Nelson (37 page)

A more formidable enemy than the French was scurvy. That scourge of long-haul sailing was caused by a lack of vitamin C and a reliance on salted provisions rather than fresh fruit and vegetables. Debilitating and painful, it was usually heralded by swelling gums, falling teeth and excruciatingly painful joints. In Nelson’s time nothing was known about vitamins, but it was well understood that scurvy was caused by the poor diet and sensible commanders did what they could to supply fresh food and issue lemon or orange juice as antiscorbutics. As an admiral Nelson was remarkable for his ability to maintain healthy crews, and this early scurvy outbreak aboard the
Albemarle
was due entirely to inexperience and carelessness. He was so intent on finding those suspicious sails he had seen between Newfoundland and Quebec that he neglected to provision properly. By the end of August, notwithstanding the generosity of the
Harmony
’s people, the rations on the
Albemarle
were stretched paper-thin. Twenty-eight supernumeraries and prisoners or British prize crews picked up during her operations had helped to deplete the provisions. The men were soon ‘knocked up with the scurvy’ and early in September one died. Nelson ran for Quebec.
²⁸

His need to get the sick ashore arguably put the ship at risk in the St Lawrence. Above the Isle of Bic, Nelson rashly navigated the difficult north traverse in light winds on 15 September. The gales that opened the day promised an easy passage, but by ten in the morning the wind had dropped and the ship found itself becalmed and sliding steadily with the current towards threatening shallows. Francis Roillet, a local pilot picked up at Bic, was ‘frightened out of his senses’ according to Bromwich’s story. But Nelson would not be deterred. He lowered a pinnace and had the men row forward with a kedge anchor to drop it into the water ahead. Then, to the ‘astonishment’ of the pilot, he wound the anchor on the capstan and painfully drew his ship out of danger.
²⁹

On 18 September he anchored in Quebec and discharged twenty-five of his men to the local hospital. The cruise had been gruelling, but the sequel bore an entirely different character. For the first time Horatio fell in love.

Mary Simpson was twenty-three years old and an exceptional beauty. ‘If Mary was not the most beautiful girl in Quebec, she was at any rate the most handsome she [I] had ever beheld,’ recalled one who knew her. Nor was this all reflective romanticism. Mary featured in a celebration of the local belles published in the
Quebec Gazette
only months after Nelson’s visit:

Sure you will rather listen to my call
Since [of] beauty and Quebec’s fair nymphs I sing;
Henceforth Diana in Miss S—ps—n see,
As noble and majestic is her air,
Nor can fair Venus, W—lc—s, vie with thee,
Nor all thy heavenly charms with thee compare.
³⁰

Mary was a North American by birth, and a war baby, born as New France was being overthrown. Her father was a Scot, Alexander Simpson, known in the Scottish way as Sandy. Apparently he had come to America with his first cousin, James Thompson, both part of the 78th Regiment of Foot (Simon Fraser’s Highlanders) raised in Scotland in 1757. The two friends saw action in some of the decisive engagements of the Seven Years War, at Louisbourg in 1758, Quebec the following year and Montreal in 1760. Simpson became provost marshal under the celebrated Wolfe, but remained in the colonies after his regiment was disbanded in 1763, and somewhere along the way married and started a family.
³¹

The Simpsons settled in Quebec, where Alexander is said to have resided at Bandon Lodge, the first house outside the narrow archway of St Louis Gate, opposite the parliament building. The Simpsons were hospitable, kind and accomplished people, and Alexander was known as ‘a loving husband, a tender and affectionate father, a good master and a faithful friend’. But when Nelson met them they had fallen upon hard times. Mary, or some of her acquaintances, must have told Horatio of the series of misfortunes that had recently reduced the
family’s prospects. It began early in 1781 when Mary’s mother, Sarah, fell dangerously ill of an overgrown fistula. It was a painful and difficult condition in the eighteenth century, but Sarah was still middle aged and strong and survived two ‘desperate’ operations. The burdens of nursing the sick woman and maintaining the home presumably bore heavily upon Mary.
³²

Unfortunately, another disaster waited in the wings. The day Sarah attempted to leave her room and venture downstairs her husband suffered a sudden apoplectic stroke. He died the following afternoon, 27 March 1781, a man in his prime without even a will made out. The funeral two days later was well attended, attracting most of the worthies of the town, who respected Alexander as a merchant and a man. Sarah applied for an administration of the estate, and gamely resolved to carry on the family business, trading from their house as her husband had done. Given her situation, she placed a courageous advertisement in the local newspaper declaring that she would ‘esteem herself under great obligations to her friends for the continuance of their custom and favour’.
³³

But it was a very hard road, as James Thompson, now an overseer of military works and fortifications in Quebec, testified. ‘Her [Sarah’s] condition is really deplorable,’ he wrote. ‘The reflection on the loss of a dutiful husband is not the only difficulty she has to labour under, though in her present weakly condition is alone more than she is able to bear. But her large concern in trade will fall heavy on her without the assistance the head of her family naturally afforded.’ Thompson himself had recently boarded with the Simpsons after losing his first wife. They had endured his never-ending stream of business callers with unfailing cheerfulness, but in December 1780, at the age of forty-seven, and shortly before Sarah fell ill, Thompson married a Miss Frances Cooper and moved into the old bishop’s palace. Thompson’s removal had reduced the drudgery of housekeeping, but also cost the household a pair of hands, hands that were now needed.
³⁴

Miss Mary Simpson may have been a beauty when she met Nelson, but her life had already been seared by tragedy, and she had borne responsibilities of the gravest kind. Yet her gaiety, amiability and sense of humour remained, and she was rated a girl of accomplishments. Mary had been educated at the school of a Mr Tanswell, mastered French, and wrote in a competent if scrawling hand, and she was by no means the stereotypical narrow provincial. Though Captain Nelson only knew her in the few short weeks between 18 September and
14 October 1782 he was thoroughly enchanted. In those few soft days of fair weather, sharpened by the occasional fresh breeze and splashes of rain, Mary seemed a vision more glorious than the woods turning to flame in the maturing Canadian autumn. She made him feel better in every way. ‘Health, that greatest of blessings, is what I never truly enjoyed till I saw
Fair
Canada,’ he wrote to his father. ‘The change it has wrought I am convinced is truly wonderful.’
³⁵

We can only speculate how they met. One link was Alexander Davison. During his stay in Quebec, Nelson consorted with the officers of His Majesty’s ships
Daedalus
,
Hussar
,
Astrea
,
Canceaux
,
Cockatrice
and
Drake
, but the most enduring new friend was a thirty-three-year-old Northumbrian shipowner named Alexander Davison. Davison and his younger brother George were importers and suppliers familiar with all the local merchants and accustomed to offering hospitality to naval officers. As a member of the Quebec Legislative Council, Alexander also knew his way around administration. Nelson liked the man and became a regular guest. The captain expected to be posted back home and learned that Davison too was bound for England. He had just sold the premises of ‘Messrs Davison and Lees’ on Notre Dame Street in the Lower Town and was merely awaiting the transfer of money before shipping to London, where Horatio promised to visit.

Although Nelson had matters to deal with aboard his frigate, including the punishment of deserters and a tippling steward, and filling the gaps left by the sick, he attended social events ashore, and it was possibly through Davison that he met Mary. After all, as notable and personable members of the mercantile community the Davison and Simpson families were well known to each other.

Another link might have been Freemason’s Hall, later known as the Chien d’Or, a small hostelry near the top of Mountain Hill in the more fashionable Upper Town. It had once been used for Loyalist balls, attended among others by Mary’s father, but it was widely frequented by officers of the armed services, partly because of its location opposite the government quarters. Mary may also have visited the place because she was related to the Prentice family who ran it. Old Miles Prentice had been provost marshal of Quebec before clearing out for New York under a cloud, leaving his beleaguered wife to maintain the hostelry with the help of two British nieces, the ‘Mesdemoiselles Prentice’. The older of the girls was the previously mentioned Frances Cooper, who became Mrs James Thompson in 1780. Mary looked upon Thompson as something of a benevolent
uncle and may have visited him or his in-laws at Freemason’s Hall.

Possibly even then Captain Horatio Nelson had a rival for Miss Mary’s attentions. Robert Mathews was a captain in the 8th Regiment of Foot as well as military secretary to the Governor of Canada, Frederick Haldimand. The two met and Mathews liked Nelson, as most people did. Mathews was considerably the older (he had been an ensign in 1761), but he was no wealthier and actually junior in rank, a military captain being inferior to the naval post-captain. Nevertheless, in America, where he had been serving his king for several years, he was known to be an efficient officer of good character. At the time of his death the year before Waterloo it would be said that ‘a man of more universal and active benevolence of mind, and greater urbanity of manners never existed’.
³⁶

Mathews had time on his side, but Horatio’s suit came to a head when he had to leave. Suddenly he faced a future without the girl with whom he was besotted. On 12 October he wrote to Haldimand, requesting a pilot for the trip downstream, and reclaimed as many of his men from the hospital as possible. The ship shifted its berth to Point Levi on the morning of the 13th and the next day to St Patrick’s Hole. Nelson spent part of the 14th winding up his affairs in the town, mailing pay books to London and taking leave of friends, and it was not until seven-thirty in the morning of 15 October that the
Albemarle
weighed anchor and headed for the open sea.

Somewhere in this bald chronology there had been a difficult parting with Mary. Whether she knew the extent of his passion is questionable, but she certainly liked Horatio, and a quarter of a century later remembered him with affection. Davison also saw his companion away, and returned to preparing his own trip to England, sure that he at least would meet Nelson again in London.
³⁷

Those farewells probably took place on 14 October, a cloudy day of rain and growing gales, but the following morning Davison was taking a stroll along the beach when he saw a boat pulling towards the shore with the slight but familiar figure of Captain Nelson sitting anxiously inside. Hurrying to the landing place, Davison met Nelson as he alighted, and they walked ‘up’ to Davison’s house together. Horatio explained that he had become ‘violently attached’ to Miss Simpson and could not leave Quebec without her. He had decided to see her, propose, and lay ‘myself and my fortunes’ at her feet.

Davison was a bachelor and a career man to boot. He was appalled and told Horatio that his course was rash indeed. No doubt he pointed
out that neither party then had the means for a successful union. Nelson was still a junior captain without a fortune and bound for who knew where. Mary was desperately needed at home, where she was helping her mother keep a precarious business afloat. Davison told Nelson that if he persisted ‘utter ruin . . . must inevitably follow’.

‘Then
let
it follow!’ stormed Nelson impetuously. ‘For I am resolved to do it.’

‘And I also positively declare that you shall
not
,’ proclaimed Davison, resuming his argument with such force that Nelson eventually returned grumpily to his ship. He sailed the same day and Mary left his life forever.
³⁸

Mathews persisted, however. Reportedly Mary rejected his first proposal of marriage on the grounds that he held too junior a rank, but their relationship continued to flourish. Mathews went to England, where he was appointed to the Horse Guards, Mary followed, and they married at St George’s Church, Hanover Square, in London, on 22 November 1798. Mary was described in the record as a resident of Clapham in Surrey. It was a hugely successful marriage, for the two were devoted. He said his ‘dearest Mary’ was ‘amiable as ever, and every day renders herself more dear to me’ and she spoke of him as ‘my warm-hearted Mathews’. About the end of 1799 they had a son, Frederick, who became a captain of the 21st Royal North British Fusiliers before retiring through ill health. Age did not diminish their natural generosity. In 1803 they used their influence with Lord Chatham to get George Thompson, a son of James, in an academy at Woolwich, paying for the boy’s passage from Canada, taking him into their home, and putting him through additional schooling. ‘Mrs Mathews is really [truly] a very amiable lady,’ George wrote home.
³⁹

The family remained in London, and Mathews became a lieutenant colonel of the 53rd Regiment, inspector of army clothing, the non-resident lieutenant governor of Antigua, and in October 1801 major of Chelsea Hospital. There is no record that Robert and Mary met Nelson in London, but both remembered him with affection and admiration. We know that the admiral’s funeral put them ‘in very low spirits’. Young George Thompson would watch the sombre procession from a Charing Cross window, but Mary owned that ‘such a scene would be too much for my feelings’, for she mourned not only ‘an irreparable national loss’ but also ‘a friend of my early life’. Neither Mathews, ‘who was also well acquainted with him’, nor she ‘had
fortitude enough to witness the melancholy sight – the most awful and dismal that ever caused the British heart to ache or tears to flow . . .’.
⁴⁰