Nelson

by John Sugden

  33. Nelson to Bolton, 11/12/1791, NMM: GIR/1; Nelson to William, 20/4/1792, NMM: BRP/6; and Nelson to Kate Matcham, NMM: MAM. If these references were to Kitty Crowe, she eventually married a surgeon named Helsham in 1795 (Edmund to Nelson, 5/8/1794, 5/10/1795, Monmouth MSS, E610, E613).

  34. Accounts with Bolton, Western MSS 3676, Wellcome Library; Nelson to Bolton, 11/12/1791, 23/4/1792, 30/4/1792, NMM: GIR/1; Nelson to Bolton, 7/5/1792, NMM: TRA/12; and Nelson to William, 18/11/1788, NMM: BRP/6.

  35. Nelson to Kitty, 13/10/1792, NMM: MAM; Matcham, Nelsons of Burnham Thorpe, p. 65; will of Mary Nelson, 6/8/1769, PROB 11/1183: 467; and Norfolk Chronicle, 28/7/1789.

  36. Matcham, Nelsons of Burnham Thorpe, p. 69, and Nelson to Bolton, 14/12/1789, NMM: GIR/1.

  37. Nelson to William, 5/2/1792, Add. MSS 34988.

  38. Cochrane devised a method to increase the rate of fire aboard the Pallas when double-shotting his guns, and Broke experimented with non-recoil systems for his artillery: John Sugden, ‘Lord Cochrane’, pp. 87–91; Peter Padfield, Broke of the Shannon; and Peter Padfield, Guns at Sea. For the development of fleet tactics John Creswell, British Admirals; Brian Tunstall and Nicholas Tracy, Naval Warfare; Nicholas Tracy, Nelson’s Battles; and Peter Le Fevre and Richard Harding, eds, Precursors of Nelson, are particularly recommended.

  39. Collingwood to Moutray, 10/3/1806, G. L. Newnham Collingwood, ed., Correspondence, 1, p. 277.

  40. Oliver Warner, ‘Collingwood and Nelson’, p. 318.

  41. Council minutes, Antigua, 4/6/1788, CO 152/68, and Wilkinson and Higgins to Nelson, 24/4/1789, Add. MSS 34903. Documents relating to this affair are scattered through Add. MSS 34903 and 34933, only some of which were selected by Clarke and McArthur, Life and Services, pp. 161–7, and D&L, 1, pp. 278–80, 283–4. The minutes of the Navy Board are disappointing on the subject, though there are occasional references (for example, 21/1/1789 in ADM 106/2629 and 3/11/1789 and 22/12/1789 in ADM 106/2631).

  42. Nelson to Wilkinson and Higgins, 24/1/1789, D&L, 1, p. 278. The letters from the Victualling and Sick and Hurt Boards and Ordnance Office to Nelson are filed in Add. MSS 34933: 6, 14, 16.

  43. Richmond to Nelson, 16/1/1789, Add. MSS 34933; Alison Gilbert Olson, The Radical Duke, chaps 5, 6.

  44. Nelson to Wilkinson and Higgins, 28/11/1789, Add. MSS 34933; Clarke and McArthur, Life and Services, 1, pp. 166–7; Nelson’s sketch of his services, 1790s, NMM: STW/2; and Wilkinson petition, 27/6/1797, ADM 106/1653.

  45. Victualling Board to Nelson, 19, 23/6/1789, Add. MSS 34933. The board offered to receive observations in writing if Nelson was unable to travel to London, but it appears that he did make the journey.

  46. Nelson to Wilkinson, 7/3/1798, enclosed in Wilkinson to Hamond, 24/3/1798, ADM 106/1653; Gentleman’s Magazine, 61 (1791), p. 1235, and 68 (1798), p. 730.

  47. Nelson to Adye, 4/9/1787, Monmouth MSS, E29, and Venables, Buggin and Bleasdale to Nelson, 5/3/1790, ADM 1/2223. Nelson’s trip to London is revealed by a letter from 23 Norfolk Street, Strand (Nelson to Stephens, 11/2/1790, ADM 1/2223) regarding the deduction of an overpayment of £17 for his services with the Hinchingbroke and Janus. Nelson’s comparative penury is evident in his request that, since his half-pay was to be docked, he be paid for his command of the fort at Port Royal in 1779, although that service was not the strict responsibility of the Admiralty.

  48. Venables, Buggin and Bleasdale writ, 26/4/1790, enclosed in Nelson’s letter of the same date to Stephens, ADM 1/2223.

  49. Pole to Nelson, 29/4/1790, Add. MSS 34903; D&L, 1, p. 287. Clarke and McArthur, Life and Services, 1, pp. 160–1, embroidered the account of Lady Nelson (NLTHW, p. 61) but neither is entirely consistent with the contemporary documents.

  50. Nelson to Graham, 8/6/1790, Huntington Library, San Marino, California; Nelson, 12/11/1790, Add. MSS 34902.

  51. Nelson to William Henry, 24/6/1790, 10/12/1790, Add. MSS 34902; Nelson to Stephens, 8/5/1790, ADM 1/2223; Nelson to Graham, 8/6/1790, Huntington Library; Edmund Nelson to Nelson, 11/10/1790, NMM: BRP/5; and Edmund Nelson to Sarah Nelson, 21/10/1790, in Foley, Nelson Centenary, p. 26. For the international crisis itself see Paul Webb, ‘Naval Aspects of the Nootka Sound Crisis’.

  52. Hood to Nelson, 9/7/1790, J. H. Godfrey, ed., ‘Corsica, 1794’, p. 364.

  53. Suckling to Nelson, 1/10/1790, Add. MSS 34988; Nelson to Chatham, 26/9/1790, and Mulgrave to Nelson, 17/11/1790, D&L, 1, p. 289; Foley, Nelson Centenary, p. 25; and Clarence to Nelson, Add. MSS 34902: 31.

  54. Nelson, ‘Sketch’, D&L, 1, p. 10; Nelson to Clarence, 10/12/1792, Add. MSS 34902; Nelson to William, 5/2/1792, Add. MSS 34988.

  55. Nelson to Cornwallis, 4/4/1791, Hist. MSS Comm., Various Collections, 6, p. 365; Matcham, Nelsons of Burnham Thorpe, p. 83.

  56. Nelson to Navy Board, 14/3/1791, ADM 106/1392, and Matcham, Nelsons of Burnham Thorpe, pp. 88, 90. The Trail affair is another episode missed by biographers. Nelson’s father mentions the trial without identifying it.

  57. Add. MSS 34902: 148.

  58. For these trials see HCA 1/25/138–212 (indictments); HCA 1/61, pp. 166–72 (Kimber), 173–6 (Trail) (minutes); The Times, 8–11/6/1792; Norfolk Chronicle, 9/6/1792; Trial of Captain John Kimber. Trail was apparently a Londoner, and his wife, who accompanied her husband aboard the Neptune, subsequently knew Maurice Nelson and his partner: Maurice to Sukey, 27/3/1794, NMM: CRK/22.

  59. Harrison, Life, 1, p. 102.

  60. Oliver Warner, Portrait of Lord Nelson, p. 191.

  61. Nelson’s sea journal, NLTHW, pp. 138–9.

  62. H. T. Dickinson, Politics of the People, p. 285. After decades of research on English radicalism, conservatism is beginning to attract more attention. See also Harold Perkin, Origins of Modern British Society, for controversial but illuminating discussions of the aristocratic and entrepreneurial ‘ideals’ and A. P. Thornton, The Habit of Authority; A. D. Harvey, Britain in the Early Nineteenth Century; Ian R. Christie, Stress and Stability; and Clark, English Society.

  63. Collingwood to Nelson, 14/11/1792, Add. MSS 34903.

  64. Nelson to Hoste, 22/6/1795, Monmouth MSS, E297.

  65. Nelson to Clarence, 10/12/1792, Add. MSS 34902, and Clarke and McArthur, Life and Services, 1, p. 291. Though insufficiently engaged with the social problems of the poorer classes to develop his thinking, and singularly blind to many of them, Nelson here displayed the rudiments of the outraged paternalism that later led Tory radicals such as Richard Oastler and the Earl of Shaftesbury to become reformers.

  66. Roy Porter, English Society, p. 104. Among the burgeoning literature of riots a sound survey is John Stevenson, Popular Disturbances in England.

  67. Nelson to Clarence, 26/5/1797, NMM: AGC/27; Nelson to Hoste, 30/6/1797, D&L, 2, p. 401.

  68. The literature of radicalism is enormous. M. H. R. Bonwick, ‘Radicalism of Sir Francis Burdett’, distinguishes between the traditions of Painite, Burdettite and philosophical radicalism. For the struggle at Westminster see Philip Harling, Waning of ‘Old Corruption’ and John Cannon, Parliamentary Reform. E. P. Thompson, Making of the English Working Class, is still a magnificent and contentious quarry for radical movements afield, for which see also Albert Goodwin, Friends of Liberty. D. G. Wright, Popular Radicalism, is a brief but sensible survey.

  69. For an example of Nelson’s willingness to countenance internal continental reform, see Colin White, ‘“More Enlarged Ideas Than in Former Times”’, p. 114.

  70. Nelson to Fanny, 11/8/96, Monmouth MSS, E901. For a challenging view of the French Revolution see Simon Schama, Citizens.

  71. Nelson to Fanny, 13/2/1794, Monmouth MSS, E808, and Nelson to Clarence, 9/11/1799, D&L, 4, p. 94.

  72. Warner, Portrait of Lord Nelson, p. 154.

  73. Countess of Minto, ed., Sir Gilbert Elliot, 2, p. 165.

  74. Nelson to Clarence, 3/11/1792, Add. MSS 34902.

  75. Collingwood to Nelson, 14/11/1792, Add. MSS 34903.

  76. Nelson to Fanny, 7/1/1793, Monmouth MSS, E774.

  77. Mat
cham, Nelsons of Burnham Thorpe, p. 99.

  XVII Captain of the Agamemnon (pp. 415–57)

  1. Warrant, 10/2/1793, Western MSS 3677, Wellcome Library, London. Principal sources for this chapter are D&L, p. 1; NLTHW; and NMM: Hoo/2–3. For the British plan of campaign see Jennifer Mori, William Pitt, and Peter Jupp, Lord Grenville.

  2. I do not agree with Anthony Deane, Nelson’s Favourite, p. 29, that the ship was equipped with carronades at this time. I have found no references to these in contemporary documents, and Nelson’s own statement of his armament (NLTHW, p. 138) seems decisive. However, on 17 April 1795 Nelson’s log speaks of shifting two carronades of the French prize Censeur to the forecastle, thereby displacing a couple of nine-pounders which were restationed on the quarterdeck. I am not clear whether Nelson was repositioning guns in the prize, or arming Agamemnon with guns from the Censeur (log, 16–18 April 1795). Logs for the Agamemnon, essential for the following chapters, are filed in Add. MSS 36604–36607 (captain’s), ADM 52/2707, 2710 and 2632 (master’s), and NMM: ADM/L/A51 (lieutenant’s). For the ship’s sailing qualities see ADM 95/38/148.

  3. Agamemnon muster, ADM 36/11358; Thomas Foley, Nelson Centenary, pp. 27, 30; Walpole to Nelson, 8/3/1793, Add. MSS 34903; Nelson to Fanny, 2/4/1797, Monmouth MSS, E294; Fanny’s endorsement to a letter of John McArthur, 1807, Monmouth MSS, E678; Harriet Hoste, ed., Hoste, 1, p. 5; Nelson to William, 27/12/1793, Add. MSS 34988; ADM 9/2, no. 317. There is a comparatively recent life of Hoste by Tom Pocock.

  4. For Fellows see ADM 9/6, no. 1868. The best account of the manning of the Agamemnon is Edward Fraser, Sailors Nelson Led, pp. 1–2. For the Marine Society boys see NMM: MSY/O/7, and John Sugden, ‘Forgotten Agamemnons’.

  5. Richard Vesey Hamilton and John Knox Laughton, eds, Above and Below Hatches, p. 176; Allison’s passing certificate, 5/3/1788, ADM 6/89. The surgeon of the Agamemnon was John Roxburgh. The ship’s marines under Sergeant James Luck were reinforced at Spithead by a detachment of the 69th (South Lincolnshire) Regiment of Foot under Captain John Clark.

  6. Enclosures with Nelson to Stephens, 26/2/1793, ADM 1/2224.

  7. Nelson to William, 10/2/1793, Add. MSS 34988; Nelson to Locker, 21/2/1793, D&L, 1, p. 301.

  8. In addition to the published sources in n. 1 see Nelson’s accounts with David Thomson and others in Western MSS 3667 and 3676, Wellcome Library, London, and with Thomas Fellows in NMM: 75/102.

  9. Nelson to Gaskin, 4/3/1793, NMM: AGC/17/1; ND, 7 (2001), p. 446; David Shannon, ‘Two Missing Nelson Letters Reconstructed’; DNB, 21, p. 742; United Service Journal, 1843, pt ii, p. 640. Withers died at North Walsham on 4 July 1843, aged seventy-three, leaving a wife and daughter.

  10. Nelson to Fanny, 12/3/1793, Monmouth MSS, E776; Edith M. Keate, Nelson’s Wife, pp. 67–8.

  11. Fanny sold her consols for £76 5s. 0d. on 30 March 1793: Western MSS 3676, Wellcome Library.

  12. Nelson to Fanny, 14 and 18/4/1793, Monmouth MSS, E780–81; Nelson to William, 18/4/1793, Add. MSS 34988.

  13. Nelson to Fanny, 29/4/1793, Monmouth MSS, E783.

  14. Agamemnon captain’s log, 1/5/1793; Hoste to his father, 4 and 11/5/1793, NMM: MRF/88/1.

  15. Hoste to his father, 11/5/1793, NMM: MRF/88/1.

  16. Nelson to Fanny, 11/5/1793, Monmouth MSS, E786.

  17. Nelson to Fanny, 4/8/1793, Monmouth MSS, E792.

  18. Nelson to Fanny, 18/5/1793, Monmouth MSS, E787. We lack a satisfactory operational history of the navy during these years, but works supplying useful details include Edward Pelham Brenton, Naval History; William James, Naval History; William Laird Clowes, ed., Royal Navy, vols 4–6; A. T. Mahan, Influence of Sea Power; and Geoffrey Marcus, Age of Nelson. For this campaign see also John Holland Rose, Lord Hood.

  19. Nelson to Fanny, 6/6/1793, Monmouth MSS, E788.

  20. Nelson to Fanny, 14/6/1793, Monmouth MSS, E789.

  21. Nelson to Fanny, 23/6/1793, Monmouth MSS, E790.

  22. Nelson to Clarence, 14/7/1793, Add. MSS 34902. Nelson’s journal (NLTHW, p. 128 following) is relevant for this, and the rest of the chapter. For the Spanish navy see J. D. Harbron, Trafalgar and the Spanish Navy, chap. 4, and Jose Ignacio Gonzalez-Aller and Hugo O’Donnell, ‘The Spanish Navy in the Eighteenth Century’.

  23. Journal, NLTHW, p. 128.

  24. Hoste to his father, 5/8/1793 and 27/11/1793, NMM: MRF/88/1; Nelson to Dixon Hoste, 3/5/1794, Monmouth MSS, E302; Nelson to Fanny, 4/8/1793, Monmouth MSS, E792.

  25. Nelson to Locker, 20/8/1793, D&L, 1, p. 319; Hoste, Hoste, 1, p. 17; list of captures, Add. MSS 34903: 239; journal, NLTHW, p. 130.

  26. Nelson to William, 20/8/1793, Add. MSS 34988; Nelson to his father, 20/8/1793, D&L, 1, p. 319; Nelson to Fanny, 20/8/1793, Monmouth MSS, E795.

  27. Hood to Hamilton, 25/8/1793, NMM: CRK/7. For the French navy in Toulon see William S. Cormack, Revolution and Political Conflict, chap. 7.

  28. Conway to Nelson, 30/8/1793, D&L, 1, p. 323 n.

  29. Nelson to Fanny, 7/9/1793, Monmouth MSS, E797.

  30. Nelson to Fanny, 7/9/1793, Monmouth MSS, E797.

  31. Nelson to Fanny, 7/9/1793, Monmouth MSS, E797. Nelson’s journal, NLTHW, pp. 132–5, is the main source for the visit to Naples.

  32. Harold Acton, Bourbons of Naples, is the best study of the Neapolitan background in English, but among older works J. C. Jeaffreson, The Queen of Naples, and Constance Giglio, Naples in 1799, have interest.

  33. Journal, NLTHW, p. 133.

  34. For Hamilton see Brian Fothergill, Sir William Hamilton; Jack Russell, Nelson and the Hamiltons; Vittorio Accardi, ed., Hamilton Papers; and David Constantine, Fields of Fire.

  35. Hamilton to Hood, 20/8/1793, NMM: Hoo/2, and Hamilton to Grenville, 10 and 17/9/1793, FO 70/6.

  36. Hamilton to Hood, 17/9/1793, NMM: Hoo/2, and Hood to Hamilton, 23/9/1793, NMM: CRK/7. The early meetings in Naples are also referred to in Acton’s note and Hamilton to Hood, 12/9/1793, NMM: Hoo/2.

  37. For the Palazzo Sessa see Flora Fraser, Beloved Emma, chap. 5.

  38. Nelson to Fanny, 14/9/1793, Monmouth MSS, E798.

  39. The anonymous Memoirs of Lady Hamilton was evidently written by Francis Oliver, Sir William’s secretary, but must be used with caution. Of the older biographies, J. C. Jeaffreson, Lady Hamilton and Lord Nelson and Hilda Gamlin, Emma, Lady Hamilton have antiquarian interest, but the publication of Alfred Morrison’s collection of Hamilton and Nelson Papers paved the way for more reliable accounts, of which by far the best, based on this and other sources, is still Walter Sichel, Emma, Lady Hamilton. This, which suggested Emma’s important political role in Neapolitan affairs, and both Mollie Hardwick, Emma, Lady Hamilton and Flora Fraser, Beloved Emma are sympathetic portraits, while Edmund B. F. D’Auvergne, The Dear Emma, Jack Russell’s Nelson and the Hamilton and Winifred Gerin’s Horatia Nelson offer less endearing views. For the quotations given here, see Fraser, Beloved Emma, pp. 149, 160.

  40. Fraser, Beloved Emma, pp. 121, 131, 149, 163.

  41. Fraser, Beloved Emma, p. 128.

  42. Countess of Minto, ed., Sir Gilbert Elliot, 2, p. 364; Cecil Aspinall-Oglander, ed., Freshly Remembered, p. 60.

  43. Fraser, Beloved Emma, p. 270.

  44. A. M. Broadley and R. G. Bartelot, Nelson’s Hardy, p. 94.

  45. Hamilton to Nelson, 3/4/1794, Add. MSS 34903. Nelson normally wrote to Sir William, but he did send Emma an account of one of his martial successes in 1796: Nelson to William Hamilton, 27/12/1796, Huntington Library, San Marino, California.

  46. Acton’s invitation is in Add. MSS 34932: 5.

  47. Nelson to William, 24/9/1793, Add. MSS 34988; Nelson’s journal, NLTHW, p. 135; Acton to Prince Castelcicala, 17/9/1793, FO 70/6; Hamilton to Hood, 17/9/1793, NMM: Hoo/2.

  48. Nelson’s journal, NLTHW, p. 135.

  49. Fraser, Beloved Emma, p. 126.

  50. Nelson journal, NLTHW, p. 135.

  51. Agamemnon logs, 19/9/1793; list of captures, Add. MSS 34903: 239; Udny to McArthur, 3/1/1794, Add. MSS, 34903.

 
52. Nelson to William, 24/9/1793, Add. MSS 34988.

  53. Hervey to Grenville, 1/10/1793, FO 79/9; Nelson to Hamilton, 27/9/1793, Morrison, Hamilton and Nelson Papers, 1, p. 180.

  54. Nelson to Fanny, 12/10/1793, Monmouth MSS, E801; Minto, Sir Gilbert Elliot, 2, p. 190. The Neapolitan reinforcements arrived at Toulon in three divisions of two thousand men on 28 September, 6 October and 5 December (Hood journal, Rose, Lord Hood, p. 102; Hood to Hamilton, 1 and 11/10/1793, NMM: CRK/7).

  55. The ship was sailing from Bastia to Leghorn. At Cagliari one of its passengers, Giacomo Monticelli, who claimed to be Milanese but was believed to be a Corsican, deposed that Nelson ‘took all his money, and for so doing he was a sea thief’. Outraged, the British consul (Michael Ghillini) counter-complained, and Monticelli first withdrew his charge and then fled to Leghorn on a gondola: Ghillini to Hood, 8/11/1793, NMM: Hoo/3.

  56. Hood to Stephens, 9/8/1794, ADM 1/392. For this engagement see the ship’s logs; record of works spoken on the quarterdeck, Add. MSS 34988: 112; D&L, 1, pp. 334, 337; journal, NLTHW, pp. 138–9; Hoste to his father, 27/11/1793, NMM: MRF/88/1; Nelson to Maurice, 8/11/1793, Monmouth MSS, E602; and O. Troude and P. Levot, Batailles Navales, 2, p. 313.

  57. Nelson summed his five opponents as 170 guns and 1,600 men, against his own 64 guns and 345 men (Nelson to Maurice, 8/11/1793, Monmouth MSS, E602) but this ignores the fact that the Agamemnon engaged only one vessel, the Melpomene. He also made the Melpomene a forty-four-gun ship. As Hoste admitted this was ‘a fine forty-gun frigate’, and it had only eighteen-pounders to deploy against the British twenty-fours. All the French ships were later captured by the British, and I have taken their armaments from reports made at that time (list of prizes, ADM 1/391, enclosed with no. 145a; Hood to Stephens, 2/6/1794, 9/8/1794, ADM 1/392; Hood to Dundas, 2/6/1794, NMM: Hoo/9; NLTHW, p. 169; and letter of Nicholas Hardinge, 1794, in William Henry Wyndham-Quin, Sir Charles Tyler, p. 44).