered about Nelson, and pointing in the direction of the island, he said:
“The French Fleet is probably there. They have eighteen sail of the line. The Victory will take three. Canopus, Spartiate and Belleisle will take two each, and the rest of you, one apiece. Now, gentlemen, the fleets are equal.”
Yet this was no foolhardiness in spite of its gallantry, for, ship for ship, Nelson’s fleet was more equal to Villeneuve’s than the one which he commanded at the Nile had been to that of Bruey’s. There was the flash in Nelson, but there was also the thunder to back it. That must never be forgotten.
And later, off Toulon, came the same Parker’s famous dash for Lisbon in the Amazon, under Nelson’s orders to avoid Sir John Orde, the Admiral, who, according to the Nelsonic notion, was robbing him of his frigates and too jealously guarding the bounds of his own station to the west. Parker was to avoid his ships like the devil!
“And if it comes to a court martial,” says Nelson with humour in his face, “you shall not be broke though Sir John Orde is my senior officer. I will stand by you. Take your orders and good-bye. And remember, Parker, if you can’t weather that fellow, I shall think you have not a drop of your old uncle’s blood in your veins!”
Off and away went Parker burning with zeal, and as he passed Spartel, lo and behold Sir John Orde’s squadron taking it easy in the moonlight! Parker might have slipped past, but, alas, an outlying frigate, lynx-eyed, commanded by “little good Captain Hoste,” who had borne Nelson’s despatches to Naples after the Battle of the Nile, caught sight of the Amazon lying low and gave chase and had the heels of her. Aboard came Hoste, brimming with Orde’s jealous orders that no ship should proceed to the westward. Parker buttonholed him in his cabin.
“Captain Hoste, I believe you owe all your advancement in the service to my uncle Lord St. Vincent and to Lord Nelson. I am avoiding Sir John Orde’s squadron by desire of Lord Nelson. I must go on.”
Hoste stood dumb and doubting. Parker, being his senior, he could not delay him on his own authority, and with Nelson behind him—! Parker saw the doubt and continued: “After all, would it not be better if you were not to meet the Amazon to-night, Captain Hoste?” Silence. Hoste went quietly over the side and back to his own ship in the moonlight. He had not met the Amazon. Mahan tells this story finely, but it is something to have heard of the Villeneuve chase from a man who took part in it.