Nelson

by John Sugden

  For at home the Royal Navy was in turmoil. That April, with invasion forces still massing across the channel in the Texel, news began to spread across the country that chilled hearts everywhere. The Channel fleet, Albion’s shield against her greatest enemy, had mutinied.

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  At Spithead the men refused to put to sea. Instead, they manned the shrouds and cheered. Red flags were run up aboard the striking ships, and delegates were elected to represent the grievances of the seamen. There, and at Plymouth, the protest was both disciplined and restrained, though in due course the mutineers turned unpopular officers out of the ships. The seamen called attention to their beggarly pay, the inequitable division of prize money, poor victuals and deficiencies in the treatment of the sick and wounded. The government acceded to some of the men’s demands, and granted a general pardon, but disaffection, once sown, was difficult to contain. A more brutal and unfocused outbreak occurred at the Nore in May, and it spread to the fleet in the North Sea, where most of the ships refused to serve and put back to England.

  Nelson had lost none of his notions of mutual obligation on the part of ruled and rulers, and readily understood the distinctions between the men at Spithead and the Nore. The former were fundamentally loyal seamen protesting the failure of government to discharge its duties to them; the latter, in his view, were Jacobin poltroons. As he dared to enlighten an outraged Duke of Clarence, the Spithead ‘mutiny’ was, in his view, ‘the most manly thing I ever heard of, and does the British sailor infinite honour. It is extraordinary that there never was a regulation by authority in short weights and measures, and it reflects on all of us.’ Others received similar homilies. To Jervis’s flag captain Nelson deplored the way common seamen were sometimes issued inferior rations. ‘I take care as far as my power goes that no difference in the issue of provisions is made between the officers and men, which must ever breed discontent,’ he said. More pointedly Dixon Hoste learned, ‘I am entirely with the [Spithead] seamen in their first complaint. We are a neglected set, and when peace comes are shamefully treated. But for the Nore scoundrels, I should be happy to command a ship against them.’ He believed that troublemakers who drew simpler men into difficulties deserved to be hanged.27

  Jervis was determined to take a strong line and stamped ferociously upon any sign of insubordination. Among the first threats to the equanimity of his fleet were the reinforcements from England, some contaminated with the spirit of revolt. One was the seventy-four-gun Theseus from Spithead. Her captain, John Aylmer, was frightened the crew would mutiny and take her into Cadiz, and only days before Nelson rejoined the fleet one of her lieutenants had been tried and acquitted of contempt to a superior. Jervis was not easily assured. As far as he was concerned the ship was ‘in a most deplorable state of licentiousness and disorder’, and good men were needed to put her to rights. Betsy Fremantle, who agreed, thought the crew of the Theseus ‘the most tiresome, noisy, mutinous people in the world’.28

  On 24 May, when Nelson reported to Jervis aboard the Ville de Paris, he was invited to exchange the Captain for the Theseus. In addition to resuming his command of the inshore squadron he would be expected to turn around a rotten ship, and he could take his own team with him to do it. Writing to Miller from the flagship, he requested his ‘store room’ to be transferred, along with ‘such officers as wish to go with me . . . mids Hoste and Bolton . . . and such men as come from Agamemnon if they like it.’ Even now he thought the old Agamemnons his best men.29

  Forty-seven men, including Captain Miller and the six lieutenants of the Captain, shifted with their admiral. The lieutenants included two newly promoted acting officers, Weatherhead and Nisbet. They found five midshipmen on the Theseus, all in their forties and incapable of passing the lieutenants’ examination. From the Captain Nelson was therefore lucky to bring seven midshipmen or master’s mates, as well as two surgical staff (Thomas Eshelby and Louis Remonier), a secretary (Castang), a clerk and a schoolmaster. In addition twenty-nine forecastle ratings followed Nelson, some of whom – Cook, Shillingford and William Fearney – were promoted to midshipman, and Sykes to coxswain. The Theseus had a complement of six hundred men but all her key posts were put in the hands of proven followers. Furthermore, twenty-eight of the men who transferred were ex-Agamemnons, and Nelson’s young guard was almost intact.30

  With a cadre of reliable men about him, Nelson began reforming the wayward ship. Soon after taking charge an inspection revealed that despite her reputation the Theseus was in respectable shape. The company was fairly healthy, and used to breakfasting on gruel sweetened with molasses and Monday dinners enriched with peas. No one complained about the food. The ship itself also appeared in a reasonable condition, though Sir Horatio found ropes worn and the shot lockers deficient. But there were lingering signs of discontent. Captain Thomas Oldfield’s marines were ‘a most excellent’ body of men, but among the sailors Nelson noticed some ‘very indifferent boys and Dublin men’.31

  Hoste also believed that the ship was what Sir Horatio might have called reclaimable. In his opinion nothing more than a battle was needed to give ‘our brave admiral . . . an opportunity of initiating the Theseus crew into his fighting rules, so strictly observed by him in the Agamemnon and Captain. They are a fine set of men, but have not been in action since they have been in commission.’ In the event, the officers rehabilitated the ship without action. On 17 June, Miller read the crew a new act of Parliament promising improved pay and provisions, and to appeasement he added a new regime. Aylmer’s stewardship had been harsh, and Miller reduced the number of floggings while maintaining a firm control.32

  One night a crudely written note was dropped on the quarterdeck of the Theseus. ‘Long live Sir Robert Calder,’ it read. ‘Success attend Admiral Nelson. God bless Captain Miller. We thank the admiral for the officers he has placed over us. We are happy and comfortable, and will shed every drop of our blood in fighting the enemies of our country and in supporting the admiral. The Ship’s Company.’ Once again, with the powerful aid of Captain Miller, Nelson was weaving his magic.33

  Nelson was viewed as a strong commander, ready to punish genuine transgressions, but just and generally capable of being moved by the misfortunes of simpler men. Two seamen of the Swiftsure freshly illustrated this trait. They were in irons, accused of feigning insanity to obtain their discharge. On the reports of a physician and officers Jervis pronounced them guilty, but Nelson disagreed. ‘The sight of the two poor men in irons . . . has affected me more than I can express,’ he wrote to the commander-in-chief. ‘If Mr [Dr] Weir would look at them I should be glad. The youth may, I hope, be saved, as he has intervals of sense. His countenance is most interesting. If any mode can be devised for sending him home, I will with pleasure pay fifty pounds to place him in some proper place for his recovery. The other, I fear, is too old.’ Jervis could not be persuaded but Nelson stuck to his guns. ‘Depend on it,’ he said, ‘God Almighty’ had ‘afflicted them with the most dreadful of all diseases’. In the end the commander-in-chief relented to the extent of shifting the unfortunates to other ships, but he kept them under observation.34

  Nelson sympathised with the complaints of men neglected or betrayed by those to whom they had rightly looked for protection, but he had no time for the downright treasonable, and supported his commander’s uncompromising efforts to prevent them from contaminating the fleet. The risk of going into action, probably against the odds, with fifth columnists in the ranks was not one he felt his companies deserved. He stood foursquare with Jervis in his severe handling of one very troubled ship, the St George.

  Two men of the St George had been condemned to death, apparently for sodomy, but the ship’s company refused to allow them to be executed. There was talk of seizing the ship and taking it to Spithead, and officers feared that the malcontents were generating discontent in other companies. Jervis moved rapidly. Four ringleaders were arrested. They were tried on 7 and 8 July and hanged by their own comrades at nine o’clock
the following morning – a Sunday. Two boatloads of men from every ship in the fleet were on hand to watch the executions. It was too much for Vice Admiral Sir Charles Thompson, who complained that the Sabbath had been profaned, but Jervis was adamant. He pointed out that few ships were immune to signs of disaffection, and the Theseus, Captain, Britannia, Diadem and Egmont all contained vulnerable elements. It was necessary to remove the guilty men as soon as possible. Nelson, who had addressed the company of the Theseus, thought his men ‘a very quiet set’, but was not complacent. Newly restored to the command of the inshore squadron upon his return from the Mediterranean, he ordered boats to witness the miserable fates of the mutineers, and consoled a commander-in-chief smarting under criticism. The hangings were entirely appropriate, he told Jervis’s flag captain, and ‘had it been Christmas Day, instead of Sunday, I would have executed them. We know not what might have been hatched by a Sunday’s grog; now your discipline is safe.’35

  Fortunately, Sir Horatio faced few such incidents. In July he had to endorse Captain Thomas Waller’s request for the trial of a boatswain and seaman of the Emerald for ‘very mutinous and seditious words’. Events overtook the rear admiral, and he had nothing to do with their hearing in August, but would certainly have approved of the execution of the boatswain, who had hinted at seizing the ship and taking it into a foreign port. Legitimate grievances were one thing, treachery another. In a war of survival, Nelson had no doubt that only the ultimate penalty fitted a wilful betrayal of the security of the realm.36

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  Among the team that turned the Theseus around were valued followers whose welfare Nelson continued to husband. If the war ended and ships were decommissioned, as everyone expected, what would become of those young officers still short of the sea time necessary to try for lieutenant, or to others making those vital but slippery steps from lieutenant to post-captain?

  Some of Nelson’s old Agamemnons were already flying on their own as commanders and captains, and a number had been promoted to continue their journeys in other ships. Thomas Eager from Dingle in Ireland had joined the Agamemnon as a twenty-one-year-old able seaman in 1793 and been raised to midshipman. Following Nelson into the Captain, he was discharged to the Belette in October 1796 and would eventually make lieutenant. Nelson also served Charles David Williams, who had boarded the San Nicolas, by finding him a place on the Ville de Paris flagship in May 1797, and he too got a commission. Among these young men making their way in the world, many continued to look upon their years with Nelson as formative. Long afterwards Withers reported his progress to his old commander as if his approbation was still necessary.37

  Compton and Summers were still with Sir Horatio in the early summer of 1797, but he was working assiduously on turning Josiah Nisbet, Weatherhead, Bolton and Hoste into lieutenants. Jervis promised the young men commissions, but only when they had completed the necessary six years at sea. That was unfortunate, for neither Nisbet nor Hoste had reached the mandatory age required for a lieutenancy, and none it seems possessed sufficient sea time. Nelson decided that ‘a little cheating’ was required. Ages would have to be falsified and naval service invented.38

  Obviously his stepson had special claims upon him. Officially, Josiah was far too young for a commission – he was merely seventeen and lieutenants were supposed to be over twenty – and he had only four years’ sea time. Moreover, while he had filled out physically and might pass for an older boy, Josiah remained diffident and immature, and had no obvious talent for command. There may already have been signs of the unreliability that would later worry Nelson. Three years on a detractor would accuse him of framing ‘a story the most infamous and false that ever disgraced the mouth of man’. But back in 1797 Berry, who briefly commanded a sloop before going home in the spring, wanted to borrow the boy for a spell to broaden his experience, while Nelson talked about persuading old West Indian associates to certify that he had served on their ships. Despite his tender age, Josiah was confirmed as a lieutenant in May and there is no doubt that Nelson had prevailed upon Jervis to swallow his principles and favour the boy, and that his record was embellished. Josiah’s ‘passing certificate’ is missing, but from a statement he made in 1817 it seems that Nelson certified that his stepson had served two years aboard the Boreas between 1785 and 1787. In fact, Nisbet was then with his mother, and rightly so since he was only five, six and seven years old.39

  To help the others Nelson loosed his brother Maurice upon the ships’ books stored at the Navy Office in a search for additional sea time. A certain William Bolton had once served on the Ardent, Maurice discovered, and whether he was Nelson’s protégé or not, his service was commandeered. Thus armed, young Bolton of the Theseus passed his examination for lieutenant in June 1797, and was taken aboard Jervis’s flagship to prove himself a ‘steady young man’. He was twenty, and had received the king’s commission at the earliest regular age.40

  Weatherhead and Hoste were more intractable cases, though Nelson hoped that their patron, Thomas Coke, might usefully pull some strings on their behalf. Weatherhead had been rated acting fifth lieutenant of the Captain on 2 April, but technically needed two more years of service for confirmation. Hoste’s problem was different. It turned out that he had been on the books of the Europa as a child, but while his service record was fuller, he was more manifestly underage. Nelson resigned himself to leaving the boy with the fleet under the protection and guidance of the commander-in-chief. His efforts for Hoste were particularly public spirited. The Reverend Dixon Hoste had failed to reimburse Nelson the money he had spent upon the boy, but Sir Horatio’s patronage never failed. In the end William would repay Nelson in his own way, and become one of the finest frigate captains in naval history.41

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  The shield Nelson threw around loyal followers contrasted with the increasing ferocity of the war, for while his Tenerife plan simmered the admiral perpetrated one of the most ruthless acts of his career – the bombardment of Cadiz. Inherently, he was neither an inconsiderate man nor even a warmonger. ‘I pray to God to give us a speedy and honourable peace,’ he wrote to the Duke of Clarence in June. He felt so ill in any case that he doubted he could ‘fag much longer.’ However, four years of conflict and the successful savagery of the French armies had also hardened him, and his lifelong distaste for England’s Gallic neighbours was turning into hatred. When it came to thwarting their progress, even in a war with their more gentlemanly allies, the Spaniards, he was increasingly open to arguments of expediency. In the words of his favourite playwright, he began to ‘disguise fair nature with hard-favour’d rage’.42

  Back in command of the inshore squadron, Sir Horatio anchored his five ships of the line some four miles out, sometimes with their sterns or heads towards the Spaniards, and sometimes presenting their broadsides. From above the whole formation resembled a drawn bow with the Theseus at its centre nearest the harbour mouth. He posted a guard frigate further inshore, ready to warn him of any untoward movement on the part of the Spaniards, and maintained a flotilla of launches and boats to row guard. Supplied by the fleet, and some fitted with guns, these boats gathered for orders or pulled back and forth like water beetles, especially at night when enemy counterattacks were most likely. They exchanged muffled and regularly changing passwords, some recalling such illustrious naval heroes as ‘Drake’, ‘Blake’ and ‘Anson’. Five miles or so to the rear of the inshore squadron rode the rest of the British fleet, with the big Ville de Paris at its head. Admiral Jervis fired a salvo of terse letters to his young rear admiral, sometimes twice a day, and remained in effective control of the blockade throughout.43

  Nelson virtually closed down the port, although as usual fishermen were given licence to ply their trade within prescribed limits. Others who ventured too far out were snapped up, two apparently by the Orion, under Captain Sir James Saumarez. During Nelson’s absence in the Mediterranean it had been Saumarez who commanded the inshore squadron at Cadiz, but Sir James bore no resentment at bei
ng reduced to second-in-command. Later the two would have their differences, but at this time they exchanged compliments, and Nelson openly lauded his junior’s judgement. ‘All you do is right,’ Nelson told him, ‘and can hardly want my sanction.’44

  From the Theseus, Admiral Nelson focused his good eye upon the defences. As his telescope panned downwards from the impressive steeples and domes of Cadiz, and swept over the waterfront houses to the mall behind the long city wall with its parapet bastions, he could see the ladies of the town out walking. Cadiz occupied a spit or peninsula of land that struck northwest, enclosing an inner and outer harbour, both of which had been breached by Drake during his famous raid of 1587. Mazarredo’s fleet, with the admiral’s flag fluttering defiantly above the Concepción, was anchored behind a line drawn on a map between the fortifications of Cadiz, at the end of the spit, and St Mary’s on the mainland. With twenty-six sail of the line, the Spaniards outnumbered their British counterparts, but had good reasons to avoid battle. Their ships were in a poor condition and manned by soldiers rather than seamen.45

  The possibility of storming Cadiz went briefly through British minds. Nelson’s action-hungry mind had always driven him towards land operations, of course, and his history was full of direct attacks or ideas and plans for direct attacks on difficult fortifications. San Juan, Marseilles, Tunis, Bastia, Calvi, San Remo, Vado, Leghorn, Porto Ferraio and Capraia . . . they all suggested his clear view that the navy’s role went beyond activities at sea. But the plan to attack Cadiz did not originate with its aggressive admiral but in London. It was sent to Jervis in a secret memorandum endorsed by Lord Spencer.