Nelson (63 page)

Two seamen of the
Solebay
were convicted of desertion, but neither was heavily punished. Benjamin Williams was commended for his ‘long and faithful servitude’ in the navy and his ‘exceeding good character’ and given the comparatively lenient sentence of fifty lashes. Thomas Rickaby suffered twice as many strokes, but his penalty had also been reduced on account of his former good conduct.

John Woodhouse was found guilty of theft, deserting from the
Adamant
and attempting to desert from the
Rattler
. He cannot have expected less than a capital sentence, and duly received it. However, ‘the court, as the ship’s books of His Majesty’s ship
Adamant
have not appeared before them, from motives of humanity, and to show the squadron how cautious they are of taking away the life of a fellow creature, think proper that the sentence of death just passed should not be carried into execution until the pleasure of [their] Lords Commissioners of the Admiralty is known’. The court felt it imperative that Woodhouse’s desertion from the
Adamant
be confirmed by reference to the relevant musters, and wanted to provide the Admiralty with an opportunity to stay the execution.

Ironically, it was another act of compassion that drew further official obloquy on Nelson’s head. The focus of the controversy was William Clark, a sailor belonging to the
Rattler
. He was an incorrigible deserter who had exhausted the patience and penalties of the authorities. Clark first fled his ship in July 1785, but he was recaptured within weeks, brought before Nelson’s court at English Harbour on 17 August and sentenced to five hundred lashes. The prisoner received three hundred and forty strokes in two sessions before being spared further punishment by Admiral Hughes. This clemency did not reform Clark, and in January and June of 1786 his captain flogged him twice for drunkenness and being absent without leave. It was only days after the last punishment that he absconded from a party sent to the dockyard in English Harbour and made his way to St John’s hoping to escape on a merchantman. But he was not free for long. Two weeks later the fugitive was taken drunk in the market place, and on 9 April 1787 Nelson and his captains again sat in judgement of him. The man pleaded drink as his only excuse, and a mere handful of witnesses were needed to establish his offence. There could be but one verdict. Nelson sentenced Clark to hang.

At ten-thirty on the morning of 16 April the sound of a gun rolled ominously across the still waters of English Harbour. It was a signal for the boats of the squadron to bring spectators to an execution. A yellow flag flew aboard the
Rattler
to symbolise its grim task, and the miserable prisoner was led from below and carried to the ship’s cathead, where he stood while a rope was run through a block at the fore yardarm. While perfect silence was preserved on board the
Rattler
and in the surrounding boats, an officer read the Articles of War, a bag and noose were placed over the prisoner’s head, and a death squad stood at the safe end of the rope, braced to haul Clark to the yardarm at the trill of a boatswain’s pipe. But that chilling sound never came. At eleven-thirty the execution was halted, and Clark was told that he had been reprieved by the wish of His Royal Highness, Prince William Henry. The boats were dismissed and Clark was extricated from his halter. His luck was boundless, for he was not only alive but free; Nelson gave the man a total discharge and he left the service.
⁴⁹

In circumstances such as these it was usual to pardon publicly at the last moment – if, of course, any pardon was intended. Nelson was no doubt relieved that he had avoided executing anyone in the Leeward Islands, and was sure his actions conformed to precedent.
He remembered, for example, that Sir Richard Hughes had pardoned Thomas Ray in exactly the same way two and a half years before.

But the Admiralty did not agree with Nelson’s assessment. Their lordships eventually told him that only the king himself could pardon a convicted felon, and if there were grounds for clemency the sentence should have been suspended and the case referred to London for due process. Clark should have remained a prisoner. The fact that William Henry had approved of the pardon, or even suggested it, did not legitimise Nelson’s action. Then there was the issue of the prisoner’s discharge. By releasing Clark, Nelson had merely compounded the original offence of desertion. Defending his decision, Horatio explained that he had always understood that a man was ‘dead in law’ once he had been condemned to death, and consequently no longer under the navy’s impress. The Admiralty did not find the argument convincing.
⁵⁰

On the whole Nelson’s management of the court martial proceedings on the Leeward Islands station had been reasonable, and his treatment of Clark compassionate and consistent with practice as he understood it from his predecessor. In the eyes of a jaundiced first lord of the Admiralty, however, the young captain had exceeded his authority with Clark and added one more blot to an increasingly chequered record.

At the heart of Howe’s disapproval of Nelson was Prince William Henry, whose every act was subjected to an anxious scrutiny. In blaming Nelson, Howe was less than fair. After all, if Nelson – a junior captain – had failed to control the volatile prince so too had the Admiralty. The board had allowed the king to impose upon it, and had promoted a boy to a position that would have tried a man, yet their lordships expected the likes of Schomberg and Nelson to save their bacon.

Almost everything Nelson did intensified the blight. Towards the end of April he was sailing from Antigua to Nevis when bad news overtook him. Wilfred Collingwood was dead. He had been ill for some time. At English Harbour a pestilence had run through the ships and a number of men went to hospital. Nelson became feverish, perhaps his old complaint, and Collingwood, whose constitution was similar, declined so rapidly that a doctor advised him to put to sea. Nelson was preparing to scatter his ships to various destinations, and
sent the
Rattler
away early to Grenada. On the evening of the 21st her commander died quietly, according to William Henry of a sudden inflammation of the bowels.

Nelson had left Antigua on 25 April, bent upon preparing Fanny and her uncle for their prospective voyage to England. He was deeply moved by the death of Collingwood, for through all his troubles in the islands he had had no stauncher ally. ‘I have lost my friend, you an affectionate brother,’ he wrote to Cuthbert. Nelson organised a funeral on the island of St Vincent, and arranged to have personal effects sent home. ‘If the tribute of tears are valuable, my friend had them,’ he reflected.
⁵¹

From the professional point of view the death of an officer, however regrettable, created a promotion for somebody else, and Nelson had to find an acting commander for the
Rattler
. He rewarded his own first lieutenant, James Wallis; Dent moved from second to first lieutenant of the
Boreas
in turn; and a vacancy opened up below. At this point William Henry intervened again.

For some time relations between Third Lieutenant Hope of the
Pegasus
and his captain had been deplorable. Hope’s criticism of the prince for his treatment of Schomberg had reached Nelson through several channels, though the acting commander-in-chief had done nothing useful to reconcile the parties. When Hope heard of the opening on the
Boreas
he saw a way out and applied for a transfer. Nor was William Henry inimical to the idea. One of his friends had advised him to get Hope exchanged, and now the prince asked Nelson to oblige. Accordingly a relieved Hope went to the
Boreas
, though William Henry was spiteful enough to withhold his necessary certificate of good conduct until Nelson personally appealed for it. Hope’s transfer left the
Pegasus
a lieutenant short, and Nelson allowed William Henry to elevate one of his own protégés, Stephen George Church, to an acting position. Church would shortly be having his own difficulties serving the prince.
⁵²

In making these appointments Nelson acted out of plain necessity, and he asked the Admiralty to confirm them. Unfortunately, since he only commanded the station on an acting basis he suspected that his appointments might be revoked, and asked William Henry to support him in the event of resistance. His prophecy came true. Church, probably for no better reason than that he was a choice of the prince, got his lieutenancy confirmed in August, but poor Wallis had to wait seven years for a permanent place on the list of commanders.

As the spring matured Nelson’s difficulties with the prince and the Admiralty came to a head. There was the matter of his next destination. William was under orders to return to Commodore Sawyer’s squadron at Halifax for the summer, and as late as 15 March Nelson assured the Admiralty that the
Pegasus
would be ‘fitted for [her] voyage to the place mentioned in their Lordships’ secret orders’. However, the gangrenous plight of Schomberg worried him. That miserable officer had been under confinement since January, waiting for a court martial that never came. Nelson had expected to be superseded by a new station commander, but weeks had turned to months without a sign of his replacement. In the meantime he still lacked a quorum to try Schomberg in the Leeward Islands. Since the dispute had become a personal one between William Henry and his lieutenant, involving the veracity of one or both, the prince could not take his regular place in a court and Nelson was a captain short. He doubted a quorum would be found anywhere in the West Indies or even in Halifax, but felt that something had to be done to end Schomberg’s uncertainty.
⁵³

By May Nelson had an idea that promised to solve several problems at a single stroke. For some time he had been convinced that the rotten state of the
Rattler
necessitated her return to England. He had sent her to English Harbour for preparatory repairs, and informed the Admiralty of his intentions. The prince approved, because the
Rattler
could take his letters home, explaining his conduct to his father, but Nelson was more concerned to pack the prince back to Halifax in compliance with his instructions and release Schomberg from his predicament. He therefore suggested the prince return to Canada by way of Commodore Alan Gardner’s squadron in Jamaica, taking the
Rattler
with him to enable a court martial to be formed on that station. The Schomberg affair settled, both ships would be freed to continue, the
Pegasus
to Halifax and the
Rattler
to England. It was another proposal that pleased William Henry, who had been clamouring to detour to Jamaica before returning to Halifax, and he may even have thought up the idea himself.
⁵⁴

In his letters to Gardner, Nelson carefully left the question of Schomberg’s guilt open, but speculated that neither party had acted dishonourably and that the accused lieutenant might have ‘misunderstood’ his captain’s order about sending boats ashore. Though he realised that diverting the
Pegasus
to Jamaica rather than dispatching her direct to Halifax also breached the Admiralty orders he had inherited from Hughes, he weighed it a minor digression against the
opportunity to end Schomberg’s dilemma. The prince’s further movements Nelson left to Gardner, supplying him with a copy of Howe’s instructions and alerting him to the somewhat contradictory orders the prince had received from Commodore Sawyer. In effect, Nelson was passing the buck to a superior, though for the commendable purpose of bringing the dispute aboard the
Pegasus
to a conclusion.
⁵⁵

And so in May, while Nelson remained in Nevis preparing his wife for her homeward passage (‘it is impossible to move a female in a few hours,’ he complained), he ordered William Henry to take the
Pegasus
and
Rattler
to Jamaica. The prince arrived at Nevis on 20 May and sailed the same day. For the last time twenty-one guns roared their salute as the pugnacious prince finally put the station behind them.
⁵⁶

Nelson’s plan worked because Gardner was an experienced senior officer with a sure hand. He did what every sensible person wanted, putting together a shaky compromise between William and Schomberg and sparing them a damaging court martial.

But little of this was satisfactory in the boardroom of the Admiralty, where the unauthorised redeployment of the
Pegasus
and
Rattler
added to a feeling that the Schomberg affair had been botched. Howe evidently thought Nelson might have done more to prevent the Schomberg affair reaching such a pass, or at least waited for a new commander-in-chief of the Leeward Islands to handle the matter. The first lord also disapproved of the prince’s diversion to Jamaica, although confusion about the Admiralty’s wishes in that respect were rooted in the board’s own contradictory orders. ‘I am sorry Capt Nelson, whom we wished well to, has been so much wanting in the endeavours which I think could not have failed of success, if they had been judiciously exerted, to dissuade the prince from the idea of going so prematurely to Jamaica,’ Howe confided to Lord Hood. On 17 July the Admiralty secretary, Philip Stephens, wrote to Nelson – after he had returned to England – censuring him for sending two ships to Jamaica.
⁵⁷

Thankfully, Nelson’s troubled West Indian commission was at an end. Only four days after the departure of the prince a government brig arrived at Nevis with letters from the new commander-in-chief, Commodore William Parker. He and his second, Sir Richard Bickerton, had left Barbados with the
Jupiter
and
Sybil
, and Nelson was ordered to meet them in St John’s, Antigua. For the last time Nelson’s frigate steered towards the detested hurricane hole. He was there when Parker and Bickerton arrived on 3 June but too sick to see them that day.
Bruised by three years of service, his morale and body were wasted.