Nelson

by John Sugden

  Among the ratings following Nelson into his new ship were nineteen Agamemnons: Tom Allen, Francis Cook, Mark Cooper, John Cross, Charles Fenwick, William Fearney, John Hagan, Arthur Johnson, George Jones, William Levett, George Logan, John Lovell, Thomas Ramsay, Michael Riley, Samuel Shillingford, William Short, William Sparks (a boy), John Sykes and John (Jack) Thompson (muster of the Theseus, ADM 36/12648). Lovell, Short and Cook later served under William Hoste, when he eventually got a command of his own. Francis Cook lost his hand in a boat action and became a cook on Hoste’s Mutine. See Joseph Allen, ‘England’s Wooden Walls’, pp. 348–9.

  31. Report of the Theseus, 30/5/1797, enclosed in ADM 1/396: no. 107.

  32. Hoste to his father, 27/5/1797, NMM: MRF/88/1; logs of the Theseus, ADM 51/1173 (Aylmer), 51/1221 and 52/2993, and NMM: ADM/L/T87A.

  33. Nelson to Clarence, 15/6/1797, NMM: AGC/27. For the more usual wording see Nelson to Fanny, 15/6/1797, Monmouth MSS, E930.

  34. Nelson to Jervis, 9/6/1797, 10/6/1797, D&L, 2, pp. 393, 395; Jervis to Nelson, 10/6/1797, Add. MSS 34938. The original of the first of these letters, written by Nelson on 9 June (filed in NMM: JER/3–4) does not include the quotation about the two prisoners. Nicolas took his version (cited here) from Clarke and McArthur, but they reproduced documents inaccurately, and sometimes put material from two or more original letters together, publishing them under one date as if they belonged to a single communication. Probably Clarke and McArthur took the description of the prisoners from another Nelson letter, and incorporated it into the 9 June document in that way.

  35. Nelson’s letters to Jervis and Calder, 9/7/1797, D&L, 2, pp. 408, 409.

  36. Nick Slope, ‘The Trials of Nelson: Nelson and the Emerald’.

  37. In addition to musters of the Theseus, see Jervis to Nelson, 2/6/1797, Add. MSS 34938, in which the commander-in-chief reports issuing a warrant as second master of the Ville de Paris to satisfy Nelson.

  38. Nelson to Fanny, 9/3/1797, 2/4/1797, Monmouth MSS, E923–924.

  39. Letter to Tyson, 1800, Add. MSS 34916: 187; Nelson to Fanny, 9/3/1797, 12/4/1797, Monmouth MSS, E923, E926; Nisbet’s return of service, 1817, ADM 9/2: no. 94. Nisbet may even have avoided taking his lieutenants’ examination. Spencer complained that lieutenants were being made in the Mediterranean fleet without certificates being forwarded, specifically mentioning Nisbet: Spencer to Jervis, 1/7/1797, Add. MSS 75812.

  40. Maurice to Nelson, 16/5/1797, 4/8/1797, Add. MSS 34988, and NMM: BRP/5; Add. MSS 31176: 159; Jervis to Nelson, 17 and 19/6/1797, Add. MSS 34938; Nelson to Jervis, 18/9/1797, NMM: JER/3–4; Nelson to Fanny, 2/4/1797 and 30/6/1797, Monmouth MSS, E924, E932. Later Bolton served under Nelson again and received a knighthood through the association.

  41. Nelson to Hoste, 30/6/1797 and September 1797, D&L, 2, pp. 401, 442; Fanny to Nelson, 3/4/1797, Add. MSS 34988.

  42. Nelson to Clarence, 15/6/1797, NMM: AGC/27. Nelson to McArthur, 1/6/1797, Rosenbach Museum and Library.

  43. For the disposition of the ships see the map by a British officer, 18/5/1797, Add. MSS 34906: 124, and the drawings made by Thomas Buttersworth, NMM. The Spanish side of the blockade was described by Augusto Conte y Lacave, Ataque de Cadiz. Jervis’s letters to Nelson can be read in Add. MSS 34938–34939, but his journal may be consulted in Add. MSS 31186: 189 following.

  44. Nelson to Saumarez, 9/6/1797, Ross, Saumarez, 1, p. 180; Nelson to Mazzaredo, 30/6/1797, Monmouth MSS, E988.

  45. Information of Duff, 29/5/1797, FO 72/45; Jervis to Nepean, 30/6/1797, ADM 1/396; map of Cadiz harbour, NC, 21 (1809), facing p. 476.

  46. Plan to attack Cadiz, April 1797, Add. MSS 75812.

  47. Nelson to Jervis, 7/6/1797, 6/6/1797, NMM: JER/3–4, and D&L, 2, p. 392; Ross, Saumarez, 1, p. 180; Add. MSS 34906: 135; Jervis to Nelson, Add. MSS 34938: 210; Jervis to O’Hara, 18/6/1797, Add. MSS 31166.

  48. Jervis to Nelson, 10/7/1797, Add. MSS 34939.

  49. Mazzaredo’s letters to Nelson, Add. MSS 34941: 176–86, and Nelson letter book, Monmouth MSS, E988.

  50. Nelson to Inglefield, 11/7/1797, D&L, 2, p. 411; Nelson to Jervis, 13/6/1797, Add. MSS 75812; Nelson to Fanny, 11/7/1797, Monmouth MSS, E934.

  51. Jervis to Walpole, 6/7/1797, Add. MSS 31160.

  52. Nelson to Clarence, 28/6/1797, NMM: AGC/27.

  53. Jervis to Nelson, 3/6/1797, Add. MSS 34938; Nelson to Jervis, 3/7/1797, NMM: JER/3–4; Jervis to Nepean, 5/7/1797, ADM 1/396; Jervis to Nelson, 3/7/1797, Add. MSS 34939; Jervis to Spencer, 15/6/1797, Add. MSS 75812. The most useful account of the bombardments of Cadiz was given by Miller and dated 9/7/1797. It was rediscovered and published by Kirstie Buckland, ed., Miller Papers, pp. 8–15.

  54. Nelson to Jervis, 3/7/1797, NMM: JER/3–4. In addition to the logs of the Theseus, I have used those of the Goliath (ADM 51/1205), Terpsichore (ADM 51/4507), Emerald (51/1166) and Seahorse (51/1190). Jervis thought Nelson’s dispatch covering the attack (Nelson to Jervis, 4/7/1797, enclosed in ADM 1/396: no. 124) ‘characteristic of your noble soul, and cannot be improved by the ablest pen in Europe’ (Jervis to Nelson, 5/7/1797, Add. MSS 34939).

  55. Buckland, Miller Papers, p. 9.

  56. Guiana Chronicle, 21/3/1836, which contains a statement supposed to have been made by a participant.

  57. Allen, ‘England’s Wooden Walls’, pp. 348–9; D&L, p. 11; Guiana Chronicle, 21/3/1836; James Stanier Clarke and John McArthur, Life and Services, 2, p. 39; medical journal of the Theseus, ADM 101/123/2. Nelson referred to Sykes in his dispatch, and offered to pay his ongoing medical expenses. Prompted by Maurice Nelson, Fanny also sent him an inscribed small cased silver watch, which, with related relics, is preserved at Monmouth. Sykes recovered and returned to duty on 23 July. Fanny and Peirson were able to serve him in England, and through Nelson’s influence he was transferred to Jervis’s Ville de Paris and in October appointed a gunner of the Andromache. Unfortunately, he was accidentally killed when a gun burst on 1 May 1798; his estate, valued at under £300, went to his mother, Hannah. Consult Nelson to Huddlestone, 23/9/1797, NMM: AGC/18/5; Maurice Nelson to Nelson, 4/8/1797, NMM: BRP/5; Jervis to Nelson, 30/10/1797, Add. MSS 34939; Matthew H. Barker, Life of Nelson, pp. 165–6; E. H. Fairbrother, ‘John Sykes’. The story of Sykes’s saving of Nelson seems to have become so popular that other sailors attempted to appropriate it for themselves: NC, 30 (1813), p. 120.

  58. Fremantle to William Fremantle, 4/7/1797, CBS, D-FR/45/2; Nelson to Jervis, 7/7/1797, D&L, 2, p. 407; Fremantle, Wynne Diaries, 2, p. 183; report enclosed in ADM 1/396: no. 124. I dismiss the Spanish claim that six British boats attacked the San Pablo (Conte y Lacave, Ataque de Cadiz, 68). Nelson mentioned Miller and Fremantle in his dispatch, but exaggerated his own exploit in ‘Sketch of My Life’ by implying that his boat’s crew captured the Spanish barge unaided. The other vessels taken were the Pelayo, under Don Juan Cabaleri, who was killed in the fight, and the Glorioso, under Don Pedro Ferriz, who was wounded.

  59. Buckland, Miller Papers, pp. 10–11. A witness aboard the Goliath wrote frankly of ‘the ridiculous bombardment’ (NMM: 85/015).

  60. Return of casualties enclosed in ADM 1/396: no. 124; medical journal of the Theseus, ADM 101/123/2.

  61. Jervis to Nelson, 4, 5/7/1797, Add. MSS 34939.

  62. Buckland, Miller Papers, p. 12.

  63. Jervis to Walpole, 6/7/1797, Add. MSS 31160; Buckland, Miller Papers, p. 13; the Theseus log; Oliver Davis narrative, NMM: WAL/21B. Nelson was rowed forward to the bomb vessel during the action, returning to the Theseus at about three-thirty to four in the morning.

  64. Jervis to Nepean, 10/7/1797, ADM 1/396; Nelson to Fanny, 11/7/1797, Monmouth MSS, E934; Buckland, Miller Papers, pp. 14–15; Jervis to Spencer, 9/7/1797, Add. MSS 75812.

  65. Nelson to Mazzaredo, 8/7/1797, Monmouth MSS, E988; Nelson to Scrivener, 15/6/1797, Fiske, Notices of Nelson, p. 13.

  66. Nelson to McArthur, 16/3/1797, Add. MSS 34905.

  67. Jervis to Nelson, 4/4/1797, Add. MSS 34938.

  68. Nelson to Jervis, 21/4/1797, NMM
: JER/3–4.

  69. Jervis to Nelson, 17/6/1797, Add. MSS 34938; Elliott to his wife, 27/6/1797, NLS, 11051: 73.

  70. Jervis to Spencer, 10/4/1796, Add. MSS 75793; Hood to Nelson, 4/7/1797, Add. MSS 34906. Tom Wareham, Star Captains, pp. 172–4, discusses Bowen.

  71. Nelson to Commandant General of the Canaries, 20/7/1797, Add. MSS 34906; instructions of Jervis, 14/7/1797, Add, MSS 34939: 42.

  72. Nelson to Sykes, 14/7/1797, Historical Society of Pennsylvania, Philadelphia.

  73. Nelson to Jervis, 6, 7/6/1797, NMM: JER/3–4, and D&L, 2, p. 392.

  74. Jervis to Nelson, 15/7/1797, Add. MSS 34939.

  XXVI More Daring Intrepidity was Never Shown (pp. 750–77)

  1. Waller journal, enclosed in ADM 1/396: no. 151.

  2. Miller’s account in Kirstie Buckland, ed., Miller Papers, p. 16.

  3. The issue is a theme in Russell F. Weigley, Age of Battles.

  4. John Knox Laughton, ed., Letters and Despatches of Horatio, Viscount Nelson, p. 150. For the development of Nelson’s system see M. A. J. Palmer, ‘Lord Nelson’, and Brian Lavery, Nelson and the Nile.

  5. Francisco Lanuza Cano, Ataque, chaps 4–7, with appended plans and illustrations, gives a comprehensive picture of the defences of Santa Cruz.

  The principal British sources for the attack on Tenerife are the log books in ADM 51/1166, 1190, 1199, 1201–2, 1221, 4507, and NMM: ADM/L/C246 and ADM/L/S224; ADM 1/396: no. 151, which contains the public dispatches, Waller’s journal, and other documents; Add. MSS 34906; Add. MSS 34938–9 (St Vincent letters); D&L, vols 2 and 7; Miller’s account, written soon afterwards, and cited in note 2 above; John McDougall to his parents, 8/9/1797, in Pedro Ontorio Oquillas, Luis Cola Benitez and Daniel Garcia Pulido, eds, Fuentes Documentales, p. 348; Oliver Davis narrative, NMM: WAL/21B; and William McPherson’s account in Sydney Fremantle, ‘Nelson’s First Writing’, p. 210. Two solid secondary accounts from the British side are J. D. Spinney, ‘Nelson at Santa Cruz’, and Colin White, 1797.

  British and Spanish accounts of the Tenerife affair are often widely disparate. The Spanish documents are comprehensively gathered in Lanuza Cano, Ataque, and the exemplary Oquillas, Benitez and Pulido, Fuentes Documentales, but English-speaking readers may consult the translation of Bernardo Cologan’s account in ‘Nelson at Tenerife’, Daily Telegraph, 18/8/1896; Michael Nash, Santa Cruz; and the garbled translations in Add. MSS 34906: 215, 218. Spanish historians have shown more interest in the engagement than their British counterparts: Don Jose de Monteverde, Relación; Leopoldo Pedreira, Mario Arozena, et al., Recuerdo del Centenario; and Agustin Guimera, Nelson at Tenerife.

  6. Nelson to Troubridge, 20/7/1797, Add. MSS 34902; Christopher C. Lloyd, ed., Keith Papers, 2, p. 91; Buckland, Miller Papers, pp. 17–18.

  7. I am following Lanuza Cano, Ataque, p. 59, for the strength of the Paso Alto battery.

  8. ‘Remarks on board H.M. Ship Theseus’, ADM 1/396. This is Nelson’s record between 14 July and 16 August. A variation, entitled ‘Detail of the Proceedings’, is in Add. MSS, 34906: 200.

  9. Spanish account, Add. MSS 34906: 215; Davis account, NMM: WAL/21B; Buckland, Miller Papers, p. 19.

  10. Davis account, NMM: WAL/21A; Buckland, Miller Papers, p. 26; Fremantle, Wynne Diaries (1935–40), 2, p. 184.

  11. Antonio to Alvarez, 27/7/1797, Add. MSS 34906: 218

  12. Saumarez to Richard Saumarez, 6/3/1797, Sir John Ross, Saumarez, 1, p. 177.

  13. Fremantle, Wynne Diaries, 2, pp. 184–5; Buckland, Miller Papers, pp. 21–2. The German informant is also mentioned in Waller’s journal, ADM 1/396.

  14. Nelson to Hamond, 8/9/1797, NMM: MON/1.

  15. Jervis to O’Hara, 13/2/1797, Add. MSS 31159; Elliot to Jervis, 29/6/1796, NMM: ELL/159.

  16. G. L. Newnham Collingwood, ed., Correspondence, 1, p. 61; Thorp, 24/7/1797, in T. A. Thorp, ‘George Thorp’, pp. 182, 190.

  17. Buckland, Miller Papers, p. 23.

  18. Nelson to Jervis, 24/7/1797, Add. MSS 34906.

  19. Lady Nelson’s account, 1806, Monmouth MSS, E676a. This account is reprinted with minor transcription errors in NLTHW, p. 374.

  20. Buckland, Miller Papers, p, 24; Add. MSS 31176: 117.

  21. The log of the Leander (ADM 51/1201) says that the boats drew some fire from the forts as they passed, but whether this preceded the outbreak of fighting at the mole is unclear.

  22. Journal, Add. MSS 34906: 185.

  23. Hoste to his father, 15/8/1797, Nash, Santa Cruz, p. v.

  24. Cologan’s account in Oquillas, Benitez and Pulido, Fuentes Documentales, p. 87; Guimera, Nelson at Tenerife, p. 29.

  25. Lady Nelson’s account, 1806, Monmouth MSS, E676a; Buckland, Miller Papers, p. 31.

  26. The story about Maurice Suckling’s sword comes from the earliest sketch of Nelson (Public Characters, p. 7), which appears to draw upon family information.

  27. Spanish account, Add. MSS 34906: 215.

  28. Buckland, Miller Papers, p. 26.

  29. Buckland, Miller Papers, p. 27. Both British and Spanish accounts of the Tenerife affair betray ready exaggeration. Juan Guinther’s claim that 742 invading Britons survived to benefit from the ceasefire on 25 July (Oquillas, Benitez and Pulido, Fuentes Documentales, p. 114) would seem to be absurd. Less than that number participated in the attack, and more than three hundred either lost their lives or failed to land. On the other hand Captain Waller’s claim that the British were opposed by seven hundred regulars, three hundred French and six or seven thousand militia was a gross overstatement fed by the inflated claims the Spaniards made to intimidate their opponents during negotiations.

  30. Fanny’s endorsement on McArthur to Fanny, 22/1/1807, Monmouth MSS, E678; Lady Nelson’s account, 1806, Monmouth MSS, E676a.

  31. Hoste to his father, 15/8/1797, Nash, Santa Cruz, p. v. A story that Nelson doffed his hat with his left hand to return the salute of his officers is contained in what appears to be a later (and possibly less reliable) insertion into Lady Nelson’s account. I know of no credible source at all for the popular legend that Nelson was first taken to the Seahorse, but declined to go aboard for fear of alarming Mrs Fremantle.

  32. Fremantle, Wynne Diaries, 2, p. 189; James Stanier Clarke and John McArthur, Life and Services, 3, p. 214. For Nelson’s operation see the medical journal of the Theseus, ADM 101/123/2; D’Arcy Power, ‘Some Bygone Operations in Surgery’; James Kemble, Idols and Invalids, pp. 134–42; H. T. A. Bosanquet, ‘Lord Nelson’; L. P. Lequesne, ‘Nelson’s Wounds’; Jessie Dobson, ‘Lord Nelson’; P. D. Gordon Pugh, Nelson and His Surgeons; Beatus Ruettimann, ‘How Nelson Lost his Arm’; and James Watt, ‘Naval Surgery in the Time of Nelson’. For contemporary surgical procedures I have relied upon William Northcote, Marine Practice of Physic and Surgery, 1, pp. 179–98, and William Turnbull, Naval Surgeon, pp. 303–5, 380–7. I am grateful to Surgeon Vice Admiral Sir James Watt, the foremost authority on historical naval surgery, for sending me his observations on this subject.

  33. Clarence’s account is in Add. MSS 34990: 54.

  34. Nelson’s wound continued to cause him unusual pain but scholars have disagreed about its origin. One of the ligatures proved remarkably tenacious and refused to come away, and before the end of 1797 physicians in London were blaming Eshelby for trapping the median nerve with the bound artery. Some scholars have followed, condemning the operation as a botched job, but this is unfair. As I have said, the inclusion of the nerve in a ligature seems to have been a commonly accepted practice at that time. Sir James Watt has also drawn my attention to the difficulties faced by Eshelby as he tried to secure bleeding arteries deep inside the wound in a poor light. He believes that Eshelby found an artery bleeding higher up the wound, near the median nerve. In applying forceps and ligaturing the artery he accidentally caught up the median nerve, causing postoperative pain that was later sustained by infection. This disappeared when the ligature eventually fell away. Kemble, Idols and Invalids, pp. 140–1, also gave infection a role in perpetuating Ne
lson’s pain, believing that it developed when the obstinate ligature kept the wound open. However, Kemble dismissed the role of the median nerve too readily. He contended that fixing the median nerve to the ligature would not in itself have occasioned pain, a theory he partly based upon his view that Nelson’s pain was not ‘nervous in origin’. Had it been so, Kemble argued, Nelson would have felt ‘phantom’ pains in his amputated limb. In fact, contrary to what Kemble supposed, Nelson did report phantom pains in his amputated right hand (William to Nelson, 7/10/1797, Monmouth MSS, E653).

  35. Terms, 25/7/1797, Add. MSS 34906: 181.

  36. Buckland, Miller Papers, p. 30; Troubridge to Nelson, 25/7/1797, Add. MSS 34906; Jervis to Mazarredo, 18/8/1797, Add. MSS 31160.

  37. Hoste to his father, 15/8/1797, Nash, Santa Cruz, p. v; Oquillas, Benitez and Pulido, Fuentes Documentales, p. 84; medical journal of the Theseus, ADM 101/123/2.

  38. Details of individual casualties here and elsewhere are drawn from the medical journal of the Theseus, ADM 101/123/2, and the Theseus muster, ADM 36/12648.

  39. Miller’s return in Buckland, Miller Papers, p. 32, gives similar but slightly higher casualties than the official return enclosed in ADM 1/396: no. 151. For the Spanish and French losses see Lanuza Cano, Ataque, chap. 17 and p. 607.

  40. Miller to Thompson, 26/7/1797, Add. MSS 46119; Fremantle, ‘Nelson’s First Writing’, p. 207; Wentworth to Lee, Monmouth MSS, E248.

  41. Nelson to Gutierrez, 26/7/1797, Oquillas, Benitez and Pulido, Fuentes Documentales, p. 32.

  42. Nash, Santa Cruz, p. 17.

  43. Nelson to St Vincent, 27/7/1797, ADM 1/396.

  44. Hoste to his father, 15/8/1797, Nash, Santa Cruz, p. v; Harriet Hoste, ed., Hoste, 1, p. 86.

  45. Nelson to St Vincent, 27/7/1797, ADM 1/396.