Nelson: Britannia's God of War (42 page)

With the end of the war in sight, the last remaining anomalies cleared away by the Baltic and Egyptian campaigns, Britain and France were in a position to negotiate. However, the peace process would see the role of the armed forces enhanced, rather than reduced.

Henry Addington’s government lacked the heavyweight political figures of Pitt’s team – but also the ideological prejudice that had prevented it from responding to a changing situation. While Foreign Secretary Grenville had been wholly opposed in principle to any peace with the French republican government, his replacement Lord Hawkesbury was more pragmatic, and with Cabinet concurrence opened negotiations with the French on 21 March. The British position was greatly improved by the battle of the Copenhagen Roads, and the subsequent collapse of the Armed Neutrality. The French position in Egypt was crumbling, and Malta could not hold out much longer.
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In early March Bonaparte sent Admiral Latouche Tréville to Boulogne to concentrate the ships for a planned invasion. This was a bluff: there were few ships available, and those at other ports found it very difficult to creep along the coast to join his command. The main purpose of the manoeuvre was to create the impression of a threat to combine with his overtures for peace – this was Bonaparte’s favourite negotiating technique.
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In May and June, Bonaparte, realising
his extra-European strength was slipping away, moved his troops to the Channel to increase his diplomatic leverage. The fact that the threat was not real was less significant than the determination it indicated. The French began to look to novel weapons, like Robert Fulton’s submarine, prompting much ridicule in Britain. By late July the threat of invasion appeared to be growing, as new camps opened between Boulogne and Bruges. The public was alarmed: on 21 July the Army warned that invasion was imminent, the following day a mass rally of volunteers in Hyde Park demonstrated the national will to resist, and on the 24th the nation’s hero was called on once again.

St Vincent created a new command for Nelson: he was to control all the ships and vessels on the coast between Orfordness and Beachy Head, without interfering with the existing North Sea, Nore and Downs commands. He was to position his forces along the coasts to block or destroy any invasion attempt, and attack enemy invasion craft in their assembly ports. St Vincent justified his decision to the local commanders by stressing that recent intelligence suggested invasion was highly probable. Therefore it was necessary to place the whole defence force under one officer, ‘who will have no other duty to perform than that of attending to this important object’. These instructions were based on discussions with the Earl and Nelson, ‘Memorandum on the Defence of the Thames Estuary etc.’, combining stationary blockships and local craft with a concentrated sea-going force to intercept any attempt by the French to cross the channel. He considered forty thousand to be the smallest likely invasion force.
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It was an extensive command: six battleships, all of them small, shallow draught vessels, seven frigates, eleven sloops and brigs, thirty-two gun-vessels, seven bombs, four batteries and seven assorted merchant vessels.
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Many of the larger vessels were old or ex-enemy units, and the smaller craft were of limited value – easily replaced and, like much of the Baltic fleet, expendable. Nelson arrived at Sheerness on 27 July, and within twenty-four hours he had imposed his ideas on the forces in the Thames and Medway – the mastery of navigation of these rivers that he had acquired in the 1770s had not been lost. Aware that he was building the defence system up from the foundations, he was in a hurry to get to Deal, consult Admiral Lutwidge and continue his inspection.
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The easy communication with London, by mail, and the shutter telegraph between London and Deal,
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enabled Nelson to consult
the Admiralty on all important issues. This would be his first and only taste of command close to home.

St Vincent recognised the existing system was a shambles, and was happy for Nelson to restructure it more logically; but he also favoured bombarding Boulogne harbour, if it could be done without undue risk and without damaging Nelson’s health.
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Arriving in the Downs on 30 July, Nelson decided to proceed to the French coast.

He had consulted local community leaders on the Sea Fencibles, a volunteer corps of maritime professionals who were excused impressment in return for their services in an emergency. It was clear that these men needed to be promised they would not be removed from the coast, and even then they could not afford to give up their jobs until the emergency occurred. He took Captain Edward Owen, a talented coastal commander with excellent local knowledge, and Captain Fyers of the Royal Artillery, who had commanded the bombs at Copenhagen, to see if Boulogne was open to attack.
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While St Vincent read the intelligence as indicating a real threat, Nelson quickly realised the British defences were improving so quickly that it was doubtful if the French would ever leave port.
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At Boulogne Nelson found only fifty to sixty boats, including many outside the harbour, and he decided to attack with bomb vessels. Nelson had seven bombs under his command, more than half the entire British force of this vital power-projection asset.
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A similar force had been deployed to the Baltic. The conversion of such craft was the most obvious demonstration that the new offensive strategy was based on attacking from the sea, rather than relying on allied armies. While St Vincent warned him not to expect too much from a sea bombardment, he also revealed the thinking that would keep Nelson on this station until the peace was settled:

 On 3 August Nelson tried the bombs, firing a dozen shells before the wind shifted. His object was to destroy the French invasion boats, which struck him as incapable of being rowed or sailed one mile towards England in the face of the existing naval forces.
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The following day the wind shifted to the south-west and he resumed firing. Seven or eight French craft were sunk or badly damaged, and he reassured
the Prime Minister that ‘the French army will not embark at Boulogne for the invasion of England’.
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Satisfied he had shown the enemy they could not come out of harbour without being attacked, he issued a morale-boosting memorandum to the squadron, praising their skill and enthusiasm, before moving on to inspect the Dutch and Belgian port.
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Before he had gone very far, Nelson received Admiralty orders to persuade the Sea Fencibles to go to sea and put back to the Downs. Unwilling as he was to serve as a recruiting officer for the volunteers, he quickly issued a passionate call to arms: when the French meant to invade, every man owed a duty to his country, a duty already being fulfilled by the military volunteers. The seamen’s task was to defend ‘the sovereignty of the Narrow Seas, on which no Frenchman has yet dared to sail with impunity’.
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The combination of patriotic appeal and the land example was well calculated, but ultimately unsuccessful. In truth he was less concerned by the French, now he had been to Boulogne, condemning the current alarm as a fabrication of ‘some scoundrel [French] emigrant’. He thought the Flemish ports a more likely invasion base, but he had yet to visit them,
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and St Vincent agreed:

 Flushing, however, lay within Admiral Dickson’s North Sea command. The bombardment of Boulogne had achieved more than the Earl had hoped, ‘and much more in raising the spirit of the people here, to a degree not to be conceived’. It was a theme he returned to the following day, by now aware that Nelson was getting restive. ‘The public mind is so very much tranquillised by your being at your post, it is extremely desirable that you should continue there.’ To return to town now ‘would have the worst possible effect at this critical juncture. I will explain farther when we meet.’ The disposition of Sea Fencibles was left to him ‘from the unbounded confidence we repose in you’.
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Troubridge, by contrast, urged him to impress the Fencibles if they would not volunteer – a truly stupid idea, given the sensitivity of seafaring communities to the threat of the press, and the need to build loyalties and patriotism in the present emergency. Nelson decided the best policy was to leave the men alone until an emergency, trusting
to their loyalty and self-interest to oppose an invasion. Besides, he was already very confident that the French ‘cannot come’.
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Anxious to finish this command, which was costing him money he could ill afford,
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he told Emma that he would come ashore by mid-September. Still in thrall to her, he promised not to dine out without her agreement. He longed for the company of the Hamiltons
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– but however pleasant such thoughts were, as they had been when he was writing to Fanny half a decade before, they were but a brief daydream for a mind focused on the enemy, and plotting their destruction. The apologetic tone of his letters to Emma suggests that hers, which he destroyed, often made rather unpleasant reading. When she was not threatening to become the Prince of Wales’s mistress, she was condemning him to stay out of company.
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Fortunately he had more important things to do than discuss trifles with her; he never allowed his emotional torment to affect his professional judgement.

He was going to look into Flushing, the other potential invasion base, where the blockade was handled by one of his best officers, Edward Owen of the frigate
Nemesis
. Owen’s mastery of coastal navigation, aggressive instincts and vision would find ample employment in the Channel on either side of the 1802 peace.
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Owen lay off Flushing, reporting seven enemy vessels in roads, including a sixty-four-gun battleship. He believed they could be attacked by boats, but as this required a three-hour row from his current anchorage he was being rather optimistic in the face of strong currents. He was also well aware that the enemy could retreat under the cover of shore batteries or further down the Scheldt. If troops were available he advised taking Flushing or an offshore island; he volunteered for any operation and waited anxiously for Nelson.
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Recognising another ardent spirit, Nelson wanted to attack, but only after a reconnaissance.
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St Vincent relayed another instalment of the French plan to bluff the British into a hasty and weak peace. Bonaparte had appointed himself Generalissimo of the Army of Invasion, declaring that ‘we look to Flanders for the grand effort’. Consequently Flushing was one of the few places ‘where any enterprise of the kind can be attempted with any reasonable prospect of success’. St Vincent also had the Hydrographer send every scrap of information on the port.
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As might be expected, the old Earl favoured Troubridge’s approach to the reluctant Sea Fencibles if they would not come out in adequate numbers, but he was pleased by Nelson’s delicate handling of the three Port
Admirals with whom his command overlapped: ‘It is, in truth a difficult card you have to play. Pray take care of your health, than which nothing is of so much importance to the Country at large.’ The promise of the Mediterranean command remained the bait for Nelson; St Vincent told him that ‘Our negotiation is drawing near its close and must terminate one way or other in the course of a few days, and I need not add how very important it is that the enemy should know you are constantly opposed to him.’
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As Nelson gathered intelligence from his commanders, he quickly perceived that the enemy had too few craft to mount an invasion. There were only two thousand troops at Boulogne, and boats enough for a mere 3,600 at Ostend. The conclusion was inevitable: ‘Where, my dear Lord, is our Invasion to come from?’ He was developing plans to attack Flushing, but being so close to London he would consult the Earl before risking a major operation. It did not help that he was being publicly ridiculed for this puny mode of warfare. His response would be to lead the fleet into Flushing, if the ministers agreed. agreed. He remained anxious for peace
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The  last reference was doubtless his code for getting back to Emma. As he explained to Davison, there was simply nothing to be done ‘on the great scale’.
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