Nelson

by John Sugden

  3. Nelson’s account of his meeting with William Henry (Add. MSS 34902:1) is a foundation for these paragraphs. The Admiralty botched its instructions about the prince. Howe apparently intended William Henry to winter in the Leeward Islands in 1786–7, return north for the summer and spend the winter of 1787–8 in Jamaica. This was the thrust of the instructions to Hughes and Sawyer. However, the same day the orders assigning the prince to the Leeward Islands in 1786 were drafted, Howe told Gardner, who commanded in Jamaica, that William Henry would be spending that time ‘at and about Jamaica’. To add to the confusion, in 1786 Sawyer seems to have given the prince leave to go wherever he pleased in the West Indies. See the Admiralty’s letters to Hughes, Sawyer and Gardner, all dated 27 May 1786, in ADM 2/1342.

  4. Richard Vesey Hamilton, ed., Sir Thomas Byam Martin, 1, p. 25.

  5. William Henry, 3/1/1787, in A. Aspinall, ed., Later Correspondence, 1, p. 268; Tom Pocock, Sailor King, pp. 69, 122. For a different view of the prince’s acceptability see the letter of April 1789 published in Hilda Gamlin, Nelson’s Friendships, 1, p. 147.

  6. Nelson to Fanny, 12/12/1786, Monmouth MSS, E578. Nelson’s drinking habits are mentioned in the account of William Henry (the Duke of Clarence), Add. MSS 34990: 54.

  7. NLTHW, p. 15; William Henry to Hood, 18/4/1787, NLTHW, p. 58.

  8. Hamilton, Sir Thomas Byam Martin, 1, p. 67.

  9. William Henry to George III, 20/5/1787, Aspinall, Later Correspondence, 1, p. 290; Nelson to William, 29/12/1786, Add. MSS 34988.

  10. Nelson to William, 9/2/1787, Add. MSS 34988.

  11. Nelson to Locker, 29/12/1786, D&L, 1, p. 205; Nelson to Stephens, 4/7/1787, ADM 1/2223.

  12. Nelson to Fanny, 24/12/1786, Monmouth MSS, E759.

  13. Stephens to Nelson, 28/3/1787, Add. MSS 34933.

  14. William Henry to George III, 7/1/1787, Aspinall, Later Correspondence, 1, p. 266.

  15. Nelson to Fanny, 12/12/1786, 11/2/1787, Monmouth MSS, E758, E763; Nelson to William, 9/2/1787, Add. MSS 34988; Clarence to Nelson, 3/10/1796, D&L, 2, p. 246.

  16. William Henry said that the captains formed a mess in the house and caused resentment by excluding lieutenants: William Henry to Hood, 9/2/1787, B. McL. Ranft, ‘Prince William’, p. 270. However, Nelson’s account contradicts this, and the prince himself told the king on 20 May 1787 (Aspinall, Later Correspondence, 1, p. 290) that ‘I did not ask them to my table, for I had made . . . this rule, that whenever two captains or any strangers dine with me to have that day no officer of the ship at my table’. I have, therefore, attributed the exclusion of the junior officers to William Henry.

  17. James Stanier Clarke and John McArthur, Life and Services, 1, p. 129; Wallis, in Geoffrey Rawson, ed., Letters from the Leeward Islands, p. 54; William Henry to the Prince of Wales, 8/2/1787, A. Aspinall, ed., George, Prince of Wales, 1, p. 276; William Henry to Hood, 9/2/1787, Ranft, ‘Prince William’, p. 270.

  18. Nelson to Fanny, 12 and 24/12/1786, 1/1/1787, Monmouth MSS, E758–E760; John Luffman, 16/1/1787, in Vere Langford Oliver, History of the Island of Antigua, 1, p. cxxx.

  19. Nelson’s account of his meeting with William Henry: Add. MSS 34902:1.

  20. Brian Lavery, ed., Shipboard Life, p. 106 (reprints William Henry’s order book); Schomberg to William Henry, 13/1/1787, Ranft, ‘Prince William’, p. 274.

  21. William Henry’s narrative, Ranft, ‘Prince William’, p. 281.

  22. Nelson to Locker, 13/2/1787, D&L, 1, p. 214.

  23. Nelson to his officers, 28/1/1787, Lavery, Shipboard Life, p. 105; William Henry to Hood, 9/2/1787, Ranft, ‘Prince William’, p. 270.

  24. William Henry to Hood, 9/2/1787, Ranft, ‘Prince William’, p. 270; William Henry to George III, 20/5/1787, Aspinall, Later Correspondence, 1, p. 290; Lavery, Shipboard Life, pp. 108, 110–11; Hamilton, Sir Thomas Byam Martin, 1, pp. 68–9.

  25. Schomberg to William Henry, 12/2/1787, Ranft, ‘Prince William’, p. 283.

  26. William Henry to Hood, 15/3/1787, NLTHW, p. 58.

  27. Nelson to Fanny, 13/1/1787, Monmouth MSS, E761.

  28. Richard Pares, West-India Fortune, p. 74.

  29. Nelson to Fanny, 25/2/1787, Monmouth MSS, E766. According to the contemporary sketch of Nelson in Public Characters, pp. 2–3, Fanny eventually married without Herbert’s consent, which hardly seems to be true.

  30. Nelson to Fanny, 28/2/1787, Monmouth MSS, E768.

  31. Marriage certificate, 11/3/1787, Add. MSS 28333.

  32. Nelson to Locker, 21/3/1787, D&L, 1, p. 219.

  33. Rawson, Letters from the Leeward Islands, p. 53; William Henry to Hood, 15/3/1787, NLTHW, p. 58; Edith M. Keate, Nelson’s Wife, pp. 67–8; and Carola Oman, Nelson, pp. 92–3.

  34. The published documents in D&L, vol. 1, and the manuscripts in Add. MSS 34902 and 34903 are major sources for this affair. See Nelson, 4/5/1787, Add. MSS 34902; Wilkinson and Higgins to Nelson, 19/4/1787, and John Burke to Nelson, 16/4/1787, Add. MSS 34903.

  35. Higgins to William Henry, 13/4/1787, Add. MSS 34903.

  36. Nelson’s letters to the Admiralty between October 1786 and February 1787 are printed in D&L, but the originals filed in ADM 1/2223 contain essential enclosures, including Collingwood to Nelson, 13/9/1786, 19/10/1786 and 19/1/1787. See also Holloway to Stephens, 23/5/1787, ADM 1/1908.

  37. Nelson to the dockyards: Notes and Queries 150 (1926), p. 55.

  38. The figure was actually £543 19s. 0d. but I have rounded this and other figures to the nearest pound.

  39. For sample cases see Add. MSS 34903: 13–17, 21; Higgins and Wilkinson to the Navy Board, 18/1/1788, Add. MSS 34903.

  40. Nelson to Middleton, 2/5/1787, Add. MSS 34902.

  41. Nelson to Howe, c. May 1787, Add. MSS 34902.

  42. Nelson to William Henry, 7/5/1787, D&L, 1, p. 233.

  43. Wilkinson and Higgins, memorial to the king, 1788, Add. MSS 34903: 162.

  44. Stephens to Nelson, 9/3/1787, Add. MSS 34933.

  45. William Henry to Hood, 9/2/1787, Ranft, ‘Prince William’, p. 270.

  46. John D. Byrn, Crime and Punishment, pp. 108, 111–12, 115. Following social science, historians are fond of statistical techniques, but often use them inaccurately, sometimes because their material is neither complete nor accurate enough to support the generalisations they want to make. As far as Byrn’s comparison of punishment rates on different ships is concerned, leaving aside the question of log book reliability one would need to control such variables as the duration of stay on station, the amount of time spent in port and ship size and circumstance to make a close comparison of one captain or company with another. Nevertheless, Byrn’s figures do indicate that the punishment rate on the Boreas was high.

  A more spiteful contribution was made by Terry Coleman, Nelson, pp. 5, 90, who estimated that Nelson flogged ‘almost half his people’ in the eighteen months after April 1786. This was a misuse of statistics designed to shock and smear. Coleman made no reference to the punishment rates on any of Nelson’s other ships, though he could, for example, have referred to the low rates aboard the Badger and Hinchingbroke to offer readers a more even-handed analysis. He should certainly have pointed out that the rate on the Boreas was the worst of any ship he captained, and therefore unrepresentative of the whole. Instead, he not only gave the Boreas statistic in isolation, repeating it twice for emphasis, but even failed to represent that command fairly. By confining his figures to a selected eighteen-month period when punishments were exceptionally common, he almost doubled the flogging rate for the Boreas command in its entirety.

  Similarly, Coleman’s allusions to the rule that men could not be given more than twelve lashes without the authority of a court martial are misleading. It was a rule, he admits, that was ‘often broken, but not in a happy ship’ (p. 85), thereby implying that Nelson’s commands were unhappy ones. The allegation indicts not only Nelson’s spell aboard the Boreas, but also, for example, his command of the Agamemnon, which was notable for the loyalty it inspired in crews. In fact, naval lo
gs of the time show that it was customary to give up to thirty-six lashes without a court martial, probably because officers felt a need to differentiate between the gravity of various offences and the captains necessary to form court martials were seldom readily available. Even captains noted for their humanity resorted to the practice, among them Ralph Willett Miller, whose Christian charity was famous. As one of Miller’s officers remarked, ‘the person who feels himself uncomfortable under his command . . . must be miserable indeed under that of any other’ (Harriet Hoste, ed., Hoste, 1, p. 82).

  As a commodore and admiral, from 1796, Nelson left discipline to his flag-captains. He did not interfere, even when served by a severe disciplinarian, such as Thomas Masterman Hardy: Oliver Warner, Nelson, pp. 163, 165, 172.

  47. I have extrapolated punishments from the different logs cited in chap. 12, n. 10. No one log gives a complete list of the floggings aboard the Boreas; hence my use of the word ‘about’.

  48. The trials of Holland, Wilson, Philip McKay, William Pidgeon, Alexander and Edward Pakenham between 1 and 9 July 1784 are filed in ADM 1/5324. See also NMM: AGC/18/1.

  49. In addition to the cases mentioned, see those of Thomas Walker, 14/9/1784, James Wallis, 22–23/9/1784, William Richards, 20/10/1784, John Fitzmaurice, 17/6/1785, James Alexander, 17/8/1785, James Harding, 20/4/1786, and John Johnson and John Callender, both 22/4/1786. The trials up to July 1785 can be found in ADM 1/5324 and the balance in ADM 1/5325. For Clark, see also the logs of the Boreas and the log of the Rattler (ADM 51/770). Clark’s second trial was published in Rawson, Letters from the Leeward Islands, pp. 56–63, for which reason it is the only one of these cases to be noticed by historians.

  50. Nelson to Stephens, 17/8/1787, Add. MSS 34902.

  51. Nelson to Collingwood, 3/5/1787, D&L, 1, p. 230.

  52. Nelson to William Henry, 26/4/1787, D&L, 1, p. 224; William Henry to Hood, 18/4/1787, and William Henry to Stephens, 17/5/1787, both in NMM: Hoo/2; documents in Aspinall, George, Prince of Wales, 1, pp. 216, 278, 311; Hughes to Stephens, 12/3/1785, ADM 1/312.

  53. Nelson to Stephens, 15/3/1787, ADM 1/2223.

  54. Nelson to Stephens, 16/4/1787, ADM 1/2223; Nelson to dockyard shipwrights, 17/3/1787, Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth; Nelson to Gardner, 13/5/1787, Monmouth MSS, E498; William Henry to Nelson, 11/5/1787, 3/12/1787, Ranft, ‘Prince William’, pp. 284, 285; William Henry to the king, 20/5/1787, Aspinall, Later Correspondence, 1, p. 290; William Henry to the Prince of Wales, 20/5/1787, Aspinall, George, Prince of Wales, 1, p. 311. The suggestion surfaces in Nelson to William Henry, 7/5/1787, D&L, 1, p. 233, but William Henry both claimed to have got the idea from Nelson in March and to have conceived it himself.

  55. Nelson to Gardner, 13/5/1787, Monmouth MSS, E498; Nelson to Stephens, 10/7/1787, ADM 1/2223.

  56. Nelson to William Henry, 7/5/1787, D&L, 1, p. 233.

  57. Howe to Hood, 2/7/1787, NMM: Hoo/2; William Henry to Hood, 20/5/1787, NMM: Hoo/2.

  58. Parker to Stephens, 3/6/1787, 15/9/1787, ADM 1/315.

  59. A. M. W. Stirling, ed., Pages and Portraits, 1, p. 27; Hamilton, Sir Thomas Byam Martin, 1, p. 66.

  60. See the trials on 9 and 19/7/1787 and 9/8/1787, ADM 1/5326.

  61. Nelson to William Henry, 27/7/1787, Add. MSS 34902.

  62. William Henry to Nelson, 3/12/1787, NMM: STW/7.

  63. Nelson to William, 20/12/1787, NMM: BRP/6. Andrews had passed his examination for lieutenant on 4 October 1787 (ADM 107/10, p. 224) and been posted elsewhere two days later.

  64. Nelson to Stephens, 29/8/1787, 21/9/1787, 30/9/1787, ADM 1/2223; Nelson to the Navy Board, 30/9/1787, ADM 106/1290.

  65. Wallis was promoted commander on 20 January 1794 and post-captain in 1797. He died in 1808. In addition to D&L, 1, see Nelson to Adye, 4/9/1787, Monmouth MSS, E29.

  66. Nelson to Stephens, 18/7/1787, ADM 1/2223.

  67. Nelson to Locker, 12/8/1787, D&L, 1, p. 251.

  68. Hood to Stephens, 17 and 19/8/1787, NMM: Hoo/7.

  69. M. Eyre Matcham, Nelsons of Burnham Thorpe, p. 45.

  70. Fanny’s recollections, NLTHW, p. 61; Clarke and McArthur, Life and Services, 1, pp. 149–50.

  71. Clarke and McArthur, Life and Services, 1, pp. 148–9; Edwards to Nelson, 20/10/1787, Western MSS 3668, Wellcome Library, London. I have not yet confirmed this story from contemporary sources.

  72. Nelson to Ross, 6/5/1788, Add. MSS 34903.

  XVI Beachcombing (pp. 373–412)

  1. Nelson to William, 20/12/1787, 3/1/1788, NMM: BRP/6 and Add. MSS 34988. Many letters for this chapter are published in D&L, and Add. MSS 34902, 34903 and 34988 are the most important manuscript sources. M. Eyre Matcham, Nelsons of Burnham Thorpe, has essential selections from the correspondence between the Reverend Edmund Nelson and his daughter, Kitty Matcham.

  2. Nelson to Long, 7/8/1793, Add. MSS 34902; Nelson to Stephens, 26/12/1788, Add. MSS 34902; and Nelson to William, 20/12/1787, NMM: BRP/6.

  3. Nelson to Stephens, 29/12/1787, ADM 1/2223.

  4. For this episode see Gentleman’s Magazine (1787), ii, pp. 1188–90; Morning Chronicle (London), 18/12/1787; Whole Proceedings on the King’s Commission of the Peace, Oyer and Terminer, and Gaol Delivery for the City of London; H. L. Cryer, ‘Horatio Nelson and the Murderous Cooper’ (which drew it to modern attention); M. Ramsay, ‘Nelson, Carse and Eighteenth-Century Justice’; and Chatham to Nelson, enclosing Nepean to Chatham, both 11/4/1789, Add. MSS 34903.

  5. Nelson to Locker, 27/1/1788, D&L, 1, p. 266.

  6. Nelson to Ross, 6/5/1788, Add. MSS 34903.

  7. Letters of Wilkinson and Higgins to Nelson and the Sick and Hurt Board, both 30/1/1788, Add. MSS 34903.

  8. Ordnance Board to Wilkinson and Higgins, 11/6/1788, and Richmond to Nelson, 27/12/1788, Add. MSS 34933.

  9. Nelson to Wilkinson and Higgins, 26/4/1788, Add. MSS 34902.

  10. Letters to Wilkinson and Higgins from the Victualling Board (30/4/1788), Sick and Hurt Board (6/5/1788) and the Ordnance Board (11/6/1788), all in Add. MSS 34903; Sick and Hurt Board to Nelson, 22/4/1788, Add. MSS 34933; Nelson, 30/4/1788, and Nelson to Sick and Hurt Board, April 1788, D&L, 1, pp. 271, 272.

  11. Middleton note, 2/6/1788, Add. MSS 34933: 10, and Nelson to William Henry, 2/6/1788, D&L, 1, p. 275.

  12. Fanny’s recollections, NLTHW, p. 61.

  13. James Harrison, Life, 1, p. 95; Public Characters, p. 7; and, for this and the following paragraph, Matcham, Nelsons of Burnham Thorpe, pp. 37, 46, 53, 57, 59, 66–7, 74, 76. In addition to the sources for family history listed in chap. 2, n. 1, see various documents in Alfred Morrison, Hamilton and Nelson Papers, vol. 2.

  14. Matcham, Nelsons of Burnham Thorpe, pp. 45, 55, 57.

  15. Marriage settlement, 20/7/1780, NMM: PHB/P/24. Thomas Foley, Nelson Centenary, 30.

  16. Matcham is discussed in Foley, Nelson Centenary, p. 25; Matcham, Nelsons of Burnham Thorpe, pp. 30–6; and DNB, 13, p. 27.

  17. Norfolk Chronicle, 1/3/1788, and, for Charlotte’s early years, Tom Pocock, Nelson’s Women, ch. 9.

  18. Matcham, Nelsons of Burnham Thorpe, pp. 60–1. Nelson also used his London visits to renew naval friendships by dining at the ‘Royal Naval Club of 1765’ and the ‘Navy Club of 1785’. He attended two such dinners in 1788 and one in 1789: Oliver Warner, Nelson, p. 47.

  19. Lady Nelson’s account, NLTHW, p. 61.

  20. Matcham, Nelsons of Burnham Thorpe, pp. 77, 79–81, 88–9, 108; Martin to Lettsom, 1801, in James Hooper, Nelson’s Homeland, p. 69; Nelson to Katy, 13/10/1792, NMM: MAM.

  21. Nelson to Cornwallis, 8/10/1788, NMM: COR/58; D&L, 1, p. 277; Chatham to Nelson, March 1789, Add. MSS 34903.

  22. Nelson to Locker, 10/9/1789, D&L, 1, p. 281.

  23. G. E. Mingay, The Gentry, p. 138. Among useful social histories of the period, I have particularly consulted John Rule, Albion’s People, and J. C. D. Clark, English Society.

  24. William Faden, Map of Norfolk.

  25. Harrison, Life, 1, pp. 97–8, and Clarke and McArthur, Life and Services
, 1, pp. 158–60, give details of Nelson’s domestic life drawn from people close to him. See also Matcham, Nelsons of Burnham Thorpe, p. 63.

  26. Marsh and Creed accounts in Morrison, Hamilton and Nelson Papers, 2, p. 382–99, and Geoffrey Rawson, ed., Letters from the Leeward Islands, pp. 67–9; Nelson and William to the Bank of England, 19/11/1788, Warren R. Dawson, ed., Nelson Collection, p. 289; Nelson to William, 31/10/1792, NMM: BRP/6; Boreas pay book, ADM 35/242; and Nelson to Fanny, 12/3/1793, Monmouth MSS, E776.

  27. Land tax records, 1796–7, and the parish registers of Burnham Thorpe, both in the Norfolk Record Office.

  28. Matcham, Nelsons of Burnham Thorpe, pp. 72, 77. Maurice Nelson’s letters to Sukey date from 24 December 1793 to 3 June 1794, and were written from Exeter, Cowes and Southampton. Sukey was a short form for Susannah in the eighteenth century. Maurice asked to be remembered to Susannah/Susan and Colin (?), the former a child learning her letters and both presumably Sukey’s children. Maurice also indicated that Sukey had prevailed upon Andrews ‘to let her [Susannah] stay with you’, which suggests he was the father. The letters, filed in NMM: CRK/22, also refer to Maurice’s dealings with Horatio’s old companion, Alexander Davison. For Maurice’s appointment as a commissary see J. M. Collinge, Navy Board Officials, p. 125.

  29. R. C. Fiske, Notices of Nelson, p. 26; Matcham, Nelsons of Burnham Thorpe, pp. 64–5, 77, 107. I have not discovered the fate of Sophia Nelson, Suckling’s wife. She does not appear in the burials at North Elmham for that period, but as her husband was contemplating marriage to a ‘young woman . . . decently brought forward in a line of mediocrity’ in 1796 she must have died: Edmund to Nelson, 5/8/1796, Monmouth MSS, E622.

  30. Matcham, Nelsons of Burnham Thorpe, pp. 76–7; NLTHW, p. 64; D&L, 1, p. 290.

  31. Matcham, Nelsons of Burnham Thorpe, p. 86; A. M. W. Stirling, ed., Coke of Norfolk, 1, p. 346; Gillian Ford, ‘Nelson References in Holkham Game Books’; Gillian Ford, ‘Coke and Nelson’; The Poll For Knights of the Shire for the County of Norfolk, p. 203.

  32. Matcham, Nelsons of Burnham Thorpe, p. 87; Nelson to Kitty, 15/12/1792, NMM: MAM; Nelson to Bolton, 23 and 30/4/1792, NMM: GIR/1; accounts with Bolton, Western MSS 3676, Wellcome Library, London; and Nelson to William, 5/2/1792, Add. MSS 34988.