by John Sugden
15. King to Nelson, 15/9/1797, 28/2/1798, Monmouth MSS, E541, and Add. MSS 24906; Add. MSS 31176: 39; and Nelson to King, 9/11/1804, D&L, 7, p. ccxix. Remarkably, King’s account book as a petty officer of the Captain has survived: BL: A. M. Broadley, ‘Nelsoniana’, p. 3, facing p. 2.
16. The prize money accounts (Western MSS 3676, Wellcome Library, London) contain the names of some of Nelson’s closest followers. Among the literate were Sykes, Lovell, Thompson and Fearney, though the latter spelt his name phonetically, ‘Fairnie’. Cook, Cooper, Cross, Hagan and Levett signed with crosses. This paragraph also depends upon Lovell, interviewed by Allen, 1840, NMM: BGY/W/3; Matthew H. Barker, Life of Nelson, pp. 165–6; D&L, 2, p. 405; Sykes to Nelson, 27/9/1797, Add. MSS 34906; Nelson to Hannah Huddlestone, 23/9/1797, NMM: AGC/18/5; and E. H. Fairbrother, ‘John Sykes’.
17. Villettes to Nelson, 7/7/1795, Add. MSS 34904.
18. Nelson to Hamilton, 31/8/1794, Houghton Library, Harvard University, Cambridge, Massachusetts.
19. Nelson to Jervis, 3/6/1796, 7/4/1796, 22/5/1796, NMM: JER/1–2a and NMM: CRK/11; Peirson to Nelson, 17/3/1797, Add. MSS 34905; Hood to Hamilton, 6/5/1794, NMM: CRK/7; and documents in Alfred Morrison, ed., Hamilton and Nelson Papers, 1, p. 193, and 2, pp. 312, 332, 335, 336. Thomas Foley, Nelson Centenary, p. 45, identifies Peirson as the son of Marmaduke Langdale Lepinder (later Peirson) by Anne, daughter of William Robinson of Tottenham, which would make him the nephew of the William Robinson posthumously alleged to have seduced Ann Nelson. Nelson was not uncritical of Peirson. ‘I should not have approved of him for a son-in-law, although I believe him to be a very good young man,’ he told Fanny, ‘but I don’t think he will make a pleasant husband. He is too nice in his dress and fidgety, and has not the knack of being contented with his situation’ (Nelson to Fanny, 12/7/1797, Monmouth MSS, E935).
20. Nelson to Jervis, 13/9/1796, Add. MSS 75799; Suckling to Nelson, 22/3/1797, Add. MSS 34988; return of service, 1817, ADM 9/6: no. 1817.
21. Jervis to Nelson, 7/6/1796, 29/9/1796, NMM: CRK/11 and Add. MSS 31166.
22. For Bullen see his record of service, 1817, ADM 9/2: no. 22; William O’Byrne, Naval Biographical Dictionary, pp. 142–3, 1391; and sources listed in chap. 1, n. 10.
23. Andrews to Elliot, 16/3/1794, 10/11/1794, NMM: ELL/138; Nelson to Elliot, 5 and 8/4/1795, NMM: ELL/138; Nelson to Fanny, 22/6/1795, Monmouth MSS, E864.
24. List of appointments, 1793, ADM 1/391; O’Byrne, Naval Biographical Dictionary, pp. 1132–3 (Cheetham). The three stand-ins, all supplied in September 1793 and lasting between two and five days, were John Hall, Mungo Weir and John Gourly. Another short-stay lieutenant aboard Agamemnon was James McArthur, who stood in for Noble (then a prisoner of the French) from February to April 1796.
25. Nelson to Fanny, 22/5/1795, 2/8/1795, Monmouth MSS, E858, E869.
26. Survey on Allison’s health, 1/7/1795, and other documents in ADM 1/2739; Agamemnon log, 4/7/1795; and Nelson to Locker, 8/7/1795, D&L, 2, p. 49.
27. John Sugden, ‘Captain George Andrews’; John Sugden and Ray F. and Ann Evans, ‘More Light on George and Elizabeth Andrews’; Culverhouse to Nelson, 23/3/1797, Add. MSS 34905; Andrews to Nelson, 13/9/1801, 22/8/1805, NMM: CRK/1 and Add. MSS 34930.
28. Return of service, 1817, ADM 9/2: no. 219. Spicer gave his age as twenty-nine in a statement of 7 March 1797 (HCA 32/845), but he seems to have been older. According to a certificate from his home parish of St Stephen’s, Saltash, he was baptised on 22 September 1765: see the documents enclosed with his passing certificate, 4/5/1791, ADM 107/15.
29. Return of service, 1817, ADM 9/2: no. 214; O’Byrne, Naval Biographical Dictionary, pp. 818–19; Hoste to his father, 9/12/1795, in Harriet Hoste, ed., Hoste, 1, p. 49; DNB, 14, pp. 525–6; and Noble to Nelson, undated, NMM: CRK/9.
30. O’Byrne, Naval Biographical Dictionary, pp. 220–1.
31. Return of service, 1817, ADM 9/2: no. 39; Nelson to Fanny, 20/5/1796, Monmouth MSS, E895; DNB, 2, pp. 396–7; Ludovic Kennedy, Nelson and His Captains; Nelson to Jervis, 13/9/1796, Add. MSS 75799.
32. Jervis to Nepean, 18/7/1796, ADM 1/394; W. H. Fitchett, Nelson and His Captains, p. 66.
33. The identified quarterdeck aspirants of the Agamemnon were William Bolton, John Page Brandon, Isaac Charles Smith Collett, Thomas Eager, Thomas Bourdon Fellows, Samuel Gamble, Thomas Hall, William Hoste, David Lindsey, Thomas Lund, Samuel Newman, Josiah Nisbet, Christopher Schroder, Maurice William Suckling, John Weatherhead, Charles David Williams, Richard Williams, William D. Williams, Thomas Withers, John Wood and Ralph Woodman. For Wood see Linzee to Nepean, 27/8/1796, ADM 1/395. Subsequently, on the Captain and Theseus, Nelson also made midshipmen of other old Agamemnons, including Israel Coulson, Samuel Shillingford, William Fearney and Francis Cook, but I have excluded these from the analysis.
34. Thomas Foley, Nelson Centenary, pp. 30–1; Nelson to Fanny, 18/12/1795, 25/8/1795, 23/8/1796, Monmouth MSS, E879, E870, E902; Josiah to Fanny, 20/8/1793, Monmouth MSS, E675; Jervis to Nelson, 29/3/1798, Add. MSS 34939. Nelson was apparently trying to avoid offending Fanny, and Jervis, who supervised Josiah after Nelson left the fleet, similarly sugared the pill. ‘Though young and a wild boy, [Josiah] has a great deal of stuff in him,’ he wrote to Nelson on 23 October 1797 (Add. MSS 34939).
35. Nelson to Hoste, 3/5/1794, Monmouth MSS, E302.
36. Hoste to his brother, 14/9/1795, NMM: MRF/88/1.
37. Hoste to his father, 5/6/1796, 26/11/1796, NMM: MRF/88/1. Gardiner to Dixon Hoste, 3/6/1796, Hoste, Hoste, 1, p. 54; and Nelson to Dixon Hoste, 25/11/1796, D&L, 2, p. 304.
38. Nelson to Fanny, 24/4/1796, Monmouth MSS, E893; Tom Pocock, Remember Nelson, pp. 53–4.
39. Nelson to Hotham, 17/10/1794, ADM 1/392; Nelson, 19/6/1797, NMM: AGC/N/13; Nelson to Pollard, 17/2/1796, NMM: MON/1; Nelson to Daniel Williams, 27/2/1795, 5/5/1795, D&L, 2, pp. 9, 38; Daniel Williams to Nelson, 29/12/1794, Add. MSS 34903; note by Nelson and others, ADM 36/11359. The petty officers transferring with Nelson were Weatherhead, Hoste, Nisbet, Bolton, Eager, Lindsey, Schroder, Collett, Charles Williams, Lund and Withers. Eager left the Captain for the Belette on 7 October 1796. Among officers who did not follow Nelson to the Captain were Wilson, the master, who wanted to return to his large family in England, and Reynolds the surgeon, who swapped berths with his opposite number in the Nemesis.
40. Jervis to Nepean, 28/9/1796, ADM 1/395; Jervis to Nelson, 30/11/1796, Add. MSS 34938.
41. Allen, ‘England’s Wooden Walls’, p. 351 (Spicer).
42. Fellows, return of service, 1817, ADM 9/6: no. 1868.
43. Fanny to Nelson, 28/5/1797, and Maurice Nelson to Fanny, 10/5/1797, Add. MSS 34988, and Monmouth MSS, E664.
44. Andrews to Nelson, 22/8/1805, Add. MSS 34930; Spicer to Nelson, 2/9/1805, Add. MSS 34931; Noble to Nelson, 23/8/1805, Add. MSS 34930; Bullen, 1845, in BL: A. M. Broadley, ‘Nelsoniana’, 2, facing p. 160; and Withers to Nelson, 2/12/1800, NMM: CRK/13.
45. Betsy Wynne’s opinions of the captains of the fleet can be read in Anne Fremantle, ed., Wynne Diaries (1935–40), 2, pp. 101, 103, 106, 121–3.
46. David Spinney, Rodney, is a competent biography but for an excellent résumé of that officer’s difficult personality consult N. A. M. Rodger, The Wooden World, pp. 323–7. For Cochrane: Brian Vale, ‘Lord Cochrane in Chile’, pp. 59–68. Sir Francis Drake’s highly individual style of leadership contributed to similar difficulties in 1577–87, though these were also rooted in Elizabethan beliefs about command and inherited social status. Drake’s ‘low’ birth was resented by some junior officers who thought themselves his social superiors. For more on Nelson’s leadership style see chap. 26, below.
47. Nelson to Walker, 25/4/179(4?), Monmouth MSS, E202; Anne Fremantle, ed., Wynne Diaries (1952), p. 253; and Frederick to Nelson, 11/8/1796, NMM: CRK/5.
48. Hood to Stephens, 21/1/1794, ADM 1/392; Nelson to William, 20/6/1796, Add. MSS 34988; Elliot to Windham, 22/11/1795, Add. MSS 37852; Edward P. Brenton, John, Earl of St Vincent, 1, pp. 197, 209.
50. Miller to Elliot, 14/11/1795, 16/12/1795, 17/12/1795, Add. MSS 37852, p. 262, and NMM: ELL/138; Nelson to Jervis, 4/6/1796, NMM: JER/1–2a; and Miller to Ward, 1797, J. G. Bullocke, ed., Tomlinson Papers, p. 381. When he returned from the Mediterranean in 1797 Nelson visited one of Miller’s daughters, who was then in the care of a Taylor family (Nelson to Miller, 11/12/1797, NMM: XAGC/8).
51. Courts martial of Hugh Griffith and John Gourly, 29/10/1796, ADM 1/5337. Among the captains forming the court were Collingwood, Troubridge and Samuel Hood. Gourly himself died a ‘retired’ rear admiral in 1854.
52. Nelson to Jervis, 19/9/1796, NMM: JER/2B.
53. Court martial proceedings at St Fiorenzo, October 1796, ADM 1/5337, and Jervis to Nelson, 29/9/1796, Add. MSS 31166.
54. Jervis to Nelson, 19/10/1796, NMM: CRK/11; Add. MSS 31175: 226–8. Sawyer’s counter charges against three lieutenants, a lieutenant of marines, a master and a purser were all dismissed.
55. Sawyer to Nelson, 1796, Add. MSS 34905, and Nelson to Jervis, 30/9/1796, NMM: JER/2B. The book Nelson loaned was probably The Works of Flavius Josephus (1777), a set of two volumes bound together. At least Nelson later gave a copy of the book to his daughter, Horatia: TC, 5 (1995), p. 20. Payments of prize money to Sawyer are shown in Western MSS 3676, Wellcome Library.
56. John Barrow, Auto-Biographical Memoir, p. 463.
57. Cockburn to Nelson, 24/7/1797, Add. MSS 34906; Roger Morriss, Cockburn, pp. 28, 33; Maurice Nelson to Nelson, 4/8/1797, NMM: BRP/5.
XXIII Commodore Nelson (pp. 635–83)
1. 1. Nelson to Hamilton, 20/5/1796, Alfred Morrison, ed., Hamilton and Nelson Papers, 1, p. 219; SRRC, 112/16/33: 660. Major published sources for this chapter are D&L, vols 2 and 7, and NLTHW.
2. Anne Fremantle, ed., Wynne Diaries (1935–40), 2, pp. 95, 97. For details of the flight of the British community see FO 79/15; Udny to Drake, 25/6/1796, FO 28/15; Elliot to Jervis, 26/6/1796, NMM: ELL/159; and James Greig, Farington Diary, 1, pp. 239–40.
3. Accounts enclosed in Pollard to Nelson, 7/1/1797, NMM: CRK/10; Udny to Nelson, July 1796, Add. MSS 34904.
4. Anne Fremantle, ed., Wynne Diaries (1952), p. 256. The 1796 references to Adelaide in Fremantle’s diary have been missed by previous Nelson scholars, and mis-indexed by its editor.
5. Nelson to Jervis, 25/6/1796, NMM: JER/1–2a; Jervis to Nelson, 18/6/1796, 31/7/1796, Add. MSS 31175, and Add. MSS 31166; Jervis to Drake, 17/9/1796, Add. MSS 31166; Nelson to Jervis, 24/6/1796, ADM 1/394; Jervis to Elliot, 29/6/1796, NMM: ELL/141; Jervis to Brame, 26/8/1796, SRRC, 112/16/33: 838.
6. Jervis summarily dismissed the Genoese charges. ‘I pay no regard to the complaints of the Secretary of State, your answer being quite sufficient,’ he wrote (Jervis to Nelson, 29/6/1796, Add. MSS 31159). Nelson’s explanation went to the Admiralty, and, on his request, Drake also submitted a copy to Lord Grenville, the foreign secretary. Judge William Scott, to whom Grenville forwarded the documents in turn on 17 August, concluded that Nelson’s answer ‘contains a satisfactory vindication of his conduct, founded upon facts, which in point of legal effect would justify much stronger and more direct measures of hostile activity than any to which the commodore has ventured to resort’. Further charges, sent to Scott for a legal opinion in September, were found to be equally vague and poorly sustained. See Nelson to Drake, 25/6/1796, FO 28/15; Scott to Grenville, 22/8/1796, 7/9/1796, FO 28/15; Brame to Nelson (25/3/1796), Trevor (July 1796) and Drake (25/6/1796), SRRC, 112/16/31; and Nelson to Castiglione, 22/6/1796, SRRC, 112/16/33: 735.
7. Fremantle, 22/6/1796, Add. MSS 34904: 183; Brame to Grenville, 28/6/1796, FO 67/21. This chapter depends upon the logs of the Captain throughout: Add. MSS 36607; ADM 51/1174, ADM 51/1194 and ADM 52/2825; and NMM: ADM/L/C51.
8. Nelson to Elliot, 1/7/1796, with enclosure, NMM: ELL/138; Nelson to Jervis, 28/6/1796, NMM: JER/1–2a; Fremantle to Jervis, 30/6/1796, ADM 1/394; Udny to Elliot, 27/6/1796, NMM: ELL/132; Bonaparte to the Directory, 2/7/1796, Correspondance de Napoléon, 1, p. 445; Udny to Drake, 25/6/1796, SRRC, 112/16/33: 746.
9. Fremantle to William Fremantle, 13/7/1796, CBS, D-FR/45/2.
10. Bonaparte to Vaubois, 29/6/1796, Correspondance de Napoléon, 1, p. 442; Elliot to Windham, 3/7/1796, NMM: ELL/159.
11. Elliot to Jervis, 15/5/1796, 26, 27/6/1796, NMM: ELL/159; Elliot to Garlies, 1/7/1796, NMM: ELL/159.
12. Jervis to Nelson, 25/7/1796, Add. MSS 31159; Nelson to Fanny, 22/11/1796, 13/1/1797, Monmouth MSS, E910, E915; Hood to Nelson, 28/12/1796, Add. MSS 34937; Elliot to Nelson, 4/7/1796, NMM: ELL/159.
13. Though Jervis said he had ordered Nelson ‘to blockade the port in the closest manner’ (Jervis to Gregory, 1/7/1796, Add. MSS 31166), his instructions (Jervis to Nelson, 30/6/1796, and 1/7/1796, Add. MSS 34938) mention nothing about the severity of the blockade, which was raised in Nelson to Jervis, 3/7/1796, Add. MSS 34904. Hence my statement that Nelson and Jervis’s views converged and that Nelson did not merely implement the orders of his commander-in-chief. See also Jervis to Nelson, 31/7/1796, Add. MSS 31166 and Nelson to Brame, 6/7/1796, ADM 1/394.
14. Elliot to Nelson, 2, 6/7/1796, NMM: ELL/159 and CRK/5; Elliot to Garlies, 1/7/1796, NMM: ELL/159; Trevor to Nelson, 30/6/1796, Add. MSS 34904.
15. Elliot to Portland, 11/7/1796, FO 20/11.
16. James Macnamara of the Southampton should not be confused with the officer of the same name Nelson had known in the West Indies and France. ‘Mac’ died in 1802, a superannuated rear admiral. The captain of the Southampton was not made post until 1795, and died a rear admiral in 1826.
17. Elliot to Jervis, 14/7/1796, and Elliot to Duncan, 17/7/1796, NMM: ELL/159; Fremantle, Wynne Diaries (1952), p. 257.
18. Sources for the taking of Porto Ferraio are Elliot to Portland, 11/7/1796, enclosing Nelson to Elliot, 10/7/1796, and Duncan to Elliot, 10/7/1796, FO 20/11; Nelson to Wyndham, 11/7/1796, Add. MSS 34904; Nelson to Elliot and Jervis, both 9/7/1796, Add. MSS 34904; Nelson to Jervis, 10/7/1796, ADM 1/394; Elliot to Duncan, 6/7/1796, and other documents in Elliot’s letter book, NMM: ELL/159; military journal and plan of Porto Ferraio in NMM: ELL/135; Fremantle, Wynne Diaries (1935–40), 2, p. 105; ships’ logs, including those of Southampton (ADM 51/1131) and Inconstant (ADM 51/1179); statement of prize money, 27/12/1796, NMM: CRK/1; and Pietro Vigo, Nelson a Livorno, chap. 3.
19. For Jervis’s reaction to the peace: Jervis to Nelson, 15/7/1796, Add. MSS 31159.
20. Jackson to Grenville, 27/8/1796, FO 67/22.
21. Nelson to Jervis, 3/7/1796, Add. MSS 34904; Jervis to Nelson, 8, 11, 19/8/1796, Add. MSS 31159, and NMM: CRK/11; Jervis to Nepean, 11/8/1796, ADM 1/395; Jervis to Elliot, 12/8/1796, NMM: ELL/141.
22. Nelson to Spencer, 20/8/1796, Add. MSS 75795; Elliot to Hamilton, 29/9/1796, FO 20/5; documents enclosed in Jervis to Nepean, 2/1/1796, ADM 1/395, and in NMM: JER/2b and NMM: ELL/159; Nelson’s letter in Add. MSS 34902: 106.
23. Graham to Jervis, 13/6/1796, Add. MSS 34908.
24. Trevor to Grenville, 27/7/1796, FO 67/22; Jervis to Nelson, 14, 23/8/1796, NMM: CRK/11; Jervis to Elliot, 14, 15/7/1796, NMM: ELL/141.
25. Nelson to Elliot, 1/8/1796, D&L, 2, p. 227; Elliot to Nelson, 30/7/1796, 26/8/1796, 2/9/1796, NMM: CRK/11, NMM: ELL/159 and NMM: CRK/5; De Silva to Nelson, 2/8/1796, NMM: CRK/12.
26. Nelson to Lavillette, 22/8/1796, Monmouth MSS, E987.
27. Nelson to Elliot, 3/8/1796, NMM: ELL/138; Jervis to Bute, 18/7/1796, Add. MSS 31166. Some intelligences are in Add. MSS 34941. For Nelson’s payment of spies, defrayed by Jervis, see Jervis to Nelson, 15/7/1796, Add. MSS 34938.
28. Nelson to Elliot, 3/8/1796, NMM: ELL/138; Caffarena to Nelson, 3/8/1796, NMM: ELL/138. Nelson’s letter to Elliot has hitherto been taken from the printed version in Nicolas (D&L, 2, p. 232), where it is incorrectly transcribed to read ‘One old
lady tells me [sic] all she hears.’ The original ‘us’ instead of ‘me’ was less personal, and reinforces suspicions that he was not alluding to Adelaide.
29. Udny to Nelson, July and 23/7/1796, Add. MSS 34904; letter to Nelson, 28/7/1796, Add. MSS 34904: 262.
30. Brame to Nelson, 21, 22/8/1796, Add. MSS 34904.
31. Nelson to Jervis, 2 and 3/8/1796, D&L, 2, p. 225; Nelson to Collingwood, 1/8/1796, Morrison, Hamilton and Nelson Papers, 1, p. 221; Drake to Grenville, 8/7/1796, FO 28/15; Jackson to Grenville, 17/8/1796, FO 67/22; Bonaparte to the Directory, 2/7/1796, Correspondance de Napoléon, 1, p. 445.
32. Lavillette to Nelson, 24/8/1796, NMM: JER/2b.
33. Nelson to Trevor, 28/4/1796, Monmouth MSS, E987; Jervis to Hamilton, 26/4/1796, Add. MSS 31166.
34. Elliot to O’Hara, 22/7/1796, and Elliot to Jervis, 31/7/1796, both in NMM: ELL/159.
35. Nelson to Elliot, 5, 11/8/1796, NMM: ELL/138; Elliot to Jervis, 31/7/1796, NMM: ELL/159.
36. Elliot to Nelson, 6/8/1796, NMM: CRK/5; De Burgh to Elliot, 12/8/1796, and undated, NMM: ELL/148; Elliot to Windham, 10/8/1796, NMM: ELL/159; Elliot to Portland, 19/7/1796, 8/8/1796, FO 20/11.
37. Duncan to Elliot, 13/8/1796, NMM: ELL/135.
38. Jervis to Nelson, 31/7/1796, Add. MSS 31166; Jervis to Elliot, 25/7/1796, 6, 15, 22/8/1796, Add. MSS 31166: 70, 79, 80, and Add. MSS 31196: 84.
39. Nelson to William, 18/8/1796, Add. MSS 34988; Nelson to Collingwood, 18, 20/8/1796, E. Hughes, ed., Private Correspondence of Admiral Lord Collingwood, p. 75.
40. For the failure of the Leghorn expedition I have depended upon Elliot to Nelson, 12, 15, 16, 30/8/1796, NMM: CRK/5; Jackson to Grenville, 24, 27/8/1796, FO 67/22; Elliot to Portland, 28/8/1796, FO 20/11; Drake to Grenville, 27/7/1796 and Drake to Elliot, 30/8/1796, FO 28/15; and several documents in NMM: ELL/159, particularly Elliot’s letters to Nelson (10, 13/8/1796), De Burgh (13, 15/8/1796), Graham (15/8/1796), Duncan (15, 25/8/1796), Windham (15/8/1796) and Jervis (17, 19/8/1796).