Nelson"s departure from England on this occasion closes the first of the two periods into which his career naturally divides. From his youth until now, wherever situated, the development has been consecutive and h.o.m.ogeneous, external influences and internal characteristics have worked harmoniously together, nature and ambition have responded gladly to opportunity, and the course upon which they have combined to urge him has conformed to his inherited and acquired standards of right and wrong. Doubt, uncertainty, inward friction, double motives, have been unknown to him; he has moved freely in accordance with the laws of his being, and, despite the anxieties of his profession and the frailty of his health, there is no mistaking the tone of happiness and contentment which sounds without a jarring note throughout his correspondence. A change was now at hand. As the sails of the "Vanguard" dip below the horizon of England, a brief interlude begins, and when the curtain rises again, the scene is shifted,--surroundings have changed. We see again the same man, but standing at the opening of a new career, whose greatness exceeds by far even the high antic.i.p.ations that had been formed for him. Before leaving England he is a man of distinction only; prominent, possibly, among the many distinguished men of his own profession, but the steady upward course has as yet been gradual, the shining of the light, if it has latterly shot forth flashes suggestive of hidden fires, is still characterized by sustained growth in intensity rather than by rapid increase. No present sign so far foretells the sudden ascent to fame, the burst of meridian splendor with which the sun of his renown was soon to rise upon men"s eyes, and in which it ran its course to the cloudless finish of his day.
Not that there is in that course--in its achievements--any disproportion with the previous promise. The magnitude of the development we are about to witness is due, not to a change in him, but to the increased greatness of the opportunities. A man of like record in the past, but less gifted, might, it is true, have failed to fill the new sphere which the future was to present. Nelson proved fully equal to it, because he possessed genius for war, intellectual faculties, which, though not unsuspected, had not hitherto been allowed scope for their full exercise. Before him was now about to open a field of possibilities. .h.i.therto unexampled in naval warfare; and for the appreciation of them was needed just those perceptions, intuitive in origin, yet resting firmly on well-ordered rational processes, which, on the intellectual side, distinguished him above all other British seamen. He had already, in casual comment upon the military conditions surrounding the former Mediterranean campaigns, given indications of these perceptions, which it has been the aim of previous chapters to elicit from his correspondence, and to marshal in such order as may ill.u.s.trate his mental characteristics. But, for success in war, the indispensable complement of intellectual grasp and insight is a moral power, which enables a man to trust the inner light,--to have faith,--a power which dominates hesitation, and sustains action, in the most tremendous emergencies, and which, from the formidable character of the difficulties it is called to confront, is in no men so conspicuously prominent as in those who are ent.i.tled to rank among great captains. The two elements--mental and moral power--are often found separately, rarely in due combination. In Nelson they met, and their coincidence with the exceptional opportunities afforded him const.i.tuted his good fortune and his greatness.
The intellectual endowment of genius was Nelson"s from the first; but from the circ.u.mstances of his life it was denied the privilege of early manifestation, such as was permitted to Napoleon. It is, consequently, not so much this as the constant exhibition of moral power, force of character, which gives continuity to his professional career, and brings the successive stages of his advance, in achievement and reputation, from first to last, into the close relation of steady development, subject to no variation save that of healthy and vigorous growth, till he stood unique--above all compet.i.tion. This it was--not, doubtless, to the exclusion of that reputation for having a head, upon which he justly prided himself--which had already fixed the eyes of his superiors upon him as the one officer, not yet indeed fully tested, most likely to cope with the difficulties of any emergency. In the display of this, in its many self-revelations,--in concentration of purpose, untiring energy, fearlessness of responsibility, judgment sound and instant, boundless audacity, promptness, intrepidity, and endurance beyond all proof,--the restricted field of Corsica and the Riviera, the subordinate position at Cape St. Vincent, the failure of Teneriffe, had in their measure been as fruitful as the Nile was soon to be, and fell naught behind the b.l.o.o.d.y harvests of Copenhagen and Trafalgar.
Men have been disposed, therefore, to reckon this moral energy--call it courage, dash, resolution, what you will--as Nelson"s one and only great quality. It was the greatest, as it is in all successful men of action; but to ignore that this mighty motive force was guided by singularly clear and accurate perceptions, upon which also it consciously rested with a firmness of faith that const.i.tuted much of its power, is to rob him of a great part of his due renown.
But it was not only in the greatness of the opportunities offered to Nelson that external conditions now changed. The glory of the hero brought a temptation which wrecked the happiness of the man. The loss of serenity, the dark evidences of inward conflict, of yielding against conviction, of consequent dissatisfaction with self and gradual deterioration, make between his past and future a break as clear, and far sharper than, the startling increase of radiancy that attends the Battle of the Nile, and thenceforth shines with undiminished intensity to the end. The l.u.s.tre of his well-deserved and world-wide renown, the consistency and ever-rising merit of his professional conduct, contrast painfully with the shadows of reprobation, the swerving, and the declension, which begin to attend a life heretofore conformed, in the general, to healthy normal standards of right and wrong, but now allowed to violate, not merely ideal Christian rect.i.tude, but the simple, natural dictates of upright dealing between man and man. It had been the proud boast of early years: "There is no action in my whole life but what is honourable."
The attainment of glory exceeding even his own great aspirations coincides with dereliction from the plain rules of honor between friends, and with public humiliation to his wife, which he allowed himself to inflict, notwithstanding that he admitted her claims to his deferential consideration to be unbroken. In this contrast, of the exaltation of the hero and the patriot with the degradation of the man, lie the tragedy and the misery of Nelson"s story. And this, too, was incurred on behalf of a woman whose reputation and conduct were such that no shred of dignity could attach to an infatuation as doting as it was blamable. The pitiful inadequacy of the temptation to the ruin it caused invests with a kind of prophecy the words he had written to his betrothed in the heyday of courtship: "These I trust will ever be my sentiments; if they are not, I do verily believe it will be my _folly_ that occasions it."
The inward struggle, though severe, was short and decisive. Once determined on his course, he choked down scruples and hesitations, and cast them from him with the same single-minded resolution that distinguished his public acts. "Fixed as fate," were the remorseless words with which he characterized his firm purpose to trample conscience under foot, and to reject his wife in favor of his mistress. But although ease may be obtained by silencing self-reproach, safety scarcely can. One cannot get the salt out of his life, and not be the worse for it. Much that made Nelson so lovable remained to the end; but into his heart, as betrayed by his correspondence, and into his life, from the occasional glimpses afforded by letters or journals of a.s.sociates, there thenceforth entered much that is unlovely, and which to no appreciable extent was seen before. The simple _bonhomie_, the absence of conventional reticence, the superficial lack of polish, noted by his early biographers, and which he had had no opportunity to acquire, the childlike vanity that transpires so innocently in his confidential home letters, and was only the weak side of his n.o.ble longing for heroic action, degenerated rapidly into loss of dignity of life, into an unseemly susceptibility to extravagant adulation, as he succ.u.mbed to surroundings, the corruptness of which none at first realized more clearly, and where one woman was the sole detaining fascination. And withal, as the poison worked, discontent with self bred discontent with others, and with his own conditions. Petulance and querulousness too often supplanted the mental elasticity, which had counted for naught the roughnesses on the road to fame. The mind not worthily occupied, and therefore ill at ease, became embittered, p.r.o.ne to censure and to resent, suspicious at times and harsh in judgment, gradually tending towards alienation, not from his wife only, but from his best and earliest friends.
During the short stay of seven months in England, which ended with the sailing of the "Vanguard," the record of his correspondence is necessarily very imperfect, both from the loss of his arm, and from the fact of his being with his family. Such indications as there are point to unbroken relations of tenderness with his wife. "I found my domestic happiness perfect," he wrote to Lord St. Vincent, shortly after his arrival home; and some months later, in a letter from Bath to a friend, he says jestingly: "Tell--that I possess his place in Mr.
Palmer"s box; but he did not tell me all its charms, that generally some of the handsomest ladies in Bath are partakers in the box, and was I a bachelor I would not answer for being tempted; but as I am possessed of everything which is valuable in a wife, I have no occasion to think beyond a pretty face." Lady Nelson attended personally to the dressing of his arm; she accompanied him in his journeys between Bath and London, and they separated only when he left town to hoist his flag at Portsmouth. The letters of Lady Saumarez, the wife of one of his brother captains then serving with Lord St.
Vincent, mention frequent meetings with the two together in the streets of Bath; and upon the 1st of May, the day before leaving the fleet off Cadiz for the Mediterranean, on the expedition which was to result in the Nile, and all the consequences so fatal to the happiness of both, he concludes his letter, "with every kind wish that a fond heart can frame, believe me, as ever, your most affectionate husband."
On the 2d of May the "Vanguard" quitted the fleet for Gibraltar, where she arrived on the 4th. On the 7th Nelson issued orders to Sir James Saumarez, commanding the "Orion," and to Captain Alexander Ball, commanding the "Alexander," both seventy-fours, to place themselves under his command; and the following day the "Vanguard" sailed, in company with these ships and five smaller vessels, to begin the memorable campaign, of which the Battle of the Nile was the most conspicuous incident.
FOOTNOTES:
[59] The British admiral in command of the fleet which fought at Camperdown.
CHAPTER X.
THE CAMPAIGN AND BATTLE OF THE NILE.
MAY-SEPTEMBER, 1798. AGE, 39.
Between the time that Nelson was wounded at Teneriffe, July 24, 1797, and his return to active service in April, 1798, important and ominous changes had been occurring in the political conditions of Europe.
These must be taken briefly into account, because the greatness of the issues thence arising, as understood by the British Government, measures the importance in its eyes of the enterprise which it was about to intrust, by deliberate selection, to one of the youngest flag-officers upon the list. The fact of the choice shows the estimation to which Nelson had already attained in the eyes of the Admiralty.
In July, 1797, Great Britain alone was at war with France, and so continued for over a year longer. Portugal, though nominally an ally, contributed to the common cause nothing but the use of the Tagus by the British Navy. Austria, it is true, had not yet finally made peace with France, but preliminaries had been signed in April, and the definitive treaty of Campo Formio was concluded in October. By it Belgium became incorporated in the territory of France, to which was conceded also the frontier of the Rhine. The base of her power was thus advanced to the river, over which the possession of the fortified city of Mayence gave her an easy pa.s.sage, const.i.tuting a permanent threat of invasion to Germany. Venice, as a separate power, disappeared. Part of her former domains upon the mainland, with the city itself, went to Austria, but part was taken to const.i.tute the Cisalpine Republic,--a new state in Northern Italy, nominally independent, but really under the control of France, to whom it owed its existence. Corfu, and the neighboring islands at the mouth of the Adriatic, till then belonging to Venice, were transferred to France.
The choice of these distant and isolated maritime positions, coupled with the retention of a large army in the valley of the Po, showed, if any evidence were needed, a determination to a.s.sure control over the Italian peninsula and the Mediterranean Sea.
The formal acquisitions by treaty, even, did not measure the full menace of the conditions. The Revolutionary ferment, which had partially subsided, received fresh impetus from the victories of Bonaparte and the cessation of Continental war; and the diplomacy of France continued as active and as aggressive as the movement of her armies had previously been. By constant interference, overt and secret, not always stopping short of violence, French influence and French ideas were propagated among the weaker adjoining states.
Holland, Switzerland, and the Italian Republics became outposts of France, occupied by French troops, and upon them were forced governments conformed to the existing French pattern. In short, the aggrandizement of France, not merely in moral influence but in physical control, was being pushed forward as decisively in peace as in war, and by means which threatened the political equilibrium of Europe. But, while all states were threatened, Great Britain remained the one chief enemy against which ultimately the efforts of France must be, and were, concentrated. "Either our government must destroy the English monarchy," wrote Bonaparte at this time, "or must expect itself to be destroyed by the corruption and intrigue of those active islanders." The British ministry on its part also realized that the sea-power of their country was the one force from which, because so manifold in its activities, and so readily exerted in many quarters by reason of its mobility, France had most reason to fear the arrest of its revolutionary advance and the renewal of the Continental war.
It was, therefore, the one opponent against which the efforts of the French must necessarily be directed. For the same reason it was the one centre around whose action, wisely guided, the elements of discontent, already stirring, might gather, upon the occurrence of a favorable moment, and const.i.tute a body of resistance capable of stopping aggressions which threatened the general well-being.
When the British Government found that the overtures for peace which it had made in the summer of 1797 could have no result, except on terms too humiliating to be considered, it at once turned its attention to the question of waging a distinctively offensive war, for effect in which co-operation was needed. The North of Europe was hopeless. Prussia persisted in the policy of isolation, adopted in 1795 by herself and a number of the northern German states. Russia was quietly hostile to France, but the interference contemplated by the Empress Catherine had been averted by her death in 1796, and her successor, Paul, had shown no intention of undertaking it. There remained, therefore, the Mediterranean. In Italy, France stood face to face with Austria and Naples, and both these were dissatisfied with the action taken by her in the Peninsula itself and in Switzerland, besides sharing the apprehension of most other governments from the disquiet attending her political course. An advance into the Mediterranean was therefore resolved by the British Cabinet.
This purpose disconcerted St. Vincent, who, besides his aversion from the war in general, was distinguished rather by tenacity and resolution in meeting difficulties and dangers, when forced upon him, than by the sanguine and enterprising initiative in offensive measures which characterized Nelson. Writing to the latter on the 8th of January, 1798, he says: "I am much at a loss to reconcile the plans in contemplation to augment this fleet and extend its operations, with the peace which Portugal seems determined to make with France, upon any terms the latter may please to impose; because Gibraltar is an unsafe depot for either stores or provisions, which the Spaniards have always in their power to destroy, and the French keep such an army in Italy, that Tuscany and Naples would fall a sacrifice to any the smallest a.s.sistance rendered to our fleet." In other words, the old question of supplies still dominated the situation, in the apprehension of this experienced officer. Yet, in view of the serious condition of things, and the probable defection of Portugal under the threats of France and Spain, to which he alludes, it seems probable that the ministry were better advised, in their determination to abandon a pa.s.sive defence against an enemy unrelentingly bent upon their destruction. As Nelson said of a contingency not more serious: "Desperate affairs require desperate remedies."
However determined the British Government might be to act in the Mediterranean, some temporary perplexity must at first have been felt as to where to strike, until a movement of the enemy solved the doubt.
In the early months of 1798 the Directory decided upon the Egyptian expedition under General Bonaparte, and, although its destination was guarded with admirable secrecy until long after the armament sailed, the fact necessarily transpired that preparations were being made on a most extensive scale for a maritime enterprise. The news soon reached England, as it did also Jervis at his station off Cadiz. Troops and transports were a.s.sembling in large numbers at the southern ports of France, in Genoa, Civita Vecchia, and Corsica, while a fleet of at least a dozen ships-of-the-line was fitting out at Toulon. Various surmises were afloat as to the object, but all at this time were wide of the mark.
On the 29th of April, less than three weeks after Nelson left England, but before he joined the fleet, the Cabinet issued orders to St. Vincent to take such measures as he deemed necessary to thwart the projects of the Toulon squadron. It was left to his judgment whether to go in person with his whole fleet, or to send a detachment of not less than nine or ten ships-of-the-line under a competent flag-officer. If possible, the government wished him to maintain the blockade of Cadiz as it had been established since the Battle of St.
Vincent; but everything was to yield to the necessity of checking the sailing of the Toulon expedition, or of defeating it, if it had already started. A speedy reinforcement was promised, to supply the places of the ships that might be detached.
Accompanying the public letter was a private one from the First Lord of the Admiralty, reflecting the views and anxieties of the Government. "The circ.u.mstances in which we now find ourselves oblige us to take a measure of a more decided and hazardous complexion than we should otherwise have thought ourselves justified in taking; but when you are apprized that the appearance of a British squadron in the Mediterranean is a condition on which the fate of Europe may at this moment be stated to depend, you will not be surprised that we are disposed to strain every nerve, and incur considerable hazard in effecting it." This impressive, almost solemn, statement, of the weighty and anxious character of the intended step, emphasizes the significance of the choice, which the First Lord indicates as that of the Government, of the officer upon whom such a charge is to devolve.
"If you determine to send a detachment into the Mediterranean [instead of going in person with the fleet], I think it almost unnecessary to suggest to you the propriety of putting it under the command of Sir H.
Nelson, whose acquaintance with that part of the world, as well as his activity and disposition, seem to qualify him in a peculiar manner for that service."
In concluding his letter, Earl Spencer summed up the reasons of the Government, and his own sense of the great risk attending the undertaking, for the conduct of which he designated Nelson. "I am as strongly impressed, as I have no doubt your Lordship will be, with the hazardous nature of the measure which we now have in contemplation; but I cannot at the same time help feeling how much depends upon its success, and how absolutely necessary it is at this time to run some risk, in order, if possible, to bring about a new system of affairs in Europe, which shall save us all from being overrun by the exorbitant power of France. In this view of the subject, it is impossible not to perceive how much depends on the exertions of the great Continental powers; and, without entering further into what relates more particularly to them, I can venture to a.s.sure you that no good will be obtained from them if some such measure as that now in contemplation is not immediately adopted. On the other hand, if, by our appearance in the Mediterranean, we can encourage Austria to come forward again, it is in the highest degree probable that the other powers will seize the opportunity of acting at the same time, and such a general concert be established as shall soon bring this great contest to a termination, on grounds less unfavorable by many degrees to the parties concerned than appeared likely a short time since." It may be added here, by way of comment, that the ups and downs of Nelson"s pursuit, the brilliant victory at the Nile, and the important consequences flowing from it, not only fully justified this forecast, but ill.u.s.trated aptly that in war, when a line of action has been rightly chosen, the following it up despite great risks, and with resolute perseverance through many disappointments, will more often than not give great success,--a result which may probably be attributed to the moral force which necessarily underlies determined daring and sustained energy.
As has appeared, the Government"s recommendation had been ratified beforehand by St. Vincent, in sending Nelson with three ships to watch Toulon. Upon receiving the despatches, on the 10th of May, the admiral"s first step was to order Nelson to return at once to the fleet, to take charge of the detachment from the beginning. "You, and you only, can command the important service in contemplation; therefore, make the best of your way down to me." More urgent letters arriving from England, with news that a heavy reinforcement had left there, he, on the 19th, hurried off a brig, "La Mutine," commanded by Hardy, Nelson"s former lieutenant, to notify the rear-admiral that a squadron of ten ships would be sent to him shortly from before Cadiz; and on the 21st this detachment sailed, under the command of Captain Troubridge.
The "Mutine" joined Nelson on the 5th of June. His little division had so far had more bad fortune than good. Leaving Gibraltar on the 8th of May, late in the evening, so that the easterly course taken should not be visible to either friend or enemy, he had gone to the Gulf of Lyons. There a small French corvette, just out of Toulon, was captured on the 17th, but, except in unimportant details, yielded no information additional to that already possessed. On the 19th Bonaparte sailed with all the vessels gathered in Toulon, directing his course to the eastward, to pa.s.s near Genoa, and afterwards between Corsica and the mainland of Italy. On the night of the 20th, in a violent gale of wind, the "Vanguard" rolled overboard her main and mizzen topmasts, and later on the foremast went, close to the deck.
The succession of these mishaps points rather to spars badly secured and cared for than to unavoidable accident. Fortunately, the "Orion"
and "Alexander" escaped injury, and the latter, on the following morning, took the "Vanguard" in tow, to go to Oristan Bay, in Sardinia. The situation became extremely dangerous on the evening of the 22d, for, the wind falling light, the sail-power of the "Alexander" was scarcely sufficient to drag both ships against a heavy westerly swell which was setting them bodily upon the Sardinian coast, then not far distant. Thinking the case hopeless, Nelson ordered the "Alexander" to let go the hawser; but Captain Ball begged permission to hold on, and finally succeeded in saving the flagship, which, on the 23d, anch.o.r.ed with her consorts under the Islands of San Pietro, at the southern extremity of Sardinia. The governor of the place sent word that they must not remain, Sardinia being allied to France, but added that, as he had no power to force them out, they would doubtless do as they pleased; and he supplied them with fresh provisions,--a line of conduct which ill.u.s.trates at once the restrictions imposed upon British operations in the Mediterranean by French insistence, and at the same time the readiness of the weaker states to connive at the evasion of them, other instances of which occurred during this period. By the united efforts of the division, four days sufficed to refit the "Vanguard" with jury-masts, and the three ships again sailed, on the 27th, for an appointed rendezvous, to seek the frigates, which had separated during and after the gale.
This severe check, occurring at so critical a moment,--more critical even than Nelson knew, for he remained ignorant of the French sailing for some days longer,--was in itself disheartening, and fell upon one whose native eagerness chafed painfully against enforced inaction and delay. His manner of bearing it ill.u.s.trated both the religious characteristics, which the experience of grave emergencies tends to develop and strengthen in men of action, and the firmness of a really great man, never more signally displayed than under the pressure of calamity and suspense, such as he continually had to undergo. The exceptional brilliancy and decisiveness of his greater battles--the Nile, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar--obscure the fact that each of them was preceded by a weary period of strenuous uphill work, a steady hewing of his way through a tanglewood of obstacles, a patient endurance of disappointments, a display of sustained, undaunted resolution under discouragements, n.o.bler far than even the moments of triumphant action, into which at last he joyfully emerges and freely exerts his extraordinary powers. "I trust," he wrote to St. Vincent, "my friends will think I bore my chastis.e.m.e.nt like a man. I hope it has made me a better officer, as I believe it has made me a better man. On the Sunday evening I thought myself in every respect one of the most fortunate men, to command such a squadron in such a place, and my pride was too great for man." To his wife he wrote in the same strain: "I ought not to call what has happened to the Vanguard by the cold name of accident; I believe firmly that it was the Almighty"s goodness, to check my consummate vanity."
Vanity was rather a hard name to call the natural elation of a young admiral, intrusted with an unusually important service, and proud of his command; but the providential interposition worked directly to his advantage. The delays caused by the repairs to the "Vanguard," and by the subsequent necessity of seeking the separated frigates at the rendezvous appointed for such a case, made possible the junction of Troubridge, of whose approach Nelson was totally ignorant. On the 2d of June Sir James Saumarez mentions speaking a ship, which a few days before had seen eleven sail-of-the-line, supposed to be English. "We are at a loss what conjectures to put on this intelligence." Five days before this, May 28, a vessel out of Ma.r.s.eilles had informed them of Bonaparte"s sailing with all his transports. Nelson would doubtless have pursued them at once, in conformity with his instructions to ascertain the enemy"s objects; but for such operations, essentially those of a scouting expedition, the frigates were too necessary to be left behind. On the 4th of June he reached the rendezvous, and, not finding the frigates, waited. The next morning, by the arrival of the "Mutine," he learned that he was to expect the reinforcement, which converted his division into a fleet, and enlarged his mission from one of mere reconnoissance to the duty of overtaking and destroying a great maritime expedition.
Besides this good news, the "Mutine" brought word of another misfortune, more irretrievable than the loss of spars. She had fallen in with the frigates three days before, and the senior captain had told Hardy that he was going with them to Gibraltar, persuaded that the condition of the flagship, which he had seen, would necessitate her return to an a.r.s.enal for repairs. "I thought Hope would have known me better," commented Nelson, when he became aware of a step which materially affected, in fact probably entirely changed, the course of events, and most seriously embarra.s.sed all his subsequent movements.
This untimely and precipitate action, and his remark, ill.u.s.trate conspicuously the differences between men, and exemplify the peculiar energy and unrelaxing forward impulse which eminently fitted Nelson for his present high charge.
The inconvenience and danger arising from the frigates" departure was instantly felt. "Nothing," wrote Saumarez, "can equal our anxiety to fall in with the reinforcement. Our squadron has been, these two days, detached in all directions, without falling in with them; and there is strong reason to fear they think us returned to Gibraltar"--from Hope"s reports. Such were the risks springing from misplaced caution, more ruinous than the most daring venture, and which from beginning to end well-nigh wrecked the great attempt upon which the Admiralty, St.
Vincent, and Nelson had staked so much. In further consequence, the line-of-battle ships became separated by stretching too far apart in their anxious care to find Troubridge, and when he joined the "Vanguard," on the 7th, the "Orion" and "Alexander" were not in sight.
The French having so long a start, and there being now with him eleven seventy-fours, Nelson with characteristic promptness would not delay an instant. The fifty-gun ship "Leander," which had come with Troubridge, was directed to wait forty-eight hours for the two absentees, with a memorandum of the course about to be followed.
Confident that single ships would be able to overtake a squadron whose route they knew, the admiral at once pushed on for Cape Corso, the north point of Corsica, intending to pa.s.s between the island and Italy, seeking information as he went. The "Mutine" was all he had to replace the missing frigates.
June 7th thus marks the beginning of a chase, which ended only upon the 1st of August in the Battle of the Nile. During this miserable period of suspense and embarra.s.sment, occasioned and prolonged beyond all reason or necessity by the want of lookout ships, the connecting and illuminating thread is the purpose of Nelson, at once clear and firm, to find the French fleet and to fight it the instant found. No other consideration draws his mind aside, except so far as it may facilitate the attainment and fulfilment of this one object. In this one light he sees all things. At the start he writes to St. Vincent: "You may be a.s.sured I will fight them the moment I can reach, be they at anchor or under sail." Three days later, he tells Sir William Hamilton: "If their fleet is not moored in as strong a port as Toulon, nothing shall hinder me from attacking them." "Be they bound to the Antipodes," he says to Earl Spencer, "your Lordship may rely that I will not lose a moment in bringing them to action, and endeavour to destroy their transports." Such expressions are repeated with a frequency which proves the absolute hold the resolution had upon his mind. When obstacles occur to him, or are mentioned, they do not make room for the thought of not fighting to be entertained; only Toulon suggests the idea of impossibility. He raises difficulties diligently enough, but it is only that they may be the better overcome, not that they may deter. All possible conditions are considered and discussed, but simply in order that the best fighting solution may be reached.
The constant mental att.i.tude is such that the man is unprepared to recede before any opposition; he fortifies his mind beforehand with the best means of meeting and vanquishing it, but the attempt at least shall be made. "Thank G.o.d," he wrote at this moment, "I do not feel difficulties;" yet the avowal itself accompanies so plain a statement of his embarra.s.sments as to show that his meaning is that they do not discourage. This characteristic appeared most strongly at Copenhagen, partly because the difficulties there were greatest, partly from the close contrast with a man of very different temper.
Being entirely without intelligence as to the real object of the French, there was nothing to do but to follow upon their track, with eyes open for indications. They were known to have gone southerly, towards Naples and Sicily; and these two points, parts of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, had been mentioned by Jervis as probable destinations. The "Orion" and "Alexander" rejoined in two or three days, and on the 14th of June information, second-hand but probable, was obtained that on the 4th the French armament had been seen off the west end of Sicily, steering to the eastward. "If they pa.s.s Sicily,"
said Nelson in his letter to Spencer written the next day, "I shall believe they are going on their scheme of possessing Alexandria, and getting troops to India--a plan concerted with Tippoo Saib, by no means so difficult as might at first view be imagined." Troubridge was now sent ahead in the "Mutine" to communicate with Sir William Hamilton, the British minister at Naples, and with Acton, the prime minister of that Kingdom. He took with him letters from the admiral, who wished to know what co-operation he might hope from the Court of Naples, in the matters of supplies, of frigates to act as lookouts, and of pilots for Sicilian waters.
On the 17th the squadron hove-to ten miles off Naples, and Troubridge rejoined. The Neapolitan Government sent a.s.surances of good wishes, and of hatred to the French; supplies would be given under the rose, and Acton sent a written order to that effect, addressed to the governors of ports in the name of the King. Naples being at peace with France, a.s.sistance with ships could not be given, nor, to use the words of Nelson, "the smallest information of what was, or was likely to be, the future destination of the French armament. With this comfortable account I pushed for the Faro of Messina." Troubridge brought word, however, that the French fleet was off Malta, about to attack it, which served to give direction for the squadron"s next move.
After leaving Naples Nelson wrote strong and clear letters to Sir William Hamilton upon the existing conditions. Why should Naples stand in shivering hesitation about taking a decided step in support of Great Britain? She had looked and prayed for the arrival of the fleet, as the one force competent to check the designs of the French. Sicily could be approached only by water, and the distance of Naples from Northern Italy rendered the control of the sea most advantageous, if not absolutely essential, to a French army attempting to hold the boot of the peninsula. Now the British fleet had come, in force adequate to neutralize the French Navy, and, in Nelson"s belief, to defeat and destroy it, if properly supported. Did Naples expect to escape by a timid adherence to half measures, when by her notorious preference for the British she had already gained the ill-will of the French? "The French know as well as you and I do, that their Sicilian Majesties called for our help to save them--even this is crime enough with the French." Safety--true safety--could be had only by strenuous and decisive action in support of Nelson"s squadron. Did not the attack on Malta indicate a design upon Sicily? "Were I commanding a fleet attending an army which is to invade Sicily, I should say to the general, "If you can take Malta, it secures the safety of your fleet, transports, stores, &c., and insures your safe retreat [from Sicily]
should that be necessary; for if even a superior fleet of the enemy should arrive, before one week pa.s.ses, they will be blown to leeward, and you may pa.s.s with safety." This would be my opinion.... I repeat it, _Malta is the direct road to Sicily_." If the French are overtaken, he continues, and found in some anchorage, it can scarcely be so strong but that I can get at them, but there will be needed things which I have not, fire-ships, bomb-vessels, and gunboats, when one hour would either destroy or drive them out. Without such aid, the British may be crippled in their attempt, and forced to leave the Mediterranean. In case of blockade--or necessity to remain for any reason--the fleet must have supplies; which only Naples can furnish.
Failing these it must retire, and then Sicily and Naples are lost.
Since, then, so much a.s.sistance must be given in time, why postpone now, when one strong blow would give instant safety? Why should not his own motto, "I will not lose a moment in attacking them," apply as well to the policy of an endangered kingdom as of a British admiral?
If this reasoning and advice took more account of the exigencies of the British arms than of the difficulties of a weak state of the second order, dependent for action upon the support of other nations, they were at least perfectly consonant to the principles and practice of the writer, wherever he himself had to act. But Nelson could not expect his own spirit in the King of the Two Sicilies. Even if the course suggested were the best for Naples under the conditions, it is the property of ordinary men, in times of danger, to see difficulties more clearly than advantages, and to shrink from steps which involve risk, however promising of success. The Neapolitan Government, though cheered by the appearance of the British fleet, had to consider danger also on the land side, where it relied upon the protection of Austria, instead of trusting manfully to its own arms and the advantages of its position, remote from the centre of French power. Austria had pledged herself to support Naples, if invaded without just cause; but it was not certain that she would interfere if the cause of attack was the premature admission of British ships into the ports of the kingdom, beyond the number specified in the still recent treaties with France.
The Emperor was meditating war, in which he expected to a.s.sist Naples and to be a.s.sisted by her; but he did not choose to be hurried, and might refuse aid if an outbreak were precipitated.
Actually, what Naples did mattered little. Under some contingencies, such as Nelson was contemplating when he wrote his letter, it might have mattered much whether he received the abundant support of small armed vessels which he indicated; but in the end supplies only were required, and those he had orders from Jervis to exact at the mouth of his cannon from all powers,--friends or neutrals,--Sardinia only excepted. The fleet pa.s.sed the Straits of Messina on the 20th of June, and continued south, keeping close to the Sicilian sh.o.r.e in hope of information, until the 22d, when it was off Cape Pa.s.saro, the southeastern extremity of the island. There a Genoese brig was spoken, which had left Malta the previous day. From her Nelson learned that Malta had surrendered to the French on the 15th, a week before, which was correct; but the information further stated, that, after landing a garrison, the expedition had sailed again on the 16th--it was thought for Sicily. This last news was untrue, whether by intention or not, for Bonaparte remained in Malta till the 19th; but upon it Nelson had to act. Had he seen the captain of the stranger himself, he might have found out more, for he was a shrewd questioner, and his intellect was sharpened by anxiety, and by constant dwelling upon the elements of the intricate problem before him; but the vessel had been boarded by the "Mutine," three hours before, and was now beyond recall.
At this season the winds in the Mediterranean prevail from the westward; therefore, with the six days" start the enemy was believed now to have, no time could be lost. Six days sufficed to carry the British squadron from its present position to Alexandria, which Nelson was already inclined to think the destination of the French. Yet, being dependent upon a wind then practically constant in direction, it would not do to yield a mile of ground, except upon a mature, if rapid, deliberation. Nelson"s own mind was, by constant preoccupation, familiar beforehand with the bearings of the different conditions of any situation likely to occur, and with the probable inferences to be drawn; his opinions were, so to say, in a constant state of formation and development, ready for instantaneous application to any emergency as it arose. But he had, besides, exercised the same habit in the captains of the ships, by the practice of summoning them on board the flagship, singly or in groups; the slow movement of sailing vessels, particularly in the light summer weather of the Mediterranean, permitting such intercourse without materially affecting the progress of the fleet. Invitations or commands so to visit the flagship were common. "I have pa.s.sed the day on board the Vanguard," notes Saumarez on one occasion, "having breakfasted and stayed to dinner with the admiral." "It was his practice during the whole of his cruize," wrote Berry, the flag-captain, "whenever the weather and circ.u.mstances would permit, to have his captains on board the Vanguard, where he would fully develop to them his own ideas of the different and best modes of attack, in all possible positions." That such conversations were not confined to tactical questions, but extended to what would now be called the strategy of the situation, is evident from allusions by Saumarez to the various surmises concerning the probable movements of the enemy. Nelson never yielded a particle of his responsibility, nor of his credit, but it is clear that such discussion would not only broaden his own outlook, but prepare his subordinates to give readier and sounder views upon any new conjuncture that might arise.
He now summoned on board four captains "in whom I place great confidence," Saumarez, Troubridge,--the two seniors,--Ball, and Darby, stated the case, and received their opinions. These seem to have been given in writing,[60] and from his letter to St. Vincent the results of the conference, as shown by his decision, may be summarized as follows. With the existing winds, it would be impossible for such a fleet as the enemy"s to get to the westward. Had they aimed at Sicily, an object concerning which explicit disclaimers had been given by the French to the Neapolitan Government, some indication of their approach must have been known at Syracuse, the day before, when the British were off that city. Consequently, the expedition must have gone to the eastward. The size and nature of the armament must also be considered,--forty thousand troops, a dozen ships-of-the-line, besides a staff of scientific men,--all pointed to a great, distant, and permanent occupation. The object might be Corfu, or to overthrow the existing government of Turkey, or to settle a colony in Egypt. As between these, all equally possible, the last was the most direct and greatest menace to present British interests, and should determine his course. "If they have concerted a plan with Tippoo Saib, to have vessels at Suez, three weeks, at this season, is a common pa.s.sage to the Malabar coast, where our India possessions would be in great danger."
Such was the conclusion--how momentous at the moment can only be realized by those who will be at the pains to consider a man still young, with reputation brilliant indeed, but not established; intrusted with a great chance, it is true, but also with a great responsibility, upon which rested all his future. On slight, though decisive, preponderance of evidence, he was about to risk throwing away an advantage a seaman must appreciate, that of being to windward of his enemy,--able to get at him,--the strategist"s position of command. The tongues of envy and censure might well be--we now know that they were--busy in inquiring why so young an admiral had so high charge, and in sneering at his failure to find the enemy. "Knowing my attachment to you," wrote his old friend, Admiral Goodall, alongside whom he had fought under Hotham, "how often have I been questioned: "What is your favourite hero about? The French fleet has pa.s.sed under his nose," &c., &c." Nelson was saved from fatal hesitation, primarily, by his singleness of purpose, which looked first to his country"s service, to the thorough doing of the work given him to do, and only afterwards to the consequences of failure to his own fame and fortunes. At that moment the choice before him was either to follow out an indication, slight, but as far as it went clear, which, though confessedly precarious, promised to lead to a great and decisive result, such as he had lately urged upon the King of Naples; or to remain where he was, in an inglorious security, perfectly content, to use words of his own, that "each day pa.s.sed without loss to our side."