Nelson (129 page)

A second bombardment of Cadiz was conducted on the night of 5 July, using the resuscitated
Thunder
(a second howitzer having replaced its defunct mortar), the
Urchin
and the two captured Spanish mortar vessels sinisterly renamed
Terror
and
Strombolo
. This time Miller and his assistants went five and a half miles beyond the British front line to within a mile of the town to find a position from which to attack. It was just south of the lighthouse near St Sebastian and a little west of the peninsula, where the defences were weaker. Nelson controlled the operation from the
Theseus
, and delegated Miller and Captains Richard Bowen and John Waller of the
Terpsichore
and
Emerald
frigates to command the boats towing the bomb and mortar vessels into action. Some stalwart reinforcements joined the attack. ‘Johnson, first lieutenant of the
Emerald
, is a man after your own heart,’ Jervis told Nelson. ‘Put him in a way of taking a gun boat and I will answer he succeeds or loses his life in the attempt.’ To increase incentives the commander-in-chief promised that any lieutenant who captured an enemy gunboat would immediately become her captain.
⁶¹

On this occasion the Spaniards were better prepared, and had redistributed their ships and launches. Nor did they repeat their previous mistake, and make any brave but injudicious assaults. Though the Spaniards fired sharply on the attackers, their gunboats made only one half-hearted foray towards the British, and their ships merely manoeuvred themselves into more secure positions. Yet the fresh attack, like the last, revealed unexpected weaknesses in what the British considered to be a crack force. Miller got the
Urchin
and the mortar boats into position, but Bowen, who commanded the bomb, anchored her earlier than Miller planned, increasing the range over which shells would have to be thrown. Furthermore, when Miller was still 450 yards short of his position, and the Spaniards discovered the attack, opening a heavy fire of shot and shell, the indiscipline and cowardice that had marred the previous engagement reappeared. Some of the small boats showed a distressing readiness to cut towropes and scatter which Miller was only partly able to parry with ‘great exertions and the strongest language’.
⁶²

Despite these difficulties Nelson’s men were soon blazing away, hurling a total of some eighty-four shells into the town with what Jervis called ‘excellent direction’. All but half a dozen appeared to hit the target, producing vast pillars of smoke in the northwestern part of Cadiz. As usual, Sir Horatio found the fighting irresistible and went forward to supervise from the
Thunder
. He was pleased with the bombardment, but annoyed that his small-boat flotilla gave such inadequate cover against enemy gunboats, and Miller was ordered to reform it. Most if not all of the British boats were armed with carronades, but Miller found them ‘much dispersed and many at a shameful and completely useless distance’. Again he found himself calling them in.
⁶³

When the assault force ran out of ammunition and withdrew, the
Thunder
’s masts and hull scarred by enemy hits, Miller and Weatherhead covered the retreat in a pinnace and the
Theseus
launch. Their loss was light, only three men being killed and twenty-one wounded, and Nelson did not seem dissatisfied, but in truth the attack fell far short of its objective. Some damage had been done, but not enough, and far from inducing the Spanish fleet out the attack merely gave it a measure of approbation. National newspapers represented Mazarredo’s men as heroes, successfully repulsing spectacular but largely ineffective British assaults.

Never a man to be easily beaten, Nelson still believed a process of attrition might expel the enemy ships, and planned a third attack for the 8th. He hoped to come from the northwest, but unfavourable winds and a strong swell prevented the bomb and mortar vessels from advancing and the attack was called off. By then it was becoming obvious that no provocation was going to succeed. The Spanish ships kept shuffling about, sometimes advancing before anchoring again and at other times digging deeper into ‘a nook of the harbour’ and filling the approaches with gun launches. They never looked about to fight, but Nelson was out regularly with his guard boats, looking for weaknesses and exchanging occasional fire. One sortie by the Spanish gunboats was repulsed in firing that lasted much of the 9th, and the following day Nelson stood beyond the lighthouse with the
Theseus
and four small vessels hoping to throw some more shells into the town from the south. He drew fire from the entire enemy flotilla, and inflicted losses of sixteen killed and wounded upon the Spaniards in return but without achieving a significant outcome.
⁶⁴

The situation had stalemated, and though Sir Horatio found his
skirmishes more entertaining than paroling prisoners and arranging exchanges, he was frustrated. ‘I hope [the] Ministry will do anything for a peace,’ he wrote in June. No doubt it was with some gratification that he learned he was to be diverted from this sterile work, and that the Tenerife expedition, so pregnant with action and prospect, was at last underway.
⁶⁵

‘Who will not fight for dollars?’ Nelson had written. It was not much of an exaggeration, and the golden lure of Tenerife was difficult to deny.
⁶⁶

Admiral Jervis put duty first. Like Nelson, his greatest desire was to destroy the Spanish fleet, ‘for the mines of Peru and Mexico are not to be compared with the glory you and all my companions in arms will derive from an action with the angry Dons’. But Mazarredo was only burrowing deeper, and if Tenerife could be taken without endangering the premier campaign, there was no reason why it should not be considered.
⁶⁷

Nelson had continued to encourage. The very day he met Fremantle’s convoy off Corsica he had reminded his commander-in-chief of Tenerife. ‘What a stroke it would be!’ he said. Again Jervis was pressed to approach O’Hara at Gibraltar for troops.
⁶⁸

The commander-in-chief investigated, and some of the answers were satisfactory. O’Hara was not interested, perhaps still grieving that Nelson had got the vacant red sash of Bath he had wanted for himself, but Tenerife looked promising. In April, Captain Richard Bowen, a thirty-six-year-old Devonian, took the
Terpsichore
and
Dido
frigates to Santa Cruz and found two merchantmen there, the
San Jose
and
Principe Fernando
. They were not part of the American treasure
flota
, but rich nevertheless because they both belonged to the Philippines Company and carried luxury merchandise such as coffee, muslin and pepper. Bowen managed to cut the smaller vessel out, and came away with some £30,000 worth of cargo. The British fleet was soon salivating at the thought of what the larger vessel in Santa Cruz might contain. She was from Manilla, and speculation made her ten times more valuable than Bowen’s prize.

The next month two more of Jervis’s frigates were off Tenerife, the
Lively
and
La Minerve
. Their senior commander, Benjamin Hallowell, pretended he had come to arrange an exchange of prisoners, but
furtively looked round. As far as he could make out the Manilla ship was being unloaded at the waterfront of Santa Cruz, but a fourteen-gun French corvette,
La Mutine
, lay exposed in the roadstead. On the 29th the British cut her out. The news thrilled Nelson because Lieutenant Thomas Masterman Hardy, who had distinguished himself under his command in December, was instrumental in capturing the French ship. Sir Horatio urged Jervis to promote him, but the commander-in-chief knew a good man when he saw one, and needed no spur. Hardy became commander of
La Mutine
, the ship he had captured. Nor was Hallowell’s raid without its intelligence value. One officer of the
Lively
reported that Santa Cruz could be taken with ‘the greatest ease’.
⁶⁹

Slowly the Tenerife expedition took shape. On 6 June, Jervis assured Nelson that as soon as his fleet was reinforced he would detach the rear admiral with two ships of the line, a fifty-gunner and three frigates. It was advisable to make preparations. The strike force turned out to embrace the
Theseus
,
Culloden
and
Zealous
seventy-fours, the fifty-gun
Leander
, the frigates
Seahorse
,
Emerald
and
Terpsichore
, the
Fox
cutter and
Terror
mortar launch supervised by Baines of the Royal Artillery.

Nelson’s captains were from the cream of the fleet. Miller was there, of course, and Fremantle commanding the
Seahorse
. Bowen of the
Terpsichore
, regarded by Jervis as a rising star as well as ‘a child of my own’, and Thomas Boulden Thompson of the
Leander
were both familiar with Santa Cruz, while the captain of the
Zealous
was Sir Samuel Hood, a gentle giant and cousin of Nelson’s famous mentor. Sir Samuel had served under Nelson off Corsica in 1794, when he was captain of
L’Aigle
, and the rear admiral had already written warmly of him. ‘The account you give of my relation and namesake is truly delightful,’ replied Admiral Hood. ‘He must be a good fellow, by his being so kindly and partially spoken of by you, and I am confident nothing will ever be more pleasant to him than to act upon any service under your orders and immediate eye. This he has repeatedly said to me.’ The
Culloden
, of course, belonged to Troubridge, one of the originators of the plan to attack Tenerife. Only recently he had been ill, dangerously ill according to Jervis, but no one was going to keep him from being there.
⁷⁰

On 14 July the advanced squadron of eleven sail was signalled back into the main fleet and Nelson received Jervis’s orders. He was to demand the surrender of the island of Tenerife, including the cargo of
the Manilla ship, and such other cargoes as were not intended for the consumption of the islanders. Government property and the forts had also to be surrendered. Drawing on his Mediterranean experience, Nelson had advised the use of carrot as well as stick, and that was the formula deployed here. The carrot was a guarantee that civilians would be secure in person and property, and their civil and religious rights safeguarded if the island surrendered. The stick threatened that ‘a very heavy contribution’ would be levied on the inhabitants if they resisted and every species of vessel seized to pay it.
⁷¹

Nelson’s orders were to his liking, but perhaps weighing the risks involved he arranged for any prize money due him to be paid to Fanny. Then, when all his squadron but the
Leander
and
Terpsichore
were ready, he sailed on the 15th, sliding southwest over a brilliant blue sea before a good wind.
⁷²

To Nelson the only deficiency seemed the lack of soldiers. Apparently neither De Burgh nor O’Hara felt able to cooperate, and Nelson had to settle for an extra detachment of marines. He regretted the lack of ‘more red coats’ to dazzle the enemy, but banked on a sudden surprise stroke ‘doing the job . . . the moment the ships come in sight’. After all, he cheered Jervis, ‘under General Troubridge ashore and myself afloat, I am confident of success’.
⁷³

As was his custom, Jervis backed his most energetic officer to the hilt, but his farewell note suggested much less confidence. ‘God bless and prosper you,’ said the old admiral. ‘I am sure you will deserve success. To mortals is not given the power of commanding it.’
⁷⁴

Who doomed to go in company with pain,
And fear and bloodshed, miserable train!
Turns his necessity to glorious gain.

William Wordsworth,
Character of the Happy Warrior

C
APTAIN
John Waller of the
Emerald
frigate made an entry in his journal for 17 July 1797. ‘At 10 a.m. the admiral made the signal for all captains to consult on the best plans of operation, and [to] gain all the information possible about the town of Santa Cruz.’
¹

Aboard the ships steering southwest across the blue ocean, bent upon a hazardous mission to Tenerife, there were few signs of complacency. The men were being drilled in the use of great and small arms, and weapons were inspected and put into prime order. Admiral Nelson had only one good eye, but it was an eye for detail, and preparations were being made for foreseeable contingencies. Orders were given for the manufacture of additional scaling ladders, of platforms and a sledge for the artillery Troubridge planned to haul ashore, and for a supply of iron musket ramrods to replace the standard but fragile wooden issues. Nelson knew that in a busy exchange of musketry broken ramrods would reduce the rate of fire and risk men’s lives.

The attention to detail was revealed in the organisation of the seven hundred and forty seamen chosen to form the landing party. As Miller described it, they were formed into three companies, each with its quota of pikemen, ‘a Master at Arms or Ship’s Corporal, a Boatswain’s
mate, and Quarter Master or Gunner’s mate, an Armourer with a cold chisel, a hammer, spikes for guns, and a crow, a carpenter with a short broad axe, a heavy mall, and two iron wedges, a Midshipman or mate and a Lieutenant to command it. I gave each company a small red, white or blue flag . . .’
²

Nor was it just the men and junior officers who had to be conditioned for what lay ahead. Every captain needed to know what was expected of him, and it was to that end that they, now reinforced by Bowen of the
Terpsichore
, were summoned to the
Theseus
on 17 July for the first of several meetings.