Nelson: The Essential Hero (14 page)

under the command of Rear-Admiral Trogoff. This was a slight exaggeration (they were nearer twenty) and, in any case, few of them were in a condition to come out and give battle. The condition of the French Navy at that time was chaotic; discipline had broken down; and many of the Royalist officers had been hauled away to the guillotine. Toulon itself was in a desperate state, starvation was rife, and the citizens were divided into bitter factions of revolutionaries and royalists.

The blockade continued through the long hot summer, the fleet beating up and down that tawny coast, with few diversions except a visit to Genoa - to remonstrate with the Genoese republic for supplying the French with grain. Day after day, with slatting sails when the wind failed and only the swell continued, or reefed down when the mistral blew from the north, hard and hot off the land, the ships drove back and forth. On 4 August, off Toulon, Nelson sent a letter to Fanny by a ship that was detaching from the fleet and returning to England :

Whether the French intend to come out, seems uncertain : they have a force equal to us. Our Jacks would be very happy to see them; and as our fleet is in the fullest health, I dare say we should give a good account of them. I hardly think the war can last; for what are we at war about ? How I long to have a letter from you : next to being with you, it is the greatest pleasure I can receive. . . . Indeed I look back as to the happiest period of my life the being united to such a good woman; and as I cannot here show my affection to you, I do it doubly to Josiah, who deserves it, as well on his own account, as on yours; for he is a real good boy. . . . Lord Hood has sent me an offer of a 74, but I have declined it; as the Admiralty chose to put me into a 64, there I stay. I cannot give up my officers.

He was happy in the
Agamemnon
, which had lived up to her reputation as a smart ship, ‘for as we sail fast, we are always employed’. Even the lure of a 74 could not induce him to leave her.

‘Hunger will tame a lion*: Nelson had quoted the old saying in another letter, and the effect of the blockade, coupled with the internal struggles in the city, brought the desired result in late August when the white flag was run up and the anti-revolutionary faction in Toulon surrendered to the British. The fleet, the dockyards, ‘the strongest place in Europe’ submitted without a struggle. Lord Hood’s immediate concern was to secure enough troops to hold Toulon against the attack which must be inevitably mounted against it. The
Agamemnon's
sailing qualities made her Hood’s natural choice for the ship which should proceed with despatches for Sir William Hamilton, the British Envoy and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Court of the Two Sicilies in Naples. Hood’s request was for as many troops as could be spared to be sent to the defence of Toulon. This was in accordance with an agreement which had recently been negotiated by Sir William and the French-born Englishman Sir John Acton, who was Prime Minister to King Ferdinand IV and his Queen, Maria Carolina, sister of Marie Antoinette. In this treaty between Britain and Naples, the Neapolitan merchant fleet was to receive the full protection of the British Navy in the Mediterranean, provided that there was no trading with France; nor was any separate peace to be concluded by Naples without British consent. It was one of the triumphs of Sir William Hamilton’s diplomatic career, and it was hardly surprising that the arrival of the first British man-of-war after its conclusion should have been heralded as something of an event. Nelson concluded a long letter to Fanny ‘Begun off the Island of Sardinia, September 7th, finished at anchor off Naples, September 11th, 1793’: ‘We are now in sight of Mount Vesuvius which shows a fine light to us in Naples Bay where we are lying to for the night and hope to anchor early tomorrow.’

Five years later, when he was to become deeply involved in the affairs of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, Nelson was to learn a great deal more about their ramifications, and about the central actors and actresses upon the stage - although he was still to remain conspicuously ignorant of half the operatic plots that were to surround him. As a post-captain, with little or no knowledge of the libretto, he observed in the few days that he was there only the charm of the performance. It is best, for the moment, to try to glimpse people through the eyes of the
Agamemnon's
commander, who was quite inexperienced in the ways of the great world. Sir William at sixty-three, for instance, was gracious and distinguished, the very model of a diplomat, with a fine taste for collecting the antiquities of the ancient world. His wife Lady Hamilton had a beautiful face and a voluptuous figure. As for the King and the Queen - well, to Nelson, the eminence of their rank precluded any likelihood of judging their natures. The fact that King Ferdinand was a coarse buffoon, and that Queen Maria Carolina (despite her innumerable pregnancies) was the real power behind the throne will inevitably have escaped him. Sir John Acton, who had succeeded to his English title and estates in 1791 and had served in the navy of Tuscany, had at least an element of nautical experience in common with the visitor - but little else. Sir John was a politician to his fingertips, and a proficient one, and it was he who, in combination with Sir William, had devised the policy of substituting British influence at Naples for that of Spain. Both Sir William and Nelson took to one another, and Lady Hamilton was kindness itself to young Josiah, to whom she showed the sights of the city. Nelson, for his part, was treated with exceptional courtesy by Sir William Hamilton, who broke one of his long-standing rules about not having visitors to the city as house-guests, and gave Nelson a fine bedroom and all the hospitality of the Palazzo Sessa where he lived. King Ferdinand had the thirty-four-year-old captain of the
Agamemnon
sit at his right hand at a dinner given in his honour in the Royal Palace (the Queen was not present, being in the later stages of a pregnancy). As Nelson wrote to Fanny : ‘We are called by him the Saviours of Italy, and of his dominions in particular.’ Of Lady Hamilton he wrote: ‘She is a young woman [she was about twenty-eight] of amiable manners, and who does honour to the station to which she is raised.’ He must, of course, have been familiar with her common birth, but he could hardly have known the circumstances by which she had risen from being a blacksmith’s daughter to being the wife of Sir William. Emma’s later story, that her husband before first introducing her to Nelson had advised her that this ‘little man and far from handsome’ would become ‘the greatest man that England ever produced’, must be considered very suspect. Sir William honoured this as yet unknown captain partly perhaps because he liked his open manner, but principally because it was politic to do so at this historic moment. The arrival of the
Agamemnon
, proof of British naval power in the Mediterranean, set the seal upon the treaty just concluded between Naples and Britain. The practical ratification of this was the assembly of 6,000 troops to be transported to Toulon in accordance with Lord Hood’s wishes.

Nelson was on the point of returning the King’s courtesy by having him, the Hamiltons, and other notables aboard his ship for a formal visit and entertainment. But, before the King could arrive, and while all the others awaited the royal barge, the signal was received that a French warship escorting a convoy had been sighted off Sardinia. Although there were several Neapolitan men-of-war at anchor in the Bay, Nelson observed that they were showing no inclination to up-anchor and go in chase. ‘I had nothing left for the honour of our country but to sail, which I did in two hours afterwards.’ The distinguished guests were put ashore and the
Agamemnon
, as representative of the protecting arm of Britain, showed how quickly a disciplined and well-manned fighting vessel could discard the trivialities, as well as courtesies, of the shore - and get to sea. The fact that by the time Nelson caught up with his quarry she was safely at anchor in neutral Leghorn did not detract from the impression made by his swift action. It showed an efficiency that must have inspired confidence in the heart of Sir William. Nelson had been only four days in Naples. Five years were to pass before he and the Hamiltons met again.

The
Agamemnon
rejoined the fleet at Toulon on 5 October, arriving at almost the same time as 4,000 troops from Naples. Lord Hood was delighted with the promptness of the response to his request for aid, and undoubtedly attributed it in some degree to Nelson’s efficiency as a courier and an advocate. As a reward for his services, and with the knowledge that the
Agamemnon
(though long overdue for a refit) was, despite some sickness among the ship’s company, still the smartest sailer among those under his command, he despatched Nelson under sealed orders to join a squadron that was operating under Commodore Linzee off Sardinia. It was already clear to Hood that, despite the arrival of the Neapolitan troops, the investment of Toulon by the Revolutionary forces, which grew daily in intensity, was likely to succeed in the long run. He was anxious, in the event of this happening, to have a further base for the British fleet to fall back upon, and he calculated that he had found this in Corsica. Being independent from the mainland of France, it would be easier to hold once captured, and the people were more likely to be of a conservative, or at any rate anti-revolutionary, nature. Curiously enough, even while this plan was being concerted, a young artillery officer of Corsican birth, ‘Citizen Bonaparte, a trained captain’, had just been appointed to assist with the artillery in the siege of Toulon, the previous French commander having been wounded. ‘Buona Parte’ (for his name was sometimes still spelled in the Italian fashion) was described by his advocates, who finally secured him overall command of the artillery and, in effect, of the whole conduct of the siege, as ‘the artillery officer competent to plan these operations’.

Nelson meanwhile had his first real brush with the French on his way southward to join Commodore Linzee. The
Agamemnon
was short-handed, having been forced to land a number of men at Toulon, and with a complement of only 345 could not man all her guns. The account given by twelve-year-old William Hoste, a midshipman from Norfolk and yet another parson’s son, conveys with a fresh eye this small engagement, so typical of many others that were to take place all over the world during the following years: On the 22nd of October, when running down the island of Sardinia, about two o’clock in the morning, being off Monte Santo, twenty leagues to the northward of Cagliari, we saw five sail of ships standing to the N.W.: on observing us, they tacked and stood to the eastward. Captain Nelson, suspecting them to be a French convoy, immediately stood after them. About three o’clock we were very near up with the hindermost; and at four got within gunshot. We hailed her in French, but receiving no answer, fired a gun for her to bring-to, and shorten sail; when we observed her making signals with sky-rockets to her consorts, who were at some distance to windward. After we had repeatedly hailed her to no purpose, we fired one of our eighteen pounders at her, to oblige them to shorten sail.

At the same time, the lower gun-ports were opened and the Frenchman, a frigate, realised that she had come up against a ship-of-the-line and crammed on sail to make away. They came up with her again at dawn and a lively engagement began, the frigate using her greater speed and manoeuvrability to avoid the
Agamemnon's
full broadside, while managing to pour plenty of shot into her larger opponent. William Hoste gave the Frenchman full credit: She bravely engaged us in this manner for three hours, both ships sailing at the rate of six knots an hour. . . . The other frigates were coming after us with a fresh breeze; consequently we expected to have warm work, and were therefore anxious to dispatch this gentleman before they arrived : but, about eight o’clock, by an alteration of the wind, our antagonist got out of the reach of our guns. Our last broadside did infinite damage; nor was what we had received inconsiderable, as our rigging was shot away, and our main topmast broken, which prevented us from going after the frigate.

The ships which the
Agamemnon
had come up against were four large frigates, a corvette and a brig. All in all, against the
Agamemnon's
64 guns and 345 men they composed a force of 170 guns and some 1600 men. Nelson’s own comment is explicit: ‘Had they been English a 64 never could have got from them.’ Nevertheless the crack frigate
Melpomene
, against which he had been in action, had shown admirable spirit. Although she was so badly damaged that she must have sunk or surrendered if her companions had not come up to help, she had shown that, even in the disorganised state of revolutionary France, the French Navy was not one to be despised. The
Agamemnon
had only one man killed and a few wounded, but her rigging was so cut to pieces, quite apart from the loss of her main topmast, that she was in no condition to continue the fight - even if the French had so wished - without a breathing space. As it happened the other ships were too concerned in rescuing the
Melpomene
, which had 24 dead, many wounded, and was almost completely disabled, to continue the engagement any further. Nelson, however, was expecting that they would do so, and called his officers together to ask them their opinion as to whether the
Agamemnon
was ‘fit to go into action with such a superior force against us, without some small refit and refreshment for our people?’ His action in itself shows that trust in his subordinates which was so rare in its day, and which he was to continue to show to all who came under his command, even when he was an admiral. On receiving their opinion that the ship must certainly have a rest, his orders were : ‘Veer the ship, and lay her head to the westward; let some of the best men be employed refitting the rigging, and the carpenters getting crows and capstan bars to prevent our wounded spars from coming down, and get the wine up for the people, with some bread; for it may be half an hour good before we are again in action.’