Nelson the Commander
Page 27
Villeneuve had had the good fortune to learn as soon as 1 April that the British were to the south of Sardinia instead of, as he had been tricked into believing, off the Costa Brava. He immediately changed course to pass down the Spanish coast instead of to the east of the Balearics. On the 6th he was off Cartagena, to find that not one of Rear-Admiral Salcedo's six ships-of-the-line was ready for sea. Rather than wait for reinforcements of doubtful value, he pressed on to pass Gibraltar on the 8th.
This news reached Nelson the day after he had decided that the French must be leaving the Mediterranean. Although his opponent had gained a ten days start, he was determined that his long watch should not be in vain. But where was Villeneuve bound: whither should he pursue him? Some six months before, on 6 September 1804, Nelson had written: 'Suppose the Toulon fleet . . . gets out of the Straits, I rather think I should bend my course to the westward; for if they carry 7,000 men . . . St Lucia, Grenada, St Vincent, Antigua and St Kitts would fall, and . . . England would be . . . clamorous for peace.' But now he reverted to his earlier belief that Villeneuve would head north to join Ganteaume off the entrance to the Channel. He told the Admiralty, where the seventy-eight-year-old Admiral Lord Barham (who as Sir Charles Middleton had been Controller of the Navy Board from 1778 to 1790) had recently succeeded Melville as First Lord: 'If I receive no intelligence to do away with my proud belief, I shall proceed from Cape St Vincent and take my position 50 leagues west from [the] Scillies. . . . My reason is that it is equally easy to get . . . off Brest or to go to Ireland, should [my] fleet be wanted at either station.' But contrary winds delayed his progress towards Gibraltar; not until 20 April did he sight the Rock and learn that Villeneuve had passed Cadiz on 9 April when his fleet had been reinforced by the Aigle and by Vice-Admiral Don Federico Gravina's six ships-of-the-line - and that, to Nelson's anger, his bete noire, Orde, had taken his squadron north to reinforce Cornwallis's guard on the Channel approaches instead of keeping track of Villeneuve's fleet.
On 5 May Nelson anchored off Gibraltar to replenish his ships with water and victuals, when rumours reached him from Cadiz that Villeneuve's combined fleets were heading for the Caribbean. This almost decided him: as he sailed for Lagos Bay, after detaching Bickerton with the Royal Sovereign and a squadron of frigates for operations in the Mediterranean, he wrote: 'If I hear nothing [more], I shall proceed to the West Indies.'
Nelson did not, however, have to depend on rumours alone. En route to Lagos Rear-Admiral Donald Campbell, of the Portuguese Navy, gave him the sure news that Villeneuve was indeed crossing the Atlantic (for which unneutral act Campbell was subsequently dismissed his command at the instigation of the French Ambassador in Lisbon). Villeneuve had, moreover, now gained as much as a month's start. But Nelson was no more deterred by this from following him than by the reflection that his fleet of nine sail-of-the-line, was only half the strength of his enemy's. 'Although I am late,' he told Ball, 'yet chance may have given them a bad passage, and me a good one.' His optimism received no support. Three days after his fleet left Lagos on 11 May under all sail to the west, Villeneuve reached Martinique having crossed the Atlantic in thirty-four days, after nothing more eventful than a brisk canonnade with the Diamond Rock.
So the French were already in the West Indies by the time the British sighted Madeira on the 15th. Nelson sent a frigate to warn Cochrane of his impending arrival in the Windward and Leeward Islands, which he had first visited as a midshipman of only thirteen summers, which he had come to know so well as a young frigate captain, but which he had not seen again since 1787. He hoped that on reaching Barbados, he would be reinforced by the Rear-Admiral's six ships-of-the-line. But when he anchored off Georgetown on 4 June he found only two; the others had been held at Jamaica. If only he could have countered this disappointment by reading Napoleon's estimate of his whereabouts: 'I am . . . of opinion that Nelson is still in European waters. . . . He must have gone back to England to revictual, and to turn over his crews to other ships; for his vessels require docking, and his squadron may be supposed to be in a very bad condition.' So, indeed, it was; yet with captains of the quality of Nelson's, and manned by British seamen, it had crossed the Atlantic in twenty-four days, ten less than Villeneuve, having averaged five knots with studding sails set and 'the little Superb . . . lagging all the way'.
'I am fearful that you think [wrote Nelson to Captain Richard Keats] the Superb does not go as fast as I could wish. However that may be (for if we all went ten knots I should not think it fast enough), yet I would have you assured that I know and feel that the Superb does all that which is possible for a ship to accomplish; and I desire that you will not fret upon the occasion.'
Such words epitomize Nelson's greatness as a leader: commendation is so much more effective than condemnation.
From the date of their arrival at Fort Royal, 14 May 1805, Villeneuve and Gravina were instructed to wait up to forty days for Ganteaume to join them. During this period Villeneuve 'did not propose to go in search of the enemy. I. . . wish to avoid him in order to arrive at my destination [Boulogne].' He was, however, to do as much harm as possible to British interests. Wiser than Missiessy, he began with the Diamond Rock; a three-day bombardment, from 31 May to 2 June, exhausted Commander James Maurice's ammunition and compelled him to surrender. But no sooner had this success been achieved than a frigate arrived with fresh order from France. Ganteaume had not yet managed to leave Brest without contravening Napoleon's explicit instructions, comparable with Villeneuve's, to 'go to sea without fighting'. For all his greatness as a military commander, the Emperor's concept of naval strategy, coupled with his poor opinion of most of his admirals, was evasion, even when his fleets were stronger than the enemy's. Had he required them to attack, they might have so weakened the British Fleet that his plans for seizing Egypt, for conquering India and for invading England would have ended differently.
Villeneuve was now to stay in the West Indies for thirty-five days, seizing Antigua, St Vincent and Grenada before returning to Ferrol. Either there or earlier, he and Gravina would be joined by Ganteaume. Accordingly, on 4 June 1805, Villeneuve's combined fleets stood south to attack Antigua, after collecting at Guadaloupe Rear-Admiral Magon de Medine's two ships of-the-line which had managed to slip out of Rochefort. But on nearing his destination four days later the French Commander-in-Chief learned from a passing American schooner of a British convoy homeward bound to the NNE. He immediately gave chase, with significant consequences; before nightfall he had not only captured fifteen prizes (burnt by their escort before they could reach the safety of Guadaloupe to prevent them being retaken by the British) but learned of Nelson's arrival.
Since this exaggerated the size of the British fleet, Villeneuve decided to abandon all further attacks on the West Indies. He had achieved his chief purpose, that of drawing a substantial enemy force away from Europe. He had no confidence in the Brest fleet escaping in time to join him within the stipulated period - a just belief since Ganteaume made only one half-hearted attempt on 4 April before, on 20 May, Napoleon ordered him to await Villeneuve's return before trying again. Rather than risk an encounter with Nelson so far from home, he would best serve his Emperor's object, the invasion of England, if he returned at once. As soon as 30 June Villeneuve and Gravina, with their eighteen sail-of-the line, passed north of the Azores on their way back to European waters.
Nelson's intentions were very different: if he could find Villeneuve's fleet he would attack it, overcoming the considerable disparity in numbers by the tactics that had won him the Nile and Copenhagen, by concentrating his eleven ships-of-the-line against one part of the enemy's; and when this had been crushed, dealing with the disorganized and demoralized remainder.
All his instinct told him to seek the enemy at Martinique, but when, at Barbados, he received substantial intelligence from General Brereton, commanding the troops at St Lucia, that 'it was apparently clear that the enemy had gone south' to attack Trinidad and Tobago, he felt compell
ed to pursue them there. Not until he arrived off Trinidad on 7 June did he learn that he had been misled, and so turn north again to hear from Dominica on the 9th that Villeneuve's fleet had passed by only three days before. 'But for false information,' he wrote, 'I should have been off Fort Royal as they were putting to sea; and our battle, most probably, would have been fought on the spot where the brave Rodney beat de Grasse.' As it was he reached Antigua just three days after Villeneuve's attack on the sugar convoy. 'O General Brereton! General Brereton!' he wrote to the First Secretary of the Admiralty; and to Davison: 'But for his damned information Nelson would have been, living or dead, the greatest man in his profession that England ever saw.'
If this be vanity, who shall criticize for it the man who then so swiftly, and with such uncanny strategic insight decided his next move. Where had Villeneuve now gone? Back to Fort Royal? To attack some other British island? From all the information available to him, and not least the fact that in the three weeks since his arrival in the Caribbean his opponent had attempted so little, Nelson believed that he was more likely to be returning to Europe than planning further operations in the West Indies. 'So far from being infallible, like the Pope, I believe my opinions to be very fallible, and therefore I may be mistaken that the enemy's fleet has gone to Europe; but I cannot bring myself to think otherwise.' And to Addington: 'My opinion is firm as a rock, that some cause, orders, or inability to perform any service in these seas, has made them resolve to proceed direct for Europe.' This news he sent post haste by the brig Curieux to Plymouth and Whitehall; then, with undaunted tenacity, steered his ships-of-the-line to the eastward in pursuit of an elusive foe whom he had been so near to catching in the Caribbean, and who now had only five days' start of him. And, 'if we meet them . . . we won't part without a battle'.
But was Villeneuve on a course for Ireland? For the Channel? For Ferrol? Or for Cadiz? Since the first three of these were adequately guarded by Cornwallis, Nelson's clear duty was to cover Cadiz and the possibility that the Toulon fleet might re-enter the Mediterranean. So he steered to pass through the Azores, with the consequence that as one disappointing day succeeded another, he saw no enemy sail. Nor after he sighted Cape St Vincent on 17 July, could his old friend Collingwood, now a vice-admiral of the blue, who with six sail-of-the-line had taken Orde's place off Cadiz, give him any news. And, when he called at Gibraltar for provisions and 'went on shore for the first time since 16 June 1803; and from having my foot out of the Victory, two years wanting ten days', he could only confirm that Villeneuve had neither entered Cadiz nor passed through the Straits.
Where then was the French fleet? He must have outpaced it as he had once outpaced Brueys. As soon as his ships were ready, on 24 July, Nelson bore away to the westward to renew his search in the Atlantic. Ten days later, on 3 August, an American merchantman provided him with positive evidence that Villeneuve had steered for a more northerly destination. Swinging round to the north, Nelson fell in with the Channel fleet off Ushant on the 15th. Then and there Cornwallis told him of all that had happened since the Curieux arrived at Plymouth bearing not only Nelson's despatch reporting that Villeneuve must be returning to Europe but, from a chance sighting en route, the news that he was doing so.
Barham and his Senior Naval Lord recognized the vital importance of this report as soon as they received it; the former might be near to his eightieth birthday but he had lost none of his capacity for speedy and decisive action. Urgent orders were hurried to Cornwallis requiring the five ships-of-the-line off Rochefort to join the ten with which Calder was watching Ferrol. Thus strengthened to fifteen sail-of-the-line, Calder was to intercept Villeneuve 100 miles west of Cape Finisterre, while Cornwallis continued his watch on Brest.
This redeployment should have paid a rich dividend. As soon as 11 am on 22 July Calder located Villeneuve's fleet on course for Ferrol; and although outnumbered, he did not hesitate to attack the enemy. But the wind was light, which delayed a general engagement until 6 pm, and the weather so misty that the result was a confused melée. However, by the time darkness compelled a cease-fire, Calder had gained a tactical victory with an inferior force; though several British ships had suffered considerable damage to their masts and yards, two Spaniards had struck their colours. But Calder made no attempt to follow up this success. When dawn next day revealed the two fleets scattered but still in sight of each other, with their centres some seventeen miles apart, he was chiefly con-cerned to succour his partially crippled ships and to save his prizes from an enemy who might at any time be reinforced from Rochefort and Ferrol. As Villeneuve headed his fleet away to the south-south-east, Calder did no more than keep in touch until, at 6 pm on the 24th Villeneuve had drawn so far ahead that the two fleets lost sight of each other (a feat which earned him this verdict from Napoleon: 'I consider that Villeneuve has not the courage to command even a frigate. He is a man without resolution or moral courage.')
Calder, after sending his two worst damaged ships and his prizes to Plymouth, then made for Ferrol where he resumed his blockade on the 29th; where, too, he learned that Villeneuve had taken his fleet into Vigo on the 28th, whence he had slipped round to Ferrol on 1 August. Cornwallis then required Calder to detach five of his remaining thirteen ships-of-the-line to resume the blockade of Rochefort. And when this was followed by the news that as many as twenty-nine French and Spanish ships-of-the-line were ready for sea in and near Ferrol - more than thrice his own strength - Calder decided to lift his blockade and rejoin Cornwallis on 14 August.
All this Nelson learned twenty-four hours later. Since both enemy fleets were now in the area for which Cornwallis was responsible, his superior agreed that the Victory and the Superb should be detached to Spithead. There, wearied, dispirited, and in sore need of rest, Nelson struck his flag on 19 August 1805 and proceeded on the leave which the Admiralty had approved more than nine months before. Next day at Merton, after a separation that had lasted for two years and three months, he was reunited with Emma, and the four-year-old Horatia who, since Hamilton's death, had been able to live with her mother.
He had already written from Gibraltar: 'I have brought home no honour for my Country, only a most faithful servant; nor any riches . . . but . . . a faithful and honourable heart.' But others saw his achievements in a different light. Elliot, writing from his post at Naples, was one:
'Either the distances between the different quarters of the globe are diminished, or you have extended the powers of human action. After an unremitting cruise of two long years in the stormy Gulf of Lions, to have proceeded without going into port to Alexandria, from Alexandria to the West Indies, from the West Indies back again to Gibraltar; to have kept your ships afloat, your rigging standing, and your crews in health and spirits - is an effort such as never was realized in former times, nor, I doubt, will ever again be repeated by any other admiral. You have protected us for two long years, and you have saved the West Indies.'
In sum, and to conclude this chapter, even if Nelson had never fought a battle, his unbroken watch on Toulon followed immediately by his relentless pursuit of Villeneuve across the Atlantic and back again, would rank him among the ablest of Britain's naval commanders.
XI Cape Trafalgar 1805 (1)
Merton was all that Nelson expected. Lord Minto - 'went [there] on Saturday [24 August 1805] and found [him] just sitting down to dinner, surrounded by a family party, of his [elder] brother, . . . [and his wife], their children, and the children of a sister. Lady Hamilton at the head of the table, and Mother Cadogan [Emma's mother] at the bottom. I had a hearty welcome. He looks remarkably well and full of spirits. His conversation is a cordial in these low times. Lady Hamilton has improved and added to the house and the place extremely well. . . . She is a clever woman after all: the passion is as hot as ever.'
This reveals much, but more telling in the context of this book is the future Duke of Wellington's account of this chance meeting on 13 September:
'Lord Nelson was, in different c
ircumstances, two quite different men as I myself can vouch, though I only saw him once in my life . . . for perhaps an hour. It was soon after my return from India. I went to the Colonial Office . . . and there I was shown into the little waiting room . . . where I found, also waiting to see the Secretary of State, a gentleman whom, from his likeness to his pictures and the loss of an arm, I immediately recognized. . . . He could not know who I was, but he entered at once into conversation with me . . . all about himself, and in . . . a style so vain and so silly as to surprise and almost disgust me.
I suppose something that I happened to say may have made him guess that I was somebody, and he went out of the room for a moment . . . no doubt to ask the office-keeper who I was, for when he came back he was altogether a different man. . . . All that I had thought a charlatan style had vanished, and he talked of this country and . . . of affairs on the Continent with a good sense, and a knowledge of subjects both at home and abroad that surprised me equally and more agreeably than the first part of our interview . . . he talked like an officer and a statesman. . . . I don't know that I ever had a conversation that interested me more.
Now, if the Secretary of State had been punctual, and admitted Lord Nelson in the first quarter of an hour, I should have had the same impression of a light and trivial character that other people have had; but luckily I saw enough to be satisfied that he was really a very superior man.'
Nelson hoped that he would be allowed to stay at Merton for several months before returning to his command: he needed time to restore his health and strength. But he was under no illusions about the critical situation across the Channel: 'I hold myself ready,' he wrote after only a fortnight in England, 'to go forth whenever I am desired. . . . God knows I want rest; but self is entirely out of the question.' Though 'the passion was as hot as ever', it had not since his return from the Mediterranean in 1801, been unrestrained, nor had it distorted his judgement. As significant, and again since 1801, he no longer sought honour and glory: conscious that he had gained a pre-eminent reputation, that both the Establishment (although they condemned his treatment of Fanny and his life with Emma) and the People (who were little concerned with his private life), believed him to be the only man who could thwart Napoleon's pretensions at sea, he now had but one ambition, to do his duty. Southey's story (in his Life of Nelson) that Emma had to plead with him to leave her when, in the event, the summons came early in September, has no substance: the truth is contained in a letter which she wrote to Lady Bolton when his stay at Merton was curtailed to only twenty-four days: 'I am again broken-hearted, as our dear Nelson is immediately going. . . . But what can I do? His powerful arm is of so much consequence to his Country.'