Nelson (144 page)

20
. Nelson to Locker, 26/11/1783,
D&L
, 1, p. 88; Nelson to William, 4/12/1783, Add. MSS 34988. The other older daughter has not yet been identified. I suspect that she was named Sarah, after her mother, but there is no satisfactory evidence of this.

21
. For Ann Nelson’s character see M. Eyre Matcham,
Nelsons of Burnham Thorpe
, p. 105. Her letters from Nelson are mentioned in Nelson to his father, 8/3/1783, NMM: STW/1. Her death was noticed in the
Bath Chronicle and Weekly Gazette
, 20/11/1783; Nelson to Locker, 26/11/1783,
D&L
, 1, p. 88; Ron C. Fiske,
Notices of
Nelson, p. 7; and NMM: GIR/6. In the event of the death of her father, Ann bequeathed Horatio and Susanna £200 each; Edmund and Suckling £100 each; and Catherine £500, with the balance to be divided between all five: will of Ann Nelson, 2/11/1783, PRO: PROB 11/1111, no. 631. There is no explanation of her omission of William and Maurice, but
after the Reverend Edmund’s death, William seems to have forgotten that his siblings shared unequally in Ann’s legacy (William to Nelson, 14/5/1802, Alfred Morrison,
Hamilton and Nelson Papers
, 2, p. 189). Additional details and documentation relating to Ann can be found in John Sugden, ‘Tragic and Tainted? The Mystery of Ann Nelson’ and John Sugden, ‘New Light on Ann Nelson’. The posthumous elaboration of Ann’s tomb and the adjacent interment of a relative, Elizabeth Matcham, suggest she was affectionately remembered by the family.

22
. Nelson to Locker, 26/11/1783,
D&L
, 1, 88; Nelson to William, 4/12/1783, Add. MSS 34988.

23
. Nelson to Locker, 26/11/1783,
D&L
, 1, p. 88; Count de Deux Ponts to Nelson, 23/3/1784, Add. MSS 34903.

24
. Nelson to William, 28/12/1783 to 3/1/1784, Add. MSS 34988.

25
. Nelson to Suckling, 14/1/1784,
D&L
, 1, p. 93.

26
. Nelson to William, 31/1/1784, Add. MSS 34988.

27
. Wills of Elizabeth Warne, 1836, and Roger Warne, 2/3/1842, PRO: PROB 11/1893 and 2026; death certificates of Elizabeth Warne, 25/10/1837, and Roger Warne, 22/7/1845, Central Registry Office, London;
Gentleman’s Magazine
(1837), ii, p. 659, and (1845), ii, p. 324; and
Bath Journal
, 23, 30/10/1837.

28
. Nelson to William, 20/1/1784, Add. MSS 34988.

29
. Nelson to William, 20/1/1784, Add. MSS 34988.

30
. Hood to Jackson, 29/1/1783, David Hannay, ed.,
Letters Written
, p. 155; Nelson to William, 20/1/1784, 2/4/1784, Add. MSS 34988.

31
. Nelson to William, 8/2/1782, 31/1/1784, 2/4/1784, Add. MSS 34988, and Nelson to Locker, 23/1/1784,
D&L
1, p. 97; Esther Hallam Moorhouse,
Nelson in England
, p. 34. Fox held one of the two Westminster seats, although he ran in second to Hood, and his vote and influence were much reduced.

32
. Nelson to William, 31/1/1784, Add. MSS 34988;
Bath Chronicle
, 5/2/1784.

33
. Poor rates, St Martin-in-the-Fields, Westminster Archives Centre, London, F 582 and F 584 (1783–4).

34
. Orders of 19/3/1784, 6/5/1784, ADM 2/115.

35
. Nelson to William, 29/3/1784, Add. MSS 34988.

36
. Howe to Hood, 2/7/1787, NMM: Hoo/2; Hood to Nelson, 26/8/1784, Add. MSS 34937. Hood had been made an Irish peer two years before. Boyle, whom Nelson thought a ‘charming’ young man, was a native of Somerset and the second son of the seventh Earl of Cork. He claimed to have been inspired to join the service by a visit to his father at Plymouth. Officially Boyle had entered the navy at ten, as captain’s servant to John Carter Allen of the
Gibraltar
, served Hyde Parker in the same capacity in the
Latona
and
Goliath
, and gone through a naval academy at Greenwich. Talbot was the son of Richard Talbot of Malahide Castle, County Dublin, one of the Irish gentry. Although Tatham was a twenty-year-old Londoner, he also enjoyed Hood’s patronage. After Nelson’s ship was paid off in 1787, both Talbot and Tatham were transferred to Hood’s
Barfleur
, while Boyle went to the flagship of Admiral Peyton. Boyle and Talbot rose to flag rank, but while Tatham was popular and competent his career was damaged by a court martial. In 1803 he commanded a brig in the English Channel. Charles Lock of Exeter, who joined Nelson at Portsmouth on 27 April 1784, may also have been a Hood man. For all of the above see Nelson to Cork, 22/7/1787, Monmouth MSS, E28; ADM 9/2: no. 54 (Boyle); ‘Biographical Memoir of the Hon. Captain Courtenay Boyle’; John Marshall,
Royal Navy Biography
, 2, pt I, pp. 104–7; William O’Byrne,
Naval Biographical Dictionary
, pp. 1156–7; J. W. Norie,
Naval Gazetteer
, p. 382; Marsh to Nelson, 3/12/1788, Add. MSS 34903; Richard Vesey Hamilton and John Knox Laughton, ed.,
Above and Under Hatches
, p. 116; Hood to Alexander Hood, 8/11/1790, Add. MSS
35194; and
United Service Journal
45 (1844), p. 320 (an obituary of Boyle, who died 21 May 1844 at the age of seventy-four).

37
. Account for tableware, 20/3/1784, Western MSS 3676, Wellcome Library, London. My account of the manning of the
Boreas
depends throughout on its muster (ADM 36/10525) and pay book (ADM 35/242). Consult also Rupert Willoughby, ‘Nelson and the Dents’, and Nelson to Stephens, 14/4/1787, ADM 1/2223.

38
. For Jameson, ADM 1/5315, and Power, ADM 107/17: no. 77.

39
. Nelson to Stephens, 26/12/1788,
D&L
, 1, p. 277, and Nelson to the Navy Board, 5/12/1788, Add. MSS 34903.

40
. For Robert Parkinson, Stansbury, Nowell and Bishop, see their passing certificates, 4/6/1794, 3/12/1789, 5/12/1786 and 3/9/1788, filed in ADM 6/93, ADM 6/90, ADM 6/89 and ADM 107/11.

There is a serious paper to be written about the ‘young gentlemen’ (‘children’, as Nelson called them) of the
Albemarle
,
Boreas
and
Agamemnon
, with a view to establishing the patronage behind the appointments and the extent to which Nelson’s ‘nursery’ fulfilled his ambition of furnishing capable officers. Because protégés were enlisted under various ratings they are not always easy to identify from musters and pay books. Some were entered on the
Boreas
muster on the same day as their captain. Of these, Boyle, Talbot and Tatham were probably preferments of Hood; William Standway Parkinson of London was a recommendation of Captain Pole; and Hardy and Andrews came through other Nelson associates. Hardy, along with Robert Mansell, Andrew Baynton and William Oliver, were transferred to other vessels, the first three within a few months of Nelson taking command.

In time Nelson accommodated other hopefuls, some recommended by colleagues or friends, but a few young men without influence who impressed him. To incorporate the influx and ensure fair play, Nelson juggled the ratings of his young gentlemen creatively, remarking that he had to ‘stand friend’ to those with no powerful patrons. Some who failed to make the grade had to be disrated. ‘The poor ones I only disrated with their own consent,’ Nelson said, ‘and the younger[s] rated in their room were bound in honour to make their pay as good as before. [The] Honourable Courtenay Boyle, I have understood, did make Mr [Edmund] Bishop, in whose room he was rated, a present when the ship was paid off’ (Nelson to Navy Office, 5/12/1788, Add. MSS 34903). Bishop was one of the unsuccessful aspirants, although he remained on the
Boreas
throughout Nelson’s command. Promoted midshipman from able seaman, he eventually stepped down to vacate a position for Boyle. Though Bishop subsequently passed his examination for lieutenant on 3 September 1788 he was never commissioned.

Among others slotted in after the first wave were: William Batty, who started as Lieutenant Wallis’s servant; Robert Parkinson; eighteen-year-old Alexander R. Kerr of Greenwich, who had begun his career with Captain E. J. Smith of the
Endymion
in 1781, recently been with Captain Charles Cotton on the
Alarm
, and joined the
Boreas
as a supernumerary before Nelson’s arrival; twenty-year-old Joshua Beale, who was transferred to Nelson’s ship on 23 April 1784; Maurice William Suckling; William Nowell, sent by the captain of the
Scipio
; Charles Lock, who soon moved elsewhere; Thomas Stansbury; Stephen Perdrian, recruited in 1785; and William Warden Shirley, the only son of the governor of the Leeward Islands, who was rated captain’s servant on 1 August 1786 at the supposed age of fifteen. In addition to the sources listed in n. 40 above, see Nelson to Stephens, 29/4/1784, ADM 1/2223; Bowyer to Stephens, 5 and 9/5/1784, ADM 1/723; passing certificates in ADM 107/10, p. 231 (Kerr) and 107/17, p. 48 (Suckling); ADM 9/2: no. 312 (Kerr); ADM 9/6: no. 1817 (Suckling); and Marshall,
Royal Navy Biography
, Supplement I, p. 34.

With respect to subsequent performances, the ‘class’ of the
Boreas
was far more
distinguished than that of the
Albermarle
. Eleven individuals populated the latter, but apart from Bromwich none made lieutenant. By comparison, the aspirants of the
Boreas
were under full sail. Two (Boyle and Talbot) became admirals; three (Kerr, Andrews and William Parkinson) post-captains; one, Lock, made commander; and eight (Bromwich, Nowell, Perdrian, Power, Shirley, Stansbury, Suckling and Tatham) became lieutenants. Two, Robert Parkinson and Bishop, passed their lieutenant’s examination but never got their commissions confirmed. Some also acquitted themselves well under fire. Andrews, Suckling and Boyle served under Nelson with some success, and Talbot distinguished himself on several occasions, notably in the destruction of a Turkish squadron in 1807, and the taking of the eighty-gun
Rivoli
. He died a GCB. Nelson would have been pleased by Kerr’s part in the defeat of the French squadron in the Basque roads in 1809, but not his testimony in extenuation of an incompetent commander-in-chief during the subsequent court martial (John Sugden, ‘Lord Cochrane’, chap. 6). The impressive record of the ‘class’ of the
Boreas
, as opposed to that of the
Albermarle
, reflects the greater social standing of its members, as well as any differences in ability.

41
. Nelson to William, 19, 29/3/1784, 23/4/1784, Add. MSS 34988; Nelson to Locker, 23/3/1784,
D&L
, 1, p. 100.

42
. Nelson to Stephens, 14/4/1784, ADM 1/2223; Stephens to Nelson, 15/4/1784, Add. MSS 34961.

43
. Nelson to Locker, 21/4/1784,
D&L
, 1, p. 104.

44
. Nelson to William, 25/9/1785, Add. MSS 34988.

XII Hurricane Harbour (pp. 249–81)

1
. The dockyard commissioner appears once to have occupied the house used in 1784 by the naval commander of the Leeward Islands station. Presumably when Windsor became available the commissioner released his former habitation. It is not exactly clear where Windsor was situated, other than that it occupied a hill near the dockyard. It may have been on the west side of the strait between the outer and inner anchorages at English Harbour, on the rising ground to the rear of the dockyard storehouses. However, I incline to the view that it occupied Mount Prospect on the eastern side of the strait, above old careening wharves that predated the development of the naval dockyard. A drawing made by Walter Tremenheere (
NC
, 3 [1800], pp. 469–70), showing a house on Mount Prospect flying a flag, may depict Windsor, or another property built on the same site. My description of English Harbour and attempts to resolve the problem of Windsor depend also upon state papers; ADM 140/1173 (a map of 1727); Thomas Jefferys,
West Indian Atlas
, p. 21; George Louis Le Rouge,
Pilote Americain Septentrional
; various materials in Vere Langford Oliver,
History of the Island of Antigua
, especially the letters of Thomas Shirley, 3/11/1781, and John Luffman, 7/10/1786, and the map of 1818, 1, pp. cxxv, cxxx, and facing p. xviii;
Political Magazine
, 3 (1782), p. 39; engraving of the
Boreas
in English Harbour, Lily Lambert McCarthy collection, Royal Naval Museum, Portsmouth; and John Luffman,
Antigua in the West Indies
, a map surveyed in 1787–8.

2
. Nelson to Locker, 7/6/1784, 24/9/1784,
D&L
, 1, pp. 109, 110; Nelson to William, 3/5/1785, Add. MSS 34988; Nelson to the Navy Board, 5/12/1788, Add. MSS 34903.

3
. Narrative of James Wallis, Add. MSS 34990, published in Geoffrey Rawson, ed.,
Letters from the Leeward Islands
, p. 49. Wallis supplied the narrative to Nelson’s biographers, Clarke and McArthur, but died in Bath in 1808 before the publication of their book.

4
. Hughes to Matcham, 24/6/1806, Add. MSS 34990.

5
. Hughes to Matcham, 24/6/1806, Add. MSS 34990; McIntosh to Nelson, 7/6/1784, Add. MSS 34961.

6
. Court martial of Thomas Johnston, 7/8/1784, ADM 1/5324.

7
. Court martial of John Nairns, 17/8/1784, ADM 1/5324.

8
. Nelson to Locker, 7/6/1784,
D&L
, 1, p. 109; Nelson to the governor of St Eustatius, 20/6/1785, Add. MSS 34961.

9
. Rawson,
Letters from the Leeward Islands
, p. 49; Hughes to Nelson, 30/6/1784, Add. MSS 34961; Hughes to Stephens, ADM 1/312.

10
. The logs of the
Boreas
(ADM 51/125, ADM 51/120 [captain’s], ADM 52/2179 [master’s] and NMM: ADM/L/B136 [lieutenants’]) are used throughout this and the succeeding three chapters. See also Nelson to Damas, 24/7/1784, Add. MSS 34961.

11
. Johnston court martial, 7/8/1784, ADM 1/5324.

12
. Nairns court martial, 17/8/1784, ADM 1/5324.

13
. Richard Vesey Hamilton and John Knox Laughton, ed.,
Above and Under Hatches
, pp. 164, 169; court martial of James Wallis, 22,23/9/1784, ADM 1/5324.

14
. Nelson to Hughes, 8/9/1784, Add. MSS 34961; Bromwich, return of service, 1817, ADM 9/6: no. 1800. Once confirmed, Bromwich served as a lieutenant on several ships, including the
Terpsichore
,
Nonsuch
and
Barfleur
. He benefited from the support of John Holloway, one of Nelson’s officers, and in 1800–1 was his flag lieutenant on the
Gladiator
in Portsmouth harbour. In 1801 Nelson secured him a post as warden of Portsmouth dockyard through his influence with Earl St Vincent. ‘Always happy that I can be useful to an old friend,’ Nelson wrote (Nelson to Bromwich, 9/8/1801, NMM: TRN/48). Despite the good opinions of significant officers such as Christopher Parker, Nelson and Holloway, Bromwich died a lieutenant in 1829.