Nelson

by John Sugden

  58. The Times, 13/12/1793; Matcham, Nelsons of Burnham Thorpe, p. 108.

  59. Nelson to Fanny, 16/1/1794, Monmouth MSS, E806; Linzee to Hood, 24/10/1793, 9/11/1793, ADM 1/391; Udny to Grenville, 5/12/1793, FO 79/9.

  60. Journal, NLTHW, p. 138.

  61. Journal, NLTHW, pp. 139–40; Nelson to Fanny, 1/12/1793, Monmouth MSS, E802; Nelson to Maurice, 8/11/1793, Monmouth MSS, E602; Nelson to Clarence, 2/12/1793, NMM: AGC/27; Nelson to Suckling, 5/12/1793, D&L, 1, p. 340. The main accounts of this mission are Linzee to Hood, 9/11/1793 and Perkins Magra to Hood, 10/11/1793, ADM 1/391.

  62. Nelson to Fanny, 25/3/1796, Monmouth MSS, E888.

  63. Hamilton and Laughton, Above and Below Hatches, pp. 130–2.

  64. Nelson to Locker, 1/12/1793, D&L, 1, p. 337.

  65. Hood to Nelson, November 1793, Add. MSS 34937; Nelson to Fanny, 1/12/1793, Monmouth MSS, E802; Linzee to Hood, 7/10/1793, Rose, Lord Hood, p. 141; Drake to Grenville, 22/12/1793, FO 28/6.

  66. For these activities the Agamemnon logs are supported by those of the Lowestoffe (ADM 51/535), Mermaid (ADM 51/597) and Tartar (ADM 51/1123). On the captains see Wyndham-Quin, Sir Charles Tyler; Campbell to Nelson, 18/7/1804, NMM: CRK/3; Mary C. Innes, William Wolseley; and Wolseley to Nelson, 18/3/1794, Add. MSS 34903.

  67. Hood to Linzee, 15/12/1793, NMM: Hoo/9.

  68. Nelson to Clarence, 2/12/1793, NMM: AGC/27.

  69. Edmund Nelson to Fanny, 13/12/1793, NMM: AGC/18/2; NLTHW, p. 175; and Matcham, Nelsons of Burnham Thorpe, pp. 100, 102, 103.

  70. Fremantle to William Fremantle, 1794 and 13/4/1794, CBS, D-FR/45/2/97 and D-FR/45/2.

  71. Nelson to William, 27/12/1793, Add. MSS 34988, and Nelson to Fanny, 27/12/1793, Monmouth MSS, E804.

  72. Nelson to Clarence, 2/12/1793, NMM: AGC/27; Nelson to Locker, 1/12/1793, D&L, 1, p. 337; Nelson to Fanny, 27/12/1793, Monmouth MSS, E804; and Fanny to Nelson, 10/12/1794, NLTHW, p. 261.

  73. Nelson to Clarence, 27/12/1793, NMM: AGC/27.

  74. Udny to Grenville, 29/12/1793, and Udny to Nelson, 29/12/1793, FO 79/9; Nelson to Stephens, 26–27/12/1793, ADM 1/2224; Udny to Drake, 27 and 28/12/1793, Add. MSS 46826.

  75. Hood to Nelson, 15/12/1793, Add. MSS 94937; Hervey to Grenville, 3/1/1794, FO 79/10.

  XVIII Corsica (pp. 458–93)

  1. Nelson to Fanny, 13/2/1794, Monmouth MSS, E808.

  2. Nelson to Fanny, 28/2/1794, Monmouth MSS, E809. Desmond Gregory, Ungovernable Rock, surveys the history of the British Corsican protectorate. For Paoli see Peter Adam Thrasher, Paoli.

  3. Reports of Edward Cooke and Thomas Nepean, 7, 8/1/1794, FO 20/2.

  4. Moore’s report, January 1794, in J. F. Maurice, ed., Diary of Moore, 1, p. 48, and Elliot to Henry Dundas, 14/2/1794, FO 20/2.

  5. Hood to Elliot, 26/1/1794, NMM: ELL/140; Hood to Nelson, 4/2/1794, Add. MSS 34937; and Tartar log, ADM 52/3104.

  6. Nelson to Locker, 17/1/1794, D&L 1, p. 347; Nelson to Fanny, 16/1/1794, Monmouth MSS, E806; Hood to Nelson, 7/1/1794, Add. MSS 34937; Nelson journal, NLTHW, p. 144.

  7. Nelson to Fanny, 16/1/1794, Monmouth MSS, E806; Hood to Stephens, 22/2/1794, ADM 1/392; St Michel to the French Convention, 22/1/1794, in Maurice Jollivet, ‘Revolution Française’, p. 209.

  8. The logs of the Agamemnon (chap. 17, n. 2) are relevant for the whole of this chapter, but Nelson’s blockade is also illustrated by the logs of the Leda (ADM 51/1163), Amphitrite (ADM 51/21) and Lowestoffe (ADM 51/4470).

  9. British sources say that eight boats carried a thousand French soldiers through the shallows from St Fiorenzo, but St Michel, commanding at Bastia, reported (n. 7 above) that an armed felucca and a sloop from St Fiorenzo took troops to the mill, while additional grenadiers arrived from Bastia.

  10. Nelson journal, NLTHW, p. 145; David to Henry Dundas, 21/2/1794, HO 50/456.

  11. Nelson to Suckling, 1/3/1794, D&L, 1, p. 362.

  12. Nelson’s journal and letters contain several allusions to the fortifications of Bastia, for example Nelson to Hoste, 3/5/1794, Monmouth MSS, E302. Among valuable visual pieces of evidence are a contemporary printed French map in NMM, reproduced in Anthony Deane, Nelson’s Favourite, p. 104; D’Aubant’s view of Bastia from the hills, 26/2/1794, and Koehler’s map and views, March 1794, in HO 50/456: 180, 181; and the British map in HO 28/15: 313.

  13. Hood to Nelson, 20/2/1794, Add. MSS 34937; Hood to Sutton, 20/2/1794, NMM: Hoo/9; McArthur to Nelson, 21/2/1794, Add. MSS 34937; Hood to Henry Dundas, 22/2/1794, HO 28/15. The logs of the ships, such as that of the Romulus, 5/2/1794, ADM 51/1151, supply details, but Nelson’s journal (NLTHW, p. 128 following) is the best source of information on this phase.

  14. Nelson to Hood, 8/2/1794, Add. MSS 70948; Nelson to Hood, 19/2/1794, D&L, 1, p. 356; Tartar log, ADM 52/3104.

  15. Nelson to Udny, 12/2/1794, Monmouth MSS, E194.

  16. Nelson journal, NLTHW, p. 147; Nelson to Udny, 24/2/1794, NMM: AGC/18/3.

  17. Udny, 7/3/1794, NMM: AGC/18/3.

  18. Nelson to Hood, 19/2/1794, D&L, 1, p. 356.

  19. This account of the February attacks on Bastia largely depends upon Nelson’s journal; Nelson to Hood, 22/2/1794, Monmouth MSS, E500; Nelson to Udny, 24/2/1794, NMM: AGC/18/3; and Anne Fremantle, ed., Wynne Diaries (1952), p. 252.

  20. Dundas to Hood, 23/2/1794, HO 28/15; Nelson to Fanny, 28/2/1794, Monmouth MSS, E809.

  21. Nelson to Fanny, 28/2/1794, Monmouth MSS, E809.

  22. Nelson journal, NLTHW, p. 148. The main printed sources for the Corsican sieges are the letters and journals in D&L, vols 1 and 2; NLTHW; J. H. Godfrey, ed., ‘Corsica, 1794’; Countess of Minto, ed., Sir Gilbert Elliot, 2, chaps 6–7; The Times, 3/9/1794 (Hood and Stuart’s dispatches covering the fall of Calvi); and Maurice, Diary of Moore. The manuscript materials are richer, and include the logs of the Agamemnon and other relevant ships; ADM 1/392 (Hood’s correspondence with the Admiralty); HO 28/15 (correspondence between Hood and Henry Dundas); NMM: Hoo/3–4, 9 (Hood letters); NMM: CRK/7 (Hood’s letters to Sir William Hamilton); FO 20/2 (Elliot’s official dispatches); NMM: ELL/138, 140, 149 and 162 (respectively Elliot’s correspondence with Nelson, Hood, the military, and his journal of March 1794); the Minto (Elliot) papers, National Library of Scotland, Edinburgh, MSS 11209–11214, 11221; WO 1/302 and HO 50/456 (military dispatches); Add. MSS 34902–34903, 34937, 34941 (Nelson papers); Add. MSS 20107 (the diary of an army officer eager to expose any ‘mismanagement of the navy’); Add. MSS 22688 (Paoli papers); and Add. 57320 and 57325 (Moore’s journal and letters). For reports from Bastia, written by Lacombe St Michel on 14/3/1794 and 20/4/1794, see Archives Nationales, Paris, AF/II/94, dossier 693: 26, and AF/II/252, dossier 2141: 2. Other sources are plentiful and cited as used.

  The secondary accounts have reproduced contemporary divisions. Nelson’s biographers have generally repeated his (and the navy’s) viewpoint without considering it necessary to consult other official letters and dispatches, although in recent years a new orthodoxy – the uncritical reproduction of Moore’s opinions – appears to be developing. John W. Fortescue, a man notorious in some quarters for his prejudices, shows contempt for any but military opinions in his History of the British Army, 4, pt I, chap. 8, and both James Carrick Moore (Moore’s brother), Life of Sir John Moore, vol. 1, chaps 4–5, and Maurice, Diary of Moore, follow their subject, in the latter case with considerable cogency. It needs to be understood, however, that there were different army opinions about the practicability of attacking Bastia, though relatively few have survived in extensive form. As I have argued here, the detailed history of the siege reveals the corrosive interplay of powerful personalities and serious flaws in all the major participants. Somewhat less narrowly partisan assessments are Carola Oman, Sir John Moore, chap. 3, and Gregory, Ungovernable Rock. Maurice Jollivet, ‘Revolution Française’, pp. 213–23, uses French sources to produce a laudatory description of the defence of Bastia.

  Corsica features strongly in considerations of Nelson’s operations on shore, though assessments continue to vary. Nelson’s
failure to grasp essential differences between military and naval operations needed more attention in Colin White’s admiring ‘Nelson Ashore, 1780–1797’, but Joel Hayward’s For God and Glory, which appeared as the present book was being prepared for the press, overstates the weaknesses in Nelson’s amphibious operations. Indeed, in this respect Hayward’s otherwise not inconsiderable account comes close to disparagement. His description of Nelson’s service on the San Juan expedition as ‘merely adequate’ (p. 205) would have astonished Captain Polson, while the analysis of the Corsican campaign uncritically follows Moore and Fortescue. His statement that Nelson’s ‘relations with army officers were seldom collegial, often tense, and sometimes bad and counterproductive’ (p. 164) is untrue and greatly under-rates his diplomatic abilities. Nelson’s relations with Polson and Villettes, with whom he conducted his first two sieges, were exemplary, and those with Duncan and De Burgh, with whom he principally cooperated in 1794 to 1797, were also good. Nelson even managed to remain on reasonable terms with Stuart at Calvi, though that general was difficult enough to drive the emollient Elliot close to distraction. In Corsica, Nelson disliked Moore precisely because he considered the lieutenant colonel divisive and detrimental to interservice relations, and he had no more respect for Generals Dundas and D’Aubant than Moore did himself. The singular breach in the relations between the services that occurred at that time was due to Hood and Dundas, not Nelson. A detailed study of Nelson’s actual and projected joint and shore-based operations between 1780 and 1800 would be welcome.

  23. Hood to Nelson, 8 and 9/3/1794, Add. MSS 34937.

  24. Elliot to his wife, 13/3/1794, Minto, Sir Gilbert Elliot, 2, p. 232; Hood to Henry Dundas, 24/5/1794, HO 28/15; Henry to David Dundas, 20/12/1793, Fortescue, British Army, 4, p. 176.

  25. T. A. Thorp, ‘George Thorp’, p. 187; Bowen to Hamilton, 18/2/1794, Warren R. Dawson, ed., Nelson Collection, p. 49.

  26. Elliot journal, NMM: ELL/162; Fremantle to William Fremantle, 13/4/1794, CBS, D-FR/45/2; Hood to Dundas, 8/3/1794, and Elliot to Hood, 9/3/1794, HO 50/456.

  27. Maurice, Diary of Moore, I, p. 66.

  28. Hood to Dundas, 23/2/1794, Dundas to Hood, 23/2/1794, and Dundas to Hood, 26/2/1794, HO 28/15. Copies of many of these letters are also filed in NMM: Hoo/3 and Hoo/9.

  29. Hood to Dundas, 2/3/1794, and Dundas to Hood, 5/3/1794, HO 28/15; Hood to Dundas, 6/3/1794, HO 50/456.

  30. Dundas to Hood, 7/3/1794, NMM: Hoo/3; Drake to Grenville, 10/3/1794, with enclosures, Dropmore MSS, 2, p. 523; Hood to Hamilton, 28/2/1794, NMM: CRK/7.

  31. McArthur to Nelson, 3/3/1794 and Hood to Nelson, 5, 9/3/1794, Add. MSS 34937; Hood to Drake, 3/3/1794, Godfrey, ‘Corsica, 1794’, p. 368; Hood to Dundas, 6/3/1794, HO 50/456; Nelson to Hood, 5/3/1794, D&L, 1, p. 368; intelligence, 26/2/1794, NMM: CRK/7.

  32. Elliot journal, NMM: ELL/162; Maurice, Diary of Moore, I, p. 68; Hood to Dundas, 9/3/1794, NMM: Hoo/9; Moore to Hood, 15/3/1794, NMM: Hoo/3.

  33. Hood to Dundas, 6, 7/3/1794, HO 50/456.

  34. Dundas to Hood, 8/3/1794, NMM: Hoo/3; Dundas to Hood, 9/3/1794, HO 28/15; Dundas to Dundas, 10/3/1794, HO 50/456; Elliot journal, NMM: ELL/162. Interestingly, this same David Dundas would head a procession of ten thousand soldiers at Nelson’s funeral in 1806.

  35. Oman, Sir John Moore, p. 119; Elliot to his wife, 28/3/1794, Minto, Sir Gilbert Elliot, 2, p. 234.

  36. Maurice, Diary of Moore, I, p. 71; Elliot journal, NMM: ELL/162.

  37. For the use of small boats see the logs of the Agamemnon; Hood to Nelson, 9, 16, 22/3/1794, Add. MSS 34903; and Hood to Nelson, 8/3/1794, and McArthur to Nelson, 11/3/1794, Add. MSS 34937.

  38. Nelson to Paoli, 6/3/1794, Add. MSS 22688; Nelson to Fanny, 4/3/1794, Monmouth MSS, E810.

  39. Nelson to Hood, 18/3/1794, D&L, 1, p. 358; Elliot to Henry Dundas, 5/4/1794, FO 20/2.

  40. Log of the Romney, ADM 51/1143.

  41. Elliot journal, NMM: ELL/162; Hood to D’Aubant, 12 and 14/3/1794, NMM: Hoo/9 and HO 28/15.

  42. Report of Moore and Koehler, 18/3/1794, HO 28/15: 191; Hood to Henry Dundas, 18 and 19/3/1794, HO 28/15.

  43. Elliot journal, NMM: ELL/162; Nelson journal, NLTHW, p. 150.

  44. Report of the council of war, 20/3/1794, HO 28/15: 187; Maurice, Diary of Moore, 1, pp. 72–7; Nelson journal, NLTHW, p. 150; Elliot journal, NMM: ELL/162; Elliot and Hood to D’Aubant, 14/3/1794, FO 20/2.

  45. Hood to D’Aubant, 21/3/1794, NMM: Hoo/9; Hood to Villettes and Brereton, 22/3/1794, NMM: Hoo/9; Elliot journal, NMM: ELL/162.

  46. Hood to D’Aubant, 24/3/1794, NMM: Hoo/9.

  47. Hood to Dundas, 27/5/1794, HO 28/15; Elliot journal, NMM: ELL/162; David Dundas memorandum, 30/1/1794, HO 50/456: 80.

  48. Elliot journal, NMM: ELL/162; Elliot to his wife, 7/4/1794, Minto, Sir Gilbert Elliot, 2, p. 237; Elliot to Dundas, 5/4/1794, FO 20/2. The correspondence about the Light Dragoons is in FO 20/2, HO 28/15 and NMM: ELL/149.

  49. Elliot journal, NMM: ELL/162; Hood to Hamilton, 15, 24, 25/3/1794, NMM: CRK/7; Nelson to Hamilton, 27/3/1794, Add. MSS 34902; list of equipment and stores requested from Naples, 26/3/1794, NMM: CRK/14. Not all the supplies from Naples arrived in time, and Hood particularly felt the want of mortar and gunboats (Hood to Hamilton, 21/4/1794, 6/5/1794, NMM: CRK/7).

  50. Nelson to Fanny, 22/3/1794, Monmouth MSS, E811; Nelson to Hamilton, 27/3/1794, Add. MSS 34902.

  51. Elliot to his wife, 7/4/1794, Minto, Sir Gilbert Elliot, 2, p. 237; Elliot journal, NMM: ELL/162. The true opinion of Villettes is unknown. He supported the Moore–Koehler report of 18 March, but perhaps out of mere loyalty to the army and his superior officer. Later he also dutifully landed at Bastia, and joined Nelson in directing a siege under Hood’s orders. Captain Fremantle said that Villettes was in favour of an attack upon Bastia: Fremantle to William Fremantle, 13/4/1794, CBS, D-FR/45/2.

  52. D’Aubant to Henry Dundas, 2/4/1794, HO 50/456; Maurice, Diary of Moore, 1, pp. 74–6, 80, 82, 85; Elliot’s journal, 21 and 23/3/1794, NMM: ELL/162.

  53. Thrasher, Paoli, pp. 285–6.

  54. Nelson to Hoste, 3/5/1794, and Nelson to Hamilton, 19/12/1794, Alfred Morrison, Hamilton and Nelson Papers, 1, pp. 190, 197. Villettes subsequently became the governor of Bastia and lieutenant governor and commander-in-chief of Jamaica. He died in Jamaica in 1808. See ‘Anecdotes of the Late Lieutenant-General Villettes’ in Gentleman’s Magazine.

  55. Nelson to Suckling, 7/2/1795, D&L, 2, p. 4; Hood to Nelson, 16/3/1794, Add. MSS 34937.

  56. Maurice, Diary of Moore, I, p. 80.

  57. Nelson to William, 26/3/1794, Add. MSS 34988.

  58. For the ships see Hood to Dundas, 5/4/1794, HO 28/15. Nelson’s journals for the siege of Bastia, from which quotations in the following pages have been taken, are published in D&L, vol. 1, and more satisfactorily in NLTHW, p. 154 following.

  59. Scout log, ADM 51/836; Hood to Stephens, 24/5/1794, ADM 1/392; Hood to Wolseley, 28/4/1794, NMM: Hoo/9.

  60. Nelson to Hood, 24, 25/4/1794, Add. MSS 34902; Nelson to Suckling, 6/4/1794, D&L, 1, p. 381.

  61. Hood had offered Villettes five or six hundred seamen to support his soldiers, haul guns and fight batteries (Hood to Villettes, 24/4/1794, NMM: Hoo/9). The fact that Villettes accepted half that number suggests his relative sense of security.

  62. Elliot to Henry Dundas, 5/4/1794, FO 20/2; Hood to Alexander Hood, 5/4/1794, Add. MSS 35194.

  63. Nelson to Fanny, 22/4/1794, Monmouth MSS, E814.

  64. Nelson journal, NLTHW, p. 155. Vice Admiral Hotham’s nephew, who gave an account of the siege long afterwards, seems to have erred in saying that Hood was ashore when the British batteries opened. He remembered that the French were ‘not a little astonished’ at the number of guns Nelson and Villettes brought to bear (A. M. W. Stirling, ed., Pages and Portraits, 1, pp. 59–60). See also Hood to Henry Dundas, 14/4/1794, NMM: Hoo/9. For Corsican tactics see the journal of George Mundy of the Juno, NMM: 85/015.

  65. Hood to Stephens, 14/4/1794, ADM 1/392.

  66. I have mo
dified some of Nelson’s details by reference to the map of the siege in HO 28/15: 313.

  67. Elliot to Paoli, 22/4/1794, Add. MSS 22688.

  68. Returns of losses enclosed in ADM 1/392, no. 34; Fremantle, Wynne Diaries, p. 252; Hood to Nelson, 20/4/1794, Add. MSS 34937; Stirling, Pages and Portraits, 1, p. 60.

  69. Hood to Henry Dundas, 25/4/1794, NMM: Hoo/9; Nelson to Hood, 3/5/1794, Add. MSS 34937.

  70. Fremantle, Wynne Diaries, p. 252; Nelson journal, NLTHW, p. 156; Hood to Stephens, 25/4/1794, ADM 1/392; Hood to Henry Dundas, 25/4/1794, NMM: Hoo/9; Hood to Nelson, 20/4/1794 and 13/5/1794, Add. MSS 34937; Nelson journal, D&L, 1, p. 398. The British were directing most of their fire at military targets, but the damage suggests some indiscriminate bombardment of the town with consequent civilian casualties.

  71. Hood to Nelson, 10, 16/4/1794, Add. MSS 34937; Nelson to Hood, 18/3/1794, D&L, 1, p. 373; Elliot to his wife, 30/5/1794, Minto, Sir Gilbert Elliot, 2, p. 253; log of the Meleager, ADM 51/1210. Hood’s emphasis on the blockade runs through his correspondence in the Paoli papers (Add. MSS 22688).

  72. Nelson journal, D&L, 1, p. 388; Udny to Wyndham, 26/3/1794, FO 79/10; Thrasher, Paoli, pp. 286–7.

  73. Nelson to Hood, 26/4/1794, D&L, 1, p. 388; Nelson to Hoste, 3/5/1794, Morrison, Hamilton and Nelson Papers, 1, p. 190. Hoste’s letter to his father, 7/5/1794 (Harriet Hoste, ed., Hoste, 1, p. 26), also reflects the increasing doubts in Nelson’s camp. It refers to the inadequacy of their force, the relative inefficacy of their bombardment and the resistance of Bastia’s stone buildings to fire. Hoste believed they were no nearer taking Bastia on 7 May than in April. The establishment of the new batteries on 8 May can also be taken as a comment on the inadequacy of the earlier batteries.

  74. Hood to Nelson, 21/4/1794, Add. MSS 34937; Hood to Dundas, 25/4/1794, HO 28/15; Elliot to Dundas, 5/4/1794, FO 20/2. According to the contemporary British map (HO 28/15: 313) the French had six hundred and fifty men scattered between eight hill forts or redoubts to the rear of Bastia. The lower hill forts were manned by between twenty-six and sixty-four men each, and the upper camps by between twenty and two hundred men each.