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 NELSON 
 AND HIS CAPTAINS
 
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 LONDON 
 SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE, S.W.
 
 NELSON 
 
 After a. painting by L, F. Abbott in the National Portrait Gallery 
 
 Frontispiece {see f age i)
 
 NELSON 
 
 AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 SKETCHES OF FAMOUS 
 SEAMEN 
 
 BY 
 
 W. H. FITCHETT, B.A., LL.D. 
 
 WITH PORTRAITS AND A FACSIMILE LETTER 
 
 LONDON 
 SMITH, ELDER, & CO., 15 WATERLOO PLACE 
 
 1902 
 
 \_All rights 7-e served"]
 
 Printed by Ballantyne, Hanson &' Co. 
 At the Ballantyne Press
 
 CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. 
 
 I. NELSON : A CHARACTER STUDY . 
 
 II. THE MEN OF NELSON's SCHOOL . 
 
 III. SIR EDWARD BERRY . 
 
 IV. CAPTAIN EDWARD RIOU 
 
 V. SIR HENRY BLACKWOOD . 
 
 VI. SIR THOMAS TROUBRIDGE . 
 
 VII. SIR BENJAMIN HALLOWELL (CAREW) 
 
 VIII. SIR ALEXANDER BALL 
 
 IX. SIR JAMES SAUMAREZ 
 
 X. SIR WILLIAM PARKER 
 
 XI. SIR EDWARD PELLEW (lORD EXMOUTh) 
 
 XII. SIR THOMAS FOLEY . 
 
 XIII. SIR THOMAS MASTERMAN HARDY 
 
 INDEX 
 
 42 
 66 
 
 87 
 106 
 12g 
 156 
 
 175 
 200 
 232 
 
 259 
 278 
 296 
 
 315
 
 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 LORD NELSON .... 
 
 SIR EDWARD BERRY 
 
 CAPTAIN EDWARD RIOU . 
 
 SIR HENRY BLACKWOOD . 
 
 SIR THOMAS TROUBRIDGE 
 
 SIR BENJAMIN HALLOWELL (CAREW) 
 
 SIR ALEXANDER BALL 
 
 SIR JAMES SAUMAREZ 
 
 SIR EDWARD PELLEW (lORD EXMOUTh) 
 
 SIR THOMAS FOLEY 
 
 SIR THOMAS MASTERMAN HARDY 
 
 . Fro7itispiece 
 Tofcocepage 66 
 88 
 „ io6 
 
 „ 130 
 
 » 156 
 
 „ 176 
 
 „ 200 
 
 ,, 260 
 
 „ 278 
 
 „ 296 
 
 FACSIMILE OF CAPTAIN EDWARD RIOU S 
 LETTER TO P. STEPHENS, ESQ. . 
 
 94
 
 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 NELSON: A CHARACTER STUDY 
 
 " Thine island loves thee well, thou famous man. 
 The greatest sailor since the world begatt ! " 
 
 — Tennyson. 
 
 NELSON is the only figure amongst the great sea- 
 captains of the Napoleonic war of which the 
 human memory keeps any vivid image. The iron 
 face of Jervis looks out on us for a moment from 
 the smoke of St. Vincent, gloomy, stern, and cynical, 
 and then vanishes ! Colling wood, who led down 
 on the Franco-Spanish line at Trafalgar in a fashion 
 so stately, and in advance even of Nelson, and who 
 lies in the great crypt of St. Paul's beside his famous 
 chief, is, for the general reader, little more than a 
 name. Cornwallis, the hero of the tireless and 
 memorable blockade of Brest, is scarcely even a name. 
 Who remembers aught of Barham, the white-haired 
 veteran — sea-dog, as well as sea-lord — who devised, 
 almost off-hand, the counter-stroke that shattered 
 Napoleon's sea strategy and made Trafalgar possible ? 
 
 A
 
 2 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 Cochrane, no doubt, is remembered after a 
 fashion ; but it is as a sort of marine Don Quixote; 
 and he owes his fame almost as much to his long- 
 enduring and loudly proclaimed wrongs as to his 
 marvellous exploits. Sidney Smith flits as a sort 
 of sea-ghost through the cells of human re- 
 collection, but it is for what he did — not on sea, 
 but — on land. He is remembered, not as a sailor, 
 but as the defender of Acre. 
 
 Nelson is the one sea-captain of the Great War 
 who has stamped his image imperishably on the 
 imagination of the English-speaking race. 
 
 Whether, indeed. Nelson was in a technical sense 
 " the greatest sailor since the world began," need 
 not be discussed. In the art of taking care of 
 ship and canvas in rough weather some of his 
 own captains probably surpassed him. In the 
 genius that wielded fleets he was supreme ! And 
 in the great drama of Napoleonic wars there are 
 — for the man in the street — only three supreme 
 names, that of Napoleon himself, of Wellington, 
 and of Nelson, and Nelson was as great on sea 
 as his two rivals in fame were great on land. 
 
 This work is an account, not so much of Nelson 
 as of his captains — the men of the Nile and of 
 Trafalgar. " They," said Nelson, of a group of his 
 captains, " are my children ; they serve in my 
 school, and I glory in them." And we cannot 
 understand the " school " without some clear
 
 • NELSON : A CHARACTER STUDY 3 
 
 mental image of the master who stamped his im- 
 press so deeply on it. 
 
 Nelson's figure when set against a background 
 of mighty battles, seems unheroic in an almost 
 absurd degree. Haliburton makes his Sam Slick 
 describe Nelson as " that cripple-gaited, one-eyed, 
 one-armed little naval critter." In these days 
 when the foot-rule and the stethoscope and the 
 examination paper are the tests by which our 
 embryo Nelsons and Wellingtons are chosen, the 
 future hero of the Nile and of Trafalgar would 
 infallibly have been rejected. The test of the 
 foot-rule alone would have been fatal. Nelson was 
 mean in stature. " A little man with no dignity 
 and a shock-head," is the description by a lady who 
 saw Nelson — no doubt with unfriendly eyes — after 
 the Nile. " The merest boy of a captain I have 
 ever beheld," says Prince William Henry of him 
 when he met him in New York in 1782, Avhen 
 Nelson was twenty-four years old, and already in 
 command of a frigate. " A little man, and far 
 from handsome," is Sir William Hamilton's de- 
 scription when Nelson made his appearance in 
 Naples in 1793. Nelson at that date was, no 
 doubt, curiously fragile in appearance, and with 
 the empty sleeve which Santa Cruz gave him, and 
 the half-blindness he owed to Corsica. His face, 
 even in after years, when bronzed with the sea
 
 4 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 winds and scarred with battle, was hardly — with 
 its pouting lips, half-melancholy, half-boyish eyes, 
 and careless hair— the face of a war leader. Only 
 rarely, indeed, amongst his many portraits and 
 busts do we catch a gleam of the expression his 
 sailors must have seen on Nelson's face when the 
 guns Avere beginning to speak. Thaller's bust of 
 Nelson, with its masterful profile, its eager fighting 
 look, and the deep line from the base of the nostril 
 to the chin, gives, it is true, a curious impression 
 of power. Even more in Flaxman's fine bust the 
 resolved line of the lips, the challenging eyes, give 
 us a hint of what may be called Nelson's battle 
 face. 
 
 But in most of his portraits the sensitive mouth, 
 the curving lips, the set of his eyebrows, all tell of 
 the emotional side of Nelson's character. He was 
 vehement, moody, swinging to opposite poles of 
 emotion with strange readiness ; now drooping, now 
 exultant, and intense alike in his hates and his 
 loves. There was a strain of the woman in him; 
 of womanly vehemence, of womanly sensitiveness, 
 of womanly — not to say half-shrewish — temper. 
 It was the woman in him which explains that 
 pathetic " Kiss me. Hardy," in the last scene of 
 all. His hate of the French has in it a strain of 
 feminine shrewishness. His belief in his friends, 
 in his comrades, in his ship, had in it more than 
 a touch of feminine exaggeration. The half-
 
 . NELSON : A CHARACTER STUDY 5 
 
 feminine side of Nelson's character is seen in his 
 simple and unashamed delight in ilattery. Lady 
 Hamilton's emotions and superlatives, her tears, 
 her apostrophes, her swoons would have turned 
 the stomach of most men. 
 
 It is said sometimes that Nelson had no sense 
 of humour ; and that is not quite true. There was 
 humour, though of a somewhat grim sort, in his 
 description of himself in Corsica : " I have all the 
 diseases there are," he wrote, " but there is not 
 enough in my frame for them to fasten on.' 
 There was humour again in his letter to the Duke 
 of Clarence, explaining the loss of his arm at 
 Santa Cruz : " I assure your Royal Highness," he 
 says, " that not a scrap of that ardour with which 
 I served our King has been shot away " ! Was 
 there not humour, again — of Avhat may be called 
 the iron sort — in the incident at Copenhagen, 
 Avhen Nelson lifted his telescope to his blind eye, 
 and declared he really could not see his admiral's 
 ignoble signal of recall ? But it needed, perhaps, 
 the thunder of a great battle to kindle Nelson's 
 sense of the humorous. Under ordinary conditions 
 it emerged too seldom and too scantily. A pinch 
 of the genuine salt of humour Avould certainly 
 have made vain the flatteries and the fascinations 
 of that somewhat ^jass^e and decidedly over-plump 
 charmer, Lady Hamilton. 
 
 But his moods came and wont with bewildering
 
 6 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 rapidity. Nothing can well be more tragical than 
 Nelson's gloom when the dark hour is upon him. 
 Thus, after his failure at Santa Cruz, he writes to 
 Jervis : " I am become a burden to my friends, and 
 useless to my country." His career was ended ! 
 On the other hand, nothing could be gayer or more 
 audacious than Nelson's self-confidence during his 
 moments of exaltation. He was still an almost un- 
 known post-captain when he wrote to his wife: 
 " One day or other I will have a long Gazette to 
 myself. I cannot, if I am in the field of glory, be 
 kept out of sight. . . . Not a kingdom or state 
 where my name will be forgotten." There was a 
 touch of unreasoning extravao'ance in his occasional 
 outbursts of discontent at the supposed slowness of 
 his promotion. It is customary to say that Nelson, 
 the sixth child — one out of the eleven children — 
 of a country parson, had no official influence to 
 help him in his career. But his uncle, Suckling, 
 was Comptroller of the Navy, and Nelson, by some 
 charm of manner, as well as by his fine gifts, won 
 one powerful jDatron after another, from Parker to 
 Jervis. The mere dates of his commissions show 
 how swiftly he rose. He was only twelve when, 
 without the formality of an examination, he became 
 a midshipman. At fourteen he was captain's cox- 
 swain in the Carcass, and on his way to the North 
 Pole. When nineteen years old he was second 
 lieutenant of the Lowestoft, and in command of her
 
 NELSOX : A CHARACTER STUDY 7 
 
 tender, a schooner named the Little Lucy. At 
 twenty he flew his flag in command of the Badger, 
 a brig ; he was only twenty-one when put in com- 
 mand of the Hinchiiibroke, a small frigate, and 
 scarcely twenty-two when, as senior naval officer, 
 he led in the San Juan expedition. His service 
 was broken by much sickness ; yet, in August 
 1 78 1, he was in command of the Albemarle, a 
 2 8 -gun frigate. 
 
 There, it is true, came a gap of wasted time. 
 Nelson went on half-pay, and occupied himself in 
 falling in, and out of, love, and with trying in vain 
 to learn French; but in 1784 he was in command 
 of the Boreas, and was senior captain in the West 
 Indies. Then followed more than four years of 
 married life, half-pay and general unrest and 
 grumbling. Nelson was on half-pay from Decem- 
 ber 1787 to January 1793 — ^^^ loi^g, wasted, 
 fretful, unhappy years, when he contemplated 
 giving up the sea altogether. But in January 
 1793, when yet not thirty-five years old, he walked, 
 as its captain, the quarterdeck of the Agamemnon, 
 " without exception," as Nelson himself wrote, " the 
 finest 64 in the service." Nelson, by the way, had 
 as many fond illusions about his ships as a youth 
 for the first time in love has about his mistress. 
 The same year he was commodore under Hood, 
 and in command of the naval forces in the siege 
 of Calvi. In August 1 796 he hoisted his broad
 
 8 NELSON" AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 pennant as commodore of a squadron of frigates. 
 At Cape St. Vincent, where lie won imperishable 
 fame, he was only thirty-nine. He fought the 
 battle of the Nile when he was not yet forty. 
 
 The mere chronology of Nelson's career thus 
 proves that he suffered from no official neglect. 
 The sense of discontent which burned in his blood, 
 and so often stains his correspondence, was due, in 
 part, to the hypersensitive, not to say feminine, side 
 of his nature. In part, again, it may be traced to 
 that almost constant experience of ill-health he 
 was doomed to suffer. Through some of the most 
 croAvded years of his career, Nelson was little better 
 than a semi-invalid. He had a frail constitution to 
 begin with. " What has poor little Horatio done, 
 who is so weak," asked Suckling, his uncle, when 
 asked to take Nelson as midshipman, " that, 
 above all the rest, he should be sent to rough it at 
 sea ? " And a body frail by original make was in- 
 habited by a restless, fiery, and vehement spirit, all 
 too strong for its fragile case. Goethe's description 
 of Hamlet, " an oak tree planted in a vase," might 
 be applied to Nelson. During his early years his 
 slender body and pain-sharpened face made every 
 kind-hearted woman who came in contact with him 
 eaoer to nurse him. Mrs. Locker, the wife of his 
 first captain after Suckling, was his nurse ; so was 
 Lady Parker, the wife of his admiral ; so was Lady 
 Hughes in turn. His tireless energy, with its re-
 
 NELSON : A CHARACTER STUDY 9 
 
 lapses when the fierce stress for a moment was 
 over, tore his frail body almost to pieces. He 
 could take care of everybody's health but his own. 
 He might have been a pillule- absorbing hypochon- 
 driac but for the fiery indomitable spirit that 
 burned within his dyspeptic and overstrained body, 
 and forbade the shaken nerves to yield, and the 
 tired muscles to rest. 
 
 Nelson was driven back from the East by sick- 
 ness while yet a lieutenant. He brought the seeds 
 of a deadly fever with him in his blood from the 
 San Juan expedition. His health broke down 
 again after a period of service in the West Indies. 
 He knew months of pain and completest weakness 
 after his wound at Santa Cruz. He fretted himself 
 into a fever in his great sea chase after Brueys, and 
 believed himself to be in serious peril of dying from 
 a broken heart. His health failed again after the 
 Nile. " I never expect," he wrote to Jervis, " to see 
 your face again." He drooped like a chronic and 
 hopeless invahd in the sunshine of Naples, and 
 when breathing the atmosphere of Lady Hamilton's 
 adoration. He was threatened with blindness ; he 
 was " worn out and left-handed," as he described 
 himself. " I am almost finished," he wrote to Ad- 
 miral Goodall. The cold and exposure of the 
 Copenhagen operations were all but fatal to him. 
 When on Channel service off Boulogne he was 
 racked with a perpetual cough, driven almost mad
 
 lO NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 with toothache, and — most ignoble distress of all — • 
 was perpetually seasick ! His cough-shaken, pain- 
 racked body, when he kept guard during the 
 stormy months of 1803 off Toulon, moved the per- 
 petual wonder and pity of his own officers. He 
 was rheumatic, he had incessant pains of the heart, 
 he was tormented with " the constant sense of the 
 blood gushing up the left side of my head." 
 " Dreadfully seasick," he wrote ; " always tossed 
 about, and always seasick." And this was the year 
 before Trafalgar ! " Nothing," he wrote to Lady 
 Hamilton, " can be more miserable and unhappy 
 than your poor Nelson. My heart is almost 
 broken." 
 
 And yet the keen, clear, heroic spirit burnt like 
 a tlame within the shattered, fragile, pain-tormented 
 body. Macaulay describing the rival leaders who 
 confronted each other at Neerwinden in 1693, says 
 that, "amongst the 120,000 soldiers who were 
 marshalled round Neerwinden under all the stand- 
 ards of Western Europe, the two feeblest in body 
 were the hunchbacked dwarf who urged forward 
 the fiery onset of France, and the asthmatic skeleton 
 who covered the slow retreat of England." And, 
 as far as physical appearance is concerned, Nelson 
 would have been a good companion figure to either 
 Luxemburg or William IIL It is difficult indeed 
 to recall any other great figure in history who 
 carried such a burden of physical disabilities as did
 
 NELSON : A CHARACTER STUDY I I 
 
 Nelson, and grumbled over them so loudly, yet 
 triumphed over them so completely. 
 
 And it moves one's wonder still to remember 
 that this fragile, undersized, half-womanly figure, 
 if not " the greatest sailor since the world began," 
 was the greatest sea-Avarrior the world has ever 
 seen. He was even more — he was almost, if not 
 quite, the most terrible fighter, whether on sea or 
 land, war has known. Admiral Colomb dwells with 
 wondering emphasis on " that tremendous desire 
 for personal distinction, that delight in confronting 
 danger, that awful singleness of destructive purpose " 
 which built Nelson's monument in English history. 
 
 Courage is of many sorts, from the hot-blooded 
 temper that danger exhilarates, to what is some- 
 times called " two o'clock in the morning " courage — 
 the cool, unshrinking valour, which is independent 
 of all physical conditions, and which Wellington 
 held to be the rarest kind of couratje. Nelson, it 
 may be claimed, had both kinds of courage, and 
 had each in perfect measure. 
 
 Battle intoxicated him, and yet left him cool. 
 It was like a fierce wine poured into his blood ; 
 but it steadied while it exalted every sense. There 
 is something humorous in the pity he expends on 
 Troubridge when the Culloden went ashore at the 
 Nile, and its unfortunate captain was compelled to 
 watch his comrades, to use Nelson's phrase, " in the 
 full tide of happiness," smashing up the French
 
 12 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 fleet, while lie himself could take no part in the 
 peril and glory of that process. To be in the 
 passion and perils of a great battle was, for Nelson, 
 to be " in the full tide of happiness." At Copen- 
 hagen, when the Danish bullets were covering the 
 quarterdeck of the Ukjjhant Avith splinters, Nelson 
 turned to Colonel Stewart, with the remark, " This 
 is warm work, and this day may be the last to 
 any of us at any moment." Then he added, with 
 emphasis, " But, mark you, I would not be else- 
 where for thousands." Collingwood knew his 
 admiral well, and, as the Royal Sorcrcign led into 
 the tempest of fire at Trafalgar, he said to his 
 captain, " Rotherham, what Avould Nelson give to 
 be here." Nelson, on his part, gazing at the far- 
 stretched and menacing line of Villeneuve, was 
 just then saying to Hardy, " What would poor 
 Sir Robert Calder give to be with us now." 
 
 Perhaps the most perilous hour in Nelson's 
 stormy life was that of the boat combat by night 
 in the Bay of Cadiz. He himself described it as 
 " the greatest peril he had ever known." His boat, 
 with twelve officers and men, stumbled, in the 
 blackness, on a Spanish gunboat with a crew of 
 thirty officers and men. How desperate was the 
 fighting which followed may be judged from the 
 circumstance that of the Spaniards eighteen were 
 killed and all the rest wounded. Nelson's own 
 life, in the furious hand-to-hand struggle, was twice
 
 NELSON : A CHARACTER STUDY I 3 
 
 saved by the devotion of his coxswain, Sykes. And 
 yet, in all Nelson's references to that incident, it 
 is plain he regarded it as one of the most ecstatic- 
 ally delightful moments of his whole career. 
 
 Nelson's fighting qualities — the speed of his 
 stroke, the swiftness of his onfall, his audacious 
 daring, and the bloodhound-like tenacity of his 
 spirit — are perhaps most strikingly illustrated in 
 the two signal failures of his career — the San Juan 
 expedition, and the attack on the treasure ships at 
 Santa Cruz. 
 
 Nelson, when he commanded the naval detach- 
 ment in the San Juan business, was only a lad 
 of twenty-one. The climate was deadly, the rain 
 incessant, the country almost impassable. It took 
 seventeen days of desperate toil to force the boats 
 of the Hinchinhro'ke up stream till the fort of San 
 Juan was reached. 
 
 Nelson was for leaping, without a moment's 
 delay, on the fort, and that instinct was as wise 
 as it was daring. But the soldiers were joedants. 
 They insisted on beginning their approaches with 
 tedious formality. Nelson found his advice re- 
 jected, yet he toiled in the trenches and batteries 
 with furious energy, while men died fast on all 
 sides with sickness, and out of his 200 sailors, 
 145 were dead. Nelson, too, would probably have 
 died but that his fiery spirit gave him no time 
 to be sick. He was " the first in every service,
 
 14 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 whether by day or night," Avrote the very soldier 
 who had rejected his advice for an instant attack. 
 " There was not a gun fired l»ut was pointed by 
 hini or by the chief engineer." Nelson brought a 
 shattered frame and fever-poisoned blood back from 
 San Juan, but he had given a proof of supreme 
 fighting qualities. 
 
 In the blackness of the failure at Santa Cruz, 
 again. Nelson's figure as a leader of men stands out in 
 lines at once luminous and noble. He was forbidden 
 by his orders to land in person ; and to that circum- 
 stance is, perhaps, due the failure of the whole ex- 
 pedition. Troubridge commanded the first party 
 that landed, and hesitated to attack the heights 
 which overlooked the town, where Nelson certainly 
 would not have hesitated for an instant. But Trou- 
 bridge's failure, according to Nelson's keen sense of 
 honour and duty, created a new obligation for him. 
 He must attack again, '• for the honour of our king- 
 dom and country . . . and that our enemies may 
 be convinced there is nothing an Englishman is not 
 equal to." And Nelson decided he must command 
 in person. " I felt the second attack," he wrote, " a 
 forlorn hope ; I never expected to return." But, as 
 Nelson read his duty, the obligation to attack was 
 peremptory. 
 
 So, in the blackness of the night, he led his tiny 
 squadron of boats, carrying looo seamen, and 
 swung hither and thither by the vast seas, in an
 
 NELSON : A CHARACTER STUDY I 5 
 
 attack on an unknown and rocky shore, hedged 
 with a roaring surf, guarded by great batteries 
 manned by not less than 8000 Spaniards. The 
 mole and the shore gleamed with hostile fires, and 
 were swept Avith bullets as the boats struggled up. 
 The Fox, a cutter carrying 180 men, was sunk 
 by a single shot. Nelson, in the act of landing, 
 had his right arm shattered, and fell with the 
 blood pouring from the torn artery. The arm was 
 tightly bound, and the boat, with Nelson lying in 
 it half unconscious, was slowly pulled back to the 
 ship. 
 
 Nelson rallied, however, at the sight of the 
 perishing crew of the Fox, and, with his single un- 
 injured arm, helped to save many of the drown- 
 ing men. His boat carries him to the side — not 
 of his flagship, but — of the Sea Horse, whose 
 captain, Fremantle, is ashore fighting. Nelson, 
 though this ship offered him what, at the risk of 
 his life, he needed — instant surgical help — refuses 
 to go on board. He is told his life is in deadly 
 peril ; " then I will die," he says, " rather than 
 alarm Mrs. Fremantle by her seeing me in this 
 state when I can give her no tidings of her hus- 
 band." 
 
 He has come back from defeat. His men are 
 dying on that black shore, where the guns are still 
 roaring ; he himself is suffering anguish from a 
 deadly wound, and the worse anguish of failure.
 
 1 6 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 Yet he remembers a wife's fears, and refuses, even 
 for the sake of securing help for his own wound, 
 to arouse them. 
 
 When he reached the Theseus, his flagship, he 
 refused help in mounting the ship's side. " I have 
 got my legs left," he said, " and one arm ; " and, 
 with his right arm swinging loose and bloody, he 
 clambered, holding by one hand, up the black side 
 of the TJicscus, and called for the surgeon, as he 
 stepped on the deck, to bring his instruments. " I 
 know I must lose my right arm, and the sooner 
 the better." He suffered amputation without a 
 word, and within a few hours he was writing a 
 letter with the unaccustomed fingers of his left 
 hand to tell Jervis the story of the failure. As a 
 picture of daring, of generous feeling, and of the 
 triumph of an heroic spirit over pain and weakness 
 and defeat, war does not offer many pictures nobler 
 than that of Nelson on the night of the " failure " 
 at Santa Cruz. 
 
 But if Nelson had the courage which finds in 
 peril itself an intoxication, he had the cooler and 
 finer courage that gives a new clearness to the eye, 
 and a ncAV energy to the will, as the peril increases. 
 This indeed is the paradox of Nelson's character 
 as a battle leader. Before the moment of action 
 he frets, he doubts, he desponds. But the instant 
 of action finds him cool, easy, confident, almost 
 gay. He is all fire before the fight, but ice — and
 
 NELSON : A CHARACTER STUDY I J 
 
 dynamite — in it. The fret and intensit}- of his 
 eagerness before a great battle sometimes clouded 
 his judgment. This, it is sometimes contended, 
 explains why he overran Brueys in the great sea- 
 chase of 1798, and why he left Alexandria before 
 his enemy had arrived. He was too eager. He 
 had weighed every possible chance in that sea-chase 
 — except the chance that he might overrun his prey; 
 which was exactly what happened. Had he been as 
 cool when he sighted the two French frigates off Malta 
 on June 22, as he was on the evening of August i , 
 when he was laying his ship alongside the ^'partiaU, 
 he would certainly have secured the opportunity — 
 for which he longed, and which would have changed 
 the current of history — of " trying Bonaparte on a 
 wind." The fever and eagerness of the chase, the 
 passion to overtake his foe, which burned like white 
 flame in his blood, clouded his judgment, and well- 
 nigh broke his heart. Nelson was almost without 
 sleep or food during the chase ; but the moment the 
 Zealous signalled that the enemy was lying in Aboukir 
 Bay, Nelson Avent to dinner ! He could eat now. 
 
 The perilous edge of battle, in a word, where 
 human anxiety is apt to grow acute, was, for Nelson, 
 the point where his anxieties ended. All his agita- 
 tions suddenly crystallised into a single purpose 
 translucent as a diamond, and as hard. He doubts 
 himself before the guns begin to speak ; but at the 
 first shot doubt falls from him like a garment. 
 
 B
 
 1 8 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 It was this combination of unlike types of 
 courage which made Nelson one of the most 
 terrible fighters of all history. He could follow 
 his enemy with the fierce and tireless energy of 
 some bloodhound round the world, as he pursued 
 Brueys or Villeneuve ; and could then run in on 
 his foe, at sight, with silent and deadly purpose, 
 as he closed on the French line in Aboukir Bay 
 when the sun was setting. 
 
 Nelson, of course, fought with brains as well as 
 with broadsides. Admiral Colomb, a quite com- 
 petent judge, says that Nelson in action with an 
 opposing fleet, " stands more nearly as a specially 
 inspired being than any great man of modern 
 times." He certainly brought to his business as a 
 fighter, and in a supreme degree, the mystic, un- 
 definable, yet magical gift we call genius. He saw 
 with luminous vision exactly the problem before 
 him ; assessed the weight of every factor with perfect 
 exactness ; shaped in his swift brain a compact and 
 flawless strategy, and then drove to his chosen goal 
 with unswerving purpose. " In the presence of the 
 enemy — in Hotham's action, at St. Vincent, at the 
 Nile, at Copenhagen, and Trafalgar — it is quite 
 impossible," says Admiral Colomb, " to conceive of 
 more perfect tactical knowledge, applied in more 
 perfect style, with greater decision of purpose, or 
 more sustained determination " than in the case of 
 Nelson.
 
 NELSON : A CHARACTER STUDY 1 9 
 
 There was, in a word, method, calculation, know- 
 ledge, behind Nelson's most audacious feats. When 
 he boarded and carried the two Spanish three-deckers 
 at St. Vincent he was only acting on that opinion of 
 the Spaniards which he had formed when he studied 
 the Spanish fleet at Cadiz in i 793, "I am certain," 
 he then wrote, " if our six barges' crews, who are picked 
 men, had got on board one of their first-rates, they 
 would have taken her. The Dons may make fine 
 ships; they cannot make men." It was Avith less 
 than " the crews of six barges " that Nelson, at St. 
 Vincent, clambered up the lofty hulls of the San 
 Nicolas, and the San Josef, in succession, and 
 captured them both. 
 
 And yet, curiously enough, while nothing could 
 be simpler than Nelson's plan at the Nile, or more 
 faultless than its execution, critics of a certain school 
 would have us believe that nobody has ever been 
 able to comprehend that strategy, or to express it • 
 in accurate terms ! James is hopelessly wrong. 
 Ekins is a fellow-offender of equally desperate 
 quality. Mahan is only a little less wrong than 
 James. Even Nelson's captains, though they carried 
 out Nelson's strategy, did not, we are assured, 
 understand it. Speaking of the Nile, Admiral 
 Colomb says, " Even his own flag-captain, the most 
 gallant Berry, did not know how the battle 
 had been fought, nor why Nelson fought it in 
 that particular way." Just in the same fashion,
 
 20 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 Ave ai-e told, Collingwood did not understand 
 
 Trafalo-ar ! 
 
 o 
 
 But is Nelson's strategy, after all, of so cryptic a 
 quality that even tlie experts can neither compre- 
 hend it nor explain it ? The truth is. Nelson's 
 "strategy" was merely perfect, common sense applied 
 to the business of war. His aim, like that of Napo- 
 leon, was always to be superior in numl)ers and 
 strength at the point of attack. " I have always 
 believed," said Nelson, "that one Englishman is 
 equal to three Frenchmen ; " and, personally, he 
 Avas cheerfully Avilling, Avith his single ship, to meet 
 those odds. " Take you a Frenchman apiece," he 
 said to his captains, Avhen in pursuit of Villeneuve, 
 '•'and leave me the Spaniards." But in his great 
 sea-fights his plan Avas ahvays, if possible, to throw 
 three English ships upon one French ship ! 
 
 Thus, at the Nile, he found his enemy lying 
 anchored in a long-draAvn line, head to Avdnd. 
 Nelson's leading ships crossed the head of the line 
 and eneaared the Frenchmen to larboard ; the later 
 British ships anchored on the outside of the same 
 ships, Avhich were thus crushed by an overwhelming 
 cross fire. Thirteen British ships, including the 
 Lcander, that is, Avere concentrated on seven French 
 ships, the French tail practically taking no part in 
 the fight. " By attacking the enemy's van and 
 centre," says Nelson, in one luminous and oft-quoted 
 sentence, " the Avind bloA\'ing directly along their
 
 NELSON : A CHARACTER STUDY 2 1 
 
 line, I was enabled to throw what force I pleased 
 on a few ships." The plan was the perfection of 
 simplicity and of intelligibility. 
 
 The plan at Copenhagen was practically that of 
 the Nile, modified by local conditions, and was only 
 spoiled because the leading British ships went ashore. 
 Nelson's strategy at Trafalgar, again, was, in principle, 
 that of the Nile, only adjusted to the fact that both 
 fleets were in motion. The usual descriptions of 
 Trafalgar are made obscure to the general reader by 
 the use of technical terms, but it was really as simple 
 as it was audacious. 
 
 Collingwood, at the head of one column, pierced 
 the enemy's line about the twelfth ship from the 
 rear; Nelson, leading the other column, pierced it 
 about the tenth ship from the van. Thus the 
 centre of Villeneuve's line was crushed betwixt the 
 two British columns, while its van and centre were 
 left dismembered, and for the most part out of the 
 fight. • 
 
 Nelson thus revolutionised naval warfare, yet it can- 
 not be claimed that he created new tactics, or added 
 any startling discovery to the grammar of battle. 
 But for generations the British navy had been afflicted 
 with a mistaken tactical system, crystallised into law, 
 and made mandatory. It was the system of Aveak 
 men, and suited weak men ; but it was hedged round 
 with terrible penalties. Disobedience to it in 1744 
 cost Matthews his flag, and twelve years later cost
 
 2 2 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 Byng his life. The official Fighting Instructions 
 of the Admiralty directed an admiral, when en- 
 gaging an enemy's fleet, to arrange his line exactly 
 parallel with the enemy's line, and to pit ship 
 against ship, so that a sea battle resolved itself into 
 so many sea duels. The essential idea was to dis- 
 tribute the attacking force along the whole of the 
 enemy's line, not to combine it in overwhelming pre- 
 ponderance against a portion of that line. Nelson 
 inverted that process. The essential principle of 
 all his battles was to double on part of his enemy's 
 line and crush it, leaving the surviving fragment to 
 be destroyed in detail. All the traditions of the 
 navy were against these tactics, and, it may be 
 added, the natural pride of the British seaman was 
 against them. One Englishman was equal to two 
 Frenchmen ; why invert these odds, and expend 
 two Englishmen on one Frenchman ? This was, in 
 substance, the criticism of Saumarez on Nelson's 
 tactics at the Nile. " It never required," he argued, 
 " two English ships to capture one French." Why 
 should not every captain have his own antagonist, 
 and fight him on equal terms ? 
 
 But Nelson fought with brains as well as with 
 cannon shot and cutlass. He knew that in ad- 
 vance, and before a shot was fired, a battle was lost 
 or won in the cells of a general's brain. And the 
 terrible quality of his fighting was found in the 
 deadly skill with which he threw his whole force
 
 nelson: a character study 23 
 
 on part only of his enemy's force, and thus satistied 
 the first condition of victory, that of being over- 
 whelmingly superior in strength at the point of 
 attack. 
 
 All this, it may be said again, was but common 
 sense applied to the tremendous issues of a sea- 
 battle ; but it was decisive, and it ensured decisive 
 results. Nelson did not invent this principle ; it 
 belongs, in a sense, to the alphabet of tactics. But 
 it had not only been forgotten in the British navy 
 — it had been officially forbidden by the Fighting 
 Instructions of the Admiralty. It is true that 
 Hawke and Rodney, and Hood, and even Howe, 
 had broken loose more or less from these absurd 
 instructions, and were, in a sense, the forerunners 
 of Nelson ; but Nelson applied the new principle to 
 naval warfare on a scale, and with a certainty and 
 swiftness, that made his battles like thunderbolts, 
 and as destructive as thunderbolts. 
 
 Although it was the constant aim of Nelson's 
 strategy to throw at least two of his own ships on 
 every ship of the enemy, yet, when the need arose, 
 he could see those odds inverted against himself 
 with serenest courage. What can be finer, and 
 what more daring, than his own action at Cape St. 
 Vincent, when, without orders, he suddenly swung 
 out of the line, swept in a curve round the British 
 ship in his rear, and met, single-handed, the great 
 flock of Spanish three-deckers — the vast Santissima
 
 24 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 Trinidada, looming like a giant amongst them — 
 coming down before tlie wind, Avitli bellying sails 
 and foam rising higb under tlieir bluff bows ! 
 Nelson, in the Captain, endured for a time the fire 
 of five Spanish first-rates, and when his ship lay, 
 with splintered masts, torn rigging, and decks 
 covered with the wounded and the dead, unable to 
 tack or steer, Nelson, with matchless audacity, pro- 
 ceeded to board and carry two hostile three-deckers 
 in succession ! It was a flash of warlike genius 
 that made him suddenly break loose from the 
 British line and throw himself in the path of the 
 Spaniards. It illustrated his unquenchable fighting 
 ardour that, when he had gained his tactical end, 
 and his own ship was little better than a wreck, he 
 could yet clamber up the huge sides of the Spanish 
 first-rates in turn, and carry them with the cutlass. 
 Nelson's fighting plans, it may be added, always 
 had about them a singular and terrible thoroughness. 
 The battle, so far as he can control it, never ends 
 while one hostile flag still flutters aloft. Hotham 
 fought his battle on March 12, 1795, in a suffi- 
 ciently gallant manner. His force was inferior, but 
 two of the enemy's ships struck. The French were 
 in retreat, and Nelson was on fire to pursue. " We 
 must be content," said Hotham ; " we have done 
 very well." " Now," said Nelson, " had we taken 
 ten sail, and had allowed his eleventh to escape 
 when it had been possible to have got at her, 1
 
 KELSON : A CHARACTER STUDY 2 5 
 
 could never have called it ' well done.' " The Nile 
 illustrates the terrible completeness of Nelson's 
 stroke. Eleven French ships of the line out of 
 thirteen were captured or destroyed, and two 
 frigates out of four; two ships of the line, with 
 two frigates, escaped, but only for a time. " Had 
 I not been wounded," wrote Nelson, " not a boat 
 would have escaped to tell the tale ! " The Nile 
 was not so much a victory as a conquest. 
 
 Nelson, as a matter of fact, revolutionised the 
 methods of sea-battle. Before his time the tradi- 
 tional and orthodox method of a fleet action was to 
 engage in line, ship to ship ; after a certain amount 
 of damage had been inflicted and endured, and one 
 or two ships had been captured, the fleets separated, 
 and the fight was over. Howe, on the famous First 
 of June, captured only six ships thus, after sea 
 evolutions stretching through whole days, and when 
 he might, with ease, have captured a dozen. 
 Jervis, at St. Vincent, captured only four ships. 
 At Camperdown, eight ships out of nineteen 
 escaped. But Nelson knew not only how to win 
 battles, but how to reap the uttermost grain of 
 the harvest of victory. 
 
 Trafalgar was a victory equally overwhelming. 
 Of the thirty-three great ships that Villeneuve led 
 out of Cadiz, eighteen were captured or destroyed 
 in the fight ; four escaped to sea, where they were 
 taken a few days later by Sir Richard Strachan;
 
 26 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 eleven, of which only five were French, took refuge 
 in Cadiz, and these became prizes when S|)ain 
 broke loose from the French alliance. Trafalgar, 
 in this sense, was the most decisive and complete 
 victory won on land or sea throughout the long 
 Napoleonic wars. None of Napoleon's victories — 
 not Marengo, nor Austerlitz, nor Jena — can rival, in 
 completeness of results, Trafalgar. 
 
 But if Nelson was the heir of Hawke, and Hood, 
 and Rodney in tactics, he was the heir of Jervis 
 as far as discipline was concerned. Jervis' title to 
 fame does not lie in his tactics. His attack on the 
 Spanish fleet at St. Vincent has been challenged, 
 and is challengeable. To realise this we have only 
 to imaofine the battle of St. Vincent, with Nelson's 
 part omitted. The stroke that won the battle was 
 given without any instructions from Jervis. But 
 in the great war Jervis made two magnificent con- 
 tributions to the sea strength of England. He 
 created a new discipline for its fleets ; he shaped 
 the policy of the great blockades. Nothing could 
 well be more fibreless and lax than the discipline 
 of the British navy in the period before the 
 Napoleonic wars. Nothing could well be sterner 
 or wiser than the uiethods by which Jervis re- 
 stored that discipline, and made a British fleet 
 the most terrible instrument of sea-battle the world 
 up to that period had known. Jervis, too, re- 
 volutionised naval war by his system of long-
 
 NELSON : A CHARACTER STUDY 2/ 
 
 sustained and iron blockades. He sealed up the 
 fleets of France and of Spain in their own ports, 
 and kept watch over them with an ordered and 
 tireless vigilance hitherto unknown in naval war. 
 
 o 
 
 As an incidental result of this system, the temper 
 and seamanship of the imprisoned fleets decayed, 
 while the skill, audacity, and hardihood of the 
 fleets blockading them rose to a level never before 
 known, and that made them irresistible. 
 
 Nelson maintained St. Vincent's discipline with- 
 out his severity ; and he rivalled St. Vincent him- 
 self in his wise and sleepless care for his men's 
 health. " Of all the services I lay claim to," Jervis 
 wrote, looking back on his whole career, " the 
 preservation of the health of our fleets is my 
 proudest boast." And this was written by the 
 man who won the battle off Cape St. Vincent. 
 " All we get here," wrote Nelson, while cruising 
 off" Toulon, " is honour and salt beef." " My poor 
 fellows have not had a morsel of fresh meat or 
 vegetables for near nineteen weeks." But that 
 state of things, under the command of either 
 Jervis or Nelson, was quite exceptional. Every 
 detail that touched the health or comfort of their 
 crews was studied with a vigilance that never 
 relaxed. As much care was bestowed upon the 
 business of securing vegetables for the ships' 
 coppers, and warm blankets for the men's 
 hammocks, as in planning the strategy of a cam-
 
 2 8 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 paign. Upon the task of keeping the minds of 
 his men occupied, their bodies well clad, and 
 their stomachs well filled. Nelson bestowed as 
 much energy as he expended in the pursuit of 
 Brueys or of Villeneuve. He invented amuse- 
 ments for his men ; he protected them from use- 
 less and vexatious tasks. In an age when the 
 articles of war were written, so to speak, in blood, 
 he humanised the service. Nelson, somehow, > 
 could make gentleness a tonic to discipline, where 
 other men used only severity. He used a pen- 
 knife where St. Vincent took a hatchet, to employ 
 his own figure. And yet through the web of his 
 humane policy ran the iron threads of an unsur- 
 passed discipline. 
 
 It was the generation which witnessed the 
 Walcheren expedition, where whole regiments were 
 allowed to perish amid Dutch swamps from sheer 
 lack of common sense in their generals, and out 
 of an entire expedition of 40,000 men 7000 died 
 of sickness, 14,000 were ruined in health for life, 
 and no less than 35,000 passed through the 
 hospitals ! But while the generals allowed an 
 army to perish from preventable sickness, the 
 admirals kept their fleets in perfect health through 
 the longest and most wearisome blockades known 
 to history. " No one dies here," wrote Nelson, 
 while his ships were tossing in the fierce south- 
 easters off Toulon ; " we are the healthiest squadron
 
 NELSON : A CHARACTER STUDY 29 
 
 I ever served in, and all are in good humour." 
 After the Victory had been twenty months at sea 
 off Toulon, it had only one man sick out of a 
 crew of 840 ! And practically the same standard 
 of health prevailed through the whole fleet. 
 Nelson, as Ave have said, could take care of every- 
 body's health except his own. 
 
 Nelson, as a battle leader, had many memorable 
 qualities. He himself was trained in a hard and 
 practical school. He spent two years in a merchant 
 ship, and brought from it a wealth of practical 
 seamanship only to be learned in the forecastle. 
 He mastered the tangled pilotage of the Thames 
 mouth by having charge of a decked longboat 
 traversing the Thames and Medway as a tender 
 to the guard-ship ; and not Marryat's Poor Jack 
 knew those shallows and inud-banks better than 
 did Nelson. He was educated in the school of the 
 sea itself Sky and sea were his blackboard ; 
 tempests and shoals and swaying sea-tides were 
 his teachers. Groping with sounding-lead along 
 the sand -banks and shoals of the Thames, or 
 under scorching suns, amid the quays and mud- 
 banks of the West Indies, constituted an excellent 
 training for the great sailor who was to send his 
 fleet across the head of Brueys' line at the Nile, 
 and feel his way along the winding course of the 
 King's Channel to attack the Danish ships at 
 Copenhagen.
 
 30 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 Nelson's experiences in actual fighting were 
 almost unrivalled, even in that hard-fighting age. 
 His record of his services, when applying for a 
 pension in 1797, is almost laughable in its scale 
 and details. "Your memorialist," he wrote, "has 
 been in four actions with the fleets of the enemy, 
 in three actions with frigates, in six engagements 
 against batteries, in ten cutting-out engagements, 
 and in the taking^ of three towns. . . . He has 
 assisted in the capture of seven sail of the line, 
 six frigates, four corvettes, eleven privateers, and'* 
 fifty sail of merchantmen. He has been actually 
 engaged against the enemy upwards of one hundred 
 and twenty times, has lost his right eye and arm, 
 and been severely wounded and bruised in his 
 body." When he drew up this iron catalogue. 
 Nelson was not yet forty. The Nile and Trafalgar 
 were still unfought. But the record makes it clear 
 how thoroughly by this time the steel of his fiery 
 spirit had been fused in the red flame of battle, 
 and tempered in the hardships of long blockades. 
 
 Mahan says that Nelson " concentrates in himself 
 the sea glory of that period ; " and, as far as fleet 
 actions are concerned, this is literally true. If 
 Nelson's victories are blotted out, what record of 
 the sea fighting of that time remains ? Jervis, it 
 is true, commanded at Cape St. Vincent ; but it 
 was Nelson who won the battle. The only great 
 sea victory of that period in which Nelson had
 
 NELSON : A CHARACTER STUDY 3 I 
 
 no share was Camperdown ; and Camperdown itself 
 is a victory of only the third class. 
 
 One noble feature in Nelson's leadership was the 
 place assigned in it to duty. He had as keen and 
 passionate a craving for glory — for the achievement 
 of great deeds — as Napoleon himself. But the 
 " glory " he coveted was the child of duty, and was 
 to be won only in its service. When, as Trafalgar 
 began, Nelson's last immortal message was spelt out 
 by the flags of the Victory to the British fleet, it 
 may, perhaps, seem that the word " Duty " found 
 a place in it almost by accident. But this was 
 certainly not the case. In that message Nelson 
 was unconsciously writing, and writing in imperish- 
 able characters, and for unborn generations, the 
 supreme law of his own professional life. Duty for 
 him was absolute and imperative ; the word that 
 ended all debate, that over-mastered every other 
 motive, and that constituted an instant and supreme 
 call to action. And, weighed in the scales against 
 "duty," all other things that men are most apt to 
 value — ease, vanity, health, money, life itself — were, 
 for him, but as sand-grains. 
 
 It is true that Nelson's conception of duty was 
 sometimes narrow and even half-heathenish. The 
 whole code of sea ethics for a naval officer, as he 
 once expounded it, consisted of three articles : — 
 I. To obey orders. 2. To honour the king. 3. To 
 hate all Frenchmen ! That it was the duty of an
 
 32 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 honest British salt to " hate a Frenchman " was a 
 doctrine which Nelson preached, in season and out, 
 and with a diligence worthy of a better theme. 
 " I trust Almighty God," he wrote, '• will, in Egypt, 
 overthrow these pests of the human race." Nelson's 
 gifts as " a good hater " would have delighted Dr. 
 Johnson. 
 
 There is, of course, a touch of humorous — or of 
 feminine — exaggeration in all this, and Nelson, as 
 a matter of fact, treated his beaten foes — French 
 or Spanish — with an exquisite courtesy and gene- 
 rosity. The first article of his own creed — to obey 
 orders — Nelson observed himself, with a judicious 
 reserve. He had the courage which could obey 
 orders at all risks ; but he had also that rarer and 
 nobler courage, when his orders were in conflict 
 with reason or with national honour, to disobey 
 them. Duty, as Nelson conceived it, consisted in 
 an intense and passionate form of patriotism ; a 
 loyalty to king and country which had a right to 
 demand any form of sacrifice ; a spirit which 
 counted the honour of the flag more than life, and 
 the doinCT of the assigned task more than ease or 
 health. 
 
 Nelson, like all the great captains of Avar, whether 
 by sea or land, had, in a supreme degree, the art 
 of winning the confidence and kindling the enthu- 
 siasm of his men. There was a magic in his look 
 and voice, a swift contagion in his own ever-burning
 
 NELSON : A CHARACTER STUDY 3 3 
 
 enthusiasm, an all-conquering spell in his genero- 
 sity of temper and quickness of sympathy which 
 enabled him to hold the very hearts of his crews 
 in the hollow of his hand. Never before, or since, 
 was there a leader so loyal to his own followers, 
 so generous to praise, so quick to reward, so fierce 
 to defend. " By G — , I will not lose Hardy," said 
 Nelson, when, close pursued by an overpowering 
 force of the enemy, his officer — who had leaped 
 into a boat to save a drowning man — was dropping 
 fast astern. And Nelson backed his sails, riskinsf 
 the loss of his ship — and perhaps of his career — 
 rather than abandon a comrade. 
 
 In any failure he blamed himself, never his men 
 or his officers. He grieved for a fallen comrade — 
 as in the case of Parker, mortally wounded in the 
 attack on the Boulogne flotilla— as an elder brother 
 might mourn for a younger brother slain in fight. 
 " He is my child," said Nelson of Parker, and he 
 took a lock of his dead officer's hair and vowed it 
 should be buried with him. Out of his own not 
 too amply filled pocket he paid Parker's debts, and 
 provided for his father. 
 
 An odd proof of the influence which Nelson 
 unconsciously exercised over the imagination and 
 feelings of his captains is supplied by a letter from 
 Troubridge, written in 1800. Troubridge, it must 
 be remembered, was by temperament a man of 
 steel. He was of the same age as Nelson ; they 
 

 
 34 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 had been middies together ; in reputation he was 
 not so far behind his great admiral. Nelson had 
 shown signs of resenting a real or imaginary neglect 
 of some sort on the part of Troiibridge, and that 
 brave man writes in agitation : " Your letter has 
 really so unhinged me that I am quite unmanned 
 and crying. I would sooner forfeit my life — my 
 everything — than be deemed ungrateful to an officer 
 and friend I feel I owe so much to. Pray, pray 
 acquit me. There is not a man on earth I love, 
 honour, and esteem more than your lordship. . . . 
 I pray your lordship not to harbour the smallest 
 idea that I am not the same Troubridge you 
 have known me." Now, when Nelson's imagined 
 frown could bring tears from even Troubridge's 
 eyes, how great nuist have been his influence on 
 his officers ! 
 
 Nelson's delight in his own crews and ships was 
 of a vehement, not to say unreasoning and half- 
 laughable sort. He always believed the particular 
 ship he commanded to be the finest afloat, and its 
 crew the best disciplined under the flag. Jervis 
 usually regarded the crews under him as so many 
 sets of scoundrels, and was prepared for any form 
 of villainy from them. Nelson inverted Jervis' 
 method, and did so by the compulsion of his own 
 generous nature. In the seven volumes of his 
 letters there is hardly a Avord of complaint against 
 his ships or his men ; though once, indeed, he
 
 NELSON : A CHARACTER STUDY 3 5 
 
 confides to Lady Hamilton that he had shed tears 
 on the prospect of getting a particularly slow and 
 clumsy ship. Of the Ar/amemnon, he writes that 
 " she is without exception the finest sixty-four in 
 the service." But every ship in turn on which 
 Nelson flew his flag he discovered to be the finest 
 the sea carried. Of the Albemarle, he wrote, " not 
 a man or officer in her I would wish to chanore," 
 Of the Agamemnon, " nobody can be ill in my ship's 
 company, they are so fine a set." Of his ships in 
 the Mediterranean in 1803, ^^ wrote that they 
 were " the best commanded and the very best 
 manned afloat." Of his captains at the Nile he 
 proclaimed they were " a band of brothers." 
 
 Nelson could make his superior oflicers very un- 
 comfortable ; but for all under his own command 
 he had a generous, if somewhat uncritical, admira- 
 tion and aff'ection quite without parallel in the 
 history of war. And the noble law that trust 
 creates loyalty, and love kindles love, fulfilled itself 
 in Nelson's career. 
 
 An amusing illustration of the affection Nelson 
 inspired in his captains, and of the half maternal 
 care they exercised over the fragile and stunted 
 body of their famous leader, is supplied by a letter 
 from Nelson himself to Ball, written from Kioge 
 Bay in 1801. He was racked with the Baltic cold, 
 and wroth, as was common with him, with the still 
 chillier winds which blew from the Admiralty Board.
 
 36 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 " But," he says, " all in the fleet are so truly kind to 
 me that I should be a wretch not to cheer up. 
 Foley has put me under a regimen of milk at four 
 in the morning; Murray has given me lozenges; 
 Hardy is as good as ever, and all have proved their 
 desire to keep my mind easy." That picture of one 
 sea veteran administering warm milk to his admiral 
 at four o'clock in the morning, and of another 
 feeding him tenderly with lozenges, is amusing 
 enough ; but it shows more effectively than graver 
 things could do the feeling Nelson inspired in his 
 captains. 
 
 It has a curious effect to put side by side the 
 mental impressions produced by a study of the 
 lives of Nelson and of Wellington. The agreements 
 and the differences of the two men are alike remark- 
 able. Nelson was all emotion ; Wellington had no 
 more emotion than an icicle. His spirit had in it 
 the hardness of tempered steel. He had neither 
 the ardent loves nor the vehement hatreds which 
 in turn swept through Nelson's nature. Can any 
 one imagine such a phrase as " Kiss me, Hardy," 
 on Wellmgton's iron lips ! Cool, blunt, hard, self- 
 contained, self-sufficient — not to say selfish — Wel- 
 lington, in many features of his character, is the 
 exact opposite of Nelson. Wellington, had he com- 
 manded a ship, would never have backed his fore 
 topsail to pick up Hardy at the risk of losing his 
 vessel. He had no more feeling towards his old
 
 NELSON : A CHARACTER STUDY 37 
 
 comrades of the battlefield than an oak has to 
 the leaves it shed last autumn. He cared for 
 his men wisely and vigilantly when the battle was 
 over ; for he needed them for the next battle. But 
 when the campaign was ended, that was quite 
 another business. 
 
 It is certain Wellington never knew that half- 
 boyish delight in combat which effervesced in 
 Nelson's blood. He was too cold alike in intellect 
 and in temper for this. The red wine of battle 
 never intoxicated him. But his courage, though of 
 a different type, was as flawless as that of Nelson, 
 and both men, though in unlike fashions, were 
 terrible fighters. It may well be doubted whether 
 Nelson would have planned, so long in advance, the 
 great lines of Torres Vedras, or could have conducted 
 the slow and bear-like retreat to that stronghold. 
 But the fight on the blood-stained hill of Busaco, 
 which broke like a flash of splendour on the dark- 
 ness of that retreat, was exactly in Nelson's style. 
 Nelson, perhaps, could not have maintained with 
 Wellington's iron patience the long-enduring, de- 
 fensive fight at Waterloo. To have been pounded 
 so hard, and so long, without hitting furiously back, 
 and merely waiting for " night or Blucher " to arrive, 
 would not have suited Nelson's temper. Welling- 
 ton, on the other hand, would never have made that 
 sudden, desperate, and unbidden dash with his 
 single ship on the whole front of the Spanish fleet
 
 38 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 whicli Nelson dared at St. Vincent ; nor would he 
 have made his onfall on Brueys' line at the Nile 
 with the same unfaltering and dreadful suddenness 
 which marked Nelson's attack. 
 
 Nelson, in a word, shone most in attack. His 
 qualities were swiftness and audacity ; though behmd 
 those qualities, no doubt, there was a strategy as 
 cool, and almost as forecasting, and as minute as 
 that of Wellington himself. Wellington excelled in 
 defence. He had a long-enduring and iron resolu- 
 tion, which not all the shocks of adverse fortune 
 could move, in a higher degree than Nelson. Wel- 
 lington, again, failed sometimes as a leader in 
 pushing to the uttermost a beaten foe ; while 
 Nelson, who aimed to make each separate battle 
 a conquest, pushed his success in the fight with 
 a fiery energy and thoroughness which recall Napo- 
 leon's earlier successes. 
 
 The genius in leadership shown by both men, it 
 may be added, had, when applied to practical affairs, 
 points of closest resemblance. In method, industry, 
 and vigilance as to details, Wellington and Nelson 
 vie with each other. The figure of Wellington, a 
 subaltern who had just put on his red coat, solemnly 
 weighing a private soldier, first in undress, and then 
 in full marching equipment, in order to know exactly 
 how much the man in the ranks carried, may be put 
 beside the figure of Nelson learning seamanship in 
 the forecastle of a merchantman, or as a midshipman
 
 NELSON : A CHARACTER STUDY 39 
 
 mastering tlie soundings of the Thames in an open 
 boat. Both of these great leaders, that is, under- 
 stood the practical side of the business of war, and 
 learned every letter in its iron alphabet. Both men, 
 it may be added, had a fine loyalty of character. 
 " Truth-teller was our English Duke " is Tennyson's 
 summary of one side of Wellington's character ; and 
 the great sailor had a habit of speech as direct and 
 simple as the great soldier. For each of them, too, 
 duty was a word of magic sound. It was per- 
 emptory, final, absolute. Duty was for Wellington 
 " the Kino's salt." " I have eaten the King's salt," 
 he said, " and must serve him anywhere." For 
 Nelson it was the one consideration about which 
 debate was impossible, delay a dishonour, and denial 
 the last and worst of treacheries. And the race 
 which, in the same struggle, produced Nelson to 
 lead its fleets, and Wellington to command its 
 armies, may well think of both its great sons with 
 pride. 
 
 Intellectually, Nelson resembled Napoleon rather 
 than Wellington. Morally, of course, the two men 
 were parted by a measureless gulf. Napoleon was 
 the incarnation of selfishness. Duty was for him 
 an irrelevant, or even an unintelligible word. The 
 very sense of truth was non-existent. Tried by 
 nearly all moral tests, Nelson and Napoleon were 
 almost exact opposites to each other. But as a 
 battle leader, Nelson was on the sea what Napoleon
 
 40 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 was on land. He might almost be described as 
 Naj)oleon translated into sea terms ; but it is a 
 Napoleon plus a conscience, and minus the reckless 
 ambition which explains " the Spanish idcer " and 
 the retreat from Moscow. 
 
 Nelson certainly showed on the sea many of the 
 great qualities of leadership Napoleon showed on 
 land. He had the same complete and instant vision 
 of the whole landscape ; the same faculty for swift 
 resolve and for lightning-like strokes ; the same 
 power to impress the imagination, not only of his 
 OAvn men, but of his foes. He possessed, too, in an 
 equal measure with Napoleon, the ruthless energy 
 in pushing a victory to the uttermost, which is the 
 mark of a great captain. 
 
 Yet the difference in the two men as leaders are 
 remarkable. Nelson at Waterloo would have led 
 the Old Guard in person, and have died on the 
 British ridge. He would have done in the retreat 
 from Moscow what Ney did — and what Napoleon 
 did not do, he would have fought in the rear-guard, 
 have fired the last shot, and been the last man 
 across the Dnieper. He might have fought the 
 battle of the Pyramids, but he would certainly 
 not have invited forty centuries to witness the 
 performance ! 
 
 Nelson had, too, the prescient imagination of a 
 statesman, as well as the keen, sure glance of the 
 fighter. He saw not the battle merely, but the
 
 NELSON : A CHARACTER STUDY 4 1 
 
 campaign; not the campaign only, but the war. 
 He saw the conflict with Revolutionary and Napo- 
 leonic France, that is, as we see it now, in the 
 perspective of a century. He saw its inevitable 
 character, its tremendous issues.
 
 CHAPTER II 
 
 THE MEN OF NELSON'S SCHOOL 
 
 " They are i/iy children ; ihey serve in my school, and I glory 
 in them." — Nelson {of his captaifis). 
 
 HAD Nelson a " school " ; and if so, how did he 
 influence it ? What forces, in a word, shaped 
 the sea-captains of Nelson's time ; what was their en- 
 vironment ; what ideals had they ; by what process 
 was a line of men so formidable evolved ? They 
 lifted the flag of England so high that still the race 
 looks back to the time w^hen they had lived, as to 
 its heroic age. What fitted them to play a part so 
 fine, in a drama so great ? Had Nelson, we repeat, 
 a " school " ? These are questions worth asking, 
 even if no final answer can be given to them. 
 
 There is an authentic instance in the British 
 navy of a sailor who, when serving before the mast, 
 was flogged through the fleet for some offence, yet 
 afterwards rose to fly his flag as admiral ! No such 
 dramatic case is to be found among Nelson's 
 captains ; but they sprang from very diverse stocks, 
 and represent all ranks. Nelson himself was a 
 son of the rectory ; and it is almost amusing to 
 
 reflect how many great soldiers and sailors the 
 
 42
 
 THE MEN OF NELSON S SCHOOL 43 
 
 quiet parsonages of England liave given to British 
 history. Saumarez was of Norman blood ; Cod- 
 rington was the son of a Gloucestershire baronet ; 
 Parker came from a long line of gentlefolk. But 
 Pellew's father was the commander of a Dover 
 packet ; Westcott was the son of a baker ; Colling- 
 wood's father was a bankrupt Northumberland 
 trader. Hallowell was a Canadian, born at Halifax; 
 Miller, the son of an American loyalist, born at 
 New York. 
 
 They were all caught young. Some of them 
 began their sea career at ten years of age ; Parker, 
 Blackwood, Berry, Louis, and Nelson himself were 
 afloat at eleven ; Hardy at twelve ; Codrington and 
 Jervis at thirteen. A hunger for comfort burns 
 in the blood of the modern world ; but looked at 
 through modern eyes, what could be more hope- 
 lessly bankrupt of comfort than the state of a lad 
 of ten or eleven, plucked suddenly from all the 
 sheltering tenderness of home, and dropped into 
 the crowded, dark, and unventilated well of a 
 middy's berth in a man-of-war. Not, it is true, 
 a man-of-war of Smollett's time ; but still of the 
 generation immediately following, and with much 
 about it of the roughness which Smollett has 
 painted in imperishable colours. 
 
 For a lad under such conditions there could be no 
 boyish games, no school comradeships, no soft home 
 atmosphere. His comrades were hardy seamen. The
 
 44 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 atmosphere lie breathed was stern with discipline. 
 Peril was a familiar element in his life. Such a 
 lad — not yet in his teens — might be set, as in the 
 case of Parker, bewildered in the smoke and thunder, 
 the swift tragedies and multiplied terrors, of a great 
 sea-battle ; or he might, as in the case of Saumarez 
 or of Hardy, find his first cruise stretch through 
 years, until home and all its faces had almost faded 
 out on the tablets of memory. 
 
 It is difficult, agfain, to realise the exact scale and 
 type of ships which were floating homes of the 
 sailors of that day. French ships, as far as size 
 and build went, were much in advance of British 
 ships, and Spanish ships surjDassed both. If the 
 British Admiralty possessed a really first-class vessel, 
 it owed it to the cutlasses of its sailors, not to the 
 skill of its builders. French shipwrights, indeed, 
 could build, and British sailors capture, bigger ships 
 than the Admiralty dockyards could receive. When 
 Le Commerce de Marseilles, of I2i guns, in 1793, was 
 brought in triumph by Hood from Toulon to Ports- 
 mouth, no dockyard there was big enough to 
 receive her, and she had to be taken round to Ply- 
 mouth. Yet her tonnage was only 2816 tons ! 
 The Franklin, captured at the Nile, remained for 
 years — under a new name, the Canopus — the finest 
 ship that carried the British flag. It has a curious 
 effect to compare the famous ships of that period — 
 the Victory or the " fighting " Temeraire, with the
 
 THE MEN OF NELSONS SCHOOL 45 
 
 mighty ironclads — the Hood, the Ccesar, or the 
 Majestic — which carry the British flag to-day. The 
 Culled cii, Troubridge's famous ship, was of 1683 
 tons; she had an extreme length of 170 feet, her 
 beam was not quite 48 feet, her depth 21 feet. In 
 the case of the Tcmcraire, the length of the gun 
 deck was 185 feet ; she had a beam of 5 r feet, a 
 tonnage of 2 i i i tons. The Victory, of 1 00 guns, 
 had a slightly larger tonnage than the Tcmcraire 
 (2162 tons), an extreme length of 222 feet, a beam 
 of 5 2 feet, a depth of 2 1 feet 6 inches. The 
 Majestic of to-day is 390 feet long, 75 feet in beam ; 
 she has a maximum draught of 27 feet 6 inches, 
 and a displacement of 14,900 tons! She carries — 
 including her quick-firers — only forty-eight guns ; 
 but she has a speed of seventeen knots, and given sea 
 room, could probably destroy both the fleets that 
 contended at Trafalgar without sustaining a scratch 
 herself ! 
 
 The scanty height between the decks of the 
 ships of Nelson's time made light, or fresh air, or 
 comfort almost impossible. Pellew says that when 
 he commanded the Pelican his cabin was so low that 
 while he sat in it his servant could dress his hair 
 from the deck above. Cochrane, when flying his 
 flag in the Speedy, tells us that when he wanted to 
 shave himself, he was accustomed to thrust his head 
 through the skylight of his cabin, and put his 
 shaving materials on the deck itself, above. But
 
 46 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 then Cochrane was a tall man, and the Speedy was 
 only a tiny sloop. Yet the height between the 
 beams of the orlop deck of the Victory was only 
 5 feet 7 inches ; that of the lower and middle decks 
 was only 6 feet ; that of the cabin was only 5 feet 
 1 1 inches. A tall man, that is, could not stand 
 upright in Nelson's cabin ! A ship of, roughly, 
 only 2000 tons burden, with decks so low that a 
 man of decent height could not walk upright be- 
 twixt them, and a total crew of nearly 1 000 persons 
 crowded within its sides, must have resembled a 
 sort of floating black hole of Calcutta ! Yet such a 
 ship, with such conditions, had to cruise off Toulon 
 or Brest for, say, eighteen months at a stretch, never 
 touching shore during the whole of that period. 
 By what miracle of order, skill, and cleanliness, was 
 such a garrison of human beings, croAvded into such 
 quarters, kept in health and any approach to com- 
 fort ? 
 
 A lad beginning his sea career started sometimes 
 with the rating of a captain's servant ; or he served 
 — as Lord St. Vincent did — for a couple of years 
 before the mast ; or he shared the rough comrade- 
 shi]3s and the hard fare of a merchant ship's fore- 
 castle, as Nelson himself did, and Troubridge, and 
 many another of his captains. All this surely was 
 rough schooling, under stern conditions, and might 
 be expected to produce men of a stern and rough 
 type. What, it might be asked, could men trained
 
 THE MEN OF NELSONS SCHOOL 47 
 
 in this fashion know of books, of science, of history ? 
 What refining forces of any sort could have touched 
 their Hves ? If their courage had the temper, their 
 brains must have had almost the narrowness, of a 
 sword blade. 
 
 Yet, somehow, the training did not produce this 
 result. The men of Nelson's time were not rough ; 
 they were not untaught. They had, it is true^and 
 had in the highest degree — all the hardy virtues. 
 In fertility of resource, in audacity of enterprise, 
 and in a certain faculty for heroic patience — 
 as witness the immortal blockades — where shall 
 we find men to exceed them ? They had a sort 
 of web- footed familiarity with the sea in all its 
 changing moods which has never been surpassed. 
 There was sea salt in their very blood. Yet they 
 were not mere " tarpaulins," such as Smollett 
 painted, with rough speech, narrow brains, and no 
 manners. It is almost amusing to discover how 
 strong were what may be called the home sentiments 
 in these homeless seamen. The domestic strain in 
 them took a new depth, perhaps, from the very 
 repression under which it was doomed to exist. 
 Certainly no more domestic-minded man than, say, 
 Collingwood ever lived. And when we get a 
 glimpse of the letters these hardy seamen wrote to 
 their wives and mothers and sisters — as in the case 
 of Blackwood, of Codrington, of Miller, or of Parker 
 — they are found to burn with a warmth and
 
 48 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 tenderness not to be surpassed in any other letters 
 of the same kind known to literature. 
 
 It is curious again to note how many bookish men 
 — of which Ball is the type — there were amongst 
 Nelson's captains. If they were denied the pro- 
 cesses of education, they somehow contrived to 
 secure many of its most precious results. They 
 had to govern men, and they acquired, unconsci- 
 ously, all the faculties of government. They were 
 brought in contact, incessantly, with problems of 
 diplomacy and of maritime law, for which they 
 had to find an instant and practical solution. The 
 mere business side of a ship's life — the provision 
 for its health, its food, its equipment — was, for its 
 officers, a constant and most quickening discipline in 
 practical affairs. Whatever impression about the 
 men of Nelson's time is derived from a study of 
 their history and their correspondence, it certainly 
 is not one of an untaught and narrow-minded type. 
 
 So far as their profession went, they had, it is 
 true, no " scientific " training in the modern sense. 
 Competitive examinations were unknown. Training 
 ships were not yet invented. The training of a 
 middy depended very much on the accident of his 
 captain's character and temper ; for the captain was 
 half father and whole pedagogue to all his middies. 
 And to their credit be it said, the captains of that 
 period did not often fail in a wise, if rough, kindness 
 towards the boys in the middies' cabin. Parker's
 
 THE MEN OF NELSONS SCHOOL 49 
 
 unconscious picture of his first captain, Duckworth, 
 is worthy of Peter Simple; but it shows that Duck- 
 worth deserved St, Vincent's accoimt of him as 
 " the best captain for the instruction of a youth 
 in the navy." ColHngwood gives a simihir picture 
 of the care his captain took to make him a good 
 seaman and a capable officer. But the ship itself 
 was, for the middy of that pediod, a school, with 
 lessons always in progress. Every flaw in the wind, 
 with its accompanying shift of canvas, was a lesson. 
 The change of the watches, the daily reckoning, the 
 disciplined routine of work, every incident of the 
 cruise — the pursuit, the boat attack, the capture — 
 all this was, in the best sense, an education. The 
 middy of that day was not given a set of book 
 lessons to be learned by rote ; he was drilled 
 through every w;^king hour in practical things to 
 be done ; and on the doing of which hung the 
 safety of the ship, the honour of the flag, and the 
 life and death of men. 
 
 Parker gives us a copy of the certificate which 
 a middy received when he passed. Ho must have 
 been at sea more than six years in ships named in 
 the certificate; he had to produce his own journals 
 kept during the whole of that period, and a certifi- 
 cate of " diligence, sobriety, and of obedience to 
 command " from every captain under whom he 
 served. The examiners certified that he " could 
 splice, knot, reef a sail, work a ship in sailing, 
 
 D
 
 50 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 sliift his tides ; keep a reckoning of a ship's way by 
 plain sailing and Mercators ; observe by the sun or 
 stars ; find the variation of the compass ; and is 
 qualified to do his duty as an able seaman and 
 midshipman." A training which produced such 
 results in a lad may not have been scientific ; it 
 certainly owed little to books. But it was practical 
 and effective. It bred seamen. 
 
 Danger was, of course, a perpetual element in the 
 sea-life of that day. Nelson's captains did not look 
 out from some magic casement 
 
 " Opening on the foam 
 Of jjerilous seas in fairylands forlorn." 
 
 They actually sailed on seas more thickly sown with 
 perils than any of which poets have dreamed ; when 
 any dawn might see a battle, and any wind bring 
 down a foe. Danger lay about them like an atmos- 
 phere. It took many forms. There were the 
 ordinary perils of the sea — peril of rock, and fire 
 and tempest ; the danger incident to crowded ships, 
 who for months never entered a port — danger of 
 scurvy and fever ; peril, too, in crews of such rough 
 material, of mutiny. The Hcrmione was not the 
 only ship that vanished with an atmosphere of 
 treachery and murder from under the British flag. 
 Then, too, there were the perpetual dangers of 
 battle. The British sailor kept watch off hostile 
 ports and cruised in hostile seas, in Avhich any
 
 THE MEN OF NELSON S SCHOOL 5 I 
 
 sail might be that of an enemy, and any dawn 
 might bring with it the eagerness of pursuit, or the 
 necessity for flight. A sailor who had once gone 
 through the nerve-shaking experience of a great 
 fleet battle, must have emerged from the process 
 with some subtle change of character. And many 
 of the sailors of that day had fought through the 
 whole gamut of sea-battles, from Rodney and De 
 Grasse, at the Battle of the Saints, to Nelson and 
 Villeneuve, at Trafalgar. 
 
 And in that constant atmosphere of peril the 
 sailors of Nelson's time were tempered to a strange 
 hardness of valour. The mind has a curious habit 
 of adjusting itself to any constant element in its 
 environment ; and for the men we are describiEg, 
 peril came to be as familiar as their daily bread — 
 and as little heeded. A striking example of 
 Nelson's own indifference to death occurred just as 
 Trafalgar began. He was parting company on the 
 Victory s quarterdeck with Blackwood ; the French 
 guns were already bellowing sullenly. Blackwood 
 expressed the hope that he would greet his admiral 
 as a victor when the fight was over. " God bless 
 you, Blackwood," said Nelson ; " I shall never speak 
 to you again ! " A sure instinct warned Nelson that 
 this was his last fight. Somewhere under that 
 cloudy firmament of battle beneath which he was 
 drifting the fatal bullet would smite him. But he 
 went calmly on with his duty, with not a thought
 
 52 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 save for the fight before him. He walked com- 
 posedly to and fro on his quarterdeck with Hardy 
 beside him, and stopped to smile at his friend when 
 a cannon ball passed betwixt them, covering 
 them both with splinters. For Nelson, the duty in 
 which he was engaged blotted out all memory of 
 swift-coming, inevitable death. He knows it is 
 there ; but he does not turn his head for a moment 
 to regard it. Now, to call the temper of spirit so 
 little moved by the certainty of imminent death 
 " courage," is to use a quite inadequate word. 
 
 That same easy indifference to peril, the uncon- 
 sciousness that it so much as existed, was the com- 
 mon characteristic of the seamen of that period; 
 though it sometimes took odd and even amusing 
 shapes. Whoever reads the old naval chronicles 
 of that period will find that behind the faded 
 characters and the inartistic English of their pages 
 shine gleams of strange heroism. Tales of adven- 
 ture and of death are told, told clumsily and with 
 an entire unconsciousness that there is anything 
 splendid about the story ; yet these tales thrill the 
 reader with admiration, even while they half move 
 him to laughter. 
 
 Betwixt the courage of the quarterdeck and the 
 courage of the forecastle there were, of course, subtle 
 differences, and yet many points of agreement. 
 
 Jack's courage has running through it a strain 
 of boyish simplicity and recklessness. It depends
 
 THE MEN OP NELSONS SCHOOL 53 
 
 little upon what may be called the artificialities of 
 discipline, and much on generous comradeship, and 
 on an almost childlike faith in the leadership of the 
 ojfficer. But there is, in the courage of sailors of all 
 ranks, a strain of gaieU dc cceur rarely discoverable 
 in the sternly-ordered ranks of a good regiment. 
 This often gives an element of humour to the story 
 of a sea-fight, and the boyish quality in a sailor's 
 courage leads to feats being attempted — and accom- 
 plished — which a wiser courage would have pro- 
 nounced impossible in advance, and which, indeed, 
 when told afterwards in cold blood, often strain the 
 credulity of the listener to the breaking point. 
 
 Both of these qualities — the boyishness and the 
 daring — are illustrated by an incident in the siege 
 of Cura^oa in 1804. The British ships had landed 
 some 600 seamen and marines to assist in the siege, 
 and one battery of 1 8 -pounder carronadcs w^as held 
 by some seamen under Lieutenant Willoughby. 
 The fighting was deadly, but not so deadly as the 
 climate. Officers and men slept on the ground 
 without tents ; dysentery raged amongst them, 
 and nearly a third of the force was in hospital. 
 Under these conditions Lieutenant Willoughby yet 
 kept up the fire of his battery, repulsed a score of 
 sorties, and toiled with splendid energy to keep up 
 the spirits of his men, as well as to keep down 
 those of the Dutch. As one method of doing this, 
 he had a chair and table placed upon the open
 
 54 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 breastwork of his little battery, and, day by day, 
 for more than three weeks, he sat in that exposed 
 position within easy range of the Dutch fort above. 
 " The earth," says James in his " Naval History," 
 " was ploughed up all round ; men were killed 
 close to the spot, but still the table and the chair, 
 and the daring young officer who sat there, re- 
 mained untouched." All this, of course, proves 
 amazingly bad shooting on the part of the Dutch. 
 Only once, indeed, did they succeed in hitting the 
 chair, and then, as it happened, Willoughby was 
 not in it. One afternoon a brother officer, Lieuten- 
 ant Perrot, was visiting the battery, and laughingly 
 undertook to take Willoughby's place in the chair 
 for a shift. He sat down in the chair, and leaned 
 forward, with his arm upon his knee ; scarcely had 
 he done this when a shot from the Dutch fort 
 carried off his arm, smashed the knee upon which 
 the arm had rested, and knocked the table to 
 atoms ! Poor Perrot was carried off; but Wil- 
 loughby brought out another chair, calmly sat down 
 in it, and proceeded to work his battery from that 
 point of vantage, the Dutch gunners toiling in vain 
 to send in another successful shot. Willoughby 
 justified his exploit by the argument that he 
 wanted to keep up the spirits of his dysentery 
 wasted men by showing his contempt for Dutch 
 shooting. 
 
 Another story shows the same feature of daring
 
 THE MEN OF NELSON S SCHOOL 5 5 
 
 rising to a humorous pitch. In November 1803, 
 H.M.S. Blanche, cruising off St, Domingo, sent in 
 its red cutter under the command of a middy 
 named A'Court, to collect sand for the use of the 
 ship. The middy had for his crew one marine 
 and seven seamen, and the captain of the Blanche, 
 knowing the impish delight in wild adventure of 
 his middies, forbade youngsters sent on trips of this 
 kind to carry arms in the boat. The men, how- 
 ever, as eager for fun as the middy, smuggled half- 
 a-dozen muskets through a port into the boat, and 
 A'Court and his crew set off in search both of sand 
 and of excitement. In the dusk of nightfall they 
 came across an armed schooner lying becalmed. 
 She carried half-a-dozen guns and a detachment of 
 forty soldiers. A'Court, with his eight men and 
 six muskets, at once swung round to attack the 
 Frenchman. With uncanny skill the lad kept his 
 boat in the wake of the enemy, so that only the 
 stern guns could be fired at him. The muskets of 
 the Frenchmen shot down two of A'Court's tiny 
 crew, but with the six survivors the lad tumbled 
 amongst the schooner's crew, drove them all below, 
 the forty French infantry included, and carried off 
 his prize in triumph to the Blanche ! The detach- 
 ment of French infantry was under the command 
 of a colonel who had distinguished himself at 
 Arcole, the most famous of Napoleon's Italian 
 victories. His skull had been fractured in that
 
 $6 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 battle, and a piece of silver plate, engraved with 
 the word " Arcole," covered half the veteran's head. 
 When asked why he and his detachment surrendered 
 to a boy and six seamen, the Frenchman replied, 
 with a shrug and a sigh, that " it was all owing to 
 mal de mei\' no doubt an entirely adequate ex- 
 planation ! There is a strain of the absurd in this 
 story ; yet, what an almost impish pluck it argues 
 in both officer and men. 
 
 A tale as extraordinary is that of the recapture 
 of the Windham, mounting 26 guns, by two boats' 
 crews of the Sirius, armed only with boat-stretchers. 
 
 The Sirius was cruising off Port Louis in i 8 i o, 
 and in the grey dawn of August 2 1 discovered 
 a ship, apparently heavily armed, making for the 
 strong batteries that guard the entrance of Riviere- 
 Noire. The wind was light and off the land, and 
 the Sirius had no chance of cutting off the enemy. 
 In the uncertain haze of the morning the size of 
 the ship and its armament could not be exactly 
 made out, and Lieutenant Watling was sent off in 
 the gig, with five seamen, followed by the jolly-boat, 
 with a midshipman and four seamen, to carry the 
 ship by boarding. The men jumped eagerly into 
 the boats, and pushed off at speed ; and then it was 
 discovered that, by some amazing blunder, not a 
 cutlass or a musket had been placed in the boats. 
 The men were unarmed ! They were still pulling 
 steadily on, however, and as they approached the
 
 THE MEN OF NELSONS SCHOOL $7 
 
 ship, it loomed through the haze bigger and yet 
 bigger. The Witidham, as a matter of fact, was an 
 Indiaman, of 900 tons burden, carrying 26 guns, in 
 charge of a French prize crew of thirty seamen and 
 a Heutenant. The British had, of course, no means 
 of knowing the exact strength of the Windham ; 
 they saw the ship was the size of a frigate, and 
 guessed it to be an English prize. Their own ship 
 was three miles distant, they were without arms, 
 the ship they were about to attack was almost 
 under the shelter of friendly batteries. Watling, 
 however, proposed to the middy that they should 
 attack, and both crews assented with a shout. 
 They pulled up to the Windham, clambered up its 
 tall black sides, armed only with the boat-stretchers, 
 and these eleven unarmed British seamen actually 
 carried a ship of 26 guns within fire of hostile 
 batteries ! Not a man of the gallant eleven was 
 killed, and after being for twenty minutes under 
 the fire of the batteries — a fire which killed only 
 some of the unfortunate Frenchmen — the Wind- 
 ham, under the light breeze, crept out of reach of 
 the guns, and was brought off in triumph to the 
 Si7%us. 
 
 This can only be described as a mad trick, but 
 it was of that sort of " madness " which — when it 
 succeeds, at all events — men call heroism. 
 
 A tale of well-nigh incredible daring, qualified by 
 humorous coolness, is supplied by the performance
 
 58 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 of the Sheerness, a tiny hired cutter, off Brest in 
 September 1803. T^^ Sheerness was a little look- 
 out cutter, with a crew of thirty men and boys, 
 and a microscopic battery of eight 4 -pounders, 
 employed in watching the French fleet in Brest 
 harbour. Its commander, Lieutenant Rowed, was 
 a youthful officer of A'Court's school. Rowed dis- 
 covered, in the haze of a September dawn, two 
 chasse-marees, close in shore, stealing into Brest 
 harbour. He despatched a boat with seven men 
 and a mate to cut off one, and, with the Sheerness 
 itself, he chased the other close under a heavy 
 battery, about nine miles to the east of Bec-du- 
 Raz. At ten o'clock it fell dead calm, and the 
 chasse-maree, under the shelter of the battery, 
 defied Lieutenant Henry Rowed and his absurd 
 cutter. Rowed had one tiny boat hanging from 
 the stern, intended to carry two hands, but into 
 which five men, with much delicate balancing, 
 might be packed. Rowed announced his intention 
 of putting off in the dinghy to attack the chasse, 
 and called majestically for four volunteers. The 
 Avhole crew stepped forward. The boatswain and 
 three hands were picked, and, with the lieutenant, 
 got into the dinghy, and set off on a row of four 
 miles to attack the chasse-mar^e, battery, and, in 
 fact, the whole realm of France itself, if necessary ! 
 
 The battery stood within a stone's throw of the 
 beach, the chasse-maree was run ashore, and thirty
 
 THE MEN OF NELSONS SCHOOL 59 
 
 French soldiers were drawn up on tlae sand to 
 protect it with their musketry. The dinghy, with 
 its five tarry-breeched heroes on board, solemnly 
 bumped against the side of the chasse-maree, and as 
 its crew clambered over the bulwarks on one side, the 
 Frenchman's crew disappeared with a many-legged 
 splash into the shallow water on the other side. 
 The French infantry opened fire, but Rowed and 
 his four men, having hoisted the foresail as a sort 
 of canvas screen, so that the soldiers at least should 
 not take deliberate aim at them, proceeded to cut 
 the vessel's cable and get her afloat. The musketry 
 cracked fiercely from the beach, and the tapping of 
 the musket-balls sounded like the strokes of many 
 hammers on the ship's bulwarks. But the flowing 
 tide lifted the chasse-maree off the sand, and Rowed 
 and his men got once more into their dinghy, and 
 proceeded to tug their prize out to sea. They had 
 towed her a third of a mile when a French boat 
 that had stolen up unobserved, containing an officer 
 and nine men, armed with muskets, rounded the 
 stern of the captured chasse-maree and drew up 
 alongside. The English boatswain instantly dropped 
 his oar, clambered from the dinghy over the chasse- 
 maree's bows, ran aft to where the French boat was 
 drawing up, and, without cutlass or musket, but 
 flourishing his clenched fists, challenged the French- 
 men to " come on ! " The Frenchmen actually 
 paused before that threatening apparition ; perhaps
 
 60 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 it was generosity that forbade them to fire on a 
 single and unarmed man. Meanwhile Kowed and 
 his three sailors, with some difficulty, clambered 
 out of their dinghy, and, running aft with muskets, 
 opened fire on the French boat. The Frenchmen 
 hesitated to make a dash, and, while they hesitated, 
 the sails of the chasse-maree filled, the craft heeled 
 over, and glided on its course. The French boat 
 delivered itself of an angry splutter of musketry, 
 the great battery swore at large from the cliff over- 
 head, and one heavy shot after another splashed the 
 chasse-mar^e with spray. But Rowed and his four 
 comrades carried off their prize unhurt, though the 
 bulwarks of the chasse-maree were pustuled with 
 French bullets. This, again, is a story to smile at ; 
 yet it is a little patch of prosaic fact. And what a 
 glimpse it affords of the daring temper of British 
 sailors in the days of Nelson. 
 
 If one of Nelson's captains could have been put 
 under a microscope, and all the elements which 
 went to make up a type so fine had been cata- 
 logued, the list would bo striking, even if some of 
 its elements were rather absurd. Hate of French- 
 men was, no doubt, an element, though that " hate " 
 vanished instantly in the presence of an actual 
 Frenchman who had fought his battle and hauled 
 down his flag. Love of adventure, too, was an 
 element ; so was the satisfaction of plundering a 
 fat prize. But there were finer elements; pride
 
 THE MEN OF NELSOn'S SCHOOL 6 1 
 
 of race ; pride in the flag ; loyalty to king and 
 country ; the impulse of discipline ; the dread of 
 dishonour ; the sense of comradeship with gallant 
 men and of partnership in great deeds. And 
 amongst these forces the personal influence of 
 Nelson is certainly to be counted. He was their 
 ideal. The infection of his lofty and eager spirit 
 caught lower natures and hurried them beyond 
 themselves. We describe elsewhere the school for 
 captains which Nelson held almost daily on the 
 quarterdeck of the Vanguard during the pursuit 
 of Brueys. Berry tells how he discussed with his 
 captains the best plan of attacking the enemy in 
 every possible situation by night or by day. Nelson, 
 in a word, was so charging the minds of his captains 
 with his plans, that when the moment fur action 
 came — and it came suddenly — there was no need 
 to spell out clumsily by signal what their admiral 
 wanted them to do. They were already saturated 
 with that knowledge. 
 
 Parker gives an amusing instance of how Nelson 
 trained his frigate captains. The Amazon and the 
 Phoebe were starting on a cruise together, and their 
 captains — Parker himself and Capel, both mere lads 
 — were taking farewell of Nelson. He seized the 
 opportunity to give them a lesson in tactics. They 
 were going in search of a pair of French frigates, 
 and Nelson enjoined on them his characteristic and 
 favourite mode of attack. They should not each
 
 62 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 single out an opponent and figlit him ; both should, 
 if possible, fall upon one Frenchman ; then, if suc- 
 cessful, chase the other. " Then," added Nelson, " if 
 you do not take the second, still you have won a 
 victory, and your country will gain a frigate." This, 
 of course, was Nelson's own characteristic and 
 favourite method of doubling on his enemy, and 
 then beating him in detail; but Nelson saw the 
 half doubt on the faces of the two gallant lads 
 before him. If there were two Frenchmen they 
 would certainly take one apiece, and he added, half 
 laughing and half snappishly, " I dare say you • 
 consider j-ourselves a couple of fine fellows ; and 
 when you get away from me you will do nothing of 
 the sort, but think yourselves wiser than I am." 
 
 It was not so much by formal precept as by the 
 unconscious influence of his example that Nelson 
 influenced the seamen under him. He set the 
 standard for them. He kindled in them a mood of 
 eager admiration. His very face had for them a 
 touch of magic. What he said was repeated, and 
 how he looked was described from lip to lip through- 
 out every ship in the squadron over which his flag 
 flew. The worst thing his men feared was his 
 disapproval. " What will Nelson think of us ? " 
 said Riou, broken-heartedly, and a moment before 
 the fatal bullet struck him, as the Amazon, obeying 
 Parker's signal, drew out of its desperate duel with 
 the Trekroner forts at Copenhagen. " What will
 
 THE MEN OF NELSOn's SCHOOL 63 
 
 Nelson think of us ? " became for his officers and 
 crews the test by which all conduct was to be 
 judged. His praise was for them fame ; his dis- 
 approval was more bitter than defeat, and more to 
 be dreaded than death. 
 
 And still the great Englishman touches with an 
 influence of the same kind the imagination of all 
 the fleets of England. His last immortal signal, in 
 a sense, flies still at the masthead of every British 
 ship of war. Nay, it is difficult to measure the far- 
 reaching influence of Nelson on the men of his race. 
 When in the darkest hour of the Indian Mutiny, 
 even the iron nerve of John Lawrence seemed for a 
 moment to give way, and he was tempted to abandon 
 the Punjaub, Edwardes steadied him by quoting 
 Nelson's dying words, " Anchor, Hardy, anchor." 
 The quotation was historically quite irrelevant ; but 
 the words brought with them heroic vibrations that 
 served Edwardes' purpose. There is an echo of 
 Nelson's last immortal signal in the imperishable 
 epitaph Henry Lawrence framed for himself when 
 dying. So subtly does one heroic spirit call to 
 another across the gulfs of Time ! 
 
 A strain of real religion, though of a rudimentary — 
 not to say inarticulate— sort, ran through the rules 
 and regulations of the navy. Commanders of His 
 Majesty's ships were " strictly required to show in 
 themselves a good example of honour and virtue to 
 their officers and men, and to discountenance and
 
 64 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 suppress all dissolute, immoral, and disorderly 
 practices." The regulations of George II. for the 
 Navy direct that " If any shall be hoard to swear, 
 curse, or blaspheme the name of God, the captain 
 is strictly required to punish them for every such 
 offence by causing them to wear a wood Collar or 
 some other shameful badge of Distinction for so long 
 a time as he shall deem proper." Divine service was 
 to be performed twice a day, with a sermon at least 
 every Sunday. And through the lives of many of 
 these great seamen ran, like a thread of gold, a 
 strain of devout piety. 
 
 In some respects religion is easier for sailors than 
 for landsmen. The child responds to the mystic 
 breath of religion more easily than does the philo- 
 sopher ; and there is something of the simplicity of 
 the child, without its childishness, in the character 
 of a good sailor. " They that go down to the sea in 
 ships, that do business in great waters, these see the 
 works of the Lord and His wonders in the deep. For 
 He commandeth and raiseth vp the stormy wind which 
 liftcth up the waves thereof." The sailor, in a word, is 
 directly in contact with the great elementary forces 
 of the world. The dense film of the commonplace 
 and of the familiar which hides the part God plays 
 in His own world from the dweller on land, has 
 much less of obscuring power for the seaman. The 
 great solitudes of the sea, swept of mighty storms, 
 speak to him, as well as the sea depths below him.
 
 THE MEN OF NELSON's SCHOOL 65 
 
 and the great heights above him, where burn the 
 stars, which are his signal fires. Beatty, Nelson's 
 surgeon, lets us see Nelson himself kneeling in 
 prayer in the very hour of Trafalgar. Ball was a 
 man of devoutest piety. So was Saumarez ; the 
 sanctities of a dying saint lie on his death-bed. 
 Parker stored the cells of his memory with the 
 collects of the English liturgy, and their cadences 
 would chime, like the sound of far-off bells, in his 
 brain as he walked the quarterdeck of his ship. 
 When he was a white-haired admiral he would 
 discuss with his flaGf-lieutenant the charm of Ken's 
 Evening Hymn, and declare it to be one of the 
 finest prayers ever composed. Pellew, afterwards 
 Lord Exmouth, is another example of a great sea- 
 man who was also a devoutly religious man. His 
 brother, Israel Pellew, who, to use Mahan's words, 
 " followed Nelson into the fire of Trafalgar " — his 
 ship was the fourth in the great fray — died with 
 the words on his lips, " I know in Whom I have 
 believed." 
 
 On the whole. Englishmen of this generation may 
 well be proud not only of the great battles fought 
 for their country, the splendid valour, the perfect 
 seamanship shown by the sailors of Nelson's time, 
 but for those still nobler qualities to be found in 
 them : their patriotism ; their loyalty to duty ; 
 their high standard, both of manliness and of 
 honour. 
 
 E
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 SIR EDWARD BERRY (1768-1831) 
 
 " Here cotnes Berry. Now we shall have a fight /" 
 
 — Nelson on the Eve of Trafalgar. 
 
 THAT sentence from Nelson's lips exactly ex- 
 presses Berry's characteristics and reputation. 
 He was not an administrator, a diplomatist, a 
 tactician, a philosopher ; he was, first and last, a 
 fighting man. Fortune, with open hands, thrust 
 fights upon him. They pursued him everywhere. He 
 won his earliest promotion in a boarding exploit. He 
 first becomes visible to history at large when clamber- 
 ing up the mizzen chains of the 8an Nicolas at St. 
 Vincent, leading the attack in that memorable and 
 heroic exploit in which one sorely battered English 
 74 captured, with cutlass and pistol, two Spanish 
 first-rates in succession. Berry was the only man 
 in the British fleet, except Collingwood, entitled to 
 wear three medals as having commanded a ship 
 in three general actions — the Nile, Trafalgar, and 
 San Domingo. But he shared, in addition, well- 
 nigh all the fighting of that period. He was with 
 Howe on June i, and with Hughes in the long 
 procession of fights which that dogged, if some- 
 
 66
 
 SIR EDWARD BERRY 
 Front a portrait in the ''^ Naval Chronicle"
 
 SIR EDWARD BERRY 67 
 
 what slow-moving, sailor fought with Suifren in 
 Indian waters. 
 
 Berry could never have commanded a fleet. His 
 fame as a gallant fighter, indeed, suffered from the 
 time he commanded a ship of his own. He could 
 never have planned a great battle, for he lacked 
 the tactician's brain. But if some one else only 
 planned a clear, specific bit of fighting, no matter 
 how desperate, Berry could carry out the plan with 
 serene cheerfulness and exhaustless courage. He 
 would lead the boarders, cutlass in hand, against 
 any odds, with a light-hearted daring which made 
 him the delight of the Jacks who followed him ; 
 and he would have fought his battery to the last 
 cartridge and the last man with more than bull- 
 dog stubbornness. Perhaps there was a little touch 
 of half-affectionate contempt in the regard in which 
 Berry was held by his superiors. For Berry fought 
 much as a bulldog fights, with a sort of half-blind 
 courage, magnificent in its fearlessness and per- 
 sistency, but having in it very much more of 
 muscles than of brain. One version indeed — -an 
 unstarched and unofficial version — of Nelson's 
 words quoted at the beginning of this sketch is, 
 
 " Here comes that fool Berry. Now we shall 
 
 have a fight ! " 
 
 But Berry was no fool. He was a fine seaman, 
 and understood the practical part of his profession 
 thoroughly. A vote of the forecastle would pro-
 
 68 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 bably have chosen him to command in any 
 desperate cutting-out expedition on hand. But if 
 Berry, instead of Troubridge, had commanded the 
 half-drowned handful of sailors in the square at 
 Santa Cruz, he and most of his men would pro- 
 bably have died at the foot of the citadel walls. 
 Berry would never have brought them off with the 
 inirenious and audacious coolness that Troubridge 
 showed. And if Berry instead of Blackwood had 
 commanded the Penelope in that long, tormenting 
 night-pursuit of the GuiUaume Tell, the frigate 
 would probably have sunk under the guns of the 
 Frenchman. For Berry would certainly have closed 
 with his great antagonist in mere blind, fighting 
 anger; he could never have shown the wary and 
 sustained skill of Blackwood, who kept clear of 
 the huge Frenchman while tormenting him from 
 midnight to daybreak. 
 
 Berry, in a word, was a first-class fighting sub- 
 ordinate; and Nelson, who did not enjoy having 
 a critic on his quarterdeck, who wanted a flag- 
 captain of the best fighting quality, but one who 
 was content that his admiral should do all the 
 thinking, chose Berry when he sailed in the Van- 
 guard on the immortal cruise which was to end 
 at the Nile. 
 
 Berry was of poor family, and began his sea life 
 as a volunteer on the Burford of seventy guns. 
 He spent four years in the East Indies on her.
 
 SIR EDWARD BERRY 69 
 
 and won his commission as a lieutenant, cutlass 
 in hand, in a desperate fight on the deck of a 
 French ship of war which he had boarded. In 
 1796 he was appointed as lieutenant on the 
 Agamemnon, and first came in contact with Nelson. 
 He was then twenty-eight years of age, a model 
 of physical energy and activity. His fire and zeal 
 caught Nelson's eye at once, and he took Berry 
 with him to the Cajitain ; and while Nelson was 
 on shore, toiling and fighting in the trenches in 
 front of Porto Ferrajo, Berry was left in com- 
 mand of her. This was a stroke of singular 
 good fortune for him, and won him the rank of 
 commander. While waiting for a ship, however, 
 he remained as a supernumerary on board the 
 Ccqjiain, and thus, by another stroke of good 
 fortune, found himself an idler on Nelson's ship 
 in the great fight at Cape St. Vincent. 
 
 When the call came for boarders to carry the 
 great tSaii Nicolas Berry found again the opportu- 
 nity which exactly suited him, and which brought 
 out his special gifts. No one could clamber up 
 the tall sides of a Frenchman or a Spaniard with 
 quicker foot or gayer heart than Berry. In the 
 immortal memorandum in which Nelson himself 
 tells the tale of the great exploit the figure of 
 Berry appears illuminated as if by a flash of 
 lightning. Nelson tells how he directed Captain 
 Miller to put his helm a- starboard, and, with his
 
 70 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 shrill, high-pitched voice calling for boarders, gave 
 the word to board just as the two great ships 
 clashed together, the tall side of the Spaniard 
 towering above the decks of the Cccptain. Says 
 Nelson, " The first man who jumped into the 
 enemy's mizzen chains was Captain Berry. . . . 
 He was supported from our spritsail yard, which 
 hooked in the mizzen rigging." Miller, a sailor 
 of Berry's own fighting gifts, was in the act of 
 following ; " but," says Nelson, '• I directed him to 
 remain." A soldier of the 69th with the butt 
 end of his musket smashed in the upper quarter 
 gallery window of the Spaniard ; and, writes 
 Nelson, " I jumped in myself, and was followed 
 by others as fast as possible." 
 
 Berry meanwhile had clambered up the high 
 bulwarks of the Spaniard, and jumped down on 
 to its well-like decks. A stream of boarders 
 tumbling from the spritsail yard followed him, 
 and. Berry leading, they rushed the Spaniard's 
 poop. When Nelson, having fought his way across 
 the cabins and broken open the cabin doors, 
 reached the quarterdeck, he found Berry in 
 triumphant possession of the poop, and the Spanish 
 flag fluttering down. The San Josef now opened 
 a spluttering fire of muskets and pistols on the 
 boarders visible on the forecastle and poop of the 
 San Nicolas, and Nelson instantly gave the word 
 to board her in turn. She could only be reached
 
 SIR EDWARD BERRY 7 1 
 
 at the main chains ; and Berry, with all his quick- 
 ness of hand and foot and tingling fighting impulse, 
 could hardly take the lead of his own admiral. 
 He was decorously assisting Nelson into the main 
 chains of the huge Spaniard when a Spanish officer 
 thrust his head over the quarterdeck rail above 
 them and announced that they surrendered. 
 
 Those few wild moments on the quarterdeck of 
 the San Nicolas and in the main chains of the San 
 Josef constituted a link bewixt Nelson and Berry 
 that never quite broke. When next he com- 
 manded a squadron, Nelson promised Berry that 
 he should be his flag-captain ; and so Berry found 
 the great opportunity of his life on the quarter- 
 deck of the Vanguard in Nelson's memorable 
 pursuit of Brueys across the Mediterranean, and 
 in the historic victory of Aboukir Bay. 
 
 Berry's one excursion into the realms of litera- 
 ture belongs to this period of his life. In the 
 Naval Chronicle of 1799 appears a long and 
 curiously interesting narrative of both the pursuit 
 and the battle, " drawn up from the minutes of 
 an officer of rank in the squadron." The writer 
 is Berry, and his narrative is really one of the 
 best accounts of the doings of the fleet during 
 those three memorable months betwixt the de- 
 parture of the Vanguard from Gibraltar on May 
 9, and the actual fighting in Aboukir Bay on 
 August I, to be found anywhere. It is a business-
 
 72 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 like story ; the tale of a great sea-cliase, and of a 
 sea-fight, told by a sailor and for sailors. It has 
 no pretensions to literary charm, and yet it has 
 a certain quality of knninoiisness and of graphic 
 force not always found in more ambitious litera- 
 ture. The unconscious personal element in the 
 story has sometimes an amusing effect. 
 
 Thus Berry tells, with simple-minded pride and 
 delight, the story how Nelson, after the great 
 storm of May 22, from which the Vanguard crept 
 in a state of semi- wreck, determined to stick 
 to his shattered flagship, and not to exchange it 
 for, say, the Orion or the Alexander. With a 
 sailor's natural bias in favour of his own ship, 
 again, Berry discovers that the poor battered Van- 
 guard, after all, " sails and works as well as the 
 other ships," in spite of her stumpy jurymasts 
 and patched canvas. Berry gives us the gossip 
 of the Vanguard's quarterdeck, and records how, 
 when Troubridge with the rest of the squadron 
 had joined them. Nelson confided to him that 
 " he would now be a match for any hostile fleet 
 in the Mediterranean, and his only desire was to 
 encounter one." 
 
 War had swept the sea clean, and the long 
 voyage across the lonely seas, broken too seldom by 
 a slanting white sail on the horizon, is reflected 
 with curious clearness in Berry's narrative. Once 
 they caught a glimpse of half-a-dozen topsails above
 
 SIR EDWARD BERRY 73 
 
 the sea rim ; tlieir cut showed that they were 
 Spanish merchant ships. ' They must be richly 
 laden. Here was prize-money in unknown amounts 
 under then- lee, waiting to be taken. But Nelson's 
 fiery soul scorned to turn aside from the pursuit of 
 Brueys to capture a few stray galleons. Whether, 
 indeed, the Jacks in the forecastle shared Nelson's 
 scorn of mere prize-money may be doubted. They 
 must have contemplated with watering mouths 
 those fat Spaniards, their topsails growing ever 
 fainter, going off to leeward. 
 
 We get a glimpse from Berry's narrative of the 
 discipline and methods which brought Nelson's 
 ships into such unsurpassed fighting condition. 
 The decks of all the ships, Berry says, were kept 
 perfectly clear night and day. Every man was 
 ready to start to his post at a moment's notice. 
 The crews were daily exercised at the great guns 
 and small arms. The fleet, in a word, was kept 
 at the highest point of discipline and in instant 
 readiness for battle. Nelson, in addition, throughout 
 the whole of that memorable cruise turned the 
 quarterdeck of the Vanguard into what can only 
 be described as a perpetual " school for captains." 
 Whenever the weather admitted he summoned the 
 captains on board the flagship, where, says Berry, 
 " he would fully develop to them his own ideas of 
 the different and best modes of attack, and such 
 plans as he proposed to execute upon falling in
 
 74 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 with the enemy, whatever their position or situation 
 might be by night or day." " There was no pos- 
 sible position in which they could be found that he 
 did not take into his calculations, and for the most 
 advantageous attack of which he had not digested 
 and arranged the best possible plans. With the 
 masterly ideas of their admiral, therefore, on the 
 subject of naval tactics, every one of his captains 
 was most thoroughly acquainted." This explains 
 why, when the moment of attack came — and came 
 suddenly — signals were so little needed. 
 
 Nelson hoped to catch Brueys, with all his trans- 
 ports, in the open sea. If this happened, the fleet 
 was to divide into three squadrons, under Trou- 
 bridge, Saumarez, and Nelson himself. Two divi- 
 sions were to attack the French men-of-war, the 
 third was to devote itself solely to the destruction 
 of the transports. It is interesting to reflect on 
 what would have happened if Nelson had got loose 
 amongst the French transports, with Napoleon 
 himself on one of them. It would have been a 
 pack of sea-wolves harrying a flock of very dis- 
 tressed sheep. 
 
 Berry himself seems, temporarily at least, to have 
 become saturated with Nelson's ideas as a result of 
 these perpetual lessons in tactics on the quarterdeck 
 of the Vanguard. He sees things with Nelson's 
 eyes ; he gives us — no doubt second hand — little 
 fragments of Nelsonian wisdom. He records the
 
 SIR EDWARD BERRY 7 5 
 
 admirable maxim, for examjile, that " courage alone 
 will not lead to conquest without the aid and direc- 
 tion of exact discipline and order." This is certainly 
 a bit of wisdom which did not grow on the soil of 
 Berry's unassisted intellect. Berry, again, helps us 
 to catch — at least for an instant — a glimpse of the 
 Frenchmen in Aboukir Bay as Nelson's eye saw 
 them. " The admiral," he says, " viewed these with 
 the eye of a seaman determined on attack ; and it 
 instantly struck his eager and penetrating mind 
 that where there was room for an enemy's ship to 
 swing, there was room for one of ours to anchor." 
 That sentence is the key to the tactics which won 
 the Nile. 
 
 Only an actual eye-witness could have described 
 "the wave of joy" which ran through the crowded 
 decks of the British ships when it was certain the 
 Frenchmen were at last in sight ; and only one who 
 stood on the quarterdeck of the Vanguard could 
 have known that " the gladdest " man in the whole 
 fleet was Nelson himself. " Of the ardour and 
 vigour" with which the British sailors toiled at 
 their guns when the actual fighting began Berry 
 again is able to speak as an eye-witness. Then, 
 with a sailor's touch. Berry adds, " The wind was at 
 this time N.N.W., and blew what seamen call a 
 topgallant breeze. It was necessary to take in the 
 royals when we hauled upon the wind." Berry 
 adds a characteristic sea detail to the description
 
 y6 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 of the actual onfall of tlie British ships : " In stand- 
 ing-in, our leading ships," ho Avrites, " were unavoid- 
 ably obliged to receive into their bows the whole 
 fire of the broadsides of the French line. ... At 
 this time the necessary number of our men were 
 employed aloft in furling sails, and on deck in 
 hauling the braces, &c., preparatory to our casting 
 anchor." Berry once more gives us, with a sailor's 
 directness, the explanation of why the French fleet 
 was missed by the pursuing British both on their 
 way to Alexandria and on their return from Alex- 
 andria to Syracuse. " The French," he says, 
 " steered a direct course for Candia, by which they 
 made an angular passage towards Alexandria, whilst 
 we steered a direct course for that place without 
 making Candia at all." This plan shortened the 
 distance, but it missed the French. On the return 
 to Syracuse the British took the northern course 
 from Alexandria, while the French took a southern 
 course to it, and so missed each other again. 
 
 Berry played his part gallantly enough on the 
 quarterdeck of the Vanguard. When Nelson — 
 struck on the brow by a bit of flying langridge from 
 the Spartiate — was falling, his face covered with 
 blood, it was Berry who caught him in his arms. 
 " I am killed," said Nelson to Berry. " Remember 
 me to my wife." Berry had now to fight the ship; 
 as flag-captain, indeed, he had to direct the fleet, 
 for the Vanguard was the only ship whose signals
 
 SIR EDWARD BERRY "jy 
 
 commanded obedience everywhere. Fortunately, 
 the ships needed no " direction." Each was busy 
 pounding into submission its immediate enemy. 
 In his despatch Nelson, who, under a generous 
 impulse, ran easily into superlatives, writes : ''- The 
 support and assistance I received from Captain 
 Berry cannot be sufficiently expressed. I was 
 wounded in the head and obliged to be carried off 
 the deck ; but the service suffered no loss by that 
 event. Captain Berry was fully equal to the im- 
 portant service then going on." As his reward 
 Berry was sent with despatches to England, and he 
 carried with him, as a trophy to be presented to 
 the King, the flag of the second in command of the 
 French fleet. Brueys' flag had, of course, gone down 
 with the Orient. Such a trophy, carried by the 
 hands of one who had helped to win it, would have 
 mot with a great reception in London ; but, alas ! 
 that flag is not to be found in any British collec- 
 tion. It was destined, by a very odd turn of events, 
 to fall into French hands again. 
 
 Berry sailed for England in the Leandcr on 
 August 15, and no doubt with the natural exulta- 
 tion and pride of a messenger who was carrying 
 tidings so great, and a trophy so proud, to his 
 country. On the 19 th, when off Candia, the tall 
 topsails of a great ship coming quickly up before a 
 south-east breeze were visible. It was a French 74, 
 the GdvAreux, one of the two line of battle ships
 
 78 :nelson and his captains 
 
 which had escaped from the Nile. It was an odd 
 meetinsf. A fusfitive from the defeated fleet 
 stumbles on a ship from the victorious fleet carry- 
 ing the news and the trophies of victory to 
 England. But it was a very unfortunate meeting 
 for the Leandcr. The Ginerevx was twice as big 
 as the Leander, carried eighty guns to her fifty, had 
 more than double her weight of broadsides, and 
 more than thrice her number of men. The French 
 ship had 936 men, and the British ship had 282. 
 It was a fight betwixt a man and a boy. 
 
 But Thompson, who commanded the Leander, 
 was a fighter of high quality, and, with Berry be- 
 side him on the quarterdeck, it was certain that 
 the Leamler would be a very hard nut for even the 
 GSnireux to crack. Thompson at first made all sail 
 to escape his formidable antagonist, but the Ginireux 
 brought the wind up with her, and Thompson at 
 last coolly shortened sail and waited for his foe. 
 By nine o'clock the G6n6reux was abeam of the 
 Leander, and both ships opened fire. The wind was 
 falling ; the two great hulls forged slowly ahead, 
 wrapped in smoke, and smiting each other with 
 swift broadsides. The Leander, by half-past ten, 
 was almost completely crippled, and the G6n4reux 
 ran her on board, striking the Leander on the star- 
 board bow and dropping alongside with a crash 
 that smashed the lower deck ports of the British 
 ship. Again and again at this stage of the fight
 
 SIR EDWARD BERRY ' 79 
 
 the French tried to carry the Leandcr by boarding, 
 but as often they were driven back by the marines 
 and the small arms men. And while a hand-to- 
 hand fight thus raged on the upper decks, the great 
 guns on the lower decks of the two ships were 
 thundering wrathfully at each other across an in- 
 interval of only a few inches. A breath of wind 
 now drove the Gdn^reux ahead of the Leander, and 
 that ship lay completely disabled, with her mizzen- 
 mast over her stern and her foretopmast over the 
 larboard. The G4n4reux tacked and bore down 
 again on the Leandcr, intending to end the fight at 
 a blow ; but the indomitable British ship with the 
 aid of a spritsail was able to luff, in broken-winged 
 fashion, under the stern of the Frenchman, and 
 raked her whole length with every gun that could 
 be brought to bear. 
 
 This unequal fight lasted for six and a half 
 hours, but by that time the Leander had lost all 
 power of movement. The G6n6reux took a position 
 on its larboard bow, and venomously raked its un- 
 fortunate antagonist. No stick was standing on 
 the Leander save the bowsprit and the stumps of 
 her fore and main masts. Her decks were strewed 
 with the dead or wounded ; half her guns were 
 useless, owing to the wreckage of spars lying on 
 them. Thompson and Berry held a brief consulta- 
 tion, and then a pike with a French jack at the end 
 of it was thrust above the shattered bulwark ; the
 
 8o NELSON AND HTS CAPTAINS 
 
 Leander liad surrendered. But the Leander liad 
 fought magnificently if disastrously. Her killed 
 and Avounded amounted to ninety-two, nearly one- 
 third of her total crew ; the killed and wounded 
 on board the G6a6reux amounted to some 288. 
 The Leander, in a word, disabled as many French- 
 men as the total number of her own crew amounted 
 to. The Gen4rcux was left without a boat that 
 could float, and her boatswain, with one of her 
 middies, had to swim to the Leander to take posses- 
 sion of the hard-won prize. 
 
 The French, with the memory of the Nile rank- 
 ling in their blood, behaved very badly to their 
 beaten foe. They plundered the ship; they rifled 
 the pockets of their prisoners ; they stole the very 
 instruments from the Eno-lish doctor. A cruel 
 neglect was shown to the wounded. Berry remon- 
 strated with one of the French officers, and re- 
 minded him how different Nelson treated his 
 prisoners. " Ah ! " was the Frenchman's reply, " but 
 the French are expert at plunder." The truth is 
 the Frenchmen felt they were avenging Aboukir 
 Bay. 
 
 The English officers were released on parole at 
 Corfu, but the seamen were kept prisoners. An 
 attempt was made to persuade some of the English 
 sailors to serve under the French flag, and the 
 reply of one honest maintopman still survives in 
 the traditions of the forecastle : " No ! you d — d
 
 SIR EDWARD BERRY 8 I 
 
 French rascal," was the answer ; " give us back 
 our little ship, and we'll fight you again till we 
 sink." 
 
 Berry, being exchanged, reached London early in 
 December, and was promptly knighted. Early in 
 1799 he joined the Foudroyant, Nelson's flagship, as 
 captain. Nelson was on shore at Naples when there 
 befell Berry perhaps the most exquisite piece of 
 good fortune he could have desired. He fell in with 
 his old captor, the G6n4reiix, and captured her ! 
 
 The Gi'nSreiLX, with a small squadron, was making 
 an attempt to throw supplies into a long-besieged 
 French garrison at Malta ; and on the morning of 
 February i 8 Lord Keith's squadron intercepted the 
 French ships. The G67i6reux might have escaped, 
 but a British frigate, the Success, threw herself 
 across the Frenchman's bows, hung there, and 
 raked her with diligent broadsides. The Gin6rciix 
 presently shook off her tiny antagonist, but the 
 Foudroyant, an 80-gun ship, was coming up with 
 every stitch of canvas spread ; and close behind her 
 came another English 74, the Northumherland. And 
 the G6n4reux was not prepared to play against such 
 odds the desperate game the Leandcr had played 
 against her. Berry had only fired his second gun 
 when the GenSreux struck her colours. Berry hugely 
 enjoyed the interview with his former captors, but 
 it may be doubted whether the pleasure of that 
 interview was shared by the Frenchmen. 
 
 F
 
 82 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 Twelve days later another stroke of happiness 
 befell Berry. The only other French ship of the 
 line that had escaped from the Nile, the Guillaume 
 Tell, lay at anchor in Malta. On the night of the 
 30th she made a spirited attempt to escape the 
 British blockade. In the sketch of Blackwood's 
 career we describe the magnificent skill and daring 
 with which, in tho little Penelope, he hung on the 
 great Frenchman's quarter, and raked her for long 
 hours till the day broke. Then the Lion came up, 
 and waged an unequal fight with the Frenchman. 
 Last of all, the bluff-bowed and lumbering Foud- 
 royant arrived on the scene of action ; arrived, 
 indeed, in a sort of breathless hurry which well- 
 nisfh defeated its own end. " We did not fire a 
 shot till we were within hail," Berry tells Nelson 
 in the excited letter he wrote after the fight 
 was over. There never was a more gallant and 
 obstinate defence than that which the Guillaume Tell 
 offered to her assailants. The Foiuiroyant, superior 
 to her in weight of fire, lay broadside on to the 
 Frenchman; the Lion hung on her starboard 
 quarter ; the Penelope raked her bows. Yet the 
 Guillaume Tell fought her guns till every spar had 
 gone by the board, and only surrendered long after 
 nigfhtfall, when she was reduced to the condition 
 of a mere shot-torn hulk. 
 
 Berry had now practically reached the climax of 
 his career. He hoisted his flag on board a famous
 
 SIR EDWARD BERRY 83 
 
 ship, the Aganwrnnon, but he did nothing famous in 
 it. When he was Nelson's flag-captain, and under 
 the spell of Nelson's companionship, he was capable 
 of great things ; but when left to himself he some- 
 how seemed to lose all his initiative and more than 
 half his daring. He took part in the great fight 
 of Trafalgar, and it might have been expected that 
 so illustrious a ship as the Agamemnon, under Nel- 
 son's favourite captain, would have filled a great 
 place in that greatest of sea-battles. This, however, 
 was by no means the case. 
 
 On the morning when the combined fleet of the 
 enemy came out of Cadiz the Agamemnon had cap- 
 tured a stumpy and heavy-laden merchant brig, 
 had its prize in tow, and was deliberately tugging 
 it into the outstretched arms of the enemy's fleet. 
 Blackwood, in the Euryalus, signalled that the 
 enemy was in the north-east, but had to keep 
 firing signal guns for an hour before the stolid 
 Agamemnon took any notice. Blackwood's log 
 runs : " Made telegraph signals to the Aganficmnon, 
 that thirty-four of the enemy were out, and to 
 make all sail, and repeat signals between me and 
 the admiral; and that the enemy's ships were 
 much scattered ; and directed Sir Edward Berry 
 to fire every ten minutes with the preceding 
 signal ; but she still stood on south-east with a 
 brig in tow, when we lost sight of her." Berry 
 that is, was deliberately ignoring signals, and sail-
 
 84 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 ing away from the enemy. The Agamemnon re- 
 sembled an ant that had captured a beetle, and 
 was draggmg its booty, now in one direction and 
 now in another, but determined not to give it up. 
 It was not going to part with its precious beetle 
 for any earthly consideration. To the great fight 
 itself the Agamemnon made an absolutely micro- 
 scopic contribution. The most expressive sentence 
 in the Agamemnon's own log of the battle consists 
 in the words " engaging the enemy's ships as most 
 convenient." The killed and wounded on the Brit- 
 ish side amounted to 1690; to that total the 
 Agamemnon contributed exactly ten. Only one 
 other ship in the British fleet — the Polyphemus — 
 reported fewer casualties than the Agamemnon: it 
 had six killed and wounded. Now, a British 74 
 that went through the fires of Trafalgar and had 
 only ten of its crew hit must either have been very 
 unfortunately placed or very inefficiently handled. 
 If Nelson had been on the quarterdeck of the 
 Agamemnon, with Berry as his flag-captain, it may 
 be assumed with entire certainty that the record 
 would have been very different. 
 
 Nelson, in a word, was the head, Berry the hand. 
 And Berry without Nelson was a hand without a 
 brain to direct it. 
 
 When, for example, the message came that the 
 Giiillaume Tell had broken out of Malta, and that 
 the tiny Penelope was in pursuit — the flash of her
 
 SIR EDWARD BERRY 85 
 
 guns visible in the darkness, but growing fainter 
 every moment — Berry could not realise the situa- 
 tion, nor decide what to do. His angry commodore 
 had to send a hurried and vehement message ex- 
 pressing his '■ great surprise at the inactivity of 
 the flagship of Lord Nelson " and his " most posi- 
 tive orders" to slip her anchor and go in pursuit 
 of the big Frenchman before Berry stirred. When 
 somebody else told him what to do, then, indeed, 
 Berry did it ; and if it was, as in this case, to fight 
 a visible Frenchman, he did it with energy and 
 enjoyment. But he was slow-minded. A problem 
 suddenly presented, unless somebody was on hand 
 to interpret it, puzzled, or even paralysed, him. 
 And war is made up of unexpected problems. 
 
 Codrington, it will be remembered, went into 
 the fight at Trafalgar with a fine coolness. Not 
 a gun was fired on board the Orion till its 
 particular antagonist was chosen, and the O^non 
 almost touching its stern. Then one close and 
 dreadful broadside sent the Frenchman's three 
 masts tumbling and drove her to strike. But 
 as the Orion, in disciplined and dreadful silence, 
 moved slowly into the heart of the fight, Cod- 
 rington gives us a glimpse of " the Agamemnon 
 far astern of us, blazing away and wasting her 
 ammunition." That hasty, ineffective fire, plan- 
 less and blind, gives the measure of Berry's leader- 
 ship.
 
 86 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 Berry was made a baronet ; he commanded one 
 of the royal yachts ; he attained the rank of rear- 
 admiral; he acquired, that is, a number of orna- 
 mental dignities, but he somehow lost both his 
 professional efficiency and his fighting energy. He 
 lived till 1 8 3 I , but he outlived his faculties. He 
 left no children. His baronetcy became extinct. 
 Berry's career is thus a sort of unfulfilled prophecy. 
 The man who at thirty years of age was the 
 flag-captain of Nelson at the Nile, with seventeen 
 years of war before him, ought to have left an 
 imperishable mark upon history. 
 
 Berry's career is a torso, because he himself 
 lacked the qualities, not merely of a great, but 
 even of a second-class leader. He does not stand 
 in the same rank with Troubridge, or Saumarez, 
 or Ball. He had merely what may be called the 
 ruder and more primitive qualities of the fighting 
 man : indifference to danger, a joy in the rough 
 and tumble of conflict, a fiery energy in merely 
 physical strife. He was to Nelson what a cutlass 
 is to a boarder — a weapon caught up at the 
 moment of combat, and valued for its power to 
 slay. If Berry was as brave as his own sword, he 
 Avas, as far as the higher qualities of leadership 
 were concerned, as unintellectual as a sword.
 
 CHAPTER IV 
 
 CAPTAIN EDWARD RIOU (1758-1801) 
 
 " Brave hearts / to BritaitHs pride, 
 Once so faithful and so true. 
 On the deck of fame that died 
 With gallant good RiouP 
 — Campbell's "Battle of the Baltic." 
 
 EDWARD mOU, since his name is embalmed in 
 Campbell's deathless ballad, has won enduring 
 fame ; yet he has a better title to be remembered 
 than can be given by even the cadences of a poet's 
 rhyme. Campbell, in fact, borrowed his epithets 
 from Nelson ; though, for the sake of melody, he 
 omitted a conjunction. " The gallant and good 
 Riou " is Nelson's phrase. And the parting shot 
 from the great Trekroner battery at Copenhagen, 
 which cut Riou in two, inflicted on the British 
 Navy, in Nelson's judgment, " an irreparable loss." 
 Yet Nelson had only known Riou personally for 
 a few days when he wrote those words. But Riou 
 was emphatically of Nelson's school. Brenton de- 
 scribes him as " having all the qualities that go to 
 make a perfect officer." Certainly Nelson, who read 
 men as if by some wizard's art, found in Riou all 
 
 the qualities as a seaman and a leader in which he 
 
 87
 
 88 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 liimself most delighted. And, but for that unhappy 
 shot from a Danish gun, which ended his Hfe too 
 soon, Riou might have shared with Hardy and 
 Blackwood and Berry all the splendours of Nelson's 
 friendship and of Nelson's fame. 
 
 Riou possessed all the natural gifts that go to 
 make up a born leader of men. He had a most 
 commanding presence, with an air at once of gravity 
 and of power, rare even amongst Nelson's captains. 
 One spectator, who saw Riou step ashore at the 
 Cape of Good Hope, from the battered hull of the 
 Guardian, which, by well-nigh the most heroic feat 
 of seamanship on record, he had brought safe into 
 port, describes him as " the most godlike mortal I 
 ever viewed." His portrait by Shelley is very 
 striking. The eyes are open and frank ; the features 
 have an expression of mingled steadfastness and 
 modesty. But the whole face has, with all its 
 nobility and strength, a look of half sad gravity, 
 the seriousness of a man who has looked death in 
 the face a hundred times, and whose daily business 
 it was to contend with all the destructive forces of 
 nature, with ice and storm and darkness — as well 
 as to wage battle with human enemies. 
 
 Of Riou's early career curiously little is known. 
 The very year of his birth is doubtful. While yet 
 a middy he joined the Discovery under Captain 
 Clerke. Gierke was a seaman trained in the school 
 of exploration. He had been a midshipman under
 
 CAPTAIN EDWARD RIOU 
 After a miniature by Shelley
 
 CAPTAIN EDWARD RIOU 89 
 
 Byron in his voyage round the world in 1764-66 ; 
 he was a master's mate in the Endeavour with Cook 
 in his first great voyage of discovery ; and second 
 lieutenant of the Resolution in Cook's second expedi- 
 tion. When Cook was killed in 1779 Clerke took 
 command in his place. Under such a teacher, and 
 trained in such a school, Riou became a seaman 
 of the finest type, cool, hardy, fearless, and full of 
 resource. It was his unique seamanship, in fact, 
 which gave him his first great chance in life, and 
 is still his most enduring title to fame. 
 
 The wreck of the Guardian was a very memorable 
 sea disaster, and, in all the records of British sea- 
 manship, there is to be found no other example of 
 resource, of exhaustless daring, of the triumph of 
 human courage over the hostile forces of ISTature, 
 that outshines the story of how Riou brought the 
 water-logged and battered hull of the Giiardian into 
 Table Bay. 
 
 In August, 1789, the Guardian, an old 44-gun 
 ship, but then armed en fiute, sailed for Botany Bay. 
 She had public stores on board to the value of 
 .^70,000, and she carried, besides, a number of con- 
 victs, plants, and live stock, seeds and machinery, 
 for the new settlement on the almost unknown 
 shores of New South Wales. The voyage, as far 
 as the Cape, was favourable. There, more stock was 
 taken on board, and yet more plants, until the deck of 
 the ship resembled a combined farmyard and garden.
 
 go NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 Just before leaving the Cape, Riou met the hero 
 of another famous sea-disaster, Bligh of the Bounty. 
 Bligh was on his road to England, bearing the 
 tidings of the famous mutiny. He had not long 
 before landed I'rom the most memorable boat voyage 
 on record. His mutinous crew had thrust him 
 adrift, with eighteen of his men, in a boat only 
 twenty-three feet long ; and in that tiny craft, with- 
 out a chart, Bligh made a voyage of 3618 miles, 
 till he reached Timor. Bligh had the temper of a 
 devil, but he was a magnificent seaman. Bligh and 
 Riou, indeed, when they met in Table Bay, were 
 perhaps two of the best seamen then in the British 
 Navy. But Riou was one of the most magnani- 
 mous and sweet-tempered of men. Like Bligh, 
 Riou could have kept a tiny boat afloat on the open 
 sea for three months; but, had he commanded 
 the Bounty, there would have been no mutiny. 
 Riou, as he shook hands with Bligh at parting, 
 little dreamed that he was so near a sea-disaster 
 more tragical and heroic than even that through 
 which Bligh had just passed ! 
 
 Twelve days after leaving the Cape the Guardian 
 sighted a vast iceberg to leeward. Riou ran down 
 till almost under the shadow of the great drifting 
 ice-cliffs, then hove to, and sent his boats to collect 
 broken fragments of the drifting ice. Owing to the 
 number of live stock he had on board, the daily 
 consumption of water was great, and Riou wanted
 
 CAPTAIN EDWARD RIOU pi 
 
 to fill his fast-emptying casks with ice, which, when 
 melted, would be good drinking water. It was dark 
 by the time the boats returned and were hoisted on 
 board, and the Guardian bore away on her course 
 again. 
 
 Presently the blackness of the night was made 
 still blacker by a dense and icy fog, which crept 
 through the damp air and over the dark sea. Fog 
 and darkness ; and the great iceberg to leeward ! 
 But the Guardian was on a course which bore right 
 away from peril, and, though a strict watch was 
 kept, there were no apprehensions on the doomed 
 ship. A little before nine o'clock, a curious white- 
 ness that was not exactly light seemed to break 
 through the inky darkness right ahead. Then came 
 a wild cry from the lookout ; the Guardian was 
 running straight upon the iceberg ! The frowning, 
 wall-like mass showed high in the gloom above the 
 topmasts of the imperilled ship. 
 
 Riou met the crisis coolly. The helm was put 
 down in a moment, the great ship swung up into 
 the wind and bore clear of the berg, though it 
 seemed as if she would almost graze its outermost 
 jutting point. It turned out that a huge spur of 
 ice, like the darting blade of some Titanic spear, 
 projected from the berg beneath the surface of the 
 sea, and in another moment the great ship crashed 
 on this, and lay, impaled and helpless, while the 
 beetling wall of ice — its summit running up into
 
 92 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 darkness till it was lost to sight — seemed to over- 
 hang the vessel. A fierce gust of wind just then 
 took the ship, and the unhappy Guardian swung 
 round as if on a pivot, and began to drive stern- 
 foremost upon the ice. The yards were braced 
 about, however, and presently the ship, with a 
 grating movement, shot off the spur of ice minus 
 her rudder, with torn hull, and shattered cabin- 
 beams. Riou steered his maimed ship by means of 
 the sails till he reached a safe distance from the 
 iceberg, kept her to the wind, and then commenced 
 a struggle for life and death with the sea. 
 
 The ship had already two feet of water in the 
 hold, and the leaks were gaining fast. Before mid- 
 night, although the pumps were kept going 
 furiously, the water had risen to six feet. A 
 strong gale was blowing, and the sea ran high. 
 All through the night the wounded ship struggled 
 on, sinking deeper every hour. The dawn broke 
 wild and cold, and on a crew already well-nigh ex- 
 hausted. Riou used all the arts known to seamanship 
 to keep his ship afloat. A sail, with oakum sewn on 
 it in rolls, was passed beneath the bows of the wildly 
 rolling vessel, and for a time this arrested the leaks. 
 But a mere film of canvas was a poor protection for 
 the rent hull. Again and again the sail was worn 
 or torn away, and had to be renewed. All this 
 while the clanking pumps never ceased ; the gale 
 blew wilder than ever. Guns and cargo were jet-
 
 CAPTAIN EDWARD RIOU 93 
 
 tisoned. The crew, frozen witli cold and worn out 
 with labour, were almost exhausted. Riou, toilinij 
 with a gang of " idlers " — chaplain, purser, &c. — 
 in throwing cargo overboard, had his hand crushed. 
 At six o'clock, when the stormy night fell again, 
 there was, in spite of the utmost exertions of the 
 crew, seven feet of water in the hold ! 
 
 When the second day broke the Guardian 
 seemed lost beyond all hope of recovery. The 
 water had risen to the orlop deck. The sails 
 fluttered as mere rags in the gale. The ship 
 rolled so heavily that the sea, at each roll, came 
 in through the upper deck ports. Men lay about 
 the decks insensible with exposure and labour. 
 The sky was black and stormy. It was Christmas 
 day — a strange Christmas for the unhappy crew 
 of the Guardian. 
 
 The crew now, for the second time, came aft, and 
 asked that the sinking ship should be abandoned, 
 and the boats launched. If they worked at the 
 pumps much longer, they declared, they would 
 have no strength to keep the boats afloat. The 
 ship was visibly settling down aft ; the sea was 
 rushing up the rudder-case. But there were only 
 five boats, and it was impossible to stow 300 
 persons in them ! Riou at last consented that 
 those who chose that desperate chance might 
 betake themselves to the boats ; but he would go 
 down with his ship.
 
 94 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 The jolly-boat Wcas lowered, struck by a furious 
 sea, and instantly swamped, and its crew — including 
 the ship's surgeon — drowned. The other four boats 
 were safely launched. Then, for a moment, the 
 iron discipline of the ship seemed to fail. Some 
 thirty of the crew leaped into the cutter, and the 
 boat, not yet provisioned, was obliged to push off 
 from the ship's side, to escape being swamped under 
 the weight of jumping men. Riou, at this moment, 
 sat coolly down on the wet and slanting deck, and 
 wrote a letter to the Admiralty, detailing the dis- 
 aster to his ship, and commending his mother and 
 sister to the public generosity. That letter, de- 
 scribed as " one of the most uncommon proofs of 
 fortitude ever written," is still preserved in the 
 Admiralty records, and owing to the courtesy of the 
 Admiralty it is reproduced here : — 
 
 Exa/it copy of letter from Captain Riou, of IT.M.S- 
 Guardian ; original of which can he found 
 in Volume No. 2 39 5 of "Admiralty Secre- 
 tary s In Letters" filed at Public Record Office, 
 London. 
 
 " H.M. Guardia7i, 2$th Deer., 1789. 
 
 " Lat. 44 deg. S. ; Long. 40 dcg. Hast. 
 
 " Sir, — Jf ever any part of the officers or crew of the 
 Guardian should ever survive to get home, I have only 
 to say their conduct after the fatal stroke against an
 
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 1.0NU0N: SMITH, ELDER. & CO,, IS WATERLOO PLALU
 
 CAPTAIN EDWARD RIOU 95 
 
 Island of Ice was admirable and wonderful in every- 
 thing that related to their duties, considered either as 
 private men or his Majesty's service. 
 
 " As there seems to he no possibility of my remaining 
 many hours in this ivorld, I beg leave to recommend to 
 the consideration of the Admiralty a sister, who if my 
 conduct or services shoidd be found deserving any 
 memory, their favour might be sheivn to her, together 
 with a widowed mother. 
 
 " / a-m, Sir, remaining with great respect, 
 " Your ever Obedt. and humhle Servt., 
 
 " U. BIOU. 
 " To P. Stephens, Esq." 
 
 The boats then pushed off, leaving Riou a 
 soHtary figure on the quarterdeck of the water- 
 logged Guardian. The boatswain, the carpenter, 
 three midshipmen, and twenty seamen cast in their 
 lot with their heroic captain. And the amazing 
 part of the story is the tale of how, by an almost 
 unexampled struggle, lasting for nine weeks, this 
 handful of gallant men kept the Guardian afloat, 
 and actually brought her into Table Bay ! 
 
 A cruel fate pursued the boats. The jolly-boat 
 foundered in sight of their shipmates. The cutter 
 was blown beyond the desolate horizon, and never 
 seen again. The launch was picked up by a French 
 ship, after being fourteen days afloat, with her crew 
 at the very point of death from exposure and hunger.
 
 96 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 It was ten o'clock when the boats left, and the 
 water was two feet above the orlop deck. "We 
 had," as the boatswam records, "two chances — 
 either to pump or sink ; " and, being British tars, 
 they chose the pumping, and kept the pumps going 
 till both pumps and men were utterly worn out. 
 Again and again a sail was " fothered " and dragged 
 under the ship's groaning hull. As a matter of 
 fact, the ship was water-logged. Her hull was so 
 torn that her ballast escaped through the rents; 
 but the lower gun deck served as a sort of second 
 bottom. It was of unusual strength, was packed 
 with casks from end to end, and so the complaining 
 hull was just kept from sinking. The scanty crew 
 was able, with the utmost exertions, to keep the 
 ship a few inches above the line at which it must 
 have gone down like a stone. And for nine weeks 
 that dreadful struggle went on ! Riou's cool courage 
 and iron will, alone kept his crew to their task. 
 Once they sighted a Dutch packet boat from the 
 Spice Islands, and got some temporary assistance 
 from it. But for the rest the tiny and desperate 
 band had to light their own battle for life. 
 
 A curious account of the wreck survives, written 
 by the boatswain, and is published in the " Historical 
 Records of New South Wales." The boatswain's 
 spelling is that of the forecastle, but through the 
 broken syllables there shines a quite heroic spirit. 
 We reproduce part of this letter : —
 
 CAPTAIN EDWARD RIOU 97 
 
 " We was about six hundred leafjues from any land. 
 There tvas about fifty-six men missing ; a mimber 
 drowned juTiiping into the boats ; the sea ran so high 
 that the boats could scarce live. The commander had 
 a strong resolution, for he said lie would soner go down 
 in the ship than he ivold quid hur. All the officers left 
 in the ship is the commander, the carpenter, one midship- 
 man, and myself. After the boats left us we had two 
 chances — either to pump or sink. We cold just get into 
 the sailroom. We got up a. neiu forecourse and stuck itt 
 fidl of oakum and rags, and 2nLt itt under the ship's 
 bottom ; this is called ' fathering ' the ship. We found 
 some benefit by itt, for pumping and bailing we gained 
 on hur ; that gave us a little hopse of saving our lives. 
 We VMS in this terable situation for nine weeks, before 
 %oe got to the Cape of Good Hope. Sometimes our upper 
 deck scuppers was under water outside, and the ship) lying 
 like a log on the ivater, and the sea breaking over her as if 
 she was a rock in the sea. Sixteen foot of water was 
 the common run for the nine weeks in the hold." 
 
 On February 3 i the ice-torn, sea-soddened Guardian 
 came into Table Bay, to the amazement of mankind. 
 The long-boat had been picked up and had brought 
 the news of what was believed to be the total loss of 
 the ship. No one, indeed, imagined that she could 
 possibly have survived. " Riou himself," wrote one 
 who saw the battered ship come slowly to land, 
 "declares that he knows not in what manner the 
 Guardian got here, she being water-logged, and could 
 
 G
 
 98 KELSON" AN'D HIS CAPTALS'S 
 
 not be steered for want of a rudder." As the crew 
 came ashore the same spectator records, ' They 
 looked Hke men from another vorld — long beards, 
 dirt., and rags covered them." Yet none of Rioii's 
 people died during those desperate nine weeks, so 
 contagious was their captain's courage., so vigilant 
 was his care over them. But for himself, as he 
 afterwards declared, he " never peiTaitted himself to 
 hope till the day be sighted land." Xow, to wage 
 battle with death for nine stormy weeks without any 
 stimulus of hope, and to carry a look of steadfast 
 cheerfulness in sight of his men for the whole 
 period, was the proof of a courage that must have 
 had the hardness of granite itself! 
 
 The troubles of the ill-fated ship, as it happened, 
 did not cease when she reached Table Bay. She 
 was taken into False Bay, to be patched for her 
 Toyage to England. "While lying there, a ftirious 
 tempest swept over the bay, and the much-enduring 
 Guardian, with no Riou on board to keep her afloat 
 by mere indomitable pluck, sank at her anchor ! 
 
 The story of the Guardian, and of the gallant 
 fashion in which it had been brought safely to port, 
 won instant fame for Riou. The tale of the exploit 
 thrilled England. One somewhat irrelevant detail, 
 it may be added, gained for Riou interest in high 
 quarters. One of his three middies was young Pitt, 
 the only son of Lord CameHord, nephew to the 
 great Lord Chatham. The lad was bent on a sea
 
 CAPTAIN EDWARD RIOU 99 
 
 career, after a fashion, happily for the race, natural 
 to British lads in every generation, but specially so 
 in the great days of Nelson. His father, in despair, 
 sent him on board the Guardian, in the hope that the 
 hardships and perils of the long voyage would cure 
 his passion for the sea. Young Pitt, in the Guardian, 
 certainly had crowded into a few weeks, perils and 
 hardships sufficient to have made the sea for ever 
 hateful to him. Then came to England the news of 
 the loss of the Guardian, and the whole Pitt connec- 
 tion was troubled. Later arrived the surprising 
 news that the sorely battered ship had struggled 
 safely into Table Bay, and young Pitt was alive ! 
 The great Pitt himself drove express, in post-chaise 
 and four, to bear the glad tidings to Lord Camelford ; 
 the King was overjoyed. " Something must be 
 done " for the man who had saved the heir of one 
 branch of the Pitts from being ignobly drowned ; and 
 Riou, when he reached England, was promoted to 
 the rank of commander, and afterwards to that of cap- 
 tain, hoisting his flag in the Rose, frigate, and doing 
 valiant service in her, under Sir John Jervis, in the 
 West Indies. Later he was put in command of the 
 Royal yacht, the Princess Augusta, an appointment 
 which he also owed to the gratitude of the Pitts. 
 The Guardian's middy, it may be added, remained 
 unconvinced and uncured of his passion for the sea, 
 even by those dreadful nine weeks on the sinking 
 ship. He rose to the rank of commander, but had
 
 lOO NELRON" AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 a Stormy career. He survived more than one court- 
 martial and many duels, and died at last, unwept, 
 under the pistol of an opponent. 
 
 Riou, in 1799, exchanged the state and luxury of 
 the Royal yacht for active service, and hoisted his flag 
 on the Amazon, a frigate of thirty-eight guns. His 
 ship formed part of the fleet sent, in 1 801, to the 
 Baltic, under Sir Hyde Parker, with Nelson as second 
 in command. Nelson, with the swift insight of 
 genius, recognised Riou's fine qualities. Here was 
 a seaman and a fighter after his own heart, with a 
 daring as high, and a sense of duty almost as heroic, 
 as his own. The two men were of the same age, but 
 Nelson was already famous. The glory of St. Vincent 
 and of the Nile clothed him with a sort of nimbus. 
 Riou was but a frigate- captain, with the story of the 
 Guardian as his one title to honour. But Nelson 
 drew him instantly into closest comradeship. Riou 
 became, in a sense, his right hand. It was from the 
 quarterdeck of the Amazon, with Riou by his side, 
 that Nelson, on the morning of April i , swept down 
 the long line of the Danish floating batteries, studying 
 the scene of the next day's fight. At one o'clock on 
 that same day the far-stretching line of British 
 seventy-fours went in stately procession up what 
 was called the Dutch Deep towards their enemy, 
 the little Amazon leading ; and perhaps the proudest 
 man in the whole fleet that day was Riou. He 
 was leading a great fleet, under Nelson, to a sterner
 
 CAPTAIN EDWARD RIOU lOI 
 
 fight than that off Cape St. Vincent, or at the 
 Nile. 
 
 At the memorable gathering of the captains in 
 the cabin of the Elephant that night, Riou sat, with 
 Foley and Hardy and Fremantle, and many another 
 gallant seaman, as an honoured comrade, little 
 guessing, perhaps, that it was the last night of his 
 life. When the captains had gone back to their 
 ships, and Hardy had crept off through the darkness 
 in a boat, with muffled oars, on the perilous task 
 of taking the soundings along the Danish line, and 
 within a cable's length of the Danish ships, Foley 
 and Biou remained with Nelson, settling the details 
 of the coming fight, and the position each British 
 ship was to take. 
 
 It was part of Nelson's plan that his frigates and 
 smaller craft should be under the personal command 
 of Riou, to render any special service which the 
 eddying chances of the great battle might make 
 necessary. They were too light to take their place 
 in the battle line, and be pitted against the heavily- 
 armed floating batteries of the Danes, or against the 
 great Trekroner forts that barred the actual entrance 
 to the harbour. But as the ships moved into the 
 fight along the twisted and muddy channel, and 
 rounded the shoulder of the Middle Ground, the 
 three leading seventy-fours — the Agamemnon, the 
 Bellona, and the Russell — in turn grounded, and 
 in a moment lay helpless. One-fourth of Nelson's
 
 102 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 fleet — three seventy-fours out of twelve — were thus 
 suddenly struck out of the coming fight before 
 a shot was fired. Nelson's elaborate and skilful 
 battle plan had gone to pieces. 
 
 But a crisis, sudden and apparently desperate, 
 such as this, only calls out the genius of a great 
 leader. Nelson instantly framed a nev\^ combina- 
 tion. The places along the line of the floating 
 batteries of the Danes, destined for the stranded 
 ships, were taken by the other seventy-fours, as 
 they came up in succession ; and Riou, with his 
 little cluster of frigates — the lightest of twenty- 
 four guns, the heaviest of only thirty-eight— had to 
 face the great Trckroner batteries ! These stood 
 on two artificial islands, one with a frowning arma- 
 ment of thirty 24-pounders ; the other, still more 
 menacing, carried in its embrasures thirty-eight 
 36-pounders, while a couple of two-decked block 
 ships added their fire to that of the huge batteries. 
 Riou's frigates, in a word, had to do the work for 
 which as many 74-gun ships would have been 
 scarcely adequate. 
 
 Riou, however, took his little squadron into the 
 fight with cool daring, and held them to their 
 post in that hell of fire for two hours and a half. 
 Then came Hyde Parker's unhappy and fiercely- 
 debated signal to " discontinue the action." Nelson, 
 as every one knows, put his glass to his blind eye 
 for the purpose of contemplating the little cluster
 
 CAPTAIN EDWARD RIOU I03 
 
 of flags fluttering from his admiral's peak, and 
 protested, " I really do not see the signal " ! But 
 that flash of grim humour quickly gave place to 
 still grimmer anger. " D — - the signal," he cried, 
 " keep mine for closer action flying." 
 
 But that ill-fated "No. 39" flying from the 
 distant admiral's peak was the signal of death for 
 Riou. Nelson's ship acknowledged the signal, but 
 did not repeat it. Graves, his second in command, 
 kept the signal for close action flying at the main 
 truck of the Defiance, but repeated Parker's ill- 
 omened signal. One of the frigates, the Alcmene, 
 saw "No. 39" fluttering from the lee maintopsail 
 yardarm of the Defiance, and not only repeated 
 it, but obeyed it. She ceased firing, cut her cable, 
 and stood off out of the fisjht. The Blanche followed 
 next. Riou, in the Amazon, kept his post and 
 maintained his fire for another half-hour ; and then, 
 almost broken-hearted with grief and anger, he, too, 
 cut his cable and ceased firing. 
 
 On all the frigates there was a bitter sense of 
 shame in obeying the signal, a feeling which is 
 reflected in their logs. The Blanche says that 
 she only obeyed the signal on the Amazon repeating 
 it; the log of the Amazon recites how the Alcmene 
 and Blanche in turn repeated and obeyed the signal, 
 while the Amazon only cut her cable after seeing 
 her' consorts drifting out of the fight, and " No. 39 " 
 still fluttering from the peak of the London, the
 
 I04 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 rear-adiiiiral's ship. Rion, in the Amazon, certainly 
 ching to his desperate post in front of the great 
 Danish batteries for some time after the other 
 frigates had drifted out of the fight. 
 
 In the sea-fights of that day the smoke of the 
 guns, while the action continued, served as a screen 
 for the ship firing. When Collingwood, at Trafalgar, 
 was leading down under a tempest of shot on 
 Villeneuve's huge and straggling line, he fired a 
 single gun from the forecastle of the Culloden, 
 so as to cover the ship with a friendly screen of 
 smoke, and spoil the clearness of their mark for 
 the French. And at Copenhagen, while the Amazon 
 kept up her fire, she offered as a target to the 
 huge guns of the Trekroner batteries only a mask 
 of eddying smoke, pricked with incessant points 
 of red flame. When she ceased firing the smoke 
 blew clear of her, and gave the Danish gunners 
 a fair, unsheltered mark. Riou had already been 
 wounded, and, with the bitter exclamation, " What 
 will Nelson think of us ? " had given the order 
 to cut the cable and bear out of the fight. Then 
 he sat down on the breach of a gun, faint already 
 from loss of blood. The head of the Amazon had 
 swung round, and her stern offered a clear mark 
 to the heavy 36-pounders of the Danish batteries. 
 As the iron hail hurtled along the deck of the 
 Amazon, Riou, sitting in its track, was torn almost 
 in two, and fell dead on the deck.
 
 CAPTAIN EDWARD RIOU I05 
 
 He died not in the exultation of victory, but 
 when stung with the bitterness of what he thought 
 was defeat. Yet his death was singularly heroic, 
 and forms one of the most dramatic incidents in 
 one of the most desperate sea-fights known to 
 history. It impressed, in a quite curious degree, 
 the popular imagination. Campbell, with a poet's 
 instinct, was only condensing into speech the grief 
 and admiration of a whole people when he gave 
 Riou's name a place in his immortal ballad : — 
 
 " Let us think of them that sleep 
 Full many a fathom deep, 
 By thy wild and stormy steep, 
 Elsinore ! 
 
 Brave hearts ! to Britain's pride, 
 
 Once so faithful and so true, 
 
 On the deck of fame that died 
 
 With the gallant, good Riou. 
 
 Soft sigh the winds of heaven o'er their grave ! 
 
 While the billow mournful rolls^ 
 
 And the mermaid's song condoles, 
 
 Singing glory to the souls 
 
 Of the brave ! " 
 
 Riou's dying words, " What will Nelson think 
 of us ? " show expressively the place Nelson held in 
 the imagination of the seamen of that day. His 
 praise added a new exultation to victory ; his 
 blame — or the mere possibility of his blame- — gave 
 a new blackness to defeat !
 
 CHAPTER V 
 
 SIR HENRY BLACKWOOD (1770-1S32) 
 
 '^^ Captain Blackwood has displayed great valour and judg- 
 7neKi, and has acquired great reno-U-'n.'' — LORD ST. \'IN*CENT. 
 
 IS there a sympathy which ties men together 
 in the bonds of friendship "\^*ithout having a 
 personal knowledge of each other ? If so (and I 
 believe it was so to yoit), I was your friend and 
 acquaintance before I saw you." These words were 
 not written by one sentimental and dreamy youth to 
 another, bitt by an admiral to a frigate-captain — by 
 Xelson, that is, to Blackwood ; by the most famous 
 seaman and the most terrible fighter the English 
 race has ever produced to a British sailor as yet 
 unknown to fame. The letter is signed " Bronte, 
 Xelson of the Nile," a title to make an English 
 seaman's blood kindle. Blackwood was only the 
 captain of the Penelope, a little 36-gim fi'igate, but 
 he had just performed one of the most audacious 
 feats of seamanship and of daring on record, and 
 Nelson, v\"hen he huars the story, forgets his rank, 
 his fame, and all the starched restraints of etiquette, 
 and writes to Blackwood like an admhing boy to 
 
 some comrade. " Your conduct and character on 
 
 106
 
 SIR HENRY BL.ACKWOOD 
 Frojn a mezzotint after i. HoppNER, R.A., /« the British Museum
 
 SIR HENRY BLACKWOOD I07 
 
 the late glorious occasion," lie says, " stamps your 
 fame beyond the reach of envy. It was like your- 
 self — it was like the Penelope" 
 
 Nelson's qualities as a letter- writer have, some- 
 how, been overlooked. How can it add to the fame 
 of a man who wins great battles that he writes 
 pretty letters ? But Nelson's letters are something 
 more than pretty. They have frankness, ease, 
 simplicity. They are hot-tempered, it is true ; they 
 blossom easily into expletives ; they are often fret- 
 ful ; they abound in conscious and humorous ex- 
 aggeration ; they reflect the breathless hurry and 
 swiftness of the writer's intellect, as well as the 
 fierce energy of his will. But, above all, they are 
 generous; and, considering the difference in rank 
 and fame of the two men, and the fact that they 
 had never met, what more generous letter was ever 
 written than that from Nelson to Blackwood, of 
 which we have quoted part. Nelson was ready to 
 take, not merely to his friendship, but to his very 
 heart, any one who could do a great and daring 
 deed. 
 
 And Blackwood's feat, which made Nelson to the 
 day of his death his ardent friend, was nothing less 
 than splendid. On March 30, 1800, the G^dllaumc 
 Tell, of 80 guns, and perliaps the most formidable 
 fighting ship left to carry the French flag, was lying 
 at anchor in Valetta harbour, with a cluster of 
 British ships outside watching her, as a committee
 
 Io8 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 of cats might watch a cornered rat. She was the 
 last surviving ship of Brueys' ill-fated fleet at the 
 Nile. She was the flagship of Rear- Admiral 
 Decres ; and Decres, for pluck and fighting skill, 
 deserves to be classed with Dupotit Thenars, who, 
 at the Nile, fought the Tonnant with half his body 
 blown away ; or with Jean Lucas, who commanded 
 the Recloutahle in the duel with the Victory at 
 Trafalgar, and bore himself in it as bravely as 
 Nelson himself. The Guillaume Tell had a crew 
 of over 900 men, and would have been a formidable 
 antagonist for any ship of equal rating under the 
 British flag. 
 
 The night of March 30 was black; a strong 
 southerly gale was blowing. A little before mid- 
 night Decres slipped his anchor, silently spread 
 his sails and made for the open sea. The great 
 ship showed no light. The gallant Frenchman 
 was making a desperate attempt to break through 
 the blockading squadron and escape, in the hope 
 that he might reach France in safety. 
 
 Blackwood, in the Feiielojjc, was keeping vigilant 
 watch immediately outside the harbour, in spite of 
 the fierce gale blowing. His lookouts were keen, 
 and presently the great Frenchman, a black, vague, 
 gliding mass, dimly visible against the black sky, 
 was discovered. The G-uillaume Tell was escaping ! 
 Blackwood ran down to an English brig of war 
 near him, hailed her, and sent her off to warn the
 
 SIR HENRY BLACKWOOD IO9 
 
 Lion, a 60-gun ship, and the Foudroyant, of 80 guns, 
 who were anchored under the lee of the land, that 
 the Frenchman had broken out. 
 
 But the gale was strong, the night was thick, 
 and, unless touch were kept with the Frenchman, 
 he would certainly escape. Blackwood promptly set 
 off in pursuit, and hung doggedly on the heels of 
 his gigantic enemy. It was a 36-gun frigate pur- 
 suing, in spite of night and the gale, a three-decker — 
 a pilot-fish, in a word, attacking a shark ! But Black- 
 wood was exactly the man for such a deed. He 
 was as cool as an icicle, as incapable of fear as a 
 sword-blade, and, above all, he was a consummate 
 seaman. He could handle the Penelope with the 
 exquisite and perfect skill with which a fine fencer 
 handles his blade. 
 
 The frigate, as it happened, was quicker, as well 
 as more agile, than the line-of-battle ship. Black- 
 wood ran boldly down upon his foe — ran down so 
 closely, indeed, that it seemed, in the blackness of 
 the night, as if the jib-boom of the Penelope would 
 scrape the stern ports of the Frenchman. Then 
 he luffed, and poured a raking broadside into his 
 adversary's quarter ; then bore up, the Penelope 
 swinging round like a top, and delivered a second 
 broadside into his adversary's port quarter. 
 
 It was a little after midnight when Blackwood 
 fired his first broadside into the great Frenchman, 
 and he kept at that business for the next four
 
 I I O NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 hours, until tlie grey dawn began to shine in the 
 east. Decres could only answer, and that very 
 uncertainly, with his stern- chasers; and for hour 
 after hour the tormented Frenchman ran on, with 
 the Penelope, handled like a yacht, dancing to and 
 fro across his stern. Decres was tempted, again 
 and again, to round -to and crush his little 
 tormentor with a blast of a single broadside; but 
 it may be doubted whether he could have caught 
 his agile foe, and, in any case, the attempt would 
 have lost precious time, and given the heavier 
 British ships a chance of overtaking him. " A 
 hundred times," says Decres in the letter in which 
 he tells the story of that strange night fight to 
 the French Admiralty, " a hundred times I was 
 tempted to manoeuvre in order to cripple my pur- 
 suer, but, as the wind blew fresh, and I observed, 
 notwithstanding the darkness of the night, several 
 ships at the extremity of the horizon in full sail 
 to support her, I knew that by lying-to I should 
 give them all time to come up, and that my escape 
 was impossible." So Decres sailed doggedly on, 
 whipped incessantly by Blackwood's fire. '' We 
 were annoyed," he says, " during the whole night 
 by this frigate, whose fire brought down our main 
 topmast about five in the morning." 
 
 As a matter of fact, the fire of the Fenelojje 
 brought down the Frenchman's main and mizzen 
 topmasts, and her mainyardarm ; and Blackwood
 
 SIR HENRY BLACKWOOD I I I 
 
 watched his foe so vigilantly, and manoeuvred so 
 cleverly, that his ship hardly sustained any damage, 
 and had only one man killed ! That a frigate of 
 36 guns could fight a line-of-battle ship having 
 80 guns for five hours, inflicting vast damage and 
 practically suffering none, is an incident it would be 
 difficult to parallel in sea warfare. 
 
 A little after five o'clock the first British ship, 
 the Lion, a 60-gun vessel, carrying a very weak 
 crew, came up and plunged gallantly into the fight. 
 Its captain, Dixon, steered between the Penelope and 
 the much-enduring Frenchman, the space being so 
 narrow that the yardarms of the two ships barely 
 cleared each other. She ran along to larboard of 
 her enemy, pouring in a furious broadside — every 
 gun was loaded with three shot — then luffed up 
 across the Frenchman's bows, the jib-boom of the 
 Guillaume Tell actually passing betwixt the main 
 and mizzen shrouds of the British ship. " Close 
 with a Frenchman, out-manceuvre a Russian," was 
 Nelson's axiom ; and the Lion certainly " closed " 
 with this particular Frenchman in very desperate 
 fashion. " The huge Guillaume Tell" as the captain 
 of the Lion afterwards described the scene, " appeared 
 of immense bulk, and full of men keeping up a 
 prodigious fire of musketry." The Lion showed 
 measureless pluck, but no ingenuity of tactics, in 
 thus closing with its enemy; and in less than an 
 hour the heavier guns of the Frenchman had almost
 
 112 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 disabled the British ship. By this time, however, 
 the Foiidroyant, commanded by Berry, came lumber- 
 ing up, with every stitch of canvas spread. Berry, 
 an impetuous and hot-headed fighter, overshot his 
 mark. He closed so ardently on the Frenchman 
 that the Foudroyanf's spare anchor almost caught 
 in the mizzen chains of the GuiUaume Tell. Berry 
 roared from his quarterdeck an exhortation to 
 " strike," and poured in his broadside at the same 
 moment, by way of emphasising his request ; but 
 as his sails were still spread, he shot clean past the 
 Frenchman, and was badly mauled by the heavy 
 guns of the Guillanme Tell, while manoeuvring 
 clumsily to get alongside his foe again. Berry, in 
 fact, was almost dismasted by the fire of his 
 enemy. 
 
 The fight raged for more than two hours; till, 
 at 8.30, the Guillaumc Tell, rolling an unmanage- 
 able hulk in the heavy sea, struck her flag. Even 
 the chilly and unenthusiastic James declares that 
 " a more heroic defence is not to be found amongst 
 the records of naval actions" than that which 
 Decres maintained for so many hours against the 
 three British ships. It is almost amusing to note 
 that neither the Lion nor the Foudroyant was able 
 to take possession of the surrendered ship. Each 
 of them was almost as much a wreck as the 
 GicUlaumc Tell itself. It was left to the Penelope, 
 that had fought longer than either of them, and
 
 SIR HENRY BLACKWOOD I I 3 
 
 against heavier odds, and with hardly any damage, 
 to take possession of the vanquished ship ; and the 
 spruce and smart Penelope actually towed the shot- 
 torn hull of the big Frenchman in triumph into 
 Syracuse. The prize was finally brought into Ports- 
 mouth, repaired, and renamed the Malta, and added 
 to the British fleet, the largest two-decker, with one 
 exception, under the British flag. But the gallant 
 Decres himself was the first to acknowledge that 
 he owed his capture to Blackwood's cool courage 
 and masterly seamanship ; and these two brave 
 men became friends for life, though fighting under 
 different flags. No wonder such a feat brought 
 fame to Blackwood ; it brought in addition what, 
 to a man of his simple and modest character, was 
 more precious than fame, the undying friendship of 
 Nelson. 
 
 Blackwood was, in brief, the prince of frigate- 
 captains. He is the only man who twice refused 
 the command of a 74 for mere joy in frigate 
 service, and in the special opportunities of fighting 
 and of distinction that service offered. After the 
 battle of the First of June, he hoisted his flag on 
 the No7isuch, of 64 guns, and exchanged that ship, 
 at his own request, for the Brilliant, of 28 guns. 
 Before Trafalgar, Nelson offered him the Revenge, 
 one of the finest line-of-battle ships in the navy ; 
 but Blackwood preferred the Euryalus, a 36-gun 
 frigate. Blackwood's consummate seamanship, his 
 
 H
 
 I 1 4 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 activity, his gift of initiative and of independent 
 action, found a field for their exercise in frigate 
 service which the quarterdeck of a Hne-of-battle 
 ship, a mere link in the chain of a fleet, could 
 never have yielded. And it is interesting to note 
 the training which produced so fine and keen a 
 seaman. 
 
 Blackwood was of that Scotch- Irish blood which 
 has given the Empire some of its greatest soldiers 
 and sailors and administrators; and he belonged 
 to the same family as the Dufferins. He com- 
 menced his sea-life when eleven years old, and 
 spent the whole of his early years as a frigate 
 middy, fighting Dutchmen and Frenchmen. He 
 was signal midshipman on board the Queen 
 Charlotte, under Lord Howe ; and in the great 
 fight of the First of June was senior lieutenant 
 of the Invincible, a ship which played a singularly 
 gallant part in that famous battle. Pakenham, 
 the captain of the Invincible, a keen judge of men, 
 detected at once in Blackwood his special quality 
 of thoroughness. " He is," he wrote to the admiral, 
 " as exact, as attentive, as capable an officer as 
 ever I met with." " Your soul is in your business," 
 Nelson wrote to him, long afterwards ; and it was 
 that quality of " putting his soul into it " that 
 made Blackwood the perfect seaman he became. 
 It is an ilhistration of the determination to make 
 the best of himself, which always characterised him.
 
 SIR HENRY BLACKWOOD I I 5 
 
 that, during one of the intervals of peace with 
 France — at the end of 1791 — he went to France, 
 being unemployed at the moment, for the sake 
 of mastering the French language. He was in 
 Paris during the September massacres, and was 
 himself arrested, and in deadly peril of his life. 
 He escaped, indeed, only because he so vividly im- 
 pressed an influential Frenchman with his truth- 
 fulness and honour that, at imminent risk to his 
 own life, the generous Frenchman undertook to 
 answer for Blackwood. He gave the first striking 
 proof of his skill and coolness as a seaman while 
 in command of the Brilliant, a stumpy little frigate 
 of 28 guns. 
 
 On July 26, 1798, the Brilliant, m. pursuit of 
 a light-heeled French privateer, stood close in to 
 the bay of Santa Cruz. The morning was hazy, 
 the wind light ; and Blackwood, as he rounded 
 the entrance to the harbour, saw two powerful 
 French frigates, the Regencrh of 40 guns, the 
 Vertu of 36, in full sail, coming out of the 
 harbour. Either of the frigates, judging by 
 weight of metal, would have been more than a 
 match for the Brilliant, and both of them together 
 were of overpowering strength. 
 
 Blackwood instantly bore away to the open sea, 
 spreading every inch of canvas, and cutting away 
 two of his heavy anchors to lighten the head of 
 his ship, and the two Frenchmen followed in eager
 
 Il6 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 and triumphant pursuit. They were swifter than 
 the stumpy Httle Brilliant, and were overtaking 
 her fast. It was the chase of a short-legged bull- 
 terrier by two coursing greyhounds. There seemed 
 to be no hope for the Brillicmt. She could neither 
 fight her pursuers nor outsail thorn. Yet Black- 
 wood escaped, with a certain air of triumph, and 
 did it by mere cool seamanship. 
 
 It was about five o'clock in the evening, the 
 wind had grown still lighter, and the Frenchmen 
 with their tall sails were coming up fast, the 
 40-gun RegenerSe leading. But a greyhound pur- 
 suing a bull-terrier runs some uncomfortable risks. 
 Blackwood had cut down the stern of his ship 
 to make room for two 9-pounders, which he 
 mounted to act as stern-chasers ; but the French- 
 men, scorning his fire, came on boldly. Blackwood 
 had already, by a sudden and clever change in his 
 course, thrown the Frenchmen a mile to leeward 
 of him, but they were now overtaking him again, 
 and were creeping up past either quarter of him. 
 " The frigate to leeward had reached abreast of my 
 mainmast," says Blackwood ; " I bore up athwart his 
 hawse, and raked him so effectually within pistol- 
 shot that in a few minutes I left him with his 
 topsails and topgallantsails down on the caps." 
 The Frenchman's bowsprit was shattered, his fore- 
 mast badly wounded. The bull-terrier, in brief, 
 had turned on the too eager greyhound and
 
 SIR HENRY BLACKWOOD 1 I 7 
 
 snapped his nose almost off! Blackwood cheer- 
 fully hauled to the wind, and the battered French- 
 man, trying too hurriedly to follow that movement, 
 his bowsprit, foremast, and maintopmast went 
 overboard. The other Frenchman was close up 
 on the other quarter of the Brilliant ; but, dis- 
 couraged by the rough treatment of its consort, 
 instead of closing on the British ship it shortened 
 sail and bore up in its wake ; and, says Blackwood, 
 " I gained so much to windward and ahead that 
 I was very soon out of gunshot." 
 
 At midnight, unhappily, the wind failed the 
 Brilliant altogether ; she lay rolling like a log on 
 the swell, while the two Frenchmen, with damages 
 hastily repaired, were coming up fast, bringing 
 the breeze once more with them. They did not 
 close on the hard-snapping Brilliant ; but, taking 
 up favourable positions, where not a gun could 
 be brought to bear on themselves, they pelted the 
 helpless Brilliant with their broadsides for nearly 
 an hour, firing at her masts in order to cripple 
 her. Presently the breeze reached the Brilliant; 
 and, by pure seamanship, Blackwood weathered 
 and fore-reached on his assailants so much that 
 he lost sight of them. The last glimpse showed 
 them discoursing to each other energetically by 
 means of rockets and false fires. As a matter of 
 fact, they were not too eager to follow the indomit- 
 able little Brilliant. The British ship had been
 
 Il8 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 pursued and bullied tlirougli a whole night by 
 two swift frigates, with more than three times 
 her weight of fire ; and, after a chase and running 
 fight of more than twelve hours, she shook her 
 enemies off, having inflicted more damage than 
 she suffered ! The feat was one calculated to rouse 
 the admiration of all sailors. His own admiral 
 wrote to Blackwood, declaring that, in his judg- 
 ment, " no more brilliant action was ever achieved." 
 St. Vincent used words at once more sober and 
 more weighty. " Captain Blackwood," he wrote, 
 " has displayed great valour and judgment, and 
 acquired great renown." 
 
 In 1803 Blackwood hoisted his flag in the 
 Euryalus, of 36 guns, a ship he was destined 
 to make more famous than even the Brilliayit or 
 the Penelope. In 1805 he was cruising in search 
 of the combined French and Spanish fleets, which 
 had broken out from Ferrol, and brushed aside 
 poor Sir Robert Calder, off Cape Finisterre. Black- 
 wood, with that vigilance and skill which never 
 failed him, watched the combined fleets into Cadiz, 
 and then, with every inch of canvas spread, brought 
 the great news to England. 
 
 On his way to London with despatches, he 
 passed Merton, where Lord Nelson lived. It was 
 five o'clock in the morning, but Blackwood stopped 
 his chaise and leaped out. " I am sure," said 
 Nelson, when he saw Blackwood's familiar face,
 
 SIR HENRY BLACKWOOD I I 9 
 
 " you bring news of the French and Spanish fleets ; 
 and I think I shall yet have to beat them. De- 
 pend upon it, Blackwood, I shall yet give Mr. 
 Villeneuve a drubbing." 
 
 When Nelson, with the great fleet that was to 
 triumph at Trafalgar, arrived off Cadiz, at the end 
 of September, he put his hand on Blackwood as 
 the man who was to keep watch on the enemy, 
 and serve as eyes and ears to the fleet. Nelson 
 himself, with all his heavy ships, maintained his 
 position twenty leagues to the west of Cadiz. He 
 placed Blackwood in command of a little squadron 
 of five frigates and four sloops ; they were to keep 
 ceaseless watch at the entrance to Cadiz harbour. 
 A line of ships connected these with Nelson, twenty 
 leagues distant, and every movement of the enemy 
 was recorded by Blackwood, and flashed down that 
 line of ships to Nelson. 
 
 Nothing is more striking than Nelson's confi- 
 dence in the alertness and vigilance of Blackwood. 
 The two men were curiously unlike each other. 
 Nelson was all fire and fret ; Blackwood had the 
 calm temper of a saint, and the gentle eyes of a 
 woman. But the Ukeness betwixt the two men 
 was even more curious than the unlikeness. " You 
 estimate as I do," wrote Nelson, " the importance 
 of not letting these rogues escape us without a fair 
 fight, which I pant for by day and dream of by 
 night. ... I am confident you will not let these
 
 I20 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 gentry slip through our fingers. . . . Watch all 
 points, and all winds and weathers. I shall depend 
 upon you." " I rely on you," he writes the next 
 day, " that we can't miss getting hold of them, 
 and I will give them such a shaking as they have 
 never yet experienced." 
 
 On the morning of October 19 there came the 
 fateful signal that " the enemy are coming out of 
 port." On the 20th the report ran that "nearly 
 forty sail of ships of war had been seen outside 
 Cadiz yesterday evening." Nelson, still grimly 
 waiting till his enemies were clear of their port, 
 sent a message down the line of the repeating ships 
 for the Euryalus : " I rely on you that I do not 
 miss the enemy." And Blackwood was worthy of 
 Nelson's trust. All that eventful night he hung 
 within half gun-shot distance of the biggest ship 
 in the enemy's fleet, which he guessed to be the 
 flagship. When the morning broke, Blackwood, 
 who, in a sense, was one of the most domestic of 
 men, and found time even among the thunders of 
 Trafalgar to write affectionate and gossiping letters 
 to his wife, wrote to that lady : " At this moment — 
 happy sight — we are within four miles of the 
 enemy, and talking to Lord Nelson by means of 
 Sir H. Popham's signals, though so distant. You 
 see, dearest, I have time to write to you and to 
 assure you that to the latest moment of my breath 
 I shall be as much attached to you as a man can
 
 Sm HENRY BLACKWOOD !2 1 
 
 be. ... I expect, before this hour to-morrow, to 
 carry General Decres " — whom Blackwood imagined 
 to be in command of the French fleet — " on board 
 the Victory in my barge, which I have just painted 
 nicely for him." Here are domestic affection, the 
 rapture of a good fight, and the humorous certainty 
 of taking the French admiral prisoner, all com- 
 pressed into as many sentences. The British sea- 
 man of that day was a very odd compound ; and, 
 where the business of fighting Frenchmen was 
 concerned, he always, with confident arithmetic, 
 counted his chickens before they were hatched. 
 
 Blackwood played an important and noble — yet 
 what he must have felt to be a highly unsatisfac- 
 tory — part in the great battle which followed. He 
 was condemned to watch one of the mightiest sea- 
 fights of all history, and to fire not a shot in it ! 
 Nelson summoned him on board the Victory, and 
 kept him there nearly six hours, only letting him 
 go when the French line began their far-heard 
 broadsides. He put Blackwood in charge of a 
 light squadron, told him the part he expected the 
 frigates to play, and authorised him to give instruc- 
 tions in his name to the rearmost line of battle 
 ships as they came up. Blackwood tried to per- 
 suade Nelson to direct the fight from the Euryahis, 
 instead of plunging personally into the heart of it 
 on the quarterdeck of the Victory, a proposal which 
 Nelson answered with a smile. As the two friends
 
 122 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 parted, Blackwood expressed the hope that before 
 nightfall Nelson would be in possession of twenty 
 prizes. "God bless you, Blackwood," was Nelson's 
 reply ; " I shall never see you more." So sure was 
 the great seaman that this Avas his last fight ; yet 
 so unshaken was his courage by that tragical pre- 
 monition. 
 
 Blackwood watched the battle of the Titans from 
 the quarterdeck of the Euryalus, with such a 
 passion of interest as may be guessed. Late in 
 the fight the Royal Sovereign, Collingwood's ship, 
 being almost dismasted, summoned the Euryalus by 
 signal to its help. " I went down among them all," 
 writes Blackwood to his wife, " and took the Royal 
 Sovereign in tow, which enabled him to keep his 
 broadside upon the enemy; all of this without 
 firing a shot from the Euryalus, which was difficult 
 to prevent. But had I permitted it, I could not 
 have performed the service." After the fight, Col- 
 lingwood shifted his flag to the Euryalus, and that 
 diligent vessel towed the huge and shot-torn hull of 
 the Royal Sovereign clear of the smoke to the east- 
 ward. For ten days Collingwood's flag, as com- 
 mander-in-chief, flew from the peak of the Euryalus, 
 and Collingwood himself wrote to Blackwood after- 
 wards : " I consider it a material part of my good 
 fortune that I embarked in your ship." Blackwood 
 thus saw more of the battle of Trafalgar, and of the 
 days that followed, when the two battered fleets —
 
 SIR HENRY BLACKWOOD 12$ 
 
 victors and vanquished — were fighting for Ufe 
 against the dreadful gale, than any other person ; 
 and there are few versions of Trafalgar at once 
 more picturesque and pathetic, as well as uncon- 
 sciously amusing, than that which Blackwood gives 
 day by day in his letters to his wife. 
 
 If he was as eager to thrash the Frenchmen as 
 Nelson, at least he was more just to them than 
 Nelson usually was. " The enemy," he writes, 
 "awaited the attack of the British with coolness, 
 and they fought in a way that must do them 
 honour. As a spectator who saw all that was done 
 on both sides, I must ever do them the justice to 
 say this . . . though I have always given them 
 more credit for vigour of determination than most 
 others." 
 
 Blackwood's picture of the fatal gale which 
 followed Trafalgar, and blew into mere space the 
 trophies of the great fight, is very graphic. On 
 Friday, the 25th, he writes: "All yesterday and 
 last night the majority of the English fleet have 
 been in the most perilous state, our ships much 
 crippled with dismasted prizes in tow, our crews 
 tired out, and many thousands of prisoners to 
 guard — all to be done with a gale of wind blow- 
 ing us right on the shore. . . . The melancholy 
 sights we experienced yesterday of ships driven on 
 shore, others burning, and the rest that we have 
 been forced to sink, after withdrawing as many men
 
 124 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 as we could for fear of their again falling into the 
 hands of the enemy, cannot be described. Close 
 to the port of Cadiz I had to destroy the Santissima 
 Trinidada, a Spanish ship of lOO guns. . . . The 
 French commander-in-chief, Villeneuve, is at this 
 moment at my elbow . . . his despair and astonish- 
 ment at so many having fallen cannot be easily 
 conceived." 
 
 Blackwood remained always a consummate sea- 
 man and commander, and perhaps the most uni- 
 versally beloved man in the navy ; but his luck 
 failed, and the interest in his career grows faint 
 after he ceased to be a frigate- captain. After 
 Trafalgar he was appointed to the Ajax, of 80 guns, 
 and brought his ship and crew up to the highest 
 point of fighting efficiency. The Ajcu: formed one 
 of the squadrons which, in 1803, forced the Dar- 
 danelles, to destroy the Turkish fleet at Constan- 
 tinople. On the night of February 14, while the 
 squadron lay at anchor off the Dardanelles waiting 
 for a fair wind for the straits, the Aj'ax took fire. 
 She was an old ship, sun-dried in every timber, and 
 she burned like a match-box. " She was burnt," 
 wrote Blackwood to his wife, " in the most extra- 
 ordinary rapid way that I believe was ever witnessed. 
 From the moment of alarm, exactly at nine o'clock, 
 when all (except sentinels and those on watch) 
 were in bed, till she Avas in flames from the 
 main to the mizzen rigging, sails and all, did not
 
 SIR HENRY BLACKWOOD I 25 
 
 exceed twenty minutes." The flame broke out in 
 the bread-room, and the ship was almost at once 
 enveloped in a smoke so thick and choking that 
 the officers and men on the upper deck could only 
 discover each other by touch. Then the flames 
 burst, red and furious, up the main hatchway, 
 dividing the fore part of the ship from the after 
 part. Blackwood's story, as written to his wife, is 
 very interesting : — 
 
 "At the first alarm of fire I heat to quarters, and 
 an ocean of ivater was soon turned in; hut hefore I 
 coidd reach the hread-room, where the origin lay, the 
 fire had gained such head we were all ohliged to retreat. 
 I succeeded in drowning the magazine, and another 
 attempt was made, till the men fell loith the hucTcets in 
 their hands. Before I could reach the quarterdeck the 
 flames hurst out of the hatchway ; I therefore found all 
 attempts to get hoats hoisted out useless, and I desired 
 all ahout me — ivhom I coidd only feel in the smoke and 
 not see — to save themselves as well as they could ; when 
 all pushed, for the head, of the ship, ivJiich, heing to 
 windward, was the safest. I stood on the gangway till 
 the crowd luas out of the way, and exhorted every one to 
 keep hy the ship till the last moment, that hoats might 
 have time to come. I then umlked to the forecastle, 
 ahoays keeping an eye on the progress of the fames ; 
 hut in going forward, not seeing my way, dow7i I fell 
 into the main deck. , . . Suffocated people lay all
 
 126 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 round. I soon gained the forecastle, where I stood for 
 some time till forced farther forward. Here, tohen on 
 the hoivsjjrit, all tvas dreadful as is possible to he con- 
 ceived ; the cries of the pcojyle, increased by the progress 
 of the fire, particularly amongst those who could not 
 swim, cannot he described. I now got on to the spritsail 
 yard, determined to wait there till the last moment, hut 
 soon it became too heavy, and I saw we must all go into 
 the ivater together, luhich would have been certain de- 
 struction ; added to which everybody became clamorous 
 that I shoidd save myself Therefore, after a few 
 minutes more, overboard I went. . . ." 
 
 Here the domesticated side of Blackwood emer- 
 ges, and, at this stage of his narrative, he inter- 
 poses an elaborate compliment to his wife. " Over- 
 board I went," he continues, " with a heart as much 
 devoted to so dear a wife as ever man's was, and 
 with the fullest sense of all her excellent and 
 superior good qualities ! I never thought I should 
 be lost. When I had been in the water about half- 
 an-hour, looking at my unfortunate ship, I fell in 
 with an oar from which some poor fellow had been 
 parted. I clung to it ; and, though much ex- 
 hausted, not dismayed in my hopes of safety." 
 Here comes another compliment to his wife : " My 
 heart and head always turned to embracing you 
 again, and which, I am persuaded, aided me in 
 supporting myself." Domestic affection, in a word,
 
 SIR HENRY BLACKWOOD I 27 
 
 acted as a sort of patent buoy. " In about a 
 quarter of an liour more," lie proceeds : — 
 
 " / fell in with one of the Canopus' hoats. They 
 pulled me in loith difUcidty, and, after a long row, 
 which ivas worse for heing so chilled with the water, 
 with a cold north-cast wind, having escaped one death, 
 all thought I had found another. I was carried on 
 hoard Sir Thomas Louis' ship, lohere I was laid in hot 
 blankets, &c., as unhappy and hroken-heartcd as a man 
 can be. . . . Having only a shirt and flannel ivaistcoat 
 on when I jumped over, you can conceive I had to levy 
 contributions, and am noio rigged out in a most extra- 
 ordinary way." 
 
 The burning Ajax drifted on the island of 
 Tenedos, where she exploded. Of her crew and 
 officers, no less than 250 perished. " So fine a 
 ship ! " writes poor Blackwood, " in so good a state 
 for any service, a crew I had been taking such 
 pains to form — how shall I ever be able to get the 
 better of it, when I recollect how many gallant 
 officers and men, as well as the boys, I had under 
 me were all hurried in so dreadful a Avay into 
 eternity ? " The gunner of the ship, who had two 
 sons on board, threw one of them into the sea, 
 where he was picked up by a boat ; but the 
 desperate father himself, going below to seek his 
 other son, perished in the flames. Blackwood had
 
 128 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 one much-cherished protege on board, Lieutenant 
 Sibthorpe, who had been one of his middies in the 
 Brilliant. " Poor Sibthorpe," writes Blackwood, " as 
 we both jumped overboard I took leave, and begged 
 he would keep as near to me as he could. But 
 from the moment he touched the water I never 
 saAv him more." Three women were on board the 
 doomed Ajax ; two perished, but the third escaped 
 by following her husband, with a child in his arms, 
 down a rope from the jib-boom end. Blackwood was 
 honourably acquitted from all blame for the loss of 
 his ship ; but to the very end of his life the tragedy 
 of that wild night when the Ajax perished cast a 
 shadow over him. 
 
 It is needless to pursue Blackwood's career further. 
 He rose to the rank of rear-admiral, was made a 
 baronet, and flew his flag as commander-in-chief in 
 the East Indies. He died in 1832 — only sixty-two 
 years of age — after a career crowded with great 
 events and rich in splendid services. Amongst all 
 the seamen of that stormy age Blackwood stands 
 high, not only for professional skill and cool daring, 
 but for a modesty, a sweetness of temper, and an 
 unselfishness rarely found in combination with the 
 hardihood and the audacious valour which mark 
 the seamen of Nelson's school.
 
 CHAPTER VI 
 
 SIR THOMAS TROUBRIDGE (1758-1807) 
 
 '■'■ Look at Troubridge ! He tacks his ship to battle as if the 
 eyes of all England were on hint; and would to God they 
 were/" — Sir John Jervis at the Battle of Cape St. 
 Vincent. 
 
 "// was Troubridge whom I left as myself at Naples; he is, 
 as a friend and an officer, a nonpareil" — Nelson. 
 
 WHO, amongst the sailors of that great age, 
 comes in popular estimation next to Nelson 
 for seamanship, for fighting quality, and for gifts of 
 leadership ? It is, for many at least, not Colling- 
 wood, who, at Trafalgar, led the weather-colunm 
 down in fashion so proud on the enemy's battle- 
 line. Not Foley, who held the pride of place in 
 the onfall at the Nile, and rounded, with such high 
 daring, the head of Brueys' line. Not the veteran 
 Saumarez, nor the gigantic Hallowell, nor Miller, 
 nor Hood, nor Codrington, nor Berry, nor Hard}^ 
 It is Troubridge ! Round Troubridge and the 
 Gulloden — man and ship — hang traditions scarcely 
 less heroic than those which have given imperish- 
 able fame to Anson and the Centurion, or to Nelson 
 and the Victory.
 
 130 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 There is a curious contrast in personal appear- 
 ance betwixt Nelson and Troubridge. Nelson, 
 measured by inches, was insignificant ; one-armed, 
 one-eyed, fretful, vehement. Troubridge took the 
 admiring eye captive by his mere presence. He 
 was of noble stature and build, with a fine stateli- 
 ness of bearing. His face, Avith its widely open, 
 lifted eyebrows, its clear lines, its massive brow, 
 bore the stamp at once of frankness and of power. 
 Troubridge was one of the best seamen in an age 
 when British seamanship had reached its highest 
 point, and when British sailors, trained and har- 
 dened by the great blockades and the interminable 
 cruises of the period, were almost as much at home 
 on the sea as the sea-gulls themselves. But he 
 was no mere sea-dog such as Smollett drew, with 
 sea-brine in his blood and sea-roughness in his 
 manner. He was educated at St. Paul's School, 
 London; he became a man of affairs, a diplo- 
 matist, an administrator. St. Vincent, shrewdest 
 of men, with a genius for picking fit instruments, 
 took Troubridge with him to the Admiralty when 
 he became First Lord ; and Troubridge showed 
 qualities as fine at the council table in Whitehall 
 as he did on the quarterdeck of the Cul/oden. 
 He perished with all his crew in a cyclone off 
 Madagascar when he was not yet fifty years of 
 age, and as he never commanded a fleet in a 
 general engagement, he had no opportunity of
 
 
 ^ 
 
 */t^-f 
 
 t V "' 
 
 v--^ 
 
 SIR THOMAS TROUBRIDGE, Bart. 
 
 From an engraving- after the />ortra!t by Sir William Beechey, P. A.
 
 SIR THOMAS TROUBRIDGE 131 
 
 proving that he possessed the highest gifts of 
 leadership. So his career, though crowded with line 
 achievements, is incomplete. But, next to Nelson, 
 scarcely any other sailor in that age of great seamen 
 gives so vividly the sense of capacity for great things. 
 Troubridge was a Londoner, born in 1758, the 
 same year with Nelson. Like Nelson, he began 
 his sea life by a voyage to the West Indies in a 
 merchant ship, with the rough forecastle for his 
 first school of seamanship. He was entered as an 
 able seaman, though only fifteen years old, on the 
 Sea Horse, in 1773. Nelson joined the Sea Horse 
 a few days after Troubridge, and thus, by a happy 
 chance, the two lads who, twenty-four years after- 
 wards, in command — one of the Culloden, and the 
 other of the Captahi — were to wreck the Spanish 
 van at Cape St. Vincent, began their naval career 
 in the same gunroom. A frigate that counted 
 Nelson and Troubridge amongst its middies had 
 surely a quite singular good fortune ! And the 
 loitering imagination is tempted to speculate, half- 
 humorously, on the problem of what sort of 
 middies — much more, it may be suspected, of the 
 Peter Simple than of the Jack Easy type — this 
 particular pair of lads were. The middies of those 
 rough days had not much, as we have seen, of 
 scientific training, but they were drilled in all the 
 practical business of seamanship with a thoroughness 
 which no naval academy or mere " training-ship "
 
 132 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 could impart. They were days of hard work and 
 living ; of rough manners, of stern discipline, of 
 long, monotonous cruises. The system killed off 
 weak men, but it had the office of a tonic for the 
 enterprising and the hardy. It tempered them as 
 steel is tempered, and to the hardness of steel. 
 
 In 1780 Troubridge, by this time master's 
 mate, was transferred to the Superb, the flagship 
 of Sir Edward Hughes, and took part in the 
 stubborn, indecisive, long-drawn-out combats in 
 Indian waters betwixt that admiral and Suffren, 
 Suffren, perhaps, was the finest sailor under the 
 French flag of that period. There was in him a 
 gleam, at least, of Nelson's own swiftness, resource, 
 and audacious courage. Had he commanded at 
 the Nile instead of Brueys, or at Trafalgar instead 
 of Villeneuve, the final result of those great fights 
 might not have been different ; but Nelson's task 
 would have been incomparably harder, and the 
 British must have paid a vastly higher price for 
 their victory. Hughes was a sea-dog of the old 
 school, with all the merits, and the defects, of his 
 type. He was a most stubborn fighter; but he 
 was old and slow. His sole idea of sea strategy 
 was to lay his ship alongside that of his opponent, 
 and fight his guns till his foe struck, or his own 
 ship went down. Suffren was ill-served by his cap- 
 tains, but he out-manoeuvred and out-sailed Hughes 
 hopelessly, if he could not out-fight him ; and he
 
 SIR THOMAS TROUBRIDGE I 33 
 
 showed a quickness and resource in repairing the 
 damages of each conflict which Nelson himself 
 might have envied, and which left the heavy- 
 footed Hughes hopelessly behind. From February 
 1782 to June 1783 — for more than fifteen 
 months, that is — Suffren and Hughes manoeuvred 
 and contended with each other for supremacy in 
 Indian waters ; and during that period they fought 
 no less than five general engagements. It was 
 a fine school for Troubridge, who, by this time, 
 was second lieutenant in Hughes' flagship ; but 
 Troubridge's best instructor was, no doubt, the 
 brilliant and agile Frenchman himself. 
 
 At the beginning of 1783, Troubridge, only 
 twenty-five years old, obtained post rank, and 
 hoisted his flag on the Active frigate. He came 
 home as flag-captain with Hughes in 1785, went 
 on half-pay when peace came, got married, and 
 spent the years betwixt 1785-90 in that peace- 
 ful country life for which a sailor always longs, 
 and with which a sailor is never satisfied. In 
 1793 war betwixt France and England broke out 
 again, and Troubridge, now in command of the 
 Castor, a 3 2 -gun frigate, sailed as convoy to the 
 Newfoundland fleet. No worse fate, apparently, can 
 befall a sailor than that of being captured by the 
 enemy at the beginning of a long war, and this 
 misfortune overtook Troubridge. 
 
 He and his convoy were becalmed off Cape
 
 134 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 Clear, the ships swinging lazily to the lazy swell, 
 when the British lookouts discovered the tojjsails 
 of half-a-dozen big ships fretting the skyline, and 
 plainly bringing the breeze with them. It was a 
 division of the Brest fleet under Admiral Nielly. 
 The Castor could not escape, and it could not 
 fight an entire squadron of line-of -battle ships. 
 Troubridge, with a disgust too deep for expletives, 
 had to haul down his flag, and found himself, with 
 the fifty men of his crew, packed in the gloomy 
 depths of the Sanspdreil as prisoners of war. 
 
 This was on May 13, and the incident seemed 
 to brmg Troubridge's naval career to an inglorious 
 close. As a matter of fact, this very " disaster " 
 was, for Troubridge, the happiest stroke of good 
 fortune. Nielly received orders to join Villaret- 
 Joyeuse, who w^as guarding the track of the great 
 convoy from America ; and within a fortnight from 
 Troubridge's capture, he was looking over the tall 
 bulwarks of the ^Sanspareil with longing eyes at the 
 spectacle of Lord Howe's fleet, with bellying sails, 
 trying to fore-reach on Yillaret - Jojeuse's great 
 ships. On June i, in the grey dawn, Howe had 
 got well to windward of his foe, and could compel 
 the Frenchman to fight. Instead of bearing down 
 at once, however, the British ships hauled off; 
 and on board the Sanspareil the French oflicers 
 expended much exultant sea-wit at the expense 
 of Lord Howe, on Troubridge. His quick and
 
 SIR THOMAS TKOUBRIDGE I 35 
 
 trained eje. however, had seen the breakfast 
 pennant flying from the topmast of the Qu'Cen 
 Charlotte, Howe's flagship. That wary old admiral 
 was giving his crews a good meal before he closed 
 on his enemy in battle ; and Troubridge told the 
 jesting Frenchmen that they would have " a belly- 
 fed of fightiog " before the day was over. 
 
 As the hostile Hnes drew near each other 
 Troubridge was sent below, and had to listen 
 while sea and ship were shaken with the sound 
 of quick-following and mighty broadsides. The 
 San-spareil fared ill in the fight. TTie Glory, a 
 British ship of 98 guns, smote it with a 
 dreadful fire, and later the Majestic added her 
 broadsides to the iron hail by which the French- 
 man was being shattered. Troubridge listened — 
 with what feehngs may be imagined — to all the 
 tmnult of the fight. His seaman's ear could inter- 
 pret the meaning of the various pulses of mighty 
 sound. He heard the foremast of the Saiisparcil 
 tumble in thunder on to the deck above him. 
 The mainmast went next. Troubridge was him- 
 seh* leaning against the mainmast at that exact 
 moment ; as the roar of another broadside swept 
 over the ship he felt the mast quiver violently to 
 the stroke of the rushing iron; the next moment 
 followed the crash of the falling mast as it went 
 by the board. Troubridge was almost thrown 
 down by the shock. Recovering his balance, he
 
 136 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 sprang upon the astonished sentry, half-embraced 
 and half-strangled him, flung him aside, raced on 
 deck, and saw at a glance the whole landscape of 
 the great fight. The British were triumphant. 
 On every side French ships — mere mastless hulks 
 — were rolling in the swell. From the stern of 
 the Sanspareil itself the Union Jack was fluttering. 
 The Frenchman had struck. With what a tumult 
 of excited gladness Troubridge shook the hand of 
 the lieutenant of the Majestic, who first clambered 
 over the broken bulwarks of the Sayispareil to take 
 possession of it, can be imagined. 
 
 Howe had no ofiicers to spare, and he put 
 Troubridge in command of the prize. This was 
 turning the tables with a vengeance, and Trou- 
 bridge, who a few weeks before had left port 
 in command of a 3 2 -gun frigate on ignoble 
 convoy duty, came proudly back into Spithead in 
 command of perhaps the finest three-decker in 
 the French navy as a prize. The Sanspareil, 
 measured by tonnage, and when compared with 
 modern ships, may not seem very great. She 
 was a ship of only 2242 tons. But she was one 
 of the largest ships then afloat, and carried a 
 complement of 814 men, of whom, by the way, 
 no less than 380 were killed or wounded by the 
 broadsides of the Glory. Troubridge was at once 
 appointed to the Culloden, the ship with which he 
 was to win a long-enduring fame.
 
 SIR THOMAS TROUBRIDGE I 37 
 
 Troubridge's first experience in the Culloden 
 were not of a very brilliant cliaracter. He was 
 attached to the Channel fleet, from thence he was 
 transferred to the Mediterranean, and took part under 
 Hotham in the action off Hyeres on July 14, 
 1795. Hotham took his fleet into action in bad 
 order and with a divided mind, and drew oi^" just 
 when reasonable success was in sight. It was 
 not a battle, but a scratching match. The total 
 loss of the British fleet amounted to eleven killed 
 and twenty-seven wounded. Troubridge contrived 
 to get more than his fair share of the wretched 
 fight, and the Culloden lost a mast ; but the engage- 
 ment off Hyeres is a very excellent example of 
 all that a sea-ficrht ought not to be. Hotham was 
 certainly hampered by old and slow ships, the 
 oldest and slowest being the Britannia, from which 
 his own flag flew. But he himself was slower, if 
 not older, than the worst ship in his fleet. 
 
 Troubridge now came under the fla? of Jervis, 
 who was in command of the Mediterranean, and 
 was training that fine fleet — perhaps the finest that 
 ever flew the blood-red flag of England — which 
 was afterwards to win the memorable fight off Cape 
 St. Vincent. Jervis was the grimmest of men, and 
 had an amazing economy in compliments ; but he 
 had a great commander's gift for choosing fit 
 instruments, and he quickly realised Troubridge's 
 fine qualities. " His merits," he wrote in one
 
 138 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 despatch, " are very uncommon." Of the manner 
 in which Troubridge performed a bit of work en- 
 trusted to him, he wrote again : " I do not recol- 
 lect an instance of greater vigour and despatch." 
 When blockading Toulon, Jervis gave Troubridge 
 the command of the light squadron watching the 
 very mouth of the harbour, while the heavy ships 
 kept in the offing. He records that Troubridge 
 " keeps the batteries in a continual blaze." In 
 Jervis' fleet the whole standard of discipline, order, 
 and fighting efficiency steadily rose, and no ship was 
 a more perfect instrument of battle, perhaps, than 
 the Culloden under Troubridofe. 
 
 One striking proof of Troubridge's resource and 
 seamanship belongs to this period. Just before 
 the great fight, two British line-of-battle ships, the 
 Colossus and the Cullodeii, managed to run into each 
 other. It was the morning of February 1 2 ; the 
 night still black, the sea rough. The Colossiis kept 
 her wind too long, so that the Culloden had to bear 
 up in order to clear her ; the Colossus suddenly bore 
 up too, and the two great ships crashed into each 
 other. The Culloden was reduced to a state of 
 semi- wreck; her jib-boom and foretop-gallant-mast 
 were wholly carried away ; her " nose " was smashed, 
 and her bowsprit badly sprung. The damage would 
 have sent any ship under an ordinary captain 
 into port for repairs. But the Spanish fleet was 
 somewhere to windward, and Troubridge, with the
 
 SIR THOMAS TEOUBRIDGE I 39 
 
 whisper of a great coming battle already creeping 
 over the sea, was not the man to give up his 
 place in the fighting line for any argument short 
 of actual shipwreck. He sternly enforced order 
 on the Culloden, set all hands to work, and pushed 
 on the repairs with admirable system and energy. 
 When the day broke the ship still looked half 
 dismantled, but by the afternoon of the same day 
 Troubridge reported her " ready for action," and 
 she was actually sent ahead as an outlook. So, 
 from the very disaster of the foul with the Colossus, 
 Troubridge, by the magic of his energy and sea- 
 manship, won the great chance of his life. He 
 led the British fleet into action at Cape St. 
 Vincent. 
 
 The Spaniards were running an eastward course 
 for Cadiz; Jervis' course, slightly west of south, 
 was almost perpendicular to that of the Spaniards ; 
 and exactly where the leading ship, the Culloden, 
 struck the Spanish line, there was a wide gap. 
 Jervis' plan was to go about as soon as his main 
 body had passed through this gap, and his van 
 to attack the windward division of the Spanish 
 fleet, while his rear forbade the leeward division 
 of the Spaniards to come to the assistance of 
 their comrades. 
 
 When leading through the gap Troubridge held 
 on his course with unswerving resolution, and it 
 seemed probable that he would run actually foul
 
 I40 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 of the last sliip in the windward division of the 
 Spanish fleet — a huge three-decker. His first 
 lieutenant, with some concern, drew his captain's 
 attention to the threatened colhsion. " Can't help 
 it, Griffiths," was Troubridge's reply ; " let the 
 weakest fend off ! " And the Culloden stood on 
 till, through the huge square ports in the Spaniard's 
 side, the eager British seamen could see the crews 
 of the Spanish guns at their quarters ready to 
 fire. But Troubridge was quick, and the Spaniard 
 slow; and the great three-decker could only 
 answer with an agitated splutter of guns the two 
 dreadful double-shotted broadsides, " fired as if by 
 a seconds'-watch," with which Troubridge smote 
 her. The great Spaniard reeled under the stroke 
 of those broadsides. The business of stopping the 
 CuUuden was too much for her, and she left the 
 gap clear for the Englishman. 
 
 Troubridge led magnificently. He was watching 
 for the expected signal to tack so keenly, that the 
 moment the little black balls showed above the 
 flagship's netting, the Culloden went round like a 
 top. " Look at Troubridge ! " cried the delighted 
 admiral. " He takes his ship to battle as though 
 the eyes of all England were upon him ; and would 
 to God they were ! " 
 
 But as the British fleet, link by link, swept 
 through the gap and bore up, it left the sea 
 clear in its rear ; and the leading ships in the
 
 SIR THOMAS TROUBRIDGE 141 
 
 Spanish windward division suddenly tacked and 
 came with bellying sails down before the wind, 
 with the design of passing Jervis' rear and joining 
 their leeward ships. Nelson, who, in the Captain, 
 was almost the last — the thirteenth — ship in 
 Jervis' line, caught the sudden change in the 
 course of the Spaniards. He read with the keen 
 vision of a great commander the design of the 
 Spanish admiral, the peril of it, the way to defeat 
 it. He put the Captain about and bore up — a 
 single ship against a fleet !— in the track of the 
 on-coming Spanish flagship, a huge four-decker, 
 with its sister-giants. Troubridge from the head 
 of Jervis' line, and Nelson from its rear, thus 
 struck almost simultaneously into the heart of the 
 Spanish fleet. Of Nelson's part in the fight, in 
 which a single 74 had to endure for a time the fire 
 of five ships — one of them of 130 guns and two of 
 1 1 2 guns — there is no need to give any account 
 here. The Captain was quickly reduced to the 
 condition of a wreck, but it had done its work. 
 It had stayed the rush of the Spanish van ; and, 
 when the fight with its tumult moved off. Nelson, 
 by way of postscript to the story, boarded and 
 carried the San Nicolas and the San Josef of 1 1 2 
 guns. 
 
 When writing the story afterwards, Nelson re- 
 cords : "I was immediately joined and most nobly 
 supported by the Culloden under Captain Trou-
 
 142 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 bridge." How Troubridge came into tlie fray, and 
 how he bore himself in it, is, indeed, a gallant tale, 
 which we have no time to tell. The Culloden was 
 reduced to almost as battered a condition as the 
 Captain ; her masts and hull were pierced through 
 and through with Spanish shot ; five of her guns 
 were dismounted, fifty-seven of her crew killed or 
 wounded. It is a proof of Troubridge's fighting 
 energy that in that comparatively brief period of 
 the fight he expended no less than 170 barrels of 
 gunpowder on his enemies. How a kindling story 
 can be translated into a drab- coloured and limping 
 prose may be judged from the record of this great 
 fight in the Culloden s log : — 
 
 "11.30, began to engage. Set the foresail, 
 main - topmast staysail, and mainsail. Tacked 
 ship in chase of the enemy. . . . 12.45, began 
 the action again. Shortened sail, being abreast of 
 one three-decker and one 7 4 -gun, and one three- 
 decker on our larboard bow. The Blenheim on 
 our larboard quarter without his foresail set, and 
 backing his mizzen - topsail occasionally, distance 
 about half a cable's length. Found the jibstay, 
 halliards, and all the rigging about the jib-booms 
 shot to pieces, by which we lost the jib and part of 
 the gear. . . . Observed one of the enemy's line-of- 
 battle ships strike to the Excellent. 3.5, observed 
 the Spanish admiral's ship much damaged and very 
 much disabled. Z-?>7> observed the Captain boarded
 
 SIR THOMAS TROUBRIDGE 1 43 
 
 two of the line-of-battle ships and hauled down 
 their colours. 4.40, the action ceased. After the 
 action ceased found the foremast, mainmast, main- 
 yard, maintopm.ast, spritsail yard, main and mizzen- 
 topgallant-mast, studdingsail booms and spare main- 
 topmast and spars on the boom shot through ; the 
 sails, standing and running rigging very much cut. 
 A number of shots through the sides above and 
 below water. Ship very leaky from the shot under 
 water, which kept two chain-pumps going. Em- 
 ployed knotting and splicing the rigging and 
 setting the topsails. Carpenters fishing the main- 
 yard." 
 
 The attack on Santa Cruz was the one dramatic 
 failure in Nelson's sea career ; it is the one incident, 
 too, in which Troubridge comes under the charge 
 of failure. It might seem, at first, as if the dash on 
 Santa Cruz ought to have succeeded. Nelson was 
 in command ; Hood, Fremantle, Bowen, and Trou- 
 bridge were amongst his captains. The sailors were 
 the men of Cape St. Vincent. But Nelson was re- 
 fused the troops he needed for the land attack, and 
 the very nature of the coast — with its rocky, un- 
 sheltered beach, its furious breakers, its sudden 
 gusts of wind — made a boat-landing almost im- 
 possible. The Spaniards had 8000 troops with 
 forty guns in the town, and were keenly alert. The 
 attempt failed ; and, though it sounds like a 
 paradox, it would probably have succeeded if
 
 144 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 Nelson had been, not first in command, but only 
 second ! In that case he would have commanded 
 the first landing party, and would certainly have 
 seized the hills which overlooked the forts, and 
 made a dash on the forts themselves. As it 
 happened, Troubridge commanded the landing 
 party. He had i ooo seamen under his command ; 
 but with such a force to assault heavily armed 
 forts held by 8000 Spaniards and forty guns, 
 seemed madness, Troubridge would have faced 
 such odds on the quarterdeck of the Culloden ; but 
 his genius seemed to suffer a chill in land warfare. 
 He abandoned the attempt, and re-embarked his 
 men. " Had I been of the first party," Nelson said 
 afterwards, " I have reason to believe complete suc- 
 cess would have crowned our endeavours." Nelson 
 led the second attack in person ; but he did it be- 
 cause he could not endure the ignominy of giving 
 up the expedition without having fired a shot. As 
 he said afterwards, " I never expected to return." 
 
 The night attack on Santa Cruz was, indeed, one 
 of the most gallant feats ever attempted in war; 
 and Troubridge's part in it is almost absurd in its 
 audacious daring. Nelson himself was shot in the 
 very act of leaping on the mole, and was carried 
 back desperately wounded to his ship. Out of the 
 whole expedition, flung in darkness on that wild 
 shore, under the flames of the Spanish guns, only 
 some 300 men under Troubridge succeeded in
 
 SIR THOMAS TROUBRIDGE I45 
 
 scrambling out of the surf, to land half drowned 
 and with their ammunition spoiled. Troubridge 
 took his men forward ; the mole was carried, with 
 the fort covering it, and Troubridge and his be- 
 draggled bluejackets fought their way to the 
 appointed rendezvous, the great square of the town. 
 Here was a handful of British sailors, with 
 ammunition useless and retreat cut off, in the 
 heart of a hostile town held by 8000 troops ! 
 Troubridge sent a man forward to demand the 
 immediate surrender of the citadel. When this 
 was refused and his messenger shot, he then at- 
 tempted to carry the citadel by storm. When this, 
 in turn, failed, he sent forward a flag of truce de- 
 claring that he would burn the town if he was not 
 allowed to march off unmolested. The Spaniards 
 received this message with an impulse of almost 
 pious gratitude. To get rid of such disquieting 
 visitors on any terms was delightful. Troubridge 
 marched off and re-embarked, having at least shown 
 for how much resolution counts in war. He had no 
 powder, no provisions, no boats, only his own un- 
 quenchable daring. Mahan says that Troubridge's 
 failure to attack on the first landing showed that 
 he lacked a true genius for command, the capacity 
 for taking a great decision such as Nelson showed 
 at Cape St. Vincent ; and he concludes that though 
 invaluable as a subordinate he was not equal to 
 the responsibility of supreme command. But 
 
 K
 
 146 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 not Nelson himself could have shown a higher 
 degree of coolness and audacity than Troubridge 
 showed in bringing off his men from the great 
 square of Santa Cruz. 
 
 Troubridge next makes his appearance in the 
 great drama of the Nile. He was Nelson's right 
 hand, the most eager and most trusted of all his 
 captains, in the fierce and memorable pursuit of 
 Brueys — perhaps the most wonderful sea-chase in 
 history. When, late on August i, 1798, the 
 naked topmasts of the French ships, showing like 
 a fringe of lances against the sky, were seen across 
 the low shores of Aboukir Bay, the Cidlodeii — 
 with all its terrible fighting power, a slow ship 
 — was far astern, its natural slowness increased 
 by the circumstance that it was towing a prize. 
 The prize was at once cast loose and every inch 
 of canvas spread. But the wind was light, the 
 sun was sinking, and the Gulloden was still far off 
 in the offing when, at a quarter past six o'clock, 
 Foley, in the Goliath, rounded the head of the 
 French line and poured his broadside — the opening 
 note in the stormy chorus of the battle — into the 
 bows of the Giterrier. The crew of the Gulloden 
 caught the deep and rolling sound of that first 
 broadside as it swept over sea and land; but it 
 was dark before the Gulloden put her helm down 
 to round the tail of the Becqui^res shoal, and
 
 SIR THOMAS TROUBRIDGE 1 47 
 
 take its place in the fighting line. Before him, 
 a dancing scribble of flame on the blackness, Trou- 
 bridge could see the broadsides of the contending 
 ships. The long tail of Brueys' line was unlit by 
 any flash of guns, but on his centre and van, like 
 a vast pair of flaming nut-crackers, the double line 
 of British ships was closing. 
 
 How the Culloclcn, with its perfect discipline 
 and formidable broadsides, would have borne itself 
 in that battle of giants may be guessed. But at 
 that moment the great ship grounded heavily on 
 a projecting spur of the shoal, and the suddenly 
 arrested hull leaned over to the pressure of the wind- 
 filled sails till the ship lay almost on its beam ends. 
 
 The hours that followed were perhaps the 
 blackest in Troubridge's life. The long sea-chase 
 had reached its climax. His brother-captains, 
 with Nelson, were closing on the Trenchmen. 
 Land and sea were trembling to the thunder of 
 their guns. Troubridge could see and hear it all, 
 but he could not share it. His ship was hopelessly 
 aground. 
 
 The Lcandcr hailed through the darkness to 
 know if she could render any help, and sent a boat 
 on board the stranded ship to learn the condition 
 of affairs. But Troubridge was too generous a 
 man, as well as too good a captain, to keep a 
 comrade out of the fight, and he told Thompson,
 
 148 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 tlie commander of the Leamlcr, " to lose no time 
 in joining in the fleet." Tradition has it that 
 twice during that dreadful night, distracted beyond 
 endurance by finding himself on the fiery edge of 
 a battle in which he could not join, Troubridge 
 contemplated — or attempted — suicide. But the 
 tradition may be dismissed as a fable. Troubridge 
 bore himself during the long hours the Oulloden 
 was stranded like the perfect seaman he was. He 
 launched his boats and took soundings all round 
 the ship ; carried out a stream anchor into deep 
 water, and hove upon it with the whole strength 
 of his crew. He jettisoned a vast amount of stores 
 and provisions, started the wine into the coal-hole, 
 threw the empty wine pipes overboard, &c. The 
 swell by this time was growing fiercer, the ship 
 struck heavily again and again. Its rudder was 
 carried away. The water was pouring into the 
 torn hull, and rose five feet per hour. At three 
 o'clock the next day the sorely wounded ship was 
 dragged off the reef, and then the water was rising 
 at the rate of seven feet per hour, and every available 
 hand was at the pumps. Perhaps only Troubridge 
 could have kept the shattered Culloden afloat. A 
 sail was thrummed and passed beneath the hull; 
 a rudder was improvised out of a spare topmast. 
 " Troubridge saved the Culloden" wrote Nelson 
 afterwards, " when none that I know in the service
 
 SIR THOMAS TROUBRIDGE T49 
 
 would have attempted it." Troubridge, in fact, 
 patched up the Culloden suflSciently to be able to 
 take her to Naples, where she was refitted. 
 
 With what generous indignation Nelson protested 
 against Troubridge and the Culloden being left out 
 of the honours granted to the victors of the Nile is 
 matter of history. He considered Troubridge had 
 suffered enough by being kept out of the fight. He 
 had been condemned to see his comrades " in the 
 full tide of happiness " — engaged, that is, in a life 
 and death struggle with their natural enemies the 
 French — while he himself was denied any share of 
 that bliss ! " For heaven's sake, for my sake," he 
 pleaded with Lord St. Vincent that Troubridge 
 should be equally honoured with his other captains ; 
 and by special favour of the King the gold medal 
 of the Nile was granted to him. But Troubridge 
 always looked back on those nine hours during 
 which the Culloden was thumping on the Becqui^res 
 shoal in sight of the great battle as the most un- 
 happy hours of his life. 
 
 From the Nile to the end of 1800 Troubridge 
 spent mainly in Italian waters. These were the 
 dark years of Nelson's life ; years in which he came 
 under the influence of that somewhat over-plump 
 beauty. Lady Hamilton ; and the great sailor showed 
 he possessed some, at least, of a sailor's characteristic 
 simphcity and softness where the sex is concerned.
 
 I50 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 But while Nelson was breathing the enervating 
 airs of the Neapolitan court, Troubridge was busy 
 in a manlier fashion. He was besieging the castle 
 of St. Elmo, driving the French out of Caprea 
 and Gaeta, or in command of the blockade of Malta. 
 At this point, too, a subtle note of discord crept 
 into the friendship betwixt Troubridge and his 
 admiral. Nelson, indeed, praised with generous 
 and characteristic exaggeration Troubridge's per- 
 formances in storming castles, &c. " On land," 
 he assured Lord Spencer, " the captain of the 
 CuUoden is a first-rate general ! " But the winds 
 that blow over the quarterdeck are healthier than 
 the infected air of a court ; and Troubridge felt the 
 generous anger of a manly nature as he watched 
 his famous admiral soiling his fame amid the 
 flatteries and frivolities of the court of King Fer- 
 dinand. 
 
 Troubridge warned Nelson, with sailor-like frank- 
 ness, of the mischief he was doing to his own 
 reputation ; and the warnings had the result that 
 might be expected. Nelson could forgive his frank- 
 spoken subordinate ; but Lady Hamilton hated him 
 with an offended woman's long-enduring spite. 
 
 Early in 1800 Troubridge was captain of the 
 Channel fleet off Brest, under Lord St. Vincent, 
 and through the November gales of that year he 
 showed a hardihood and seamanship which moved
 
 SIR THOMAS TROUBRIDGE I 5 I 
 
 the unstinted admiration of even St. Vincent's 
 rugged nature. In February iSoi, St, Vincent 
 went to the Admiralty, and he took Troubridge with 
 him as his first sea Lord, a rare compliment to the 
 range and scale of Troubridge's qualities. To step 
 from the quarterdeck of the Culloden to the council 
 chamber at Whitehall ; to exchange the wide sea 
 horizon for the narrow walls of the Admiralty office, 
 was an experience which would have sadly tried 
 the qualities of most men. But Troubridge showed 
 himself not only a great sailor but a man of affairs, 
 a cool and wise administrator. Yet he probably 
 found the years betwixt 1 80 1-4 the most trying 
 period of his whole career. He had to fight Eng- 
 lish contractors instead of French three - deckers, 
 and found the combat much less glorious and in- 
 finitely the more exhausting of the two. In these 
 days, too, the discord betwixt Nelson and himself — 
 on Nelson's part at least — grew shrill. Troubridge, 
 instead of receiving orders, gave them ; and Nelson, 
 who was always impatient of Admiralty control, 
 found these orders still more trying when they 
 came from the lips of his old sea-comrade and 
 subordinate. 
 
 Troubridge's friendly advice, oddly enough, ex- 
 asperated Nelson more than even his official orders. 
 When Nelson was watching the French flotilla in 
 the bitter Channel gales, and complaining loudly —
 
 152 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 and no doubt justly — of the sufferings of his 
 emaciated body, Troubridge wrote recommending 
 him to " wear flannel shirts." Nelson treated this 
 as a deadly insult. " He is, I suppose, laughing at 
 me," he wrote ; " but never mind." " The great 
 Troubridge," he wrote again, in all the vehemence 
 of italics, " has coived the spirits of Nelson. But I 
 shall never forget it." 
 
 In April 1805, Troubridge, flying the flag of a 
 rear-admiral, was sent out to the East Indies to 
 take command in all the waters east of Point de 
 Galle. He took as his flagship the Blenheim, an 
 old and battered vessel, which, as a three-decker, 
 had played a part in famous battles, but which 
 Avas now cut down to a 74, and was destined 
 to be Troubridge's cofiin. At the coast of Mada- 
 gascar Troubridge, with ten Indiamen under his 
 convoy, stumbled across Admiral Linois in the 
 Marengo, a fine three-decker, with two heavily- 
 armed frigates. Linois mistook the Blenheim itself 
 for a fat Indiaman, and bore confidently down to 
 its capture. The Marengo and one of the French 
 frigates — the Belle Poule — actually opened fire on 
 the Blenheim, expecting to see her flag go fluttering 
 down. There was a heavy swell on, and the Blen- 
 heim, rolling deeply, could not open her main-deck 
 ports. But she shot so fiercely with her upper-deck 
 guns that Linois was quickly persuaded that this
 
 SIR THOMAS TROUBRIDGE I 53 
 
 was no commercial-minded Indiaman, and he drew 
 off and left the leaky, but hard-hitting Blenheim 
 with her convoy untroubled. 
 
 Troubridge's orders were to take over part of the 
 command of Sir Edward Pellew, who was com- 
 mander-in-chief in India and China ; but Pellew 
 objected to the arrangement as impolitic. The 
 dispute was referred to the Admiralty, whose deci- 
 sion proved to be in favour of Pellew, and Trou- 
 bridge was ordered to hoist his flag as commander- 
 in-chief at the Cape. 
 
 The battered old Blenheim, meanwhile, had been 
 ashore in the Straits of Malacca, an experience 
 which did not add to her seaworthiness. Her 
 captain, Bissell, declared it to be impossible to keep 
 her afloat till she reached the Cape ; but the man 
 who had refitted his ship at sea the day before the 
 battle of Cape St. Vincent, and who kept the 
 Culloden afloat after bumping for nine hours on the 
 rocky shoal of Aboukir island, had learned to scorn 
 sea-risks of every kind. He probably felt he could 
 navigate a sieve to the Cape ! And the Blenheim 
 was very much in the condition of a sieve. Such 
 was the confidence in Troubridge's seamanship, 
 however, that many Indian officials returning to 
 England sought berths eagerly in even the leaky 
 and groaning Blenheim, since it flew Troubridge's 
 flagr.
 
 154 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 Troubridge sailed from Madras on January 1 2, 
 1807, having under his flag the Java, a captured 
 Dutch frigate nearly as old and unseaworthy as the 
 Blenheim itself, and the Harrier, a brig of war. On 
 February i,less than three weeks afterwards — when 
 the three ships were off the coast of Madagascar — 
 they were caught in a cyclone. The Harrier, a fine 
 sea-boat, rode out the gale safely; but when the 
 cyclone had blown itself out, and sky and sea were 
 clear again, both the Blenheim and the Java had 
 vanished. A glimpse was caught of them by the 
 lookouts of the Harrier when the cyclone was at 
 its fiercest. The huge and clumsy hull of the 
 Blenheim showed black against the grey of the 
 wind-torn clouds ; but she lay with slanting decks 
 and torn canvas almost on her beam ends. A 
 screen of driving rain hid the two ships, and they 
 were never seen again. The bravest of English 
 seamen, with his gallant crew of over 500 men, 
 had perished, and the Jai^a shared the san 3 fate. 
 No fragment of either ship was ever recovered. 
 
 It was fitting that the sea, '•' that vast ajid 
 wandering grave," should be the sepulchre of Trou- 
 bridge. It had been for over thirty years his 
 school, his home, the field of his fame. Yet — even 
 after well-nigh a century has gone — it kindles a 
 sharp pang of pathetic regret to picture Troubiidge 
 — who had played so gallant a part in great ev3nts,
 
 SIR THOMAS TROUBRIDGE I 5 5 
 
 who liad led the British fleet so proudly into battle 
 on the great day of Cape St. Vincent — standing on 
 the slanting quarterdeck of the sinking Blenheim-, 
 while the grey and driving mists of the cyclone 
 closed round hina, and the war-battered ship and 
 the great sailor went down together.
 
 CHAPTER VII 
 
 SIR BENJAMIN HALLOWELL (CAREW) (1760-1834) 
 
 " That brave fellow Hallozuell." — LORD HoOD. 
 
 " Why is Captain Hallowell omitted? He rendered more 
 service than almost ajiy other officer." — Nelson. 
 
 AMONGST Nelson's captains there towers one 
 ^ »■ gigantic figure, with the stature of a life- 
 guardsman, the limbs of an athlete, and face which 
 is only redeemed from that of a prize-fighter by 
 the quizzical eyes that look out from it, and the 
 lines of humour and good-nature with which it 
 is stamped. Hallowell and Nelson, put side by 
 side, offered an almost absurd physical contrast. 
 Hallowell could almost have put Nelson in his 
 pocket. The boyish stature of the one, the half- 
 blinded face, the maimed and attenuated body, make 
 the giant height and massive limbs of the other 
 only more notable. Yet, perhaps, upon none of 
 his captains did Nelson stamp more sharply many, 
 at least, of his characteristics — his vehement fight- 
 ing impulse, his habit of swift decision, his confident 
 expectation of victory — than upon Hallowell. They 
 had shared together the perils and hardships of 
 
 IS6
 
 
 \ 
 
 
 SIR BENJAMIN HALLOWELL (CAREW)
 
 SIR BENJAMIN HALLOWELL I 57 
 
 the siege of Calvi. They had slept in the trenches, 
 and toiled in the batteries, side by side. Hallowell, 
 in fact, shared with Nelson the command of the 
 batteries, each in tm'n taking duty for twenty-four 
 hours consecutively. Hallowell was then a young 
 commander, little over thirty; Nelson was two 
 years older, and the gigantic young Canadian — 
 for Hallowell was born in Canada — caught a spark 
 of Nelson's fiery spirit, which burned in him to the 
 very end of his career. 
 
 Hallowell, however, was no mere water-colour 
 copy of Nelson. There was in him a salt of 
 originality, of humour, of unconventional indepen- 
 dence, which gives him quite a separate place in 
 the great brotherhood of Nelson's captains. It was 
 as though he brought with him to the gun-room 
 and the quarterdeck a breath from Canadian back- 
 woods. 
 
 An incident on the morning of the great fight 
 off Cape St. Vincent, illustrates Hallowell's free 
 spirit and unconventional humour. He was with- 
 out a ship, and was a supernumerary on Jervis' 
 quarterdeck. The day had broken ; the Spanish 
 fleet, a long irregular line, seemed to fill the whole 
 sea horizon. Jervis himself, with bent head and 
 grim face, was staring at his enemies from under 
 his slanting eyebrows. His flag-captain, Calder, 
 was anxiously counting the Spanish ships. The
 
 158 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 number he announced, mounted steadily, till at 
 last, with a voice that had in it a quiver of 
 anxiety, he declared the number to bo twenty- 
 seven, and ho reminded Jervis that he had only 
 fifteen under his Hag. 
 
 " Enough of that, sir," cried Jervis impatiently. 
 " The die is cast ! And if there are fifty sail I 
 will go through them." 
 
 Hallowell stood towering amongst the group of 
 officers on the quarterdeck ; and when he heard 
 Jervis' harsh voice uttering that fateful sentence, 
 he slapped the great admiral on the back, exclaim- 
 ing in his great voice : 
 
 "That's right. Sir John! And, by G — , we'll 
 give them a d — d good licking ! " 
 
 Now, in that fleet — the finest fleet. Nelson him- 
 self said, the sea ever carried — there were, no 
 doubt, hundreds who welcomed the approach of 
 battle with a delight as vehement as that of 
 Hallowell. But it may be confidently said there 
 was no second man in the whole fleet who would 
 have ventured to slap Sir John Jervis — that 
 grimmest of admirals — publicly on the back, on 
 his own quarterdeck, by way of showing that he 
 approved of his resolve to fight. 
 
 Who beside Hallowell, again, would have sent 
 Nelson, in the very fulness of his fame, that strange 
 present of a coffin — its wood taken from the
 
 SIR BENJAMIN HALLOWELL I 59 
 
 mast of the Orient, its nails liammered from the 
 iron bolts of vanquished Brueys' flagship ! Hal- 
 lo well explained he sent it, " that when you are 
 tired of this life, you may be buried in one of yom- 
 own trophies." But it may be guessed that 
 behind this strange gift there was something 
 better than a jest, or a whimsical caprice. Nelson 
 at that moment was falling visibly under the 
 baleful influence of Lady Hamilton. Naples was 
 proving his Capua. And Hallowell's humour shaped 
 this strange gift to Nelson as both a rebuke and 
 an appeal. It was as though, for a moment, 
 an echo of the deep thunders of the Nile sent 
 its vibration through the poisoned atmosphere of 
 the Sicilian court. 
 
 Hallowell's career was both long and picturesque. 
 He was born in Canada in 1760; entered the 
 navy at an age when modern boys are playing 
 at kindergarten games, and struck his flag as 
 commander-in-chief at the Nore in 1824. He 
 fought in American waters under Sir Samuel Hood 
 as a very youthful lieutenant; cruised for sweltering 
 months on the African coast ; shared with Nelson, 
 as we have seen, in the sieges of Bastia and Calvi ; 
 commanded a 74 in that miserable scratching- 
 match under Hotham, called the fight off Hyeres ; 
 saw the battle of Cape St. Vincent from the 
 British flagship's quarterdeck ; took part in sieges,
 
 l6o NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 in desperate frigate actions, in yet more desperate 
 boat attacks ; was shipwrecked ; was captured ; 
 played a shining part in tlie great fight of the 
 Nile ; tasted the bitterness of failure in the second 
 expedition to Egypt under General Fraser, and 
 knew a still more bitter disgust by missing the 
 great Armageddon of Trafalgar, his ship, the Tigre, 
 being one of the little squadron detached to 
 Gibraltar under Louis just before Villeneuve 
 came lumbering out of Cadiz to his doom. 
 This surely makes up a very gallant and stirring 
 record ! 
 
 Hallowell was a cool and wary, as well as a 
 gallant, fighter. He commanded the Loivestoft, a 
 modest-sized frigate, in the curiously-tangled light 
 off Genoa under Hotliam, in 1795. When the 
 wind failed, he found his frigate lying stern-to 
 under the broadside of the Duquesne, a great French 
 74 ; and the Frenchman, opening her lower-deck 
 ports, commenced to bellow with her guns at the 
 little English frigate. Hallowell sent all his crew 
 below except the man at the wheel ; and, with 
 his lieutenant by his side, marched composedly 
 up and down his quarterdeck, while the Duquesne 
 pelted him with angry broadsides. A flaw in 
 the wind at last enabled him to draw, in a very 
 bedraggled condition, out of the Frenchman's fire, 
 but not a man had been hit, a circumstance which
 
 SIR BENJAMIN HALLOWELL l6l 
 
 proves very bad shooting on the part of the 
 Frenchman. Saumarez at the Nile sank, with a 
 single broadside, a French frigate that had dared 
 to fire at him ; but the Duquesne at short range 
 roared at the Loioestoft for nearly an hour, and 
 did not kill a man. 
 
 Hallowell was promoted in the same year to the 
 Courageuse, a fine 74, and was then overtaken by 
 one of the great sorrows of his life. He was absent 
 from his ship at a court-martial when, on December 
 19, 1796, a gale of extraordinary violence broke 
 on the narrow straits that run past Gibraltar. His 
 ship was torn from her anchors in the Bay of 
 Gibraltar itself, and blown out into the straits. 
 To run with the gale through the Gut meant 
 running into Villeneuve's fleet, and the officer in 
 command stood over towards the Barbary coast. 
 With the coming of night, the gale deepened. 
 Through the wild night, across the black sea, the 
 doomed ship was driven, till, about 9 p.m., she 
 struck on the rocks at the foot of Apes' Hill, 
 and became an instant wreck. The mainmast as 
 it fell actually touched the rocks, and more than 
 a hundred of the crew scrambled alongf this 
 slippery and perilous bridge to shore, in spite 
 of the black waves which leaped up at them ; 
 but, out of nearly 600 officers and men, only 
 129 escaped. 
 
 L
 
 1 62 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 Hallowell now sank to the command of a frigate, 
 the Lively, but was soon transferred to the Swift- 
 sure, under Nelson's flag, and with that ship his 
 fame is linked for all time. 
 
 He shared, of course, in the memorable sea- 
 chase of Brueys across the Mediterranean. When, 
 late in the afternoon, on August i, 1798, the 
 French fleet was discovered lying at anchor in 
 Aboukir Bay, the Swiftsure, with the Alexander, 
 was far in the rear. Night had actually fallen; 
 the fiery drama of the great battle was begun 
 as the two laggard ships came up. Nelson, with 
 wise foresight, had directed four lights to be 
 hoisted horizontally at the mizzen-peak of each 
 British ship as soon as darkness fell; and down 
 to that line of lights burning high in the dark- 
 ness, with the red intermittent flashes of the guns 
 beneath, the Swiftsure bore, the Alexander follow- 
 ing her. Hallowell knew how well-nigh impossible 
 it was to break his men off their guns when once 
 they had opened fire, and he had given sternest 
 orders that, till each ship had anchored at her 
 place in the line and the sails were clewed up, 
 and until he had given the word, not a shot was 
 to be fired. So through the darkness, in majestic 
 and ordered silence, the men silent at their 
 quarters, the captain silent on the quarterdeck; 
 the voice of the leadsman calling at intervals
 
 SIR BENJAMIN HALLOWELL 1 63 
 
 the depth he found, being the only sound, the great 
 ship came on to the fight. 
 
 Presently the French battery on the island dis- 
 covered through the gloom the tall masts and 
 ghostly canvas of the Siviftsure gliding past, and 
 opened on her, fast and furiously. As the Sioift- 
 sure lifted to the slow swell, a shot struck her 
 larboard bow several feet below the water-line. 
 The sea rushed in, the chain pumps had to be 
 manned, and Hallowell's ship actually went into 
 the fight with her pumps going, and four feet 
 of water in the hold ! Just then, through the 
 gloom, without lights or colours, came drifting 
 the hulk of a dismasted ship. It was instantly 
 guessed to be a Frenchman, and the captain o! 
 every gun on the larboard broadside of the Sivift- 
 sure stood ready to fire at the supposed enemy, 
 coming a mere black shape through the darkness. 
 Hallowell hailed from the quarterdeck, " What 
 ship's that ? " and got the answer, " Bellerophon ; 
 going out of action disabled." 
 
 The Bellerophon, a 74, had fought a manful battle 
 with the 120 guns of the (}?'itmi!, Brueys' flagship, 
 and, in addition, had been raked by the Tonnant. 
 Two of her masts had gone by the board ; every 
 third man in her crew had been killed or wounded ; 
 she had caught fire in several places, and, at twenty 
 minutes past eight, she had cut her stern cable,
 
 1 64 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 dropped the foresail on her shattered foremast, 
 and crept out of the fight. 
 
 Hallo well instantly moved to the post abandoned 
 by the Bellcrophon, dropped anchor, clewed up 
 his sails with perfect coolness, and then, from a 
 distance of about 200 yards, opened fire upon the 
 starboard bow of the Orient. But one ship, even 
 though a three-decker, was not sufficient for 
 Hallowell, and he expended part of his broadside 
 on the quarter of the Franklin. 
 
 A little after nine o'clock flames were visible 
 in one of the cabins of the Orient. Hallowell 
 concentrated his guns on that particular spot in 
 the Frenchman ; he lined his bulwarks with his 
 marines, and whipped the burning cabin with 
 musketry bullets. 
 
 The fire spread ; it ran along the deck ; it leaped 
 from sail to sail ; it thrust its red tongue out from 
 one port after another. It was clear that the 
 Frenchman must soon vanish in one sea-shaking 
 explosion ; and the Swiftsure lay within less than 
 pistol-shot distance of her ! But Hallowell clung 
 with fierce tenacity to his enemy. He was to 
 windward ; the smoke and sparks blew clear of 
 him, so he kept his guns busy to the last minute, 
 in the meanwhile closing his hatches, clearing his 
 deck of everything inflammable, and stationing 
 lines of men, with buckets of water, to quench
 
 SIR BENJAMIN HALLOWELL 1 65 
 
 any lire tliat might break out. Then he suddenly 
 shut his ports and waited for the blast. 
 
 It canio ! The burning deck and spars of the 
 French flagship flew up through the darkness in fiery 
 fragments ; the Siviftsurc shook to her very keel 
 with the blast. One piece of burning wreck dropped, 
 like a fragment from an exploded planet, into the 
 maintop, a second into the foretop, of the British 
 ship. The deck was covered with red showers of 
 burning rope and timber, but these were quickly 
 extinguished, and, after a sullen pause, the tumult 
 of the battle broke out afresh. 
 
 No ship at the Nile fought more gallantly 
 than the Sioiftsure, and no captain showed greater 
 coolness and judgment than Hallo well. The story 
 of the fight, however, as told in the Swiftstircs log, 
 is, as might be expected, a bit of very drab-coloured 
 prose. Here are extracts : — 
 
 "At 8.3 let go our small bower anchor in seven 
 fathoms ivater ivith a spring. At 8.5 coinmenccd 
 firing at the enemy, a tivo-deched shijJ called the 
 Franklin, on our starhoard quainter, and a three-decked 
 ship called L'Orient on the starhoard how. At 9.3 
 L'Orient caught fire, and at 9.37 she blew up. Hove 
 in the cable and spring occasionally. Picked up nine 
 men, one lieutenant and commissary, who escaped out 
 of L'Orient. Ceased firing. Sato tlie Alexander's
 
 1 66 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 howsprit and her main topgallant sail to he on fire. 
 At I0.20 sent Lieiitenant Cowcn to take possession of 
 the enemy s ship that lay on our (quarter, who hailed us 
 that she had struck, vnih her main and mizzen masts 
 gone. At 10.35 ^^ returned, finding she ivas taken 
 possession of hy an officer from the Defence. At 1 0.40 
 saiv the Alexander and Majestic engaging two of the 
 enemy s ships to the S. hy E. of us ahout a mile. . . . 
 At S'2y saiv six sail of the enemy's ships had struck 
 their colours. . . . Carpenters employed stopping the 
 shot-holes. . . . People employed knotting and splicing 
 the rigging. At 6 the Majestic fired minute guns 
 on interring her captain, who teas killed in the 
 action." 
 
 Let the reader notice how, through the dull 
 syllables of that bald record, shines the evidence 
 of great qualities and of great deeds. At 8.3 the 
 Swiftsnrcs anchor drops; at 8.5 — or in exactly 
 two minutes — every gun in her starboard broadside 
 is bellowing at the Orient and the Frankli7i. The 
 cool discipline that held that long line of gun-crews, 
 frozen into silence and arrest so long, and that 
 released them and set them into intense activity at 
 the dramatic moment, so instantly, is remarkable. 
 An hour's furious battle — the Swiftsures men toiling 
 with silent and disciplined energy at their guns — 
 lies undescribed between the next two sentences.
 
 SIR BENJAMIN HALLOWELL 1 67 
 
 Then, for lialf-an-liour, the Orient is burning ; she 
 explodes ! The Swiftsure, in that hour of heroic 
 strife, has done her part in destroying the greatest 
 and proudest ship in the French hne. 
 
 Hallowell's fine energy was not exhausted by 
 the great fight. " I should have sunk under the 
 fatigue of refitting the squadron," Nelson wrote to 
 St. Vincent, "but for Troubridge, Ball, Hood, and 
 Hallowell. Not but all have done well; but these 
 are my supporters." 
 
 The Siviftsure was one of the ships left to guard 
 the coast of Egypt while Nelson sailed for Naples. 
 During this period an incident occurs which illus- 
 trates both the bright and the dark side of war. 
 While cruising off Alexandria the Swiftsure dis- 
 covered a French cutter running for the shore. 
 She carried despatches for Bonaparte, and had on 
 board General Camin, Captain Villette, Bonaparte's 
 aide-de-camp, and a few soldiers. The Sioiftsure 
 opened her guns on the cutter, but the daring little 
 craft refused to bring to, and finally ran ashore. 
 By this tinie a band of Arabs made their appear- 
 ance on the beach, and waited eagerly to cut the 
 throats of the dripping Frenchmen as they scrambled 
 out of the surf. The French were in sore straits. 
 Seaward, the British boats were coming fast up ; 
 on the beach were the waiting Arabs. 
 
 The French officers chose to take their chance
 
 1 68 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 of cutting tlieir way tlirough the Bedouins. They 
 scrambled ashore, but were instantly hunted doAvn, 
 stripped, and slain. The British boats watched the 
 whole dreadful drama. The general and his aide- 
 de-camp had fallen on their knees, and were en- 
 treating for mercy, while an Arab on horseback 
 unslung his carbine, and deliberately aimed at the 
 kneeling men. The piece missed fire. It was re- 
 primed, and the general and his aide-de-camp in 
 turn were shot. The courier that bore the des- 
 patches broke through the Arabs and fled, but was 
 overtaken and killed. The British sailors by this 
 time were on fire to save the unhappy Frenchmen. 
 A rope was fastened to an empty keg, a middy 
 named Fane leaped into the sea, where a high swell 
 was now running, and, pushing the keg before him, 
 swam throusfh the hi<?h surf to the stranded cutter, 
 and brought off its captain and crew. 
 
 In March Hallowell rejoined his admiral at 
 Palermo, and took a characteristically energetic 
 part in the siege of St. Elmo. A good sailor always 
 lays his ship as close to his enemy as possible ; and 
 Hallowell applied the methods of a sea-fight to the 
 siege. He constructed a battery of 3 6 -pounders 
 close up to the walls of the fort, and under the 
 screen of a couple of trees. Removing the trees 
 before opening fire was a perilous piece of business, 
 and the Neapolitan soldiers shrank from the task ;
 
 SIR BENJAMIN HALLOWELL 1 69 
 
 whereupon Troubridge and Hallo well, with a couple 
 of officers, coolly walked out into the open, and 
 stood there, under a shower of lead from the fort, 
 while the trees were cut down. 
 
 Hallowell at this stage of his career narrowly 
 missed a quite unique distinction. Most people 
 forget that while Nelson, in 1799, was operating on 
 the coast of Italy, British boats rowod up the Tiber, 
 and a British captain (Louis) hoisted the English 
 flag on the Capitol, and acted, for a short time, as 
 Governor of Rome. This distinction ought to have 
 fallen to Hallowell, He was off Civita Vecchia, 
 and had sent a suminoDS for its surrender, when he 
 was recalled, and Louis took his place, and enjoyed 
 what, for a British seaman, was the bold distinction 
 of sitting in the place of Ca3sars and Popes as master 
 of Rome ! 
 
 In June 1801 came the most bitter experience 
 of Hallowell's career. He was convoying some 
 transports from Aboukir to Malta, when the news 
 reached him that a powerful French squadron under 
 Ganteaume had made its appearance in the Medi- 
 terranean, apparently on its Avay to Egypt. When 
 he heard the news, Hallowell took a daring and 
 very unconventional resolve. He abandoned his 
 slow and lumbering transports, and spread every 
 inch of canvas to join Warren at Malta, where he 
 knew every man and gun was needed. On June 24.
 
 I70 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 just as dawn was breaking over tlie eastern sea- 
 rim, Hallowell ran into Ganteaume's squadron ! 
 The Stoiftsure was old and slow ; her leaky hull was 
 encrusted with barnacles. She was more fit for the 
 dockyard than the battle or the breeze, and only 
 the finest seamanship kept her afloat and fit for 
 service. Ganteaume's ships were new and clean 
 and swift. Hallowell found he could not escape ; 
 he must match his single ship against a squadron. 
 
 The French van consisted of the flagship, of 80 
 guns, a 74, and a frigate ; two other two-deckers 
 of 74 guns each were beating up in the rear. The 
 chase lasted from half-past three in the morning till 
 2 P.M. Ganteaume, a clever seaman, sent two of 
 his ships in the wake of the Sioiftsure, while the 
 other three kept on their course to cut her off. By 
 eight o'clock the three ships had fore-reached on 
 the Simftsure, when they tacked and closed rapidly 
 on the English ship ; while the French 74's astern 
 were also coming up fast. Hallowell found he 
 could not outsail his enemies, and he attempted 
 a daring and unlooked-for stroke. He suddenly 
 put up his helm, and ran down before the wind 
 straight on the French van. It was his one re- 
 maining chance, and a very desperate chance. If 
 he could, with his single ship, cripple two line-of- 
 battle ships and a frigate before the remainder 
 of the squadron came up, he might escape.
 
 SIR BENJAMIN HALLOWELL I/I 
 
 Never was a more audacious stroke attempted. 
 But Ganteaume was a seaman scarcely inferior to 
 Hallowell himself, and the superior sailuig quality 
 of his ships enabled him to "head off" the battered 
 and lumbering Swifts^ire from breaking through to 
 leeward. For an hour and seven minutes Hallowell 
 fought the three Frenchmen ; then he found the 
 two other French 74's within gunshot on his quarter. 
 His masts, sails, and rigging were cut to pieces. 
 It took the French, indeed, six days' toil afterwards 
 to repair the damages they had inflicted on the 
 British ship. The Sioi/tsure, in brief, was a wreck 
 under the guns of four French line-of-battle ships, 
 and Hallowell surrendered. The sea struggle of 
 those stern days witnessed some strange incidents. 
 So it came to pass that on that famous Sunday 
 morning when Nelson at Trafalgar bore down on 
 Villeneuve's far-stretching line, the Swiftsure, which 
 at the Nile helped to destroy a French flagship, was 
 itself flying a French flag ; and it took much hard 
 pounding on the part of two other famous Nile 
 ships — the Bellerophon and the Orion — together 
 with the Colossus, to bring the Swiftsure under 
 the British flag again ! 
 
 Hallowell was released on parole till peace came, 
 and was honourably acquitted for the loss of his 
 ship. He was in command of the Argo, of 44 
 guns, cruising on the coast of Africa, when war
 
 172 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 broke out again. He at once received the command 
 of a fine 8o-gun ship, the Tir/re, joined Nelson oft 
 Toulon, and took part in the historic pursuit of 
 Villeneuve to the West Indies and back. He 
 missed Trafalgar, as we have already said, having 
 been one of the squadron detached under Louis to 
 water at Gibraltar just bofore Vdlencuve ventured 
 out to sea. How gallant a part Hallowell, with 
 his fine ship, would have played at Trafalgar may 
 be guessed. 
 
 In 1807 Hallowell convoyed 5000 British troops 
 to Egypt, on that ill-planned, ill-fated, and ill- 
 executed expedition under Fraser. He took part 
 in the land operations, and showed all the energy, 
 daring, and resource which the comrade of Nelson 
 at Calvi might be expected to show. " He was," 
 wrote one of the military officers, " the life and 
 soul of that expedition.' In the disastrous attack 
 on Rosetta, Hallowell displayed characteristic re- 
 source. The British general wished to cross the 
 Nile and make a surprise attack on the enemy's 
 post at daybreak. The problem was how, without 
 bridge or boat, to transport the attacking force 
 across the broad river. Hallowell's keen eye dis- 
 covered some sunken and shattered boats in the 
 bed of the Nile. He marked the spot, fished them 
 up under the shelter of the darkness, made them 
 roughly water-tight, and carried the whole attack-
 
 SIR BENJAMIN HALLOWELL I 73 
 
 ing force, over 300 strong, triumphantly and safely 
 across at the appointed hour. The soldiers came 
 out of the absurd Egyptian expedition with thinned 
 ranks and damaged prestige ; whatever credit was 
 won, fell to Hallowell and his seamen. 
 
 Hallowell, in the Tigre, formed one of the 
 squadron under Admiral Martin, which, on October 
 25, 1809, chased three French line-of-battle ships 
 and a fine frigate until the Frenchmen, in despair, 
 deliberately ran themselves ashore near the har- 
 bour of Cette ; a service which, if bloodless, was 
 yet daring and important, for it robbed France of 
 three of her finest remaining ships of war. In 
 the same year Hallowell's boats led in a very 
 brilliant little attack on four French ships, in 
 charge of a convoy, that had taken refuge under 
 the protection of some strong batteries in the Bay 
 of Rosas. The shore was lined with French troops, 
 who covered the threatened ships with volleys of 
 musketry, while the guns of the great batteries 
 thundered in their defence from the cliffs. But 
 the British sailors were not to be denied, and the 
 eleven French ships — convoy and convoyed alike — 
 were destroyed or brought out triumphantly, and 
 after a fight which lasted only a few minutes. 
 The British seaman in those great days was a 
 curiously efficient fighting instrument ! 
 
 In 1 8 1 2 Hallowell hoisted his flag in the Malta,
 
 174 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 perhaps tlae finest 8o-gim ship then afloat ; but 
 by this time French ships had practically vanished 
 from the sea, and no opportunity of shining service 
 remained to British seamen. After so many stormy 
 years of war, there yet remained for Hallowell 
 nearly twenty years of peace ; and in 1828 a 
 curious bit of good fortune befell him. He had 
 just struck his last flag, when a cousin bequeathed 
 to him a great landed estate, worth ^12,000 a 
 year, with a stately mansion set in a wide and 
 leafy park. Perhaps, however, the sudden gift of 
 such a fortune, coming so late, may be regarded 
 as an example of the irony of human aflairs. 
 " Half as much," said Hallowell, himself, to some 
 one who congratulated him — " half as much twenty 
 years ago had, indeed, been a blessing ; but now 
 I am old and crank." It was a condition of his 
 fortune that he should take the name and arms 
 of Carew ; so while Hallowell lived, and fought, 
 and won fame under one name he died under 
 another.
 
 CHAPTER VIII 
 
 JSIR ALEXANDER BALL (1757-1809) 
 
 "My dear Ball, — How you are to be rewarded time must 
 discover, but a more fatiguing sendee never fell to the lot of a 
 hutnan being. . . . 77ie truth will always stand that La Valetta 
 could not have been taken but by the patience., ability, gallantry, 
 coticiliating ina7iners, and goodness of Captai7i Alexander foJin 
 Ball. This I believe is Joiown to all Europe, and shall be 
 repeated." — NELSON TO Ball. 
 
 AMONGST the daring, light-hearted, and weather- 
 ^ tanned seamen of Nelson's time — men who 
 knew the sea in all its moods, as sea-birds do, but 
 knew little else — the figure of Sir Alexander Ball 
 stands with an almost humorous sense of incon- 
 gruity. Ball, at a hundred points of character, was 
 almost everything that the typical seaman of that 
 day was not. There was no strain of sea-salt in 
 his blood; no hint of the tar-brush in his speech. 
 He was slow, meditative, gentle-tempered — a bookish 
 man, with a turn for hazy debate and still more 
 hazy philosophy. His happiest hours, Ball himself 
 used to declare, were those he could devote to 
 reading, which is certainly not a mental habitude 
 we could reasonably expect to flourish in the gun-
 
 176 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 rooms of His Majesty's ships in the days of Rodney 
 and of Nelson; and Ball served under both those 
 great sea-warriors. 
 
 Ball, however, read books as a cow might digest 
 grass — in a patient, ruminating, but unintellectual 
 fashion almost pathetic. Still, his literary tastes 
 were genuine enough, though they had odd limita- 
 tions. Coleridge gravely reports that, as far as he 
 knew, Ball had read only one poem ; that was 
 Wordsworth's " Peter Bell " ! Coleridge spent 
 eighteen months in Malta with Sir Alexander 
 Ball ; and, contemplating him through the opium- 
 tinted lens of his own imagination, he naturally 
 clad that honest sailor's head with a very astonish- 
 ing nimbus. But we may accept Coleridge's state- 
 ment that, at least once every week, Ball invited 
 the philosopher to write down his thoughts on 
 some given subject, while he did the same; and 
 philosopher and seaman would then exchange 
 papers. Now, to swop philosophical meditations 
 weekly Avith Coleridge is certainly about the last 
 exercise which might be expected to give delight 
 to a seaman who had fought under Rodney at 
 the Battle of the Saints, and with Nelson at the 
 Nile! 
 
 Judged by look, temperament, and bent of mind. 
 Nature intended Ball to be the incumbent of a 
 country parish, or the decorous head of a Govern-
 
 SIR ALEXANDER BALL 
 From an engraving after R. Smirke, R.A., in tlie British Miiseujn
 
 SIR ALEXANDER BALL 1/7 
 
 ment department, or a spectacled professor — say, 
 of political economy — in some small university. 
 The country parish would probably have suited 
 him best. He would have patted the head of 
 every good little boy or girl in the village with 
 placid benevolence, would have listened with solemn 
 attention to the ailments of all his parishioners, 
 and would have delivered perfectly orthodox and 
 slightly dull sermons from his pulpit every Sunday. 
 He would probably have mounted to the bench 
 of bishops, and, in that case, would have worn his 
 lawn sleeves with entire gravity and decorousness. 
 And yet this mild, slow, meditative man, Avho could 
 exchange philosophical reflections with Coleridge, 
 and win the admiration of little boys and girls in 
 Malta, was the seaman who, in the Alexander, off 
 Cape Sicie, hung on to Nelson's half-dismasted 
 flagship, the Vanguard, with a daring that amazed 
 Nelson himself; and who, in the darkness at the 
 Nile, took his ship into that hell of mingled fire 
 and thunder, where Frenchmen and Englishmen 
 were slaying and being slain, with a cool audacity 
 that not Nelson himself could have exceeded. 
 
 The truth is, that it is the mild-voiced, medita- 
 tive, domesticated, and severely-conscientious Briton, 
 after all, who, when fighting is his business, and 
 his cause is good, and his enemy is in sight, turns 
 out, to the astonishment of mankind, to be about 
 
 M
 
 178 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 the most dogged and terrible fighter the world 
 knows. 
 
 No two men could well be more unlike each 
 other, in some respects, than Nelson and Sir 
 Alexander Ball. Nelson was all extremes ; little 
 in little things, supremely great in great affairs. 
 Ball had no fluctuations, and knew no " moods." 
 The Mediterranean is a tideless sea ; and Ball might 
 be described as a " tideless " man. Nelson was fret- 
 ful, vehement, extravagant alike in love and hate ; 
 while an almost bovine patience marked Ball's 
 temper. To hate most foreigners and all French- 
 men was, in Nelson's odd creed, almost a duty — 
 nay, the first of duties ; whereas Ball held that 
 other nations had some virtues, at least, which 
 Englishmen might covet ; and he was vehemently 
 suspected in later days of being himself more 
 Maltese than English. 
 
 Nelson reached his conclusions with lightning- 
 like intuition ; Ball toiled to his goal with slow 
 and heavy-footed diligence ; but both men, though 
 by very unlike methods, reached the same con- 
 clusion. And the very difference between them 
 perhaps explains the specially close friendship 
 which linked them together. Nelson found in 
 Ball the qualities he himself lacked — a patient 
 temper, an unshaken serenity of spirit, a judgment 
 which, if it was slow, was cool and sure. Nelson's
 
 SIR ALEXANDER BALL 1/9 
 
 acquaintance with Ball began unhappily. In 1783, 
 during a brief interlude of peace, many British 
 officers lived in France, drawn by various motives 
 — curiosity, economy, or the desire to learn the 
 language. Nelson met Ball at St. Omer, and, 
 being usually of a moody temper — except when 
 fighting the French — he found occasion of offence 
 in Ball's very appearance, in the gravity of his 
 countenance, and in the distressing circumstance 
 that he wore epaulettes. These innocent adorn- 
 ments were not worn in the British navy till a 
 dozen years later, but they were a convenience to 
 officers in France, as they announced the rank of 
 the wearer. " Two noble captains are here — Ball 
 and Shepherd," Nelson wrote fretfully to a friend; 
 " they wear fine epaulettes, for which I think them 
 great coxcombs. They have not visited me, and I 
 shall not court their acquaintance." 
 
 That fretful mood towards Ball revived in Nel- 
 son's mind fifteen years after, when, in May 1798, 
 Ball, in command of the Alexander, joined Nelson, 
 forming one of the immortal squadron that was 
 to cross the Mediterranean twice in pursuit of 
 Villeneuve, and to win at the Nile one of the 
 greatest sea victories known to history. As Ball 
 crossed the gangway of the Vanguard to report 
 himself to his admiral, Nelson exclaimed peevishly, 
 " What, have you come to have your bones
 
 l80 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 broken ? " The sting of a gadfly could liardly 
 have disturbed Ball's philosophic calm, and he 
 replied cheerfully, that while he had no wish to 
 have his bones broken, yet if duty and country 
 requhed it they should not be spared. Ball had 
 the prospect of a very trying time with Nelson ; 
 but within a fortnight he had won that fretful 
 but generous hero's heart by a splendid exhibition 
 of coolness and courage. 
 
 On May 9 the Vanguard, the Orion, and the 
 Akxandc7' sailed from Gibraltar. On the 20th a 
 furious gale caught the three ships between Corsica 
 and the southern coast of Italy. The Vanguard, 
 a somewhat rickety ship, which rolled like a 
 barrel, fared badly. Her main and mizzen top- 
 masts went ; then her foremast was literally rolled 
 overboard, snapping close to the deck. Here was 
 a flagship in imminent peril of being carried by 
 the heavy westward swell on to the Sardinian coast. 
 Ball's seamanship was of the careful and thorough 
 order, and he brought the Alexander through the 
 gale unharmed. But he did more than this. 
 When the gale was at its highest point he took 
 the helpless Vanguard in tow. 
 
 All through the night of the 22nd the Alexander 
 toiled on, dragging the flagship, slowly and 
 doggedly, off the coast. But the swell was furious 
 — the breakers were near — and Nelson, the last
 
 SIR ALEXANDER BALL l8l 
 
 man in the world to risk another ship to save 
 his own, ordered the Alexander to cast off the 
 hawser. Ball shook his head in placid refusal 
 to obey, and persisted in his refusal, till Nelson 
 broke into furious threats, and imperiously ordered 
 Ball to cast them loose. Ball at last took his 
 speaking-trumpet and shouted back, " I feel confi- 
 dent that I can bring her in safe. I therefore must 
 not — and, by the help of Almighty God, I WILL 
 NOT — leave you ! " He hung on to the half- wrecked 
 Vanguard till, on the 23 rd, she found safe anchorage 
 under the lee of San Pietro. Nelson's first business 
 was to go on board the Alexander and embrace 
 the somewhat embarrassed Ball, crying, in his 
 vehement way, " A friend in need is a friend 
 indeed ! " 
 
 From that moment the two men were close 
 friends. Ball, indeed, became the closest friend 
 Nelson possessed. He had a splendid faculty for 
 silence and for sympathy. Nelson could empty 
 upon him all his emotions — hate of the French, 
 wrath against the Admiralty, the story of all the 
 pains with which his OAvn little shot-battered body 
 was tormented. And Nelson found that Ball's 
 slow and almost inarticulate judgment was of 
 amazing stieadiness and soundness. Ball acted, 
 in a word,' as Nelson's cooler and steadier self. 
 Nelson reports all his doings to Ball almost as
 
 182 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 regularly as he does to the first Lord of the 
 Admiralty, and much more frankly. " I am very, 
 very miserable," is the burden of many of his 
 letters to his friend ; '* but, miserable or not, I 
 am ever, my dear Ball, yours." Once, in company, 
 somebody referred to Nelson's missing right arm. 
 Troubridge and Ball were both present at the 
 moment. Nelson stepped up between the pair, 
 and cried, " Who shall dare tell me that I want 
 an arm when I have three right arms — this 
 (putting forward his own left arm) and Ball and 
 Troubridge." When Ball — the philosopher in him 
 getting the upper hand of the seaman — proposed 
 to give up the navy, Nelson wrote to him, " You 
 must take your flag when it comes to you ; for 
 who is to command our fleets in the future war ? " 
 In Nelson's judgment, Ball, for all his apparent 
 slowness, his love of books, and his easy temper, 
 was still a man fit to lead an English fleet to 
 battle. 
 
 Ball, for all his unsmiling gravity and incapacity 
 for enjoying poetry, must have had some gleam 
 of imagination in him. It was reading " Robinson 
 Crusoe," he told Coleridge, that sent him to 
 sea. It is interesting to reflect on the number of 
 recruits which that immortal tale has given to 
 the fleets of England. Ball's career was unevent- 
 ful till, in 1 78 1, when twenty-four years of age,
 
 SIR ALEXANDER BALL I 83 
 
 lie joined the Sandivich, Rodney's flagship. He 
 followed the great admiral to his new flagship, the 
 Formidable — the ship which ranks almost with 
 Anson's Centurion, or with the Victory itself, in 
 fame. He shared in the long manceuvres Avhich 
 preceded the Battle of the Saints, and in that 
 great fight itself. In the grey dawn of April 
 12, 1782, it will be remembered that De Grasse 
 was discovered to the leeward of Rodney's line ; 
 and Douglas, the captain of the fleet, rushed 
 down into the admiral's cabin with the news 
 that " God had given him his enemy on the 
 lee bow." It is easy to picture the eager faces 
 that peered from the quarterdeck of the Formidable 
 through the mist to leeward, where the tall masts 
 of the Frenchman moved like ghosts through the 
 fog, and Ball's quiet and sober face, no doubt, 
 was an odd contrast to the exultant countenances 
 of his comrades. But, in the stern and bloody 
 fight which followed, Ball played a gallant part. 
 He fought his section of guns with a coolness 
 and skill which won him distinction ; and, two 
 days after the battle, he received his commanders' 
 commission, and hoisted his flag on the Germain. 
 
 Peace threw him out of employment for more 
 than seven years, but in July 1790 he took com- 
 mand of the Nemesis, a 28-gun frigate. He did 
 nothing brilliant for the next six years, perhaps
 
 1 84 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 because there was no chance of it ; but his plodding 
 thoroughness, his perfect knowledge of his pro- 
 fession, and his quiet strength of character, gave 
 him a high place in his vocation. No ship was 
 better found, better disciplined, or better kept 
 than that which flew Ball's flag. The wave of 
 mutinous feeling which swept over the British 
 navy in the early muster affected Ball's crew too. 
 When he took command of the Nemesis he found 
 that it was manned with almost the worst crew 
 in the navy. Many of them were raw Irish 
 peasants, sent to the fleet as a punishment for 
 treason. Many were the mere refuse and sweepings 
 of the gaols. His predecessor in the ship had 
 maintained the semblance of order by the incessant 
 use of the cat-o'-nine-tails, but Ball was both too 
 humane and too wise for that crude remedy. 
 
 He drew up a simple code of rules, with 
 penalties ; took care that every man of the ship 
 was familiar with them ; and enforced them with 
 leisurely and passionless strength. He had three 
 questions which he addressed to every offender : 
 " Did you commit the act ? " " Did you know 
 it was a breach of the rule ? " " Was it not 
 in your power to avoid the offence ? " He en- 
 listed, that is, the reason and the conscience 
 of his men on the side of law, and, while he 
 punished resolutely, he always punished coolly.
 
 SIR ALEXANDER BALL I 85 
 
 and showed that he felt the punishment himself 
 almost as much as the criminal did. " This," 
 cries the enthusiastic Coleridge, who tells the tale, 
 " this is the spirit of law, the lute of Amphion, 
 the harp of Orpheus ! " The Jacks in the fore- 
 castle of the Nemesis would probably have said 
 that " they didn't know the gentlemen referred 
 to." But it was certain that Ball's calm temper, 
 and just and reasonable spirit, won his crew com- 
 pletely ; till, from being a band of criminals and 
 secret mutineers, they became as fine a body of 
 loyal seamen as the navy possessed. 
 
 Ball's fame as a fighter is built on two incidents 
 ■ — the cool and gallant part he played at the Nile, 
 and the iron tenacity he showed in the reduction 
 of Malta. At the Nile, it will be remembered, the 
 Alexander and the Sioiftsiire had been despatched 
 from the main body of the fleet to look into 
 Alexandria, where, about half-past one, they dis- 
 covered two ships of the line and six frigates 
 flying the French flag. Meanwhile, the leading 
 ships of Nelson's fleet had discovered Brueys' fleet 
 lying in Aboukir Bay; and though one-fourth of 
 his fleet was from seven to ten miles distant, 
 Nelson made his historic leap upon his enemy. 
 
 How eagerly the Alexander and the Siciftsure 
 bore up to the scene of the great fight may be 
 imagined. " At half-past two," runs the Alexanders
 
 1 86 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 log, " saw the French fleet at anchor inside the 
 Isle of Aboukir, amounting to thirteen sail of 
 the line and four frigates. Made all sail possible 
 toward them." But the south-west wind blew 
 faintly, and it was half-past five before the Alexander 
 rounded the reef where the Culloclen lay helplessly 
 ashore. The Alexander, in fact, well-nigh shared 
 the fate of the CuUodcn. It was dark, a darkness 
 made more perplexing by a haze that lay on 
 sea and land. His lead warned Ball that the 
 Alexander was running into shoal water — a warning 
 reinforced by a frantically-waved lantern from the 
 Culloden. The Alexander tacked to clear the reef, 
 and tliat gave the Svnftstire the lead. 
 
 The whole scene of the fight now lay clear 
 before the Alexander as it bore steadily down 
 through the darkness, with men at quarters, and 
 the stei-n silence which is part of the discipline 
 of a man-of-war in every deck — a silence broken 
 only by the high-pitched call of the leadsman, 
 or the brief, stern word of command to the man 
 at the wheel. 
 
 As Ball surveyed the scene of the battle, the 
 rear of Brueys' line lay in silence and darkness. 
 Faint points of light — the light of battle-lanterns 
 gleaming through the gun-ports — alone revealed 
 the position of the ships. But the head of the 
 French line was a web of dancing flame. On
 
 STR ALEXANDER BALL I 87 
 
 either side of each Frenchman lay a British 74, and 
 the flash of the answering guns was incessant ; their 
 deep thunder shook sea and sky. Above, a gleam 
 of lofty and level lights marked the position of the 
 British ships ; for each, by Nelson's orders, carried 
 four horizontal lights on the mizzen-peak ; but in 
 the centre of the French line towered Brueys' flag- 
 ship, the Orient, a monster of three decks. And she 
 had, at the moment, no opponent ; for there drifted 
 past the Alexander in the darkness, a mastless wreck, 
 the Bellerophon, which, crushed by the tremendous 
 Are of the Orient, had, after a desperate and unequal 
 combat, cut her cable and crept out of the fight, with 
 every third man in her crew killed or wounded. 
 
 Hallowell, in the Swiftsure, with fine skill and 
 courage, anchored his ship outside the French Une, 
 opposite the interval between the Orient and the 
 Franklin, and opened a furious fire on both ships. 
 One antagonist, even though it was a three-decker, 
 was not enough for the gallant Hallowell. 
 
 But Ball showed an even cooler and more audaci- 
 ous courage. With perfect seamanship he took the 
 Alexander through the French line, passing astern 
 of the Orient; then he rounded to, and anchored 
 close on the huge Frenchman's larboard quarter. 
 It was half-past six when Foley commenced the 
 battle by firing his broadside into the bows of the 
 Guerrier. It was almost two hours afterwards, at
 
 1 88 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 half-past eight, when the Alexander let go its best 
 bower to larboard of the Orient, and opened fire on 
 that monster. 
 
 For one long and fiery hour the Alexander poured 
 its merciless broadsides into the French flagship, 
 the Swiftsure firing into it from the other side of 
 the line, and the Leander, a 50-gun ship, diligently 
 raking it astern. At twenty-five minutes past nine 
 the poop of the Orient was on fire, and the three 
 British ships instantly brought every gun to bear 
 on that spot. The fire spread fast. The flames 
 ran up the tarred rigging, and raced along the 
 sun-dried sails on the yardarms. It leaped, a 
 cataract of flame, from deck to deck, and the 
 great ship was quickly a roaring furnace, from 
 which men were flinging themselves in crowds. 
 
 The British ships to leeward veered, or slipped, 
 their cables, to escape catching fire themselves, the 
 Alexander alone, to quote Mahan's words, " fiercely 
 refusing " to do so till it was sure that the French- 
 man's doom was sealed. Ball held on, indeed, till 
 the jib and main-royal of his own ship were in 
 flames ! The mild and quiet Ball, in a word, when 
 once the fight had begun, proved a more tenacious 
 fighter than even his brother captains. And yet 
 he had shown characteristic patience and fore- 
 thought in his preparations for that fierce moment. 
 He told Coleridge that every shroud and sail in
 
 SIR ALEXANDER BALL I 89 
 
 the ship not in actual use had been thoroughly 
 wetted and so rolled up that it was a mere hard 
 and uninflammable cylinder, while a certain portion 
 of the crew had been detailed as firemen, and 
 forbidden to take any part in the actual Avorking 
 of the guns. 
 
 The story of the fight, as told in the log of the 
 Alexander, is interesting, and we give an extract : — 
 
 " At twenty-five minutes past eight, came to 
 with a small bower, and commenced firing on one 
 of the enemy's ships, a three-decker. At half- 
 past do., let go the best bower, our ship being 
 then on the larboard port of the enemy. At 
 twenty-five minutes past nine, the ship we were 
 engaged by took fire. At half-past do., cut the 
 stern cable, ceased firing, veered away the best 
 bower, and got alongside another of the enemy's 
 ships, and commenced firing. At fifty minutes 
 past nine, cut away the best bower cable to pre- 
 vent ship on fire falling on board of us. At ten, 
 the enemy's ship that was on fire blew up ; with 
 the explosion our jib and main-royal were set on 
 fire. But cutting away the jib-boom and heaving 
 the royal overboard, the fire was luckily extin- 
 guished. At a quarter-past twelve, came to with 
 the sheet anchor, and commenced firing upon three 
 of the enemy's ships. At a quarter-past three, 
 ceased firing, cut away and threw overboard, to
 
 190 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 prevent their taking fire, the main topsail, fore and 
 main topgallant sails. At daylight, commenced the 
 action again." 
 
 It will be noted with what businesslike diligence 
 Ball fought. At half-past nine he had to cut his 
 stern cable and cease firinof on the Orient to 
 escape sharing its doom. But he wasted no time ; 
 he instantly got alongside another of the enemy's 
 ships and commenced firing on her. At ten the 
 Orient blew up, and the crew of the Alexander had 
 to fight hard to extinguish the flames which, at 
 three points, had broken out on their own ship. 
 At a quarter-past twelve the Alexander commenced 
 firing upon three Frenchmen at once, maintained 
 that fire for three hours, and then only ceased in 
 order to extinguish its own burning sails. But 
 there is an interval betAveen the explosion of the 
 Orient and the duel with the three Frenchmen, 
 during which, according to Coleridge, a curious 
 incident occurred. Here is his story : — 
 
 " At the renewal of the battle Captain Ball, 
 though his ship was then on fire in three different 
 parts, laid her alongside a French 84, and a second 
 longer and obstinate contest began. The firing on the 
 part of the French ship at last slackened, and then 
 altogether ceased ; and yet no sign was given of 
 surrender. The senior lieutenant came to Captain 
 Ball, and told him ' the hearts of the men were
 
 SIR ALEXANDER BALL I9I 
 
 as good as ever,' but that they were so completely 
 exhausted, they were scarcely capable of lifting an 
 arm. He asked whether, as the enemy had now 
 ceased firing, the men might be permitted to lie 
 down by their guns for a brief time. After some 
 reflection Sir Alexander acceded to the proposal, 
 taking of course the proper precautions to rouse 
 them again at the moment he thought requisite. 
 Accordingly, with the exception of hhnself, his 
 officers, and the appointed watch, the ship's crew 
 lay down, each in the place to which he was 
 stationed, and slept for twenty minutes." 
 
 Now, that picture, of the British sailors sleeping 
 beside their still warm guns, with the enemy's 
 ships on every side of them — a little island of 
 sleep set in the flaming heart of a great battle — 
 is surely very picturesque. What other such in- 
 cident can be found in the records of war ? And 
 it may be doubted whether there was any other 
 British commander at the Nile sufficiently philo- 
 sophical to allow his tired crew twenty minutes 
 for slumber between the blowing up of the Orient 
 and renewing the fight with the Franklin! 
 
 Ball's fighting capacity again finds shining illus- 
 tration in the siege of Malta. The siege was 
 long and stubborn, not to say sullen ; a trial be- 
 tween the French and the British, not so much 
 of valour, as of mere endurance. It was exactly
 
 192 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 such a struggle as Ball, by temperament and genius, 
 was best fitted to maintain. The patient, slow, 
 tenacious man held on to the siege with a dogged- 
 ness which at last completely outwore the fiery 
 valour, and rendered vain the martial skill of 
 the French garrison. The effective siege began 
 on October 12, 1798 ; the French flag was lowered 
 on September 15, 1800. Here Avas a siege — 
 or rather a blockade — of nearly two years ! The 
 French garrison consisted of 3000 soldiers and 
 marines, while in the harbour lay a formidable 
 squadron — the Guillaume Tell of 80 guns (happily 
 escaped from the Nile), two 64's, two frigates 
 of 40 guns, and one of 36, The French ships, 
 late in the siege, made a desperate attempt to 
 break loose, and were captured ; but the garrison 
 held out with iron tenacity. Food utterly failed. 
 The cisterns were dried up, disease broke out, 
 and the troops were dying, in the later stages of 
 the siege, at the rate' of 100 to 130 a day. The 
 very rats were sold at i od. each ! 
 
 But the sufferings of the besiegers were almost 
 as great as those of the besieged. Ball had only 
 a handful of British troops with a loose fringe of 
 irregulars ; but, by the magic of his character, he 
 completely won the Maltese, and they served 
 under him with a loyalty and patience beyond 
 all praise.
 
 SIR ALEXANDER BALL 1 93 
 
 Ball's serene and dogged hopefulness never 
 failed, though everybody else's did. " During 
 many months," says Coleridge, " he remained the 
 only Englishman who did not think the siege 
 hopeless and the object worthless." One flash 
 of Nelson-like audacity does, indeed, enrich the 
 somewhat drab-coloured patience Ball showed in 
 the conduct of the siege. The Maltese themselves 
 were starving. So sharp was their suffering that 
 one day they rushed the ovens where the scanty 
 supply of bread for the British troops was being 
 baked. At Messina were lying a number of ships 
 laden with corn ; but Ball appealed in vain for 
 help to the careless Sicilian Government. The 
 only reply his repeated remonstrances and appeals 
 won was an edict forbidding, under the sharpest 
 penalties, the export of corn from Messina. 
 
 Now, for all his mild patience, Ball was an 
 awkward man to drive into a corner. He quietly 
 despatched his senior lieutenant to Messina with 
 instructions to seize — by force, if necessary — the 
 Sicilian corn-ships lying there and bring them to 
 Malta. The audacious feat was carried out with 
 both coolness and despatch, and Ball was able to 
 maintain the siege and outstarve the French ; while 
 the Neapolitan authorities did not venture a word 
 of complaint, but only paid the too-presumptuous 
 Ball the compliment of intensely hating him. 
 
 N
 
 194 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 Ball adopted one unconsciously humorous device 
 for keeping up the spirits of his officers under the 
 intolerable weariness of the long siege. He made 
 a number of wagers on the fall of the city ; made 
 them when the possibility of success seemed almost 
 hopeless. And the capital odds on the issue of 
 the siege his officers had secured gave them a 
 quite new and characteristically British interest 
 in maintaining it. Sir Alexander Ball's genius 
 for managing men may be judged by the success 
 with which he held his curiously composite force 
 of soldiers and sailors — Maltese, Sicilians and 
 British — steadfast to their task through two years 
 of little fighting, of much suffering, and of almost 
 intolerable weariness. 
 
 It was at Malta that Ball broke into the mental 
 landscape of Coleridge, and did so with surprising 
 results. Shelley has described Coleridge in some 
 Hudibrastic lines : — 
 
 " He was a mighty poet, and 
 A subtle-souled psychologist ; 
 All things he seemed to understand, 
 Of old or new, at sea or land — 
 Save his own soul, which was a mist." 
 
 That last line describes Coleridge accurately 
 enough, except that the " mist," which he called 
 his soul, was strongly flavoured with opium. 
 Contemplating Ball through the opium-tinted haze
 
 SIR ALEXANDER BALL 1 95 
 
 of his OAvn imagination, that honest and simple- 
 minded sailor underwent, to Coleridge's eyes, a 
 strange transformation. He took gigantic pro- 
 portions. His homely brows, bronzed with the 
 sea winds, were adorned with a nimbus. Coleridge 
 discovered in him all the qualities of the highest 
 genius. He devotes some fifty or sixty pages 
 of The Friend to a description of Ball's career 
 and super- eminent merits, and hints that this is 
 only the prelude to an extended biography of his 
 hero, " whose fame," he announces, " was great, 
 but whose worth " — the private discovery of 
 Coleridge, and contemplated through Coleridgean 
 spectacles — "Avas greater than even his fame." 
 
 " Does fortune favour fools ? " Coleridge asks ; 
 and he goes on to say that he had never known a 
 character in history who owed less to luck and 
 more to merit than Sir Alexander Ball. The 
 seventeen months — from May 1 804 to October 1805 
 — during which Coleridge exchanged philosophical 
 reflections with Ball in Malta were, Coleridge 
 announces, " the most memorable and instructive 
 period of my life." When he heard of Ball's death 
 he found tears too mean a tribute to pay to the 
 hero's memory. He was a man, he declares, 
 " above his age. It is impossible not to speak 
 great things of him, and yet difficult to speak what 
 he deserves." It occurs to Coleridge that, possibly,
 
 196 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 some stray copy of The Friend might find its way 
 
 to celestial realms, and so the disembodied spirit of 
 
 Ball misfht read what he had written about him. 
 o 
 
 In that case Coleridge expresses the pious hope 
 that " his great soul " will not be offended at " the 
 sniallness of the offering " the weeping philosopher, 
 after he had dried his spectacles, had laid upon the 
 tomb of his friend ! 
 
 The truth is that Coleridge was taken captive by 
 those qualities in Ball which were most unlike him- 
 self. Coleridge was a dreamer ; Ball, a man of 
 action. Coleridge had done nothing since he was 
 born except spin metaphj^sical subtleties ; Ball had 
 fought in the Battle of the Saints ; had helped to 
 swell the stormy and dreadful orchestra of the 
 Nile ; had driven the French out of Malta by the 
 relentless persistency of his siege. Talking with 
 him, Coleridge seemed to catch an echo of the far- 
 off thunder of guns — a thrill of the spirit and 
 genius of Nelson. So he coruscates in magnificent 
 superlatives over the prosaic and simple-minded 
 sailor, who had an almost childlike delight in 
 philosophical dissertations, but Avho had also fought 
 in great battles, and played a part in great affairs. 
 As a result Coleridge makes poor Ball almost 
 ridiculous by the flowers of rhetoric with which he 
 adorns him. 
 
 Still, he does give some interesting gleams of the
 
 SIR ALEXANDER BALL 1 97 
 
 real Ball — his grave simplicity, his piety, his rever- 
 ence for knowledge, his scorn of mere glitter, his 
 genuine goodness. Ball, he says, did once tell a lie, 
 but it Avas a bit of generous and almost splendid 
 mendacity ! An officer told Coleridge that he was 
 in a boat attack as a middy, with Ball sitting 
 beside him in the stern-sheets. As they came 
 under the fire of the vessel they were attacking, 
 the boy's nerve gave way, and he was on the point 
 of fainting. Ball, then a lieutenant, kept his eyes 
 steadfastly on the ship they were attacking, but 
 took hold of the lad's hand with great gentleness, 
 and said, " Courage ! Don't be afraid of yourself. 
 You will recover in a minute or so. / loas just the 
 same when I first went out in this ivay." This latter 
 statement was pure fiction, for Ball was as imper- 
 turbable in his first fight as he was at the Nile 
 itself ; " but," added the officer who told Coleridge 
 the story, " at the touch of Ball's hand and the cool 
 sound of his kind voice, it loas as if an angel had 
 put a new soul into me." 
 
 Ball held the wholesome opinion that blusterers 
 were generally cowards ; that the quieter the man 
 the better the sailor, and he shared the longing of 
 some old admiral whose chief aspiration Avas " to 
 have a ship's crew composed altogether of serious 
 Scotchmen " ! Ball held that knowledge distin- 
 guished man from the animals, and the smaller the
 
 198 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 stock of knowledge a man possessed the narrower 
 was the interval that separated him from the 
 brutes. " An ignorant commander," he assured 
 Coleridge, " inspired him with terror." He would 
 either take no advice, and so be ruined by his own 
 Avant of knowledgfe, or he would take the worst 
 advice that was offered, and so be ruined by the 
 ignorance of somebody else. Ball's economy of 
 time, says Coleridge, " always demanded my ad- 
 miration, and not seldom excited my wonder ; " but 
 then Coleridge himself was one of the most helpless 
 wasters of time that ever breathed. Coleridge 
 quotes one shrewd saying by Ball. " The courage 
 of an English army," he held, " is the sum total of 
 the courage which the individual soldiers bring 
 with them to it, rather than that which they derive 
 from it." Courage in a British soldier, in a word, 
 is an individual and independent thing ; it is not 
 generated by the crowd, and it does not depend on 
 a crowd. 
 
 Coleridge gives a vivid picture of the fashion in 
 which Ball — principally because he was so unlike 
 the Maltese — stamped himself on their imagination. 
 To his iron steadfastness in the siege was, no doubt, 
 due their deliverance from the French ; and to his 
 serene temper, his obstinate sense of justice, was 
 due their happiness under British rule. Perhaps 
 what clothed the character of Sir Alexander Ball
 
 SIR ALEXANDER BALL 1 99 
 
 with almost semi-divine qualities to the Maltese 
 was the contrast it offered to that of the Knights of 
 Malta, who had previously governed the island, and 
 whom Coleridge describes " as being little better 
 than a perpetual influenza, relaxing and diseasing 
 the hearts of all the families within their sphere." 
 
 In the poorest Maltese house, says Coleridge, two 
 rude paintings were sure to be found — a picture of 
 the Virgin Mary and a portrait of Sir Alexander 
 Ball. " Whenever he appeared in Valetta, the pas- 
 sengers on each side through the whole length of 
 the street stopped, and remained uncovered till he 
 had passed." Women and children would precede 
 or follow him along the country roads, singing the 
 Maltese song which had been made in his honour, 
 and which was almost as familiar on Maltese lips as 
 " God save the King " is in English gatherings. 
 
 Ball's obstinate courage, in brief, won Malta for 
 the English flag ; his wise and just administration 
 of the island won the hearts of the Maltese them- 
 selves. He died in 1809, and there is a poetic 
 fitness in the circumstance that his body lies in 
 Maltese soil, amongst the people he loved so deeply 
 and ruled so wisely.
 
 CHAPTER IX 
 
 SIR JAMES SAUMAREZ (1757-1836) 
 
 "/ knew it — I knew it — / kfiew the man— I knew what he 
 could do I It is the most dat'ittg thing that has been done 
 this war. It is the first thing — / knew it would be so." 
 — Lord St. Vincent (on hearing of Saumarez's fight with 
 Linois off Algegiras). 
 
 WE were a band of brothers," Nelson said of 
 his captains at the Nile ; yet there was one of 
 this heroic band to whom Nelson himself played 
 a somewhat unbrotherly part. This was Sir James 
 Saumarez, who commanded the Orion at the Nile, 
 played a brilliant part in the great battle, and must 
 have succeeded to the direction of the fight at its 
 very climax if that unlucky fragment of iron from 
 the Spartiate which wounded Nelson had happened 
 to strike his forehead half an inch lower down. 
 
 Nelson frankly did not like Saumarez. The 
 two men, in many respects, were almost complete 
 opposites. Nelson's little twisted, one-armed, one- 
 eyed body, with its restless gestures and high- 
 pitched voice, was in almost absurd contrast to 
 the appearance of Saumarez, with his tall figiu*e, 
 his handsome face, his grave and steady manner,
 
 SIR JAMES SAUMAREZ, Bart. 
 
 Prom a mezzotint after the portrait by Cakbonnier
 
 SIR JAMES SAUMAREZ 20I 
 
 his air of soldierly erectness. Nelson had an almost 
 feminine vehemence in his attachments ; but he was 
 capable of equally vehement, if short-lived resent- 
 ments. And in that mood he forgot all justice. 
 
 In the case of Saumarez his mood was not 
 exactly that of " resentment." It was an even more 
 deadly thing ; a complete and permanent lack of 
 sympathy. Nelson usually fell instantly in love 
 with anybody who performed a particularly daring 
 feat against the French, and he proclaimed his 
 admiration in the most glowing superlatives and 
 the shrillest accents to mankind in general. But 
 even a gallant thing by Saumarez — and he did 
 many gallant things — left Nelson cold. 
 
 The quotation at the head of this sketch shows 
 how St. Vincent, the least impulsive of men, was 
 affected by the fashion in which Saumarez bore 
 himself after his first disastrous fight in Alge9iras 
 Bay, and the daring with which he sallied out in 
 pursuit of the combined French and Spanish 
 squadrons six days afterwards, and chased them, 
 with sore loss, into Cadiz. That fine performance 
 lifted even Nelson, for a moment, out of his chilly 
 mood towards Saumarez. " The promptness with 
 which he (Saumarez) refitted," Nelson declared, 
 " the spirit with which he attacked a superior 
 force after his recent disaster, and the masterly 
 conduct of the action I do not think were ever
 
 202 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 surpassed." But that was only a flash of Nelson's 
 better and generous self, and it passed like a 
 flash. 
 
 A hundred things show Nelson's mood towards 
 Saumarez. When he started on his historic pur- 
 suit of Brueys he would certainly have left 
 Saumarez behind, but that he could not spare 
 so fine a ship as the Orion. He wanted Trou- 
 bridge, and not Saumarez, to be his second in 
 command, and Saumarez was slightly Troubridge's 
 senior. At the Nile itself Troubridge, in the 
 Culloden, was left stranded on Aboukir Island ; and, 
 as far as the actual fight was concerned, there 
 could be no doubt that, by mere right of seniority 
 — to say nothing of the right of pre-eminent 
 fitness — Saumarez was second in command. His 
 very generosity, however, gave Nelson a pretext 
 for robbing him of the reward which belonged to 
 that position. When Saumarez met his brother- 
 captains the day after the fight was over, some 
 of them congratulated him on the honours which 
 must fall to him as second in command. " We 
 all did our duty," cried Saumarez impulsively; 
 " there was no second in command," This was 
 told to Nelson, who caught at the suggestion, and 
 in his despatches treated Saumarez like any other 
 of his captains. Had Saumarez in the Orion been 
 lying a stranded and remote spectator from the
 
 SIR JAMES SAUMAREZ 203 
 
 fight, and Troubridge with the Cidloden had hiin 
 off the quarter of the Franklin during those fiery 
 and dreadful hours of the great night battle, Nelson, 
 it can hardly be doubted, would have taken quite a 
 different view of affairs. 
 
 What was the secret of Nelson's obstinate cold- 
 ness towards so gallant a sailor and so loyal a 
 comrade as Saumarez ? The two men, it is true, 
 were totally unlike each other in temperament and 
 genius. But they were not in more complete 
 contrast with each other than, say, Nelson and 
 Ball were. Yet with Ball, Nelson had almost 
 the closest friendship of his life. He never, for 
 example, fell out with Ball as he did with Trou- 
 bridge. Saumarez and Ball, as a matter of fact, 
 closely resembled each other. Both were bookish 
 men, of placid temper, mild speech, and no sense 
 of humour. Saumarez might have sat with 
 benevolent countenance and lawn sleeves beside 
 Ball on the bench of bishops, and with as little 
 air of incongruity. Saumarez, like Ball, would 
 have been flattered by being allowed to talk windy 
 philosophical generalities with Coleridge ; and he 
 could have shown towards the Maltese a passion- 
 less equity such as that by which Ball won their 
 confidence. 
 
 There was one point, however, in which Ball 
 and Saumarez differed ; and it was exactly at that
 
 204 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 point, that Nelson's sympathies for the ablest and 
 one of the most gallant seamen under his com- 
 mand, fell into hopeless wreck. Nelson was gene- 
 rous of admiration ; but he was greedy of it, 
 too. And while both Saumarez and Ball admired 
 their famous admiral, Ball's admiration was of the 
 loudly vocal sort, such as Nelson loved ; that of 
 Saumarez was inarticulate. Ball could pay long 
 visits to Merton Place ; and, while Lady Hamil- 
 ton fluted melodiously in adoration of Nelson, 
 could supply a rumbling marine accompaniment to 
 that somewhat obese charmer's performance ; and 
 the duet delighted Nelson ! Saumarez never put 
 his head under the roof of Merton Place. He 
 would probably have " cut " Lady Hamilton had 
 they met. And he was apt to offer Nelson, not 
 compliments, but advice. He was a year older 
 than Nelson, it must be remembered ; was of a 
 didactic turn, and neither shared Nelson's way- 
 ward moods nor comprehended them. 
 
 One amusing example of how Saumarez ruffled 
 Nelson's nerves with perfectly sound but some- 
 what misdated reflections yet survives. On the 
 second morning after the fight at the Nile, 
 Saumarez went on board the Vanguard to con- 
 gratulate Nelson on his victory. Nelson had a 
 bandaged head, Saumarez a bandaged thigh and 
 side, and both men, it may be guessed, were in
 
 SIR JAMES SAUMAREZ 205 
 
 that mood of nervous reaction which succeeds 
 the strain and passion of such a battle as that 
 through which they had just passed. After a 
 few remarks had been exchanged, Saumarez began 
 to be didactic. " It was unfortunate," he said, 
 " we did not — " But he never got any further. 
 He meant to add, " all anchor on the same 
 side ; " but Nelson, with his usual selfish quick- 
 ness, guessed the yet unspoken half of the 
 criticism, and flashed out in reply : " Thank God, 
 there was no order," and disappeared from the 
 quarterdeck in the direction of his cabin ! 
 Saumarez might have been able to say a good 
 deal in behalf of his interrupted criticism. Two 
 British ships firing from opposite sides into an 
 unhappy Frenchman must almost necessarily fire 
 into each other. They might have done equal 
 mischief to the enemy, with less risk to them- 
 selves, if they had been anchored on the bow and 
 quarter of each Frenchman instead of on opposite 
 sides. The Frenchmen in that case could have 
 fought with only one broadside instead of two. 
 This was, in fact, an ancient matter of debate 
 between Saumarez and Nelson. " It never required 
 two English ships to capture one French," Sau- 
 marez would argue. It is certain that at the 
 Nile many British seamen were slain by shot 
 fired from British guns. The process of doubling
 
 206 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 on part of the French line, too, loft part of the 
 enemy's force unoccupied. No one could have 
 calculated beforehand that Villeneuve, at the rear 
 of the French line, would watch the head of that 
 line destroyed, ship by ship, and never stir. 
 Suppose the four rearmost French ships had 
 slipped their cables when the fight began, and 
 made sail to windward ? They would certainly 
 have destroyed the stranded Culloden, and might 
 have cut off the Sioiftsttre and Alexander coming 
 up to the fight. All this was debatable, and Sau- 
 marez was disposed to argue it ! 
 
 But to criticise the Nile the day after it was 
 fought, and to Nelson himself, and on the quarter- 
 deck of his own ship, was a very unhappy and ill- 
 timed performance. It illustrates what may be 
 called the pedagogic strain in Saumarez, and helps 
 to explain why Nelson never succeeded in being 
 quite just to him. 
 
 Yet Saumarez is one of the great seamen of 
 that great age ; a most gallant fighter ; a man 
 who, beneath his mild speech and calm temper, 
 hid an heroic spirit, and an ideal of duty, which 
 had something classic and antique about it. He 
 had not, indeed, that indefinable thrill of original 
 genius which makes Nelson the most famous of 
 all British sailors. But, for plain downright fight- 
 ing, Saumarez was almost the equal of Nelson ;
 
 SIR JAMES SAUMAREZ 207 
 
 and in mere technical seamanship he was pro- 
 bably his superior. Both Ball and Saumarez, it 
 must be remembered, rode unharmed through 
 that wild gale off the Sardinian coast when the 
 Vanguard under Nelson was more than half dis- 
 masted. Of Saumarez's daring and scientific sea- 
 manship many examples might be given. 
 
 In 1794, for instance, he was in command of 
 a small squadron of frigates and lighter ships 
 guarding the narrow waters between the Channel 
 Islands and the French coast. He fell in with 
 a much heavier force of the enemy, and skilfully 
 drew off with his tiny squadron in the direction 
 of Guernsey. The French ships carried nearly 
 three times his weight of metal, and they were 
 quick as well as heavy. A fight was practically 
 hopeless, and it seemed certain that the slower 
 ships of the little British squadron must be 
 captured. Saumarez, in this crisis, had recourse 
 to very audacious tactics. He shortened sail in 
 his own frigate, the Crescent, while the other British 
 ships ran off before the wind. The Crescent carried 
 only 36 guns; the French squadron consisted of 
 two frigates of 36 guns, and two raised two- 
 deckers, carrying 54 guns each. Saumarez was 
 apparently sacrificing himself to secure the escape 
 of the ships under his command. But he daintily 
 feinted with the eager Frenchmen ; he even closed
 
 208 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 with them and ran along their Hne, risking what 
 seemed inevitable destruction. But he was sure both 
 of his ship and of his own skill, ran the gauntlet 
 of distant gun-fire safely, and then bore up straight 
 for the rocky Guernsey shore. 
 
 Guernsey was his birthplace ; he knew the swift 
 currents and splintered rocks of the coast - line 
 perfectly ; and he ran straight for a tiny passage 
 into which no ship of the size of the Crescent had 
 ever yet been steered. The feat required steady 
 nerves and flawless skill. His pilot, a Guernsey 
 fisherman, stood beside Saumarez conning the 
 ship through the rocks. " Are you sure you can 
 see the marks ? " asked Saumarez. " Yes," said 
 the pilot, " for there is your house and there is 
 my own ! " The narrow and perilous track by 
 which the Crescent was escaping her enemies ran, 
 in fact, within sight of the home of Saumarez. 
 The high daring, the generous self-sacrifice, the 
 cool and skilful seamanship, shown in that feat 
 are characteristic of Saumarez. 
 
 Another illustration of superb seamanship is 
 supplied from a later period of Saumarez's career. 
 The British seaman of that day had at least the 
 most splendid of practical trainings. He was 
 fused like steel in the red flame of battle, and 
 then chilled to perfect temper in the tedious cruises, 
 the storms and monotony of long winter block-
 
 SIR JAMES SAUMAREZ 209 
 
 ades. In 1 800, Saiimarez, flying his flag in the 
 Ccesar, was in command of the advanced squadron 
 blockading Brest. His post was oft' what was 
 known as the Black Rocks, the most stormy 
 point on a stormy coast. It bore the name of 
 " New Siberia " in the vernacular of the British 
 forecastles. Day and night Saumarez and the 
 squadron under his command had to cruise to 
 and fro anjid treacherous currents and sunken 
 rocks, six ships keeping watch at the entrance of 
 the port in which lay twenty-five sail of the line 
 ready for sea. St. Vincent, who, with the main 
 body of the British fleet, was cruising oft" Ushant, 
 wrote to Saumarez that while he stood sentry 
 over the Frenchmen, " I sleep as soundly as if I 
 had the key of Brest in my possession." 
 
 Saumarez justifled that trust magnificently. He 
 hung on to his post oft" the Black Rocks with iron 
 tenacity. Blow high or blow low, his grip at the 
 throat of Brest never relaxed. For fifteen weeks, 
 in all weathers, his watch was so strict that nothing 
 with sails either entered or left Brest harbour. On 
 November 9 a gale of memorable violence blew, 
 but could not blow Saumarez from his post. 
 
 He was relieved for a time, but on March 7, 1 801, 
 he was at his old post off" the Black Rocks again. 
 On the 20th the wild equinoctial gales were howling 
 over land and sea ; it was impossible to keep on the 
 
 o
 
 2IO NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 blockading ground, and the British ships in such 
 weather were accustomed to take refuge in Torbay, 
 and temporarily abandon the blockade. Saumarez, 
 however, adopted a more audacious policy. He ran 
 into Douvarnanez Bay, a little curve in the French 
 coast itself, within five miles of Brest, and com- 
 manding the entrance to Brest harbour. The ex- 
 asperated Frenchmen regarded this as a surpassing 
 bit of impudence. This audacious Englishman was 
 making French soil itself his ally ; he was using the 
 shelter of a French port to blockade French ships ! 
 There were now thirty-two line-of-battle ships in 
 Brest harbour, but they dare not run out while 
 Saumarez and his six ships hung on their flank. 
 They could only express their feelings by opening 
 a distant and wrathful, but quite harmless fire on 
 the impertinent Englishmen. All other British 
 ships were driven from the station ; Saumarez and 
 his little squadron alone held to their post. It was 
 a triumph of pluck and seamanship. 
 
 It is interesting to study the process by which so 
 fine a seaman as Saumarez was evolved. He was 
 born in Guernsey, and so, in a sense, was a child of 
 the stormy Channel, familiar with it from his very 
 birth. Norinan blood ran in his veins, and sea 
 and salt was in them too. One uncle was Anson's 
 first lieutenant. Another sailor uncle won fame by 
 a quite remarkable feat. He was on guard off
 
 SIR JAMES SAUMAREZ 2 I I 
 
 Bristol, in command of the Antelope of 50 guns, 
 when the news came that a big Frenchman had 
 anchored under Lundy Island. The Antelope set 
 sail at once, sighted the foe, closed with him and 
 opened fire. With the first sound of the English 
 guns the French flag was hauled down, and the 
 Bellique^Lx, of 64 guns and 500 men, surrendered, 
 without firing a shot, to the Antelopie of 50 guns 
 and 350 men. The French captain it seems 
 had contemplated the Antelope through alarmed 
 magnifying glasses. Its approach was so resolute 
 and menacing that the unhappy captain of the 
 Belliqueux was sure that it could be nothing less 
 than a three-decker. When he came on board his 
 captor's ship and realised its true dimensions, he 
 demanded furiously to be allowed to go back to his 
 own ship and fight it out ! The Antelope brought 
 back its mammoth j)rize to Bristol after a cruise 
 of only eighteen hours. 
 
 In a family with such traditions, and set in such 
 an environment, the sea was the obvious career for 
 any boy. Young Saumarez had his name entered 
 on the books of the Solehy when he was only ten 
 years old, and it remained there for nearly three 
 years; though its owner during that period was 
 only a boy in knickerbockers, struggling in a dame's 
 school through the earlier rules of the Latin gram- 
 mar. Late in 1769, young Saumarez, with nearly
 
 2 12 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 three years' sea-service to his credit, though he had 
 never yet put his foot upon a ship of war, joined 
 the Montreal, and began his actual career. In his 
 first cruise he was five years away from home 
 on duty without once returning. He first saw 
 actual war in 1775, on the American coast. He 
 was a very youthful lieutenant when, on June 28, 
 1776, he took part in the attack on Fort Sullivan. 
 It Avas a bit of desperate fighting ; his ship alone 
 lost III in killed and wounded. The fight lasted 
 thirteen hours, and ended in failure ; and Saumarez 
 years afterwards, when he had heard the thunders 
 of St. Vincent and of the Nile, declared that those 
 bloody hours at Fort Sullivan were fiercer and 
 more desperate than any fighting these great battles 
 yielded. 
 
 In 1778 a bit of good fortune befell Saumarez, 
 which made him count himself the luckiest, if 
 almost the most youthful, lieutenant in the British 
 navy. He was appointed to the command of the 
 Spitfire galley, with a modest crew of thirty-seven 
 men, and sent to cruise off Rhode Island, to inter- 
 cept the American coasting trade. The weather 
 was Avild, the coast rough, the enemy enterprising, 
 and, under the command of Saumarez, the little 
 Spitfire was engaged with the enemy no less than 
 forty-seven times. It was a splendid school for the 
 young sailor, and explains the perfect seamanship
 
 SIR JAMES SAUMAREZ 21 3 
 
 and steadfast daring Avhich, througlioiit his whole 
 career, were the characteristics of Sauraarez. He 
 returned to England later, served in the Victory, 
 the flagship of the Channel fleet, for two years, 
 and, under Sir Hyde Parker, took part in the 
 distracted but obstinate fight with the Dutchmen 
 off the Dogger Bank in 1781. Hyde Parker was 
 known in all the forecastles and gun-rooms of the 
 fleet as " Vinegar " Parker, for the quality of his 
 temper ; but the sour old admiral fell in love with 
 Saumarez, and offered to take him with him in the 
 Cato to the Indian station, where he was to hoist 
 his flag. Saumarez, fortunately, refused the offer, 
 and the Cato, with " Vinegar " Parker and all its 
 crew, sailed, and was never heard of again. The 
 great ship is supposed to have perished off the 
 Cape of Good Hope. 
 
 Saumarez, in command of the Tisiphone fireship, 
 under Kempenfeldt — who afterwards disappeared 
 from history in the Royal George — saw service in 
 the West Indies, was posted — almost by accident — 
 to the Russell, a fine 74, and took part under 
 Rodney in the great battle of that admiral with 
 De Grasse on April 12, 1782. A post-captain at 
 twenty-five, and in the line of battle under Rodney, 
 with a French fleet commanded by one of the 
 most famous of French admirals, under his lee ! 
 Here again was luck, and Saumarez showed him-
 
 2 14 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 self worthy of his good fortune. He fought and 
 disabled a French 74 on his own account, and 
 afterwards helped to compel De Grasse's flagship, 
 the Ville dc Paris, to strike. The Ville dc Paris, it 
 must be remembered, was one of the finest ships 
 afloat, and up to that date was the only French 
 first-rate that ever had been captured and carried 
 into port. 
 
 Peace now came, and with it came, for Saumarez, 
 the tameness of half-pay and the apparent end of 
 his career. The youthful captain consoled himself 
 by marriage; but in 1793 came the outbreak of 
 the great war, and Saumarez was appointed to the 
 Crescent of 36 guns, and despatched to cruise in 
 the Channel. He contributed to the great war 
 almost its first and most brilliant naval feat. A 
 French frigate was in the habit of creeping out of 
 Cherbourg under cover of the darkness, capturing 
 a few vagra/ut British merchantmen, and returning 
 to Cherbourg with her prizes next morning. This 
 was an agreeable entertainment which Saumarez pro- 
 posed to interrupt. On the morning of October 20 
 the Crescent, under reefed topsails, was close to the 
 lighthouse off" Cape Barfleur. The Frenchman, a fine 
 frigate, the Reunion, heavier in tonnage and weight 
 of broadside than the Crescetit, and carr3dng nearly 
 a hundred more men, had completed its nightly 
 tour and was returning to the French coast, when
 
 SIR JAMES SAUMAREZ 21$ 
 
 it found itself cut off by the Crescent. The EngHsh 
 frigate, clean from dock, Avas the quicker ship, and 
 soon ran down within pistol shot of the enemy's 
 larboard quarter, A very pretty fight followed. 
 It was watched by crowds on the French coast, 
 and was marked by exquisite seamanship on the 
 part of Saumarez. The Frenchman struck after 
 a fight of two hours, and with a loss of 120 killed 
 and wounded. So wild, however, was the shooting 
 of the Frenchman, and so adroit was the seaman- 
 ship of Saumarez, that the Crescent had not a single 
 man hit ! A British sailor had, indeed, a broken 
 leg; but this was due, not to a French shot, but 
 to the recoil of an English gun. There is hardly 
 any other example in naval history of a fight in 
 which all the killed and wounded were on one 
 side. A single shot from the Crescent entered the 
 starboard quarter of the Reunion, and made its 
 exit at the larboard bow, killing and wounding 
 twenty-one men in its progress. 
 
 That splendid feat won knighthood for Saumarez. 
 The fight, indeed, between the Crescent and the 
 Reunion deserves to be classed with that betwixt 
 the Nymph and the Cleopatra ; but the odds, on the 
 whole, were greater against Saumarez than against 
 Pellew, and the Nymph had not the bloodless 
 victory that the Crescent won. These two sea 
 duels, however, had a significance quite in excess
 
 2l6 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 of tlie scale of the forces engaged in them. They 
 seemed to determine, at the outset of the great 
 struggle, the supremacy of England on the sea. 
 
 For Saumarez there now followed a period of 
 difficult service in command of a squadron of 
 frigates watching the Channel; but he was quite 
 unlike another famous captain of his time — 
 Blackwood of the JEuryahis. He disliked frigate 
 service, though it meant larger freedom and more 
 prize-money. The stately line-of-battle ship, with 
 its strict discipline and ordered tactics, suited him 
 best, and in March 1795 he was posted to the 
 Orion, the ship Avhich was destined to carry his 
 flag through two historic battles, St. Vincent and 
 the Nile. 
 
 At St. Vincent the Orion came third in Jervis' 
 line, following the proud lead of the Culloden and 
 the Prince George. Saumarez played a gallant part 
 in the fierce melee between the four leading British 
 ships and the main body of the Spaniards. He 
 fouo-ht a three-decker, the Salvador del Mundo, for 
 an hour, compelled her to strike, and sent his first 
 lieutenant on board to take possession ; while the 
 Orion itself, bearing many scars from Spanish shot, 
 stood on in search of new foes. Saumarez's own 
 story is : "I stood for a three-decker, which, after 
 engaging some time, struck her colours ; she first 
 showed a white flag, which . . . was not satisfac-
 
 SIR JAMES SATJMAREZ 217 
 
 tory to myself, and we continued firing till they 
 hoisted the English flag over the Spanish, on 
 which we ceased firing." As the last guns on 
 the Orion were fired, and Sauinarez was about to 
 take possession of his huge prize, Jervis signalled 
 his fleet to wear and come to the wind. Saumarez 
 obeyed the signal, and left his capture unappro- 
 priated, and had the mortification of seeing it, 
 after a pause, rehoist the Spanish colours. The 
 lost prize, it turned out, was the Santissima Trini- 
 dada itself, the biggest battle-ship afloat, and 
 destined to meet Nelson again on the day of a 
 yet more famous battle. To capture and take 
 possession of one three-decker, and to compel the 
 biggest ship under the enemy's flag to strike, was 
 surely a splendid contribution to even the glories 
 of St. Vincent. 
 
 The Orion, again, formed part of the immortal 
 fleet which, under Nelson, twice crossed the Medi- 
 terranean in pursuit of Brueys, and Anally destroyed 
 him in the great fight in Aboukir Bay. A little 
 before noon on the day of battle, the reconnoitring 
 ship signalled that the enemy was not in the 
 port of Alexandria, and dinner that day was a 
 melancholy meal in every gun-room of the fleet. 
 " Despondency," says even the equable - minded 
 Saumarez, " nearly took possession of my mind, 
 and I do not recollect ever to have felt so utterly
 
 2l8 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 hopeless and out of spirits as when we sat down 
 to dinner." They had missed the Frenchmen 
 again ! But just then came a gleam of good 
 news : " Judge," cries Saumarez, " what a change 
 took place when, as the cloth was being removed, 
 the officer of the watch came running in saying, 
 ' Sir, a signal is just now made that the enemy 
 is in Aboukir Bay, and moored in a line of battle.' " 
 The officers round the dinner-table leaped to their 
 feet, the glasses were uplifted to drink " success " 
 in the coming tight, and then they hurried on deck. 
 As Saumarez stepped from his cabin, his crew, who 
 were eagerly looking for him, broke into a tumult 
 of stern and exultant shouts. That almost in- 
 voluntary and eager shout was a good omen for 
 the coming battle. 
 
 The Orion was the third English ship that 
 rounded the head of the French line. She poured 
 a shattering broadside into the already sorely 
 shattered bows of the Guerricr, and then passed 
 outside her predecessors, the Zealous and the Goliath. 
 Saumarez was conning his ship and choosing his 
 particular antagonist with great deliberation, when 
 a French frigate, the Serieuse, with more courage 
 than judgment, fired a hurried but venomous broad- 
 side into the English 74. Battle itself has its iron 
 etiquette. In an engagement a line-of-battle ship 
 does not fire upon any smaller craft without special
 
 SIR JAMES SATJMAREZ 2lg 
 
 provocation. The first lieutenant of the Orion pro- 
 posed to at once return the fire of the audacious 
 frigate. " No," said Sir James coolly, " let her 
 alone. She will get courage and come nearer. 
 Shorten sail ! " As the Oi^ion lost way, the French 
 frigate came up almost alongside, preparing to fire 
 again. The Orion's starboard guns were double- 
 shotted ; and at the moment when every gun bore 
 on the too -enterprising Frenchman, the word 
 " Fire " was given. That single broadside sank the 
 Frenchman. 
 
 Saumarez meanwhile had stood on, and having 
 fired a broadside into the fourth ship in the French 
 line, brought up on the quarter of Ze Peuph 
 Souverain, and on the bow of the Franklin, the fifth 
 and sixth ships respectively in Brueys' line. It was 
 a position which delighted the crew of the Orion. 
 They could fire on two Frenchmen at once, each 
 bigger than themselves, to say nothing of firing 
 an occasional broadside into Brueys' flagship, the 
 gigantic L Orient itself. 
 
 It was a quarter to seven when the anchor of 
 the Orio7i was dropped, and she fired her first guns 
 into the Franklin. At half-past eight Le Peu])le 
 Souverain had dropped out of the line to leeward, 
 but the duel with the Franklin lasted till a quarter 
 to ten, or thereabouts, when the Frenchman struck. 
 Then came the dramatic moment of the battle.
 
 2 20 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 The Orient blew up, and liuslied the tumult of the 
 combat with the sound of its mighty explosion. It 
 is a somewhat prosaic detail that the next business 
 of the Orion was to fish out of the water some 
 fourteen of the unhappy crew of the Orient, the 
 British tars, with rough kindness, attiring their 
 half-drowned enemies in their own jackets and 
 trousers. 
 
 A week after the great fight Saumarez was 
 detailed with a small squadron to convoy the 
 captured French ships to Gibraltar or to Lisbon. 
 Never was a business which so taxed the patience 
 and skill of a seaman as this. The battered ships 
 with difficulty could be persuaded to either wear or 
 tack. They resembled nothing so much as a covey 
 of broken-winged birds. The weather alternated 
 between calms — when the great shot-battered hulls 
 lay motionless — and gusts of rough weather, when 
 they drifted helplessly to leeward like so many 
 empty barrels. Saumarez's log reflects almost 
 amusingly the exasperations and delays of that 
 voyage. With the most skilful seamanship it took 
 more than tAvo months to bring that strange convoy 
 from Alexandria to Gibraltar, a distance of 2100 
 miles ; an average rate of 3 5 miles a day. 
 
 The most memorable incident in Saumarez's 
 career is of course the double fight with Linois in, 
 and off, Alge(^iras Bay. He was now a rear-admiral,
 
 SIR JAMES SAUMAREZ 22 1 
 
 with the Ccesar for his flagship. A powerful 
 squadron of Spanish line-of-battle ships was lying at 
 Cadiz, News reached the Admiralty that a French 
 squadron from Toulon was on its way to join the 
 Spanish ships, with a view to a descent on the 
 coast of Portugal ; or perhaps to the relief of the 
 French army in Eygpt. Saumarez sailed on June 
 14 to blockade Cadiz, and prevent the junction of 
 the squadrons. On July 5 he learned that Linois' 
 squadron was actually in Gibraltar Bay. Saumarez 
 acted with admirable promptitude. He left one 
 ship, the Supcrh, to keep watch over the Spaniards 
 in Cadiz harbour, and sailed instantly to attack the 
 Frenchmen. July 6 was a Sunday. It was certain 
 that the morning would bring a battle ; but eleven 
 o'clock was the ordinary hour for public service in 
 the ships, and Saumarez was not the man to in- 
 termit this unless the guns were actually speaking. 
 So on the flagship was seen the sight of the crew 
 in white — they were serving in a warm climate — 
 in divisions on the quarterdeck, a band of marines 
 on the poop, the admiral and his ofiicers under 
 the poop awning, and all the solemnities of re- 
 ligious worship, with the enemy only a few miles 
 distant. 
 
 Linois, with three ships of the line and a frigate, 
 was moored off Algeciras, six miles distant from 
 Gibraltar. The so-called bay is a little curve of
 
 2 22 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 shallow water, sown with rocks. The shore was 
 lined with heavy batteries, under which Linois, with 
 great skill, had anchored his ships. Fourteen 
 Spanish gunboats had joined the French ; and the 
 task before Saumarez was one of great difficulty. 
 He had to fight not merely the ships, but the 
 batteries, and to do this in shallow water sown with 
 perils. His greatest difficulty was due to the fact 
 that the wind was so light that the British ships 
 had little or no power of manoeuvring. They 
 drifted, rather than sailed, down on the French line. 
 But the British saw their enemies before them, and 
 closed with them as resolutely, if not so quickly, as 
 at the Nile itself. 
 
 Hood led in the Venerahle, and there was a look 
 of majesty in the slow and silent approach of the 
 great British ships. At half-past eight three were 
 within reach of the enemy, and had opened fire. 
 At nine o'clock the Ccesar added the deep voice of 
 her big guns to the fray, and, moving slowly ahead 
 of the Venerable, dropped anchor. The other two 
 British ships, practically becalmed, had anchored 
 outside their comrades, and could only fire through 
 the gaps in the British line. At ten o'clock the 
 French fire had slackened so much that Saumarez 
 was on the point of sending in a fiag of truce to the 
 Spanish batteries, proposing to spare the town if he 
 were allowed to take away the French ships. What
 
 SIR JAMES SAUMAREZ 223 
 
 had really happened, however, was a very clever bit 
 of tactics on the part of the French admiral. He 
 Avas quietly warping his ships closer inshore, for 
 the purpose of drawing the British ships more 
 directly under the fire of the batteries. One of 
 the British ships — the Pomfie — having broken her 
 sheer, was thrown by a flaw of the wind stem-on 
 to the French admiral, and Avas raked with dreadful 
 effect, and had to be towed off by the boats of the 
 squadron. 
 
 The French by this had greatly increased their 
 distance from the British, and Saumarez had to 
 choose between abandoning the fight and making 
 the almost hopeless attempt to close with his 
 enemies. He chose the more daring course. He 
 signalled to his ships to cut or slip their cables, and 
 make sail to close with the enemy. But there was 
 not wind enough to carry the British ships on to 
 the enemy's line. A breath of wind, it is true, 
 caught the sails of the Hannibal, and its captain, 
 Ferris, with signal coolness and audacity, tried to 
 place his ship between the French flagship, the 
 Formidable, and the shore. But a stroke of fatal 
 ill-luck befell him. The Hannibal erounded 
 heavily, directly under the stroke of the great 
 battery on the clift', and under the raking broad- 
 sides of the Formidable. Ferris sent his men below 
 to escape the tempest of grape which swept the
 
 2 24 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 deck of the Hannibal, and held on till the 
 ship was riddled and nearly i8o of his crew 
 had been killed or wounded ; then he lowered his 
 flag. 
 
 The other British ships, meanwhile, had tried 
 in vain to reach the French line. Saumarez would 
 have landed his marines to storm the batteries, 
 but every boat in the squadron that could float 
 was employed in towing off the Pompt^c or in hurry- 
 ing to the help of the Hannibal. At last Saumarez 
 drew off his battered ships and bore up for repairs 
 into Gibraltar. 
 
 The triumph of the French may be imagined. 
 They had beaten off a British squadron of double 
 their own strength and had captured a British 
 74 ! There had been no other such triumph won 
 under the French flag since the war began. Much 
 dispute subsequently arose as to whether Saumarez 
 had drawn off before the Hannihal struck, and 
 whether everything j)ossible had been done to 
 assist that unfortunate ship. The dispute was 
 due mainly to the curious difference between 
 French and British practice. The British, when 
 they captured a French ship, were accustomed to 
 hoist the Union Jack above the tricolour. The 
 French plan was to hoist the English ensign union 
 downwards. Now, the French so seldom captured 
 an English ship that this custom was almost un-
 
 SIR JAMES SAUMAEEZ 225 
 
 known to Bi-itish sailors themselves ; while the 
 ensign, union down, is of course the accepted 
 signal of distress. It is true that the ensign 
 union down was flying from the Hannibal when 
 Saumarez drew off; but it was not an appeal for 
 help from that ship, only a sign that the French 
 were in possession. The British boats, in fact, 
 reached the stranded ship when the French were 
 actually on board, and were themselves made 
 prisoners. 
 
 In the court-martial which followed, Colonel 
 Connolly, who was on board the Hannibal, gave 
 evidence that " no signal of distress was hoisted 
 by the Hannibal at all, but the French hoisted the 
 ensign union down when they came on board." He 
 added, " The boats from our ships did not get 
 near us till after we were in the possession of the 
 enemy; and I called to an old shipmate of mine, 
 in the Vcncrables barge, and told him so, as he 
 came under the starboard quarter ; but he per- 
 sisted in coming on board, and was taken. A 
 good many English boats were taken in the same 
 way." The obstinate courage shown by the 
 Venerables barge may well be admired, though 
 it sadly needed to be flavoured with a little more 
 discretion. 
 
 Meanwhile at Gibraltar Saumarez was labouring 
 with intense diligence and admirable skill in re- 
 
 P
 
 2 26 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 fitting his shattered ships ; and never before was 
 a squadron of half-destroyed ships restored to 
 fighting condition with such speed. Linois, on 
 his part, had summoned the Spaniards in Cadiz 
 to join him. He had beaten six British ships 
 with three, he explained, capturing one of his 
 enemies; if the Spaniards joined him he would 
 convey his prize in triumph into Cadiz. The 
 Spanish admiral Morino, with five sail of the 
 line and three frigates, promptly came out on 
 the 9th, sailed past Gibraltar, and joined Linois 
 off Algegiras. The British sailors knew that 
 this represented a plan for convoying the cap- 
 tured Bcmnibal in triumph into Cadiz, and they 
 toiled with passionate energy, but in disciplined 
 and silent order, to fit their ships for a fresh 
 engagement. 
 
 At half-past two on July 1 2 the Ccesar hauled 
 off the mole, a band playing " Cheer up, my lads ! 
 'tis to glory we steer " ; the bandsmen of the 
 garrison on the mole-head, meanwhile, almost 
 bursting their distended cheeks and their very 
 drum-heads by the energy they poured into the 
 answering strain of " Britons ! Strike Home." An 
 hour earlier the enemy's ships had been seen 
 beyond Cabrita Point, working slowly out of the 
 bay, before a fresh east wind, towards Cadiz. One 
 British ship, the Pomp(^e, was left behind, her
 
 SIR JAMES SAUMAREZ 2 2/ 
 
 injuries being beyond repair, while Linois' force 
 had been more than trebled by the junction of 
 six Spanish line-of-battle ships and three frigates ; 
 and two of the Spaniards, it may be noted, were 
 three-deckers. The odds, therefore, were now much 
 heavier against the British than five days before. 
 It was a case of five ships pursuing nine. 
 
 The combined fleet bore proudly away, the 
 crippled Hannibal jealously guarded in its centre. 
 The wind was freshening; but it was nearly nine 
 o'clock before the British fleet had worked clear 
 of the bay, and was following. The Superb was 
 by far the quickest ship under Saumarez, and he 
 directed its captain, Keats, to spread every inch 
 of canvas, overtake the rearmost ships of the 
 enemy, and bring them to action. Then followed 
 one of the most dramatic incidents in naval 
 history. 
 
 A little after eleven o'clock the Superb over- 
 took the two Spanish three-deckers, dragging 
 heavily in Linois' rear, their tall sails showing 
 with ghost-like effect, high in the darkness. The 
 quickly-moving SujK.rb glided between them, fired 
 a broadside into each, pushed on, and in a few 
 moments was lost in the darkness ahead. The 
 two great Spaniards, each smitten in this fashion 
 with a fierce broadside out of the gloom, fired 
 wildly in return on each other. The wind was
 
 228 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 now rising fast, a heavy sea had begun to roll, 
 the two Spaniards drifted nearer to each other, 
 firing furiously. They had lain long in port 
 under the Cadiz sun, both canvas and woodwork 
 were as dry as tinder. Flames broke out on each ; 
 they leaped from sail to sail. The red fire ran 
 along the crowded decks. A dozen tiny explosions 
 told where a pile of cartridges had been touched 
 by the red tongue of the flames. Each ship was 
 quickly one vast and drifting pyramid of flame. 
 A little after midnight one great three-decker 
 blew up, the second quickly followed ; and out 
 of their combined crews, numbering nearly 2000 
 men, only a handful escaped ! The SujJ'erh, mean- 
 while, had pushed on and was busily engaged 
 with another enemy, which presently struck. 
 
 The morning broke on a wild scene. A heavy 
 sea was running ; the sky was full of blowing 
 clouds ; the Venerable was closing with a French 
 line-of-battle ship, when she grounded on a shoal 
 and her foremast went by the board, her mizzcn- 
 mast quickly following. Her case seemed hope- 
 less, and a boat was sent from the Ccesar with 
 instructions to Hood that, if he could not get his 
 ship off the shoal, he was to set fire to her and 
 carry his crew to the Thames. Brenton, who 
 took the order, tells how he found Hood sitting 
 on the breech of a gun on his quarterdeck with
 
 SIR JAMES SAUMAREZ 229 
 
 perfect cheerfulness. " It is not so bad yet with 
 the old Venerable" he said ; ' I hope to get her 
 off soon. These rascals shall not have her." He 
 succeeded in floating the Venerable again, and she 
 was towed by the Spencer into Gibraltar, the 
 enemy meanwhile having succeeded in reaching 
 Cadiz. 
 
 Saumarez returned in triumph to Gibraltar. He 
 had not recaptured the Hannibal, it is true, but 
 he brought a Spanish 74 as a prize; he had 
 destroyed two Spanish three-deckers, and defeated 
 the designs of the French. Linois, with the 
 Spaniards, was safely blockaded in Cadiz. Per- 
 haps no finer bit of work was ever done by British 
 sailors than Avas accomplished by Saumarez and 
 his squadron in those seven days of intense toil 
 and hard fighting between Algegiras and Cadiz. 
 The strain upon the crews of the ships may bo 
 judged from the circumstance that, when the ships 
 dropped anchor at Gibraltar, the men flung them- 
 selves down on the deck in a sort of stupor of 
 exhaustion that lasted for hours. 
 
 This was, practically, the last bit of hard 
 fighting in Saumarez's career. But for five years 
 he was in command of the Baltic, and by his tact, 
 vigilance, and sagacity, he held the Baltic powers 
 steady to the alliance against France, and kept 
 the sea itself free from French control, and so
 
 230 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 contributed materially, if not in a dramatic fashion-, 
 to tlie overthrow of Napoleon and the triumphant 
 close of the great war. 
 
 Saumarez lived for many peaceful years after 
 the war had ceased, and in Guernsey his " good 
 grey head" was as well known, and drew to itself 
 as much of reverence, as that of Wellington in 
 the streets of London. He was a man of deep 
 and modest piety, and his death was one of singu- 
 lar peace. Fragments of the Psalms were whispered 
 by his dying lips : " The Lord is my light and 
 my salvation ; of whom, then, shall I be afraid ? " 
 Sometimes the nobler strains of the Epistles took 
 their place : " If God be for us, who can be against 
 us ? "' The last syllables on his lips, uttered with 
 clear and triumphant accents, were a fragment of 
 the metrical version of the 1 2 2nd Psalm : " It was 
 a joyful sound to hear;" and Sir John Ross, his 
 biographer, suggests that on the dying sailor's ear 
 had fallen a strain of the far-off music of heaven. 
 It is certainly remarkable that those ears that had 
 once been filled with the stormy tumult of St. 
 Vincent and of the Nile, and of many another 
 great fight, thrilled at last to a music so divine 
 and unearthly. 
 
 On a hill in Guernsey rises an obelisk ninety feet 
 high in memory of Sir James Saumarez. It looks 
 down on the rock-edged coast, on the restless waters
 
 SIR JAMES SAUMAHEZ 23 I 
 
 of the Channel, on the dim and far-off coast of 
 France. It is a fitting monument to the great sea- 
 man, whose boyhood was spent in the green valleys 
 beneath, and who served his race so nobly on that 
 grey floor of sea beyond.
 
 CHAPTER X 
 
 SIR WILLIAM PARKER (17S1-1866) 
 
 " A'o one 1 t]ii7ik so fortunate as myselfj the Jinest frigate in 
 the navy at the beginning of the war^ — WiLI.IAM PARKER 
 (cetat. twenty-one). 
 
 " The best frigate-captain in the service." — Sir Pulteney 
 Malcolm. 
 
 WILLIAM PARKER, in a sense, is not one of 
 " Nelson's captains," though for a short time 
 he commanded a frigate under Nelson's flagf. He 
 does not belong to the same group with Saumarez 
 and Ball and Hardy, or even with Berry and 
 Blackwood. He never commanded a line-of-battle 
 ship till many years after Nelson was dead ; and, 
 except as a boy under Howe, he never saw two 
 great fleets closing on each other in battle. But 
 he belongs to Nelson's school, and he brought 
 down to a later generation not merely the splendid 
 traditions of that school, but many of its splendid 
 qualities. 
 
 St. Vincent himself was a close connection — his 
 uncle by marriage and cousin by blood — and Parker 
 was in one respect the heir of St. Vincent's pro-
 
 SIR WILLIAM PARKER 233 
 
 fessional ideals. He had, without his sternness, 
 his high conception of discipUnc ; his sense of the 
 value of silence, order, and thoroughness as 
 elements of discipline. And when he flew his 
 flag as cominander-in-chief of the Mediterranean 
 late in the forties, he raised the discipline of his 
 fleet to a level which became memorable. In the 
 unbuttoned vernacular alike of the gun-room and 
 of the forecastle what was done " in old Billy 
 Parker's time " was an authoritative standard for 
 what ought to be done always and everywhere. 
 But this was the later Parker ; Parker grown old, 
 oracular, official. It is the youthful Parker who 
 is worth studying as an example of the younger 
 school of seamen who grew up under tlie shadow 
 of Nelson's name, and were moulded by Nelson's 
 spirit. 
 
 And certainly as a picture of the life of a young 
 naval officer in the time of the great war nothing 
 can well be more interesting and suggestive than 
 Parker's career. It was a life of constant adventure, 
 of quick-succeeding incident, of chases and captures, 
 of adroit stratagems, of daring boat attacks, of fat 
 prizes. Parker belongs to the class from which 
 Marryat and Michael Scott drew their heroes. In 
 one sense, indeed, he was quite unlike the Tom 
 Cringles, the Frank Mildmays, and the Percival 
 Keenes, who have delighted so many generations
 
 2 34 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 of British school-boys. There was no strain of 
 the pickle in him. He was a decorous, almost 
 solemn-minded, not to say priggish youth. A 
 touch of the delightful and unsmiling simplicity 
 of Peter Simple was in him. He was as com- 
 mercially-minded in the matter of prizes as a 
 Dutch merchant might have been, and constantly 
 reckons up to his mother how much this or that 
 particular capture will yield him. He assesses 
 each cruising ground, and cruise, in turn, by the 
 question of whether it is profitable or not ; and 
 most of them, it may be added, were surprisingly 
 profitable. " I fancy I have made ;^300 this 
 cruise," he assures his " dearest mother," when 
 he was only twenty years old. Still earlier, when 
 he is only nineteen, he is able to tell his " dearest 
 sisters," " My last cruise in the Stork will clear 
 me, I believe, .^500." From the Stork again, on 
 September 15, 1801, returning from a cruise of 
 fifteen weeks, he writes to his mother, " I fancy 
 I have made nearly ^^^3000." 
 
 Parker's early career represents, in a word, 
 what may be called the Marryat aspect of naval 
 war in Nelson's time ; not on its frolicsome side 
 — it is doubtful whether Parker was ever guilty 
 of a practical joke in his life — but on its fighting 
 side. Here is an English boy of an ordinary type, 
 without shining gifts of brain or body. He is a
 
 SIR WILLIAM PARKER 235 
 
 clean-minded lad, because he has breathed from 
 his birth the atmosphere of a pure home. Good 
 family traditions act upon him like a tonic. He 
 is the nephew of the man who won the great 
 fight off Cape St. Vincent. At an age when most 
 modern lads have hardly begun their school life, 
 he is put on the quarterdeck of a man-of-war. 
 The sea is his world ; the ship is his school. 
 His comrades are seamen, his officers are his 
 teachers, war is his business. They are not the 
 dull days of peace through which he lives. Each 
 new morning may bring a new chase, a fresh 
 adventure, a rich capture. It is the navy in the 
 days of Nelson, of the Nile, of Copenhagen, of 
 Trafalgar. And young Parker does not belong 
 to the heavy battalions of the fleet. He is not 
 cruising in a three-decker for tedious months off 
 Brest or Toulon. His life is spent in light ships 
 — in frigates and sloops — and in outpost work ; 
 hunting for fat prizes amongst the heavy-bottomed 
 merchant ships of France or Spain ; clearing the 
 Channel of French privateers, or exterminating 
 pirates in the warm seas of the West Indies. 
 
 Parker was, no doubt, greatly helped in his 
 career by family influence ; helped indeed to a 
 degree which nowadays would be considered 
 scandalous. But he took his profession seriously, 
 brought to it a high ideal of duty, and had some
 
 236 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 fine natural gifts, or he could never have made 
 himself what Sir Pulteney Malcolm declared him 
 to be, " the finest frigate captain in the service." 
 He began his career at the tender age of ten years, 
 with the rating of " captain's servant " on the Orion. 
 Sir John Jervis — not yet Lord St. Vincent — helped 
 to seciu'e him this start, but did it with a touch of 
 morose reluctance. He tells young Parker's father 
 that he cannot possibly recommend him to put his 
 son in the navy ; it will cost too much, and the 
 career will yield too little ; but never was a more 
 mistaken forecast ! Jervis goes on to explain that 
 he will not be able to help the lad, as he is him- 
 self approaching threescore, and will be soon past 
 helping anybody ; and as, " from the aspect of 
 foreign affairs, there is small probability of any war 
 arising," young Parker, he adds, is not likely to 
 enjoy any chances of helping himself. This is an 
 example of human short-sightedness which it 
 would be hard, indeed, to beat. England was at 
 that moment on the verge of the Twenty Years' 
 war ; over its fleets were about to break the glories 
 of the Nile, the Baltic, and Trafalgar, In less 
 than five years after writing that letter Jervis 
 himself was winning the great fight off Cape St. 
 Vincent. 
 
 Young Parker was very fortunate in his first 
 captain, Duckworth. He belonged to the period
 
 Sm WILLIAM PARKER 237 
 
 when the captain was half father and half school- 
 master to his middies ; and Jervis himself describes 
 Duckworth as " the very best man in the navy for 
 training youth." In an early and very boyish letter 
 to his mother Parker tells her that " Captain Duck- 
 worth is like a father to us all." He bought sweets 
 for his middies, and looked with semi-maternal 
 concern after their bedding. His aunt gives the 
 eleven-year-old middy — or rather " captain's ser- 
 vant " — a guinea; and he tells his mother 'I shall 
 give this to Captain Duckworth, as I have my 
 other money, as well as my watch and spy-glass, 
 to be taken care of." 
 
 But this eleven-year-old boy was quickly caught 
 in the tumult of a great sea-battle. His ship 
 formed part of Lord Howe's fleet on the First of 
 June. He writes to his mother the day after the 
 battle telling her " not to alarm yourself about me, 
 as I am sound, well, and happy as a king. The 
 engagement was the severest that ever was fought 
 in the whole world. I do not cram you at all by 
 telling you so. ... I forgot to tell you that we 
 have conquered the rascals." 
 
 The story of the First of June has been told 
 a hundred times over by grave historians, but 
 young Parker's letter to his father, written on 
 June 17, 1794, enables us to see what aspect a 
 great battle wears when looked at through a boy's
 
 238 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 eyes. First we have this picture from the pre- 
 liminary fight on May 29 : — 
 
 " Th& enemy fired chiefly at otir rigging trying 
 to dismast us, and we at their litdls, which ive thought 
 the best way of iveakening them. It was surprising 
 to see with what courage our men behaved ; there were 
 even some of thein so eager that they jumped up in 
 the rigging to huzza, and Captain Duckworth hauled 
 them down by the legs (I mean the brave fighting cool 
 Duchvjorth). We had not fired two broadsides before 
 an unlucky shot cut a poor mans head right in two, 
 and wounded Jiio. Fane and four other yoimgsters 
 like him very slightly. The horrid sight of this 
 p)oor man I must confess did not help to raise my 
 spirits. At twelve the bold and brave Admiral Gardner, 
 according to custom,, broke their line, upon which our ship's 
 company gave three hearty cheers at their quarters ; 
 we then passed the whole of the French line, and 
 were exposed to a very smart and close cannonading 
 from the enemy, tohieh we ret^irned with very great 
 warmth. We then lay-to to repair our rigging a 
 little, when seeing their stcrnmost ship of eighty guns 
 a little way ahead we bore up for her, and running 
 close under her iveather quarter let fly a broadside 
 into her, which raked her fore and aft, and so effeetu- 
 ally that it made the Frcnclimen, according to custom, 
 run from their cpiarters and huddle together down
 
 SIR WILLIAM PARKER 239 
 
 heloio, and the French ca])tain was the only person 
 seen 2ipon deck, which he walked very resolutely and 
 put every one of his men to siuord whom he saio 
 
 fiy" 
 
 Of the historic fight on June i, here is what 
 a boy tells : — 
 
 " Lord Howe always likes to begin in the morning 
 and let us have a whole day at it. The next morning 
 early the signal was made to form the line of hattle ; 
 we heat to quarters and got up sufficiently of poivder 
 and shot to engage the enemy. The enemy also formed 
 their line to lecivard. Upon our making observations 
 on the enemy s fleet we found tliat one of their three- 
 deck ships lucre missing, hiot counted twenty-eight sail- 
 of-the-line, ivliich was two more than they had on May 
 29. We supposed the Isle d'Aix squadron had joined 
 them, and the ship that we had disaUcd on the 2gfh 
 had hore up for Brest or sunk, and some thought the 
 Audacious must have taken one of them, and took her 
 away from the fleet as she was missing May 30; hut 
 the hest joke was that the French Commander-in-Chief 
 had the impiidence to say to those shipjs who joined him 
 that he had thrashed us on the 2gth completely, and 
 that he only urtnted to have another little dust with us 
 before he should carry us cdl into Brest. Our fleet was 
 formed, and we only waited to get near enough to the 
 enemy to begin.
 
 240 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 "At eiglit the action hcgan, and the firing from 
 the enemy was very smart before we could e7igage the 
 ship that came to our turn to engage, as every ship 
 is to have one hecausc our line is formed ahead, and 
 theirs is formed also. Stcppose their first or leading 
 ship is a 100 guns and ours a 74, oiir ship must 
 engage her. I believe tve vjere the ninth or tenth 
 ship ; our lot fell to an 80-gnn ship, so we would 
 not waste our powder and shot by firing at other 
 ships, though I am sorry to say they fired very smartly 
 at us and unluehily killed tivo men before ive fired 
 a gun, ivhich so exasperated our men that they kept 
 singing out, ' For God's sake, brave captain, let us 
 fire ! Consider, sir, two poor sonls are slaughtered 
 already.' But Captain Duckworth would not let them, 
 fire till we came abreast of the ship we were to engage, 
 when Captain Duckworth cried out, ' Fire, my boys, 
 fire ! ' upon ivhich our enraged boys gave them such 
 an extraordinary warm rccepition that I really believe 
 it struck the rascals with the 2Kinic. The French 
 ever since the 2gth (because toe so tnuch damaged one of 
 their ships) called us the little devil and the little black 
 ribband, as we have a black streak painted on our side. 
 They made the signal for three or four of their ships to 
 com e down and sink us, and if we struck to them to give 
 us no quarter; but all this did not in the least dis- 
 hearten our ship's company, and we kept up a very 
 smart fire when some of the enemy's masts and yards
 
 SIR WILLIAM PARKER 24 1 
 
 went over their side, which we gave credit for some of 
 our doing. 
 
 " The smoke was so thick that we could not at all 
 times see the shijJS engaging ahead and astern. Our 
 main-topmast and main-yard being carried away hy 
 the enemy's shot, the Frenchmen gave three cheers, upon 
 ivhich our ship's co'tnpany, to show they did not mind it, 
 returned them the three cheers, and after that gave them 
 a furious broadside. About this time a musket ball 
 came and struck Captain Duckworth between the bottom 
 part of his thumb and finger, but very slightly, so that 
 he only wrcq?ped a handkerchief about it, and it is noio 
 almost quite well. But to proceed with my account : at 
 about ten the Queen broke their line again, and we gave 
 three cheers at our quarters ; and now ive engaged lohich- 
 evcr ship we cotdd best. A ship) of So guns, which 
 we had poured three or four broadsides into on May 29, 
 ive saw draiving ahead on our lee quarter to fire into us, 
 which ship our ship's company had a great desire to have 
 made strike to us on the 2gth, and now quite rejoiced at 
 having an opportunity of engaging her again, gave three 
 cheers at their (quarters, and began a very smart firing 
 at their former antagonist. 
 
 " Their firing was not very smart, though she con- 
 trived to send a red-hot shot into the captains c(d)in 
 where I am quartered, which kept rolling about and 
 burning everybody, when gallant Hears, our first 
 lieutenant, took it up in his speaking-trumpet and
 
 2 42 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 threw it overboard. At last being so very close to 
 her ive siqij^osed her men had left their quarters, as 
 Frenehrfien do not like close quarters. She bore down 
 to leeward of the fleet, being very much disabled. The 
 French fleet then ran away like cotvardly rascals and 
 we made all the sail we co2ild. 
 
 " Lord Howe ordered our shi'ps that were not very 
 much disahlcd to take the 'prizes in toiu, and owr own 
 dismasted ships, who were erecting jury masts as fast 
 as possible. But I forgot to tell you that the ship 
 which struck to us was so much disabled that she could 
 not live much longer upon the ivatcr, but gave a dreadfid 
 reel and lay dow7i on her broadside. We loere afraid 
 to send any boats to help them, because they woidd have 
 sunk her by too many poor souls getting into her at 
 once. You could plainly perceive the poor wretches 
 climbing over to windivard and crying most dreadfully. 
 She then righted a little, and then her head ivent down 
 gradually, and she sunk. She after that rose again 
 a little and then sunk, so that no more was seen of 
 her. Oh, my dear father ! when you consider of five 
 or six hundred souls destroyed in that shocking manner, 
 it tvill make your very heart relcyit. Our own men 
 even were a great many of them in tears and groaning, 
 they said God bless them. Oh, that we had come into 
 a thousand engagements sooner than so many poor soids 
 should be at once destroyed in that shocking manner. 
 I really think it woidd have rent the hardest of hearts."
 
 SIR WILLIAM PARKER 243 
 
 Jervis sums up the story to Parker's father some- 
 what grimly. " Your young tar has had a bellyful 
 of fighting under Lord Howe. That battle was the 
 best fought on our side of any since the Dutch 
 war." 
 
 In May 1796 Parker was transferred to the 
 Leviathmi, a 74, and saw some service, with patches 
 of hard fighting, in the West Indies. In October 
 of the same year, still a youth not fifteen years old, 
 he was made acting lieutenant of the Magicicnnc, 
 a fast and handy frigate, with an enterprising 
 captain — Ricketts — just entering on a cruise in 
 the West Indian waters which was to last eisrhteen 
 months. Parker now had found exactly the field 
 that suited him. Here were adventures, prizes, 
 pursuits, reckless boat attacks, and excursions ; a 
 life in which every day brought some new incident. 
 The West Indian trade was rich ; the seas swarmed 
 with privateers ; the French islands offered endless 
 points of attack. And the next eighteen months 
 of Parker's life may well be the envy still of all 
 British boys. 
 
 A youth of fifteen acting lieutenant in a fine 
 frigate in active service seems, indeed, to modern 
 ideas absurd ; but Parker had strong influence 
 behind him. Let it be remembered that Rodney 
 promoted his son from the rank of a midshijDman 
 to that of a post-captain in a single month, and
 
 244 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 when the boy was not yet sixteen. And Parker's 
 own biography tells the story of Sir Charles Adams, 
 who, when not yet quite twenty years of age, had 
 reached the rank of post-captain, when it was 
 suddenly discovered that, by some verbal error, 
 his earlier promotions Avere invalid, and the 
 youthful captain shrank at a breath into a mid- 
 shipman once more. He had to go through the 
 formality of re-examination, and mounted the ladder 
 of promotion again with such agility, that he 
 passed, was promoted, sailed, and was made captain 
 for the second time before his twentieth year 
 arrived. In a period when such things happened 
 it need cause nb surprise that the nephew of Lord 
 St. Vincent was acting lieutenant when not quite 
 fifteen. 
 
 The captain of the Magicienne had at first some 
 natural doubts as to Parker's capacity for his new 
 post, and the gunner, a storm-beaten veteran, was 
 put in his watch to dry-nurse him. But he quickly 
 reported to the captain that " Mr. Parker made 
 no mistakes," and the young acting lieutenant was 
 left to keep his watch unassisted. 
 
 The cruise of the Magicienne lasted eighteen 
 months, and it is difficult to imagine that any 
 ship ever spent a busier and more profitable year 
 and a half. Almost every second day reports a 
 capture or a chase, or a cutting out expedition,
 
 SIR WILLIAM PARKER 245 
 
 or a dash at an enemy's fort, sometimes alone, 
 sometimes in company with another stray British 
 frigate. Some of the exploits attempted were of 
 a very daring sort, and they did not always succeed. 
 Thus on February 14 a cluster of French merchant 
 vessels, with four privateers and some shore batteries 
 to defend them, were found lying in Porto Rico. 
 Parker led the attacking party, consisting of ninety 
 seamen — all volunteers — in the launch, the cutter 
 and a small prize sloop. The sloop grounded, the 
 boats were beaten off, and the expedition came 
 back with many wounded. Parker, who was not 
 yet sixteen, showed both skill and courage in the 
 attack ; but a youth just turned fifteen leading 
 nearly a hundred British seamen in a dash at an 
 enemy's fort is surely a curious spectacle. On 
 the next day the Magicienne. avenged the defeat 
 by capturing a French privateer, and cutting a 
 Spanish merchantman out of Calabash Bay. Six 
 weeks afterwards, the Begulus, another frigate, 
 having joined, the Magicienne entered the harbour 
 of Cape Roxo by night, spiked the guns at the 
 head of the harbour, cut out a Spanish schooner 
 and sloop, and burnt eleven merchantmen. They 
 rooted out a venomous nest of pirates in Platform 
 Bay; attempted, but failed, to seize by night- 
 surprise the town of Aguada, &c., &c. A cruise 
 like this yielded many fat pickings. In 1798
 
 246 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 Parker, not yet seventeen years old, solemnly 
 appoints his own prize-agent in London, and gives 
 him plenty of business to do. Sometimes the 
 frigates and other light craft on the station agreed 
 to pool their prizes, and their joy when Spain 
 declared war, as reflected in Parker's letters, is 
 almost touching. " We must look out," he wri'ies, 
 " for some fat Spaniards returning home. All my 
 shipmates are in high glee." 
 
 On May i, 1799, Parker, scarcely eighteen years 
 old yet, hoisted his flag as acting captain on the 
 Volage, a 24-gun frigate. He made a pooling 
 agreement, as to prizes, with a cluster of other 
 cruisers, and in eight weeks the ring had captured 
 eleven schooners, seven brigs, and six ships. This 
 must be regarded as the " Tom Cringle " stage of 
 Parker's career, for the adventures and tricks, the 
 captures and escapes, which marked it. A youth 
 of eighteen commanding a fast frigate in such 
 waters, and at such a period, must have had an 
 intoxicating time. The Volage cruised off Havanna 
 for nearly the whole of June with hammock cloths 
 and tarpaulins hiding her gun ports, her sails 
 trimmed with elaborate slovenliness, her braces 
 slackened, so that the last thing in the world she 
 resembled was a smart frigate ; and under this 
 disguise many prizes were taken. One memorable 
 day no less than twelve merchant sail, convoyed
 
 SIR WILLIAM PARKER 247 
 
 by a brig- and six armed schooners, came out of 
 the harbour. They found the appearance of the 
 loitering and slovenly- looking Volage suspicious, 
 however, and putting hurriedly about, went flutter- 
 ing back to the harbour, closely pursued by the 
 hungry Volage. 
 
 In November Parker was appointed to the 
 command of the Stork, of 18 guns, and enjoyed 
 another stretch of delightful and highly profitable 
 cruising. " My last cruise in the Stork" he writes 
 to his sisters, "will clear me, I believe, ^500. 
 On the whole I do not complain." Most youths 
 will think he had remarkably little reason to 
 " complain" ! He goes on to say, " You are all 
 very anxious to know how tall I am, &c. My 
 height is five feet five inches, and I am thin, well 
 tanned by the sun, and want a great deal of 
 English polishing; so when I return to England 
 I must put myself entirely under your directions 
 to learn good-breeding, which sailors, you know, 
 are not remarkable for." 
 
 A young gentleman of eighteen, in command 
 of a frigate on a very profitable cruising ground, 
 ought to have been considered sufiiciently for- 
 tunate ; but desperate attempts were being made 
 to push young Parker still further up the ladder. 
 In June 1800 St. Vincent wrote to the First 
 Lord of the Admiralty on his behalf, and received
 
 248 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 a favourable reply. His actual promotion was 
 delayed a few days in order to give him " a 
 chance of picking up something " in the Stork ■ 
 but on October 9 he is posted to L'Oiseau ; 
 and passing over some intermediate changes, on 
 November 20, 1802, he was appointed to the 
 Amazon, a very fine frigate, on the deck of which 
 the gallant and good Riou had been slain in the 
 fight before Copenhagen. The war was just then 
 about to be renewed, and Parker writes to his 
 mother the words we have placed at the head 
 of this sketch — " No one I think so fortunate as 
 myself; the finest frigate in the navy at the be- 
 ginning of a war." He has a boyish delight in 
 his new command. He calls his ship his " wife," 
 discovers ever new merits in her, and scorns all 
 other ships by comparison with her. 
 
 Yet behind his boyish and simple-minded joy 
 there vv^ere some fine qualities. Parker, young 
 as he was, brought to his new command a high 
 degree of professional skill, perfect fearlessness, 
 and conceptions of duty not unworthy of the 
 nephew of St. Vincent. Premature command 
 would ruin most lads ; it ripened Parker. The 
 " orders and regulations " he drew up for his 
 frigate would have done credit to Hardy or to 
 Saumarez. He had that rare faculty, the art of 
 governing men; of being strict without being
 
 SIR WILLIAM PARKER 249 
 
 severe. He grasped the essentials of discipline. 
 " No duty," he wrote, " however trifling, should 
 be executed with indifference. Exactness is the 
 grand system. The men should never be worked 
 or exposed without their ofEcers attending with 
 them. ... It behoves the officers to let them 
 share the comforts of this life as well as 
 the hardships. Punish seldom, and only when 
 necessary ; but when you do, punish severely." 
 Parker was indeed one of the most " fortunate " 
 of officers. But if he owed his quick promotion 
 to influence, he owed his fitness for promotion to 
 himself, and to the diligent training of the fine 
 gifts nature had bestowed on him. 
 
 Parker commanded the Amazon from November 
 1802 to February 1812, and it was probably the 
 happiest part of his professional career. He 
 came under the flag of Nelson. He took part 
 in great events ; he felt himself on a greater stage 
 than when in the West Indies; and he won the 
 confidence and praise of his superiors. Nelson 
 himself found this little, brown-skinned, modest- 
 looking and very youthful captain a sailor after 
 his own heart, and he describes Parker as " always 
 giving me pleasure." Warren declares Parker is 
 "a real treasure in a squadron." An alert and 
 well-disciplined frigate like the Amazon, under a 
 captain who, if he had the eagerness of youth
 
 250 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 had also the cool judgment that belongs to later 
 years, was invaluable to Nelson during the block- 
 ade of Toulon, and, later, in the great pursuit of 
 Villeneuve to the West Indies. 
 
 Parker's pride in his new command is visible in 
 every line of his letters, and sometimes, no doubt, 
 found droll expression. He had an overwhelming 
 sense of the respect due to the flag he carried ; and 
 when he was taking the Duke of Kent from Lisbon 
 to England his log records, " Fired three musquets 
 and two guns to an American ship to make her 
 pay proper respect to the royal standard." 
 
 The Amazon was worked hard, but Parker was 
 tireless; and he found time, while carrying de- 
 spatches for Nelson and acting as his outlook, to 
 do some pretty fighting on his own account, and 
 to gather in a decent harvest of fat prizes. Nelson 
 himself delighted to discover daring errands for 
 his favourite frigate and its boy captain. Thus 
 he writes to St. Vincent, off Toulon, March 17, 
 1804: "I have sent your nephew this morning 
 to see if he can lay salt on the tail of a French 
 frigate. I every day see now and excellent traits 
 in him. Hardy is his great pattern about his 
 ship, and a better he could not have." Nelson, 
 indeed, found for Parker at last a very curious 
 mission, and one which sheds an odd light on the 
 naval life of that period.
 
 SIR WILLIAM PARKER 2$ I 
 
 Towards the end of i 804 the Aduiiralty appomted 
 Sir John Orde to the command of the Gibraltar 
 station. Nelson at that moment was off Toulon, 
 and in command of the Mediterranean ; there was 
 thus a conflict of jurisdiction between Orde and 
 himself; and Orde was his senior, a man of resent- 
 ful temper, and w^ith an ancient grievance against 
 Nelson. He had never forgiven him for having 
 the command of the squadron despatched in pursuit 
 of Brueys, a pursuit which ended at the Nile. Orde 
 considered that he had a better right to the com- 
 mand, and he quarrelled so furiously on the subject 
 with St. Vincent that he was peremptorily suspended 
 by that stern veteran and sent to England. At 
 Gibraltar, Orde found himself in excellent position 
 to annoy Nelson. He practically intercepted his 
 communications with England. No ship from his 
 fleet was allowed to pass the straits ; it was detained 
 under one pretext or another, sent to take charge 
 of Orde's convoys, or to cruise in some particular 
 direction for him. The situation grew intolerable ; 
 and Nelson at last took a characteristic method of 
 defeating Orde's tactics. 
 
 The Amazon was a fast boat, and Parker was a 
 cool and adroit sailor. Nelson sent for him, and 
 explained the situation. " Sir John Orde," he said, 
 " remains at the entrance of the Straits , and takes 
 my frigates from me. ... I cannot even get my
 
 25 2 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 despatches home." Parker was to evade Orde's 
 ships, as though they were Frenchmen or Spaniards, 
 and steal through the Straits under cover of night, 
 carrying despatches for Lisbon. " I have not signed 
 your orders," Nelson said, " because Orde is my 
 senior officer ; but if it should come to a court- 
 martial. Hardy can swear to my handwriting, and 
 you shall not be broke. Remember, Parker," Nelson 
 added, " if you cannot weather that fellow, I shall 
 think you have not a drop of your old uncle's blood 
 in your veins." 
 
 Parker's orders, in Nelson's own handwriting, 
 directed him to " pass Cape Spartel in the night, . . , 
 bring to for nothing if you can help it, hoist the 
 signal for quarantine, and that you are charged with 
 despatches. If you are forced to speak by a superior 
 officer, show him only my order for not interfering 
 with you, and unless he is an admiral superior to 
 me, you will obey my orders instead of any pretended 
 ones from him." Here was an adventure to delight a 
 youthful frigate-captain ! He was taken into Nelson's 
 confidence. He adopted eagerly, as did the whole 
 fleet, Nelson's side in the quarrel against Orde ; and 
 he was chosen by Nelson himself to evade and 
 defeat Orde. There was not a frigate-captain in 
 the service who would not have given five years 
 of his life .to have been in Parker's place ! And if 
 Parker succeeded in " weathering that fellow," and
 
 SIR WILLIAM PARKER 253 
 
 got Nelson's despatclies safely through the Straits, 
 he was to have as a reward a fortnight's cruise for 
 his own hand in the prize-haunted waters west of 
 Gibraltar. 
 
 Parker did " weather that fellow " with charac- 
 teristic skill and neatness. The Amazon parted 
 company with the fleet on January i, 1805, crept 
 up to Gibraltar ; and, choosing a favourable night 
 and wind, ran through the Straits. Orde's big 
 ships were clearly visible standing off the shore 
 under easy sail with three reefs in their topsails; 
 and they were solemnly recorded in the Amazons 
 log as being " apparently under Russian colours." 
 But Orde's outlying cordon of frigates under a smart 
 commodore. Sir William Hoste, was not to be 
 evaded. The Amazon was brought to, Hoste himself 
 came on board, and after a brief chat was about to 
 give Parker Orde's standing instructions not to go 
 west, but to join his flag. Parker took Hoste into 
 his cabin, told him frankly he was avoiding Orde's 
 squadron by Nelson's instructions, and showed him 
 his written orders. He reminded Hoste that he 
 owed his own advancement to St. Vincent and to 
 Nelson ; " the question of a court-martial," Parker 
 added, " would be very mischievous. Don't you 
 think it would be better if you were not to meet 
 the Amazon to-night ? " 
 
 Hoste, after a little reflection, agreed — no doubt
 
 2 54 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 with a twinkle in his eye — that it would be as well 
 to reafard his interview with the Amazon as never 
 having happened, and without further speech he 
 went over the ship's side into his boat. 
 
 Parker ran before the wind. When day broke, 
 three or four large ships were visible against the 
 eastern sky ; they signalled vigorously, but the flags 
 looked black against the intense light of the rising 
 sun. Parker might be forgiven for mistaking these 
 striped flags for Spanish or Kussian colours; and 
 the active Amazon, Avith every inch of canvas spread, 
 flew westward, making no signal in return. Parker 
 had " weathered that fellow." 
 
 On the 26th he was off Lisbon. The English 
 packet was just coming out. Nelson's despatches 
 were sent on board, a receipt for them taken, and 
 Parker's task was accomplished. Now came his 
 reward. His officers and crew wished to run into 
 Lisbon. They had not been in port for nearly a 
 year, and a few weeks ashore was the most delight- 
 ful of prospects. But the commercial side of 
 Parker's character wns in the ascendant. He had 
 the liberty of cruising for prizes for a few days, and 
 he was not going to throw such a golden chance 
 away. He had what may be called a West Indian 
 appetite for fat Spaniards. " This," he told his 
 officers, " is the first opportunity of making prizes, 
 and I will not neglect it for pleasure."
 
 Sm WILLIAM PARKER 255 
 
 All tlie next day the sea was empty ; no topsail 
 broke tlie sky-line, and there were sulky brows on 
 the Amazons quarterdeck, and many marine ex- 
 pletives in the forecastle. But Parker's virtue had 
 its reward. The next day a fine ship, Spanish in 
 every detail of her rig, was in sight, and the Amazon 
 bore do^vn on her with the eager appetite of a 
 cruising shark. She was promptly boarded, and, 
 after a few moments, the officer came pulling 
 hurriedly back, hardly able to speak from excite- 
 ment. 
 
 " She is the Gravina, sir, of six guns," he stam- 
 mered to Parker. 
 
 " Well, what is her cargo ? " 
 
 " Oh, sir, she has hides and indigo." 
 
 " That is capital ; " but seeing excitement still in 
 every line of his lieutenant's face^" anything else ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir, cochineal." 
 
 " Still better ; what's the matter ? Any more ? " 
 
 "Sir, she has 330,000 dollars in hard coin 
 beside ! " 
 
 Here was luck indeed ; exactly the luck which 
 Jack most desires. The dollars were transferred 
 to the Amazon, the prize sent in to Gibraltar, and 
 was found to contain other unsuspected wealth. 
 From that one capture Parker himself drew nearly 
 ^20,000 ; Nelson's share as admiral came to 
 nearly ;^ 10,000.
 
 256 NELSON" AND TTTS T ATTAINS 
 
 ■' I think." ho tolls his t'aihor :it'torwards, "that 
 (rip to tho wost will altogolhor yiold mo nearly 
 ji 2 4.000." His boatswain and oarpontor roceivod 
 ^(-1500 oaoh, and both lunl just boon promoted 
 from bot'oro tho mast. 
 
 When tho Aiuazoii rojoinod tho iloot, I'arkor 
 reported hims(^lt". and boL;an to toll Nelson of 
 his captures, but was sharply interrupted by tho 
 question, "Whore are my despati'hes ^ " Parker 
 produced tho receipt tor them from tho despateh 
 boat, and w^as then allowed to tell tho tale of his 
 prizes. He conchulod by luuuling Nelson a draft 
 for nearly /- 10,000, and saying, ''This is your 
 lordship's share." 
 
 Lord Nelson, according to the stcu-y as told in 
 Tarkor's lite, looked at the draft tor a moment, and 
 saiil, rather sadly : " I am sorry for it. I wished you 
 to have made /- 10,000; you have nuulo double. 
 You will marry and stay on shore. I shall be very 
 sorry it you give up serving." Parker's tirst use of 
 this wind tall, however, was to send a present of a 
 carriage and a pair of horses to his mother, and to 
 charge his estate with ;^3oo a year for his parents. 
 
 Tarkor has lot't an elaborate schedule of " vessels 
 capturinl or detained, from which I am entitled to 
 share prize-money, as captain of His Majesty's ship 
 Anuxzon, between the 20th of November 1S02 and 
 tho 1 4tli Novondtor 1811." It includes sixty vessels
 
 SIE WILLIAM PAEKEE 257 
 
 of all rigs and sizes ; and tke cash recerred from tliem 
 coiUies to between ,£^35^00 and ;^40,cxk), in sums 
 ranging from *';£^7, 6s. /d.** to ^' £iZ,6$i, 9s- id" 
 To this is to l>e added tbe stubs taksai in tlie 
 iS^I-, on wliLch v€«sel, in a cmise of fifteen veeks, 
 he took pria^ which yielded him some -£^3000. 
 When he paid off the Amason, indeed, in 18 12, 
 Parker had enjoyed some twenty years of crovd^^ 
 and exciting serric'^, he had made a fortune in the 
 process, and he was jiist thirty years of age ! G^- 
 tainly he was the most fortunate of sailors. 
 
 Parker missed Trafalgar through being deca^-hed 
 on outlook service. In 1806, when xroder the flag 
 of Sir John Warren, he captured the .Be7/« Poule, a 
 fine French frigate, after a smart fight : and he did 
 good work on the coasts of Spain during the Penin- 
 sular War. After the Amazon — by this time a 
 worn-out ship — was paid oif, Yaxkisr gare up the 
 sea for a time, and settled down for fifDeen years as 
 a coimtry gentleman. In 1827 he was offered the 
 command of the squadron on the Cape of Good 
 Hope station: but, with characteristic modesty, 
 refused it, quoting St. Vincent's maxim that no 
 one oucfht to fly his dag as admiral who had not 
 commanded a line-of-battle ship; and Parker, as 
 yet, had commanded nothing better than a 38-gun 
 frigate. He would accept, he said, the command of 
 a 74, and was accordingly appointed to the War- 
 
 B
 
 2S8 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 spite, and served under Codrington on the coast of 
 Greece, and afterwards in the Channel. He after- 
 wards flew his flag on the coast of Portugal in 
 command of a squadron, and was in naval command 
 during the Chinese War of 1842. 
 
 His later services, however, do not concern us. 
 He is a type of the younger ofiicers who grew up 
 under Nelson's influence, and brought what may be 
 called the Nelson tradition down to modern times ; 
 its traditions of discipline, of energy, of hard fighting, 
 of sleepless vigilance ; its devotion to the flag, its 
 heroic ideal of duty. A breath of the great days of 
 Nelson is in his story.
 
 CHAPTER XI 
 
 SIR EDWARD PELLEW (LORD EXMOUTH) 
 
 (1757-1833). 
 
 '•'' Pellew^ I knoiu yoti wotit give up the shipT—i^'x?, captain, 
 when mortally wounded, to Pellew.) 
 
 A STRANDED ship might well be regarded as a 
 very ill-omened crest for a sailor ; but when 
 Edward Pellew became a baronet, and had to 
 decide on a coat-of-arms, he chose this as his 
 symbol. And that stranded ship which forms 
 the crest of the Exmouth family to this day is 
 a record of as noble a deed as the sea ever wit- 
 nessed. Pellew, then in the midst of his brilliant 
 career, was dining one evening at Portsmouth, 
 and a furious gale was shrieking above the roofs 
 of the town. News came to the dinner-table 
 that an Indiaman, crowded with troops and 
 passengers, was on her beam ends in the surf 
 thundering on the pebbly beach, and must soon 
 break up. Pellew was suffering from a half-healed 
 wound, but he hurried to the scene. A single 
 hawser had been brought ashore, and a few of 
 the Indiaman's officers had reached safety by its
 
 26o NELSOX AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 means. But all order was lost on tlie crowded 
 decks of the unfortunate sliip. No one dared 
 to follow along the liawser, over whicli the 
 great seas were breaking. In the confusion and 
 darkness it seemed probable that all on board 
 the stranded ship must perish. Pellew offered 
 large sums to the hardy Portsmouth boatmen to 
 put off to the imperilled ship, but the danger was 
 too great for even them to face. " Then I must 
 go myself," said Pellew. 
 
 He fought his way along the hawser to the 
 ship and took command of its crowded deck. 
 His cool courage and dominating personality quickly 
 brought order to the distracted crowd. The mere 
 whisper of his name, as it ran through the shivering 
 passengers and crew, gave them courage. Pellew 
 stood, with drawn sword, at the hawser, to pre- 
 vent any rush ; and, one by one, the whole of its 
 passengers were passed safely ashore — the women 
 and the children first, then the sick, the soldiers, 
 and last of all the crew. Pellew was not actually 
 the last ashore, for he was almost crippled by 
 his wound ; but only three remained to be saved 
 when he put himself in the travelling loop and was 
 dragged along the hawser to shore. That stranded 
 ship, which still remains the Exmouth crest, is thus 
 the memorial of how one man, by his individual 
 skill and couras;e, saved six hundred lives !
 
 SIR EDWARD PELLEW (LORD EXMOUTH) 
 
 Front a picture in the Sational Portrait Gallery by J. NoRTHCOTE, R.A.
 
 SIR EDWARD PELLEW 26 I 
 
 Edward Pollew was never under Nelson's personal 
 command, and so cannot be described as one of 
 Nelson's captains. But he certainly belongs to 
 Nelson's school, and embodied in himself all the 
 splendid characteristics of that school. Nelson 
 was his professional ideal ; to serve under him 
 was his ambition. He applied to serve under 
 Nelson in 1804; ^^^ Nelson loiew his gifts for 
 separate command, and refused. " You have 
 always, my dear Sir Edward," he wrote, " proved 
 yourself so equal to command a fleet that it 
 would be a sin to place you in any other situation ; 
 and my services are nearly at an end. For, in 
 addition to other infirmities, I am nearly blind. 
 However, I hope to fight one more battle." That 
 letter was written on May i, 1804, when Nelson 
 was off Brest, watching La Touche Treville. The 
 " one more battle " Nelson had yet to fight was 
 Trafalgar. Pellew took no part in that or any 
 of Nelson's great sea-fights; yet he may be justly 
 regarded as one of the typical seamen of Nelson's 
 school and times. 
 
 His career is of singular range and interest. 
 He was a middy before he was fourteen years 
 old, and was familiar with shipwreck and battle 
 at an age when most lads are spelling their un- 
 willing way through the Latin Grammar. He 
 took part in the stubborn fighting on the Canadian
 
 262 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 lakes ; was in command, as master's mate, of a 
 little contingent of sailors in Burgoyne's unfortunate 
 expedition in 1777. He was present, a mere lad, 
 in the council of war, when Burgoyne resolved 
 to surrender, and begged that his men might 
 be left out of the capitulation. " He had never 
 heard," he said, " of sailors capitulating, and was 
 confident he could bring them off"! Young 
 Pellew was of extraordinary activity and daring, a 
 sailor to the tips of his fingers, and with almost 
 more than a sailor's generosity. He saved lives 
 enough at sea by personal courage to have covered 
 himself from head to foot with the Humane 
 Society's medals, if that decoration had been in 
 existence a century ago. 
 
 In all physical gifts — in quickness of eye and foot, 
 in strength, stature, and agility, he had few equals 
 in the whole service ; and there was a ferment of 
 daring in his very blood which made him attempt 
 feats from which nine men out of every ten would 
 shrink in mere horror. His early years are one 
 long catalogue of adventures. When a middy 
 he leaped into the sea from the yard-arm of his 
 ship — then going fast before the wind — to save a 
 drowning man. His hat blew off into the sea 
 when sailing alone in a boat. He lashed the 
 helm down, hove-to the boat, and jumped into 
 the sea to recover the hat ; but the boat fell off
 
 SIR EDWARD PELLEW 263 
 
 and gathered way when he tried to recover it, 
 and only after an hour's chase of his boat did 
 he succeed in clambering on board it. When 
 fighting on the American lakes Pellew assisted 
 at the launch of a newly-built sloop. He was 
 perched on the top of the sheers, swaying the 
 main-mast into its place, when mast, sheers, and 
 Pellew toppled over into the waters of the lake 
 and disappeared. " Poor Pellew," cried his captain, 
 " he has gone at last ! " But Pellew was not 
 born to be drowned, and he presently emerged, 
 bedraggled, but unharmed. 
 
 His commanding stature and giant strength 
 served him well at one of the critical moments of 
 his life, when lying in Bantry Bay, in 1799. A 
 general mutiny was planned in the squadron ; the 
 signal was to be given from Pellew's ship. When 
 the mutinous crew, in a tumultuous crowd, appeared 
 on the deck, Pellew caught the sound, interpreted 
 it, ran straight in among the mutineers, followed 
 by one or two of his officers, and seized with each 
 hand one of the ringleaders. Pellew's dauntless 
 look, his stature and fierceness, cowed the mutineers 
 almost in an instant, and the outbreak was arrested. 
 St. Vincent wrote afterwards that " the most im- 
 portant service Pellew ever rendered to his country 
 was saving the British fleet in Bantry Bay " ! The 
 plan of the mutineers was to burn the ships and
 
 264 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINB 
 
 join the rebels ashore ; and if the plan had succeeded 
 it might Avell have proved a national disaster of the 
 gravest sort. 
 
 One of the most picturesque incidents of Pellew's 
 career took place in 1796. The great French ex- 
 pedition against Ireland sailed from Brest on 
 December 16, when Pellew, with two other frigates 
 under his flag, was keeping watch over the port. 
 He sent off his sister ships to carry the news that 
 the French were out, but remained with his own 
 ship, the Indefatigable, to make that process for the 
 Frenchmen themselves as uncomfortable as possible ; 
 and he proved that night, how effectively a single 
 frigate, properly handled, can bewilder and harry 
 a whole fleet. The French admiral originally in- 
 tended to go by the south channel out of Brest ; 
 night coming on, and the wind shifting, he changed 
 his mind, and led the way himself into the west 
 channel ; but many of his ships were already 
 in the south channel, and the distracted admiral 
 filled the night sky with agitated signals, trying to 
 keep his huge flock of ships together. The haze 
 and darkness made the signals doubtful ; and Pellew 
 assisted actively in the process. He ran boldly into 
 the western channel himself, amongst the puzzled 
 Frenchmen. His ship was a French capture, and 
 still had a very French look ; and Pellew counted 
 on this circumstance to escape detection. Mean-
 
 SIR EDWARD PELLEW 265 
 
 while, with a blaze of irrelevant rockets, and of 
 ingenious false signals, he added to the general 
 distraction, and utterly defeated the French ad- 
 miral's efforts to keep his fleet together. 
 
 Pellew won his knighthood by one of the most 
 famous frigate actions in British history, the opening 
 fight in the war which broke out in 1793. He 
 commanded the Nymphe, of 36 guns, manned 
 principally with Cornish miners. Pellew was 
 himself a Cornishman ; he knew that Cornish 
 miners, for pluck, dash, and discipline, came next 
 to sailors ; and as he could not secure a full crew 
 of seamen, he shipped eighty Cornish miners. 
 With a raw crew, most of whom had never fired a 
 shot before, Pellew, when he was two days out from 
 Falmouth, fell in with the crack frigate of the 
 French navy — the Cleopatra. Pellew knew his crew 
 could fight, if they could not manoeuvre ; he made 
 a special appeal to his eighty Cornish miners to fight 
 for the honour of their county, ran boldly down to 
 the Cleopatra, for three-quarters of an hour engaged 
 her gun to gun, and then boarded and carried her 
 in the most gallant style. " We dished her up," 
 was his record, " in fifty minutes — the crack ship of 
 France ! " The manner in which Pellew's eighty 
 Cornish miners tumbled over the bulwarks of the 
 Cleopatra, and charged along her decks, was, in 
 brief, irresistible.
 
 266 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 Pellew, again, took part in one of the most 
 exciting and wonderful actions ever fought, when 
 two frigates — the Indefatigable, under his own com- 
 mand, and the Amazon — destroyed the Droits de 
 V Homme, a great two-decker, the flagship of the 
 squadron which carried General Humber's expedi- 
 tion to Ireland. The two frigates sighted the great 
 Frenchman in the midst of a gale off Ushant. The 
 gale hardened to a tempest, but the British frigates 
 crossed and recrossed the bows of the Frenchman, 
 over which the sea broke in cataracts, and tormented 
 her with their fire. The Frenchman carried a 
 thousand troops, and tried again and again to board 
 one or other of her tormentors ; but, with perfect 
 seamanship, they evaded this. For eleven hours, 
 in a furious tempest, the British frigates hung on the 
 stern or bow of the Frenchman, till they ran her 
 hopelessly ashore in the Bay of Audierne. The 
 Indefatigable, under Pellew's fine seamanship, clawed 
 off the very breakers and escaped ; the Amazon 
 went ashore, but, by perfect discipline and seaman- 
 ship, every man was saved. The unfortunate 
 Droits de t Homme lay for three days in the surf, 
 and no less than 900 of her crew perished. The 
 French protested that " the ships had fought like 
 three dogs till they all fell over the cliff together ! " 
 It is more accurate to say that the two British 
 frigates with coolest skill and daring fought the
 
 Sm EDWARD PELLEW 267 
 
 74 through eleven hours of tempest, and drove her 
 ashore ; and a finer example of obstinate courage 
 and perfect seamanship is scarcely to be found in 
 history. 
 
 Pellew's best title to fame, however, lies in the 
 fact that he brought Nelson's methods down to 
 the period after the great war had closed; and 
 when peace had actually arrived, he performed, in 
 the noblest of all causes, a feat of war which Nelson 
 himself might have envied. 
 
 Algiers a hundred years ago was a city of 
 Mohammedan pirates, an oppression and a scandal 
 to Christendom, Its ships preyed on the commerce 
 of all nations. In its streets and on its walls and 
 piers thousands of Christian slaves suffered tortures 
 worthy of the lowest circles in Dante's " Inferno." 
 Many attempts had been made to break the 
 strength of this piratical city. The Emperor 
 Charles V. tried to do it, and failed badly in the 
 attempt, as did the Spaniards and the French in 
 turn, and with repeated expeditions. The United 
 States Government in 1 8 1 4 despatched a squadron 
 against the Algerines. They captured a frigate, 
 and secured the relief of ten American citizens 
 by the surrender of 500 Algerine prisoners — a 
 not very magnificent success. In May 1 8 1 6, the 
 Algerines destroyed at Bona some three hundred 
 Italian boats engaged in the coral fishery, and
 
 268 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 slew, or carried off into captivity, all their crews. 
 Great Britain was mistress of the sea, and the 
 police of all seas were in her hands. The queenship 
 of the sea would be a sham if it were wasted in 
 sloth ; a hateful tyranny if it were used for selfish 
 ends. One of the first uses made of the command 
 of the sea by Great Britain wa,s to put down the 
 slave trade; and when the great Napoleonic wars 
 were over the task of destroying this nest of sea 
 pirates that vexed the Mediterranean, and of re- 
 leasing the thousands of Christians held in slavery 
 there, fell naturally to England. 
 
 Pollew, by this time raised to the peerage as 
 Lord Exmouth, was put in command of the ex- 
 pedition against Algiers, and was given an abso- 
 lutely free hand as to the force to be employed. 
 To the amazement of everybody, he declared five 
 sail-of-the-line sufficient ! Nelson himself had 
 declared twenty-five line-of-battle ships would be 
 required for a successful attack on Algiers. The 
 city was of enormous strength — in the opinion of 
 many experts unassailable from the sea. But Lord 
 Exmouth had studied the plan of Algiers ; he knew 
 of what British sailors were capable, and he believed 
 no fortification could resist the fire of a British 
 three-decker at close quarters. The force with 
 which he actually sailed consisted of his flagship, 
 the Queen Charlotte, of lOO guns; the LnpregnahU,
 
 Sm EDWARD PELLEW 269 
 
 98 guns; three 74's, one two-docker of 50 guns, 
 four frigates, and some gunboats. A small squadron 
 of Dutcli frigates with some difficulty obtained per- 
 mission to share in the attack, as Dutch commerce 
 had suffered greatly from Algerine rovers. 
 
 Nothing is more striking than the speed and 
 energy with which Exmouth carried out his task. 
 He left Plymouth on July 28, and learned at 
 Gibraltar that the Dey of Algiers had assembled 
 an army of 40,000 men to resist him. He reached 
 Algiers on August 27, and sent in a boat requiring 
 the surrender of all Christian slaves, the repayment 
 of sums exacted as piratical tribute, and a treaty 
 abolishing Christian slavery for ever. An answer 
 was demanded in two hours. At the end of two 
 hours the boat was seen returning, with the signal 
 " No answer " flying from its masthead. Instantly 
 Exmouth signalled to his fleet the question, " Are 
 you ready ? " and bore up for the city. The soft 
 air slowly fanned the great ships along. Each 
 captain knew the exact position he was to take 
 up, and so cleverly had Exmouth chosen their 
 positions that nearly one-half of the innumerable 
 batteries Avhich guarded Algiers could not bear on 
 the British ships. 
 
 Exmouth himself, in the Queen Charlotte, led the 
 stately battle-line ; and the crowds on the Mole at 
 Algiers saw with amazement the huge hull and lofty
 
 2/0 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 masts of the British flagship come sliding on, with 
 its tiers of batteries, to within a hundred yards of 
 the pier, then bear majestically up, while the chain 
 cable roared hoarsely from its stern, and its acres 
 of white canvas folded up like the wings of a bird. 
 So instantly had Exmouth led into position that 
 he caught the Algerine batteries with guns un- 
 loaded. So cool was he that he actually ran out 
 a hawser to the mainmast of an Algerine brig 
 which lay at the entrance of the harbour. The 
 batteries on the Mole itself mounted 220 guns, 
 two of them monsters twenty feet long, the heaviest 
 ordnance known at that time. The batteries that 
 girdled the city, or hung menacingly on the steep 
 slope of the hill up which the city climbs, mounted 
 in all fully 1000 guns. In the artificial harbour 
 formed by the Mole were some dozen frigates and 
 corvettes and thirty-six gunboats. Yet, with the 
 coolest daring, Exmouth led his little squadron 
 down, almost within touch of these countless 
 batteries, and anchored as quietly as though he 
 were off the Hoe at Portsmouth ! 
 
 The Mole was crowded with troops, on whom 
 the lofty three decks of the Queen Charlotte almost 
 cast their shadow, and Exmouth actually signalled 
 to them from his quarterdeck with his hat to 
 move out of the way. Just then one of the 
 Algerine batteries on the hill broke into angry
 
 SIR EDWARD PELLEW 2/1 
 
 flame ; another battery on the sea front flashed ; 
 in another moment the 220 guns on the Mole 
 would have bellowed out their thunder. But at 
 the first flash Exmouth gave the order to " stand 
 by," and the word ran from ofiicer to officer along 
 the triple decks of the Queen Charlotte. At the 
 second flash the cry of " Fire ! " followed ; and 
 before the third Algerine gun spoke, with a sudden 
 roar and triple lines of leaping flames, the Queen 
 Charlotte poured its tempest of fire over the Mole. 
 It is said that single broadside slew 500 men! 
 Thrice, in as many minutes, the British guns 
 thundered, and then the whole scene was lost in 
 the smoke. But in that brief time nearly half 
 the Algerine guns in the Mole were dismounted; 
 of the two gigantic guns immediately opposite 
 the British flagship, one, with its carriage, had 
 disappeared in the sea ; the other, struck on the 
 muzzle by a 24-pounder, was turning its useless 
 and broken nose up to the sky. 
 
 The other British ships — the Leander, the Severn, 
 the Glasgow, the Superb — had meanwhile slowly 
 drifted into their assigned stations, and almost 
 with a single movement had furled their sails, 
 dropped anchor, and broken into the flame of 
 quick-following broadsides. The Superb was in- 
 tended to anchor so close to the Queen Charlotte 
 as to thrust its jib-boom over the flagship's poop.
 
 272 NELSOX AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 But the ail' was light, and, as a matter of fact, 
 a vacant space of some hundred feet stretched 
 between the stern of the Queen Charlotte and the 
 jib-boom of the Superb. Into this space Captain 
 Wise, in command of the Gh^anicus, a 36-gun 
 frigate, with audacious courage and seamanship, 
 succeeded in manoeuvring his ship. Here was 
 a 36-gun frigate, that is, taking up its position 
 with a ship of 100 guns ahead, and one of 74 
 guns astern, and firing with its hght guns as 
 fiercely as either, and probably with more satis- 
 faction to its officers and crew ! 
 
 The ImiyregnaUe, under Rear-Admiral Milne, 
 failed to reach her proper station, as the smoke 
 of the guns covered the whole landscape, and 
 she unfortunately lay immediately opposite the 
 Lighthouse battery with its three tiers of guns, 
 and within 400 yards of it, while other batteries 
 commanded her quarters. The tall masts of the 
 ImprcgnaUe, rising above the drifting continents 
 of smoke, marked her position, and she suffered 
 terribly, i 50 men being killed or wounded within 
 half-an-hour. The Dutch frigates, meanwhile, had 
 taken their assigned position, and the roar of the 
 battle steadily deepened, the deepest note being 
 the awful sound of the Queen Charlotte's broadsides. 
 Her fire had the most deadly accuracy. The 
 Algerine batteries crumbled under it. Gun after
 
 SIR EDWARD PELLEW 273 
 
 gun was silenced. Many were overwlielmecl be- 
 neath tlie tumbled parapets. An Algerine officer 
 in command of the lighthouse batteries, when his 
 last gun was silenced, leaped in impotent fury on a 
 fragment of the parapet that remained, and shook 
 his scimitar wildly at the great British ship ! 
 
 Exmouth's interpreter, himself a Turk, has left 
 an amusing account of the battle and of his own 
 terrors while the British flagship reeled to the 
 thunder of her own broadsides, or crashed to the 
 stroke of the Algerine shot ; while along the smoke- 
 filled decks the seamen toiled with grim but cheer- 
 ful energy at their guns. " I," says the unfortunate 
 interpreter, " was like an astonished or stupid man, 
 and did not know myself." " But," he adds, " I 
 observed with great astonishment that during all 
 the time of the battle not one seaman appeared 
 tired, not one lamented the dreadful continuation 
 of the fight, but, on the contrary, the longer it 
 lasted the more cheerfulness and pleasure were 
 amongst them ! " 
 
 At four o'clock the British fire ceased for a 
 few moments, while the flagship's barge shot out, 
 boarded the Algerine frigate moored across the 
 Mole, and set fire to it. By this time flames 
 were breaking out in the Algerine squadron 
 within the Mole ; they ran from ship to ship, and 
 presently four large frigates, five corvettes, and 
 
 s
 
 2 74 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 some forty gunboats were in flames. The fire 
 caught the storehouses and arsenal on the piers, 
 and by ten o'clock the harbour and the Mole were 
 one mass of flames. The night sky was reddened. 
 The tall masts of the ships, the flat roofs of the 
 city, grew as clear as at noontide in the dreadful 
 light. " It was a glorious sight," wrote Exmouth 
 to his brother afterwards, " to see the flag of 
 the Charlotte towering on high when she appeared 
 to be in the flames of the Mole itself ; and never 
 was a ship nearer burnt ; it almost scorched me 
 off the poop ; we were obliged to haul in the 
 ensign, or it would have caught fire." 
 
 So as the sun was setting, the pyramid of white 
 houses clinging to the steep hillside that forms the 
 city of Algiers presented an amazing sight. The 
 Mole was a shot-torn wreck, strewn with the slain 
 and crimson with blood. The batteries along the 
 edge of the shore, or on the flanks of the hill, were, 
 in the main, tumbled ruins, with the muzzles of 
 dismounted guns sticking up at all angles. Over 
 sea and Mole and city, rose, as though a continent 
 were on flame beneath, clouds of eddying smoke; 
 but through the smoke, and within a few hundred 
 yards of the Mole, rose the tall masts of five English 
 line-of-battle ships, from which flew, as though in 
 haughty challenge, the flag of England. And yet be- 
 hind the thunder of cannon, the flames of the burning
 
 Sm EDWARD PELLEW 275 
 
 city and the drifting smoke, was a noble and humane 
 purpose. Lord Exmouth and his British three- 
 deckers were doing in 1 8 1 6 what Cromwell would 
 certainly have done two centuries earlier. He was 
 scorching into decency, with the flame of his cannon, 
 the bestial cruelty of a Mohammedan ruler ! 
 
 At ten o'clock the Algerine batteries were silent, 
 and Exmouth, by signal, drew off his fleet. But 
 as the fires of the human battle below died out, 
 the fires of what seemed some superhuman con- 
 flict awoke in the blackness of the midnight skies 
 above. " It was a dreadful night," wrote Exmouth 
 to his brother, " of thunder, lightning, and rain, 
 as heavy as ever I saw." For three hours the 
 tempest raged, and the lightning flashed inces- 
 santly. Then at last, on wrecked town and 
 battered ships, silence fell. In the few hours of 
 the fight the British lost 128 killed and 690 
 wounded ; the Algerine loss was reckoned at 7000. 
 The sustained fury of the British fire is shown by 
 the fact that the ships expended in the engage- 
 ment 118 tons of powder, and emptied on the 
 pirate city more than 50,000 shot, and nearly 
 1000 lo-in. shells, to say nothing of the rockets 
 and shells from the gunboats. The interpreter, 
 to whose story of the fight we have referred, 
 crept from the safety of the cockjDit to the deck of 
 the Queen Charlotte when the fight was over. He
 
 2/6 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 found Exmouth hoarse, smoke-blackened, and 
 stained with blood, and, as he records it, " it was 
 astonishing to see the coat of his lordship, how 
 it was all cut up by musket balls and by grape. 
 It was behind as if a person had taken a pair of 
 scissors and cut it all to pieces." 
 
 At daylight Exmouth sent in a boat demanding 
 the same terms as before the battle, and the 
 humbled Dey jdelded. He surrendered nearly 
 400,000 dollars, which he had received from 
 Naples and Sicily for the redemption of slaves ; 
 he apologised humbly to the British consul, 
 signed a treaty abolishing Christian slavery ; and 
 on the 30th the boats of the British fleet received 
 1083 released slaves — Italians, Greeks, or Dutch — 
 a number afterwards brought up to 3003. Some 
 of these slaves had been thirty-five years in servitude, 
 and had worn chains for the whole of that period, 
 till black furrows, like grooves cut in the bone, 
 were worn in their limbs. Their joy — tears and 
 prayers and laughter mingled — as they pushed off 
 in the boats, leaving bondage and misery behind 
 them, while the Union Jack fluttered above their 
 heads, was strangely touching. 
 
 Never was a more righteous, a more decisive, 
 or shorter campaign than that of Lord Exmouth 
 against Algiers. He left Plymouth on July 28; 
 he anchored off Algiers on August 2 7 ; on Tuesday,
 
 Sm EDWARD PELLEW 277 
 
 September 3, he sailed away in triumph with 3000 
 released slaves, having broken the age-long tyranny 
 of the Algerine power, and removed a scandal from 
 the world. On October 6 he anchored in Ports- 
 mouth. The voyage to and fro took two months, 
 but a week was sufficient for the guns of the Queen 
 Charlotte to shatter a despotism which had tormented 
 Europe for centuries. And the fight was as happy 
 in its fruits as it was splendid in its daring. " It 
 broke the chains of thousands ; it gave security to 
 millions ; it delivered Christendom from a scourge 
 and a disgrace."
 
 CHAPTER XII 
 
 SIR THOMAS FOLEY (1757-1833) 
 
 "// IS difficult to exaggerate the coolness^ intrepidity, and 
 seamanship Foley showed at the head of the British line^'' — 
 Mahan. 
 
 ROUND Foley's name clusters the one great 
 dispute of Nelson's whole professional career. 
 Foley, in the Goliath, led the British attack in that 
 fierce and hawk-like swoop on Brueys' line with 
 which the fight at the Nile opened. And nothing 
 recorded in naval warfare is more masterful and 
 audacious than the fashion in which Foley took his 
 ship through the narrow ribbon of water between 
 the island of Aboukir, with its batteries, and the 
 head of the French line, smashing the Guerrier with 
 a raking broadside as he passed its bows, and then 
 swung round on the inner and unprepared side of 
 the enemy's ships. The Zealous, the Orion, and the 
 TJieseus followed the lead of the Goliath. The 
 Audacious broke through the French line at the 
 stern of the G^ierricr ; the other British ships as 
 they came up took their places on the outer side 
 
 of the French line. Thus each ship of the French 
 
 278
 
 SIR THOMAS FOLEY 
 From an engraz'ing nfter R, Smirke, R.A., in the British Museum
 
 SIR THOMAS FOLEY 279 
 
 van lay under a crossfire from two British ships, 
 and the head of Brueys' Hne was in this manner 
 destroyed, while his rear ships — since the line lay 
 head to wind — could only look on in agitated 
 helplessness. The battle of the Nile, it may be 
 said, was won by a stroke of brilliant tactics almost 
 before a shot was fired. 
 
 But is that master-stroke of tactics to be credited 
 to Foley or to Nelson ? It is possible to quote 
 much evidence, and many authoritative opinions, 
 on both sides of the question. The fashion, indeed, 
 in which the witnesses contradict each other, on 
 the plainest matter of fact in the story, is an 
 amusing proof of the shortness of the human 
 memory, and the unreliable quality of men's very 
 senses. How far distant, for example, was Nelson 
 in the Vanguard when Foley led past the bows of 
 the Gtterrier? Elliot — afterwards Sir George Elliot 
 — who was the Goliath's signal midshipman, declares 
 "there was a gap between the Goliath and the 
 Zealous and the rest of the fleet of about seven 
 miles, and the battle began by only two ships 
 against the whole of the enemy's van." Yet the 
 logs of the various ships prove that the Vanguard 
 dropped anchor beside her particular antagonist 
 within twenty-five minutes after the first French 
 gun was fired. Hood, in the Zealous, who followed 
 close on the stern of the Goliath, says, " We had not
 
 2 80 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 increased our distance much from tlie otlier ships 
 coming up in the rear." 
 
 It is admitted that Nelson gave to his leading 
 ships no order hy signal to round the head of the 
 French line ; but it is contended that this particular 
 plan had been discussed between Nelson and his 
 captains, and Foley was only carrying out what he 
 knew was Nelson's plan when he led so boldly 
 across the bows of the Ckierrier. Berry says ex- 
 pressly, and even with a touch of indignation in his 
 voice, that " Nelson's projected mode of attack was 
 minutely and precisely executed in the action." It 
 is certain that Nelson was familiar with great 
 historic precedents in favour of exactly Foley's 
 manoeuvre. At Palermo, in 1676, Tourville de- 
 stroyed the combined Dutch and Spanish fleet by 
 exactly that method of attack. The Battle of Sluys, 
 three hundred years earlier, was won by Edward III. 
 in precisely the same fashion. It cannot be doubted 
 that Nelson had discussed with his captains this 
 particular method of attack if the French ships 
 were found lying at anchor. 
 
 There is one bit of direct evidence on the subject 
 which should be final — if it were not contradicted. 
 Williams, who was present as chaplain on board one 
 of the British ships, says that, as the fleet was 
 forming in line ahead the Zealous moved past the 
 flagship, and " Nelson hailed Hood and asked him
 
 SIR THOMAS FOLEY 28 I 
 
 if he thought there was sufficient depth of water 
 for our ships between the enemy and the shore ? " 
 " I don't know, sir," replied Hood, " but with your 
 permission I will stand in and try." Williams, how- 
 ever, was chaplain of the Swiftsurc ; and that ship 
 was some seven miles ofi' in the offing Avhen the 
 conversation took place. He could only have a 
 second-hand knowledge of it. And his version of 
 the story is contradicted by Hood himself. " Sir 
 Horatio asked," says Hood, " if I thought we were 
 far enough to the eastward to bear up round the 
 shoal ? I told him I was in eleven fathoms, but 
 I had no chart of the place. But if he would allow 
 me, I would bear up and try with the lead, and 
 lead him as close as I could with safety." Accord- 
 ing to Hood himself, that is, Nelson asked, not " if 
 there was depth of water sufficient for our ships 
 between the enemy and the shore," but whether 
 there was depth of water enough for the British 
 ships to clear the shoal. 
 
 The most expressive bit of evidence is given, all 
 unconsciously, by Hood a little later. He was 
 following the lead of the Goliath straight towards 
 the G^terricr, the ship at the head of the French 
 line. " That ship," he says, " being in five fathoms 
 of water, I expected the Goliath and the Zealous 
 to stick on the shoal every moment, and did not 
 imagine we shoidd attempt to jmss within her " ! That
 
 2 82 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 sentence proves that if Nelson had discussed with 
 his captains the plan of surrounding the head of 
 the enemy's line, the circumstance had made no 
 impression on Hood's imagination or memory. It 
 was the last thing he expected to see done ! Had he 
 led, the famous manoeuvre would never have taken 
 place. Foley, whose ship, it must bo remembered, 
 was the lightest 74 in the fleet — she was a ship of 
 only 1604 tons — had more of Nelson's own insight 
 and daring than Hood, and so did just what Nelson 
 himself would have done had the Vanguard, instead 
 of the Goliath, led the British fleet into the fight. 
 
 Another bit of direct, and what ought to be 
 authoritative, evidence is supplied by Admiral 
 Browne, who for some time served with Foley as 
 first lieutenant of the Elephant. Browne says that 
 he was in the constant habit of conversing with 
 Foley about the great fight, and adds, " I can speak 
 positively to the fact of his having stated that he 
 led the British fleet inside without any previous 
 order or arrangement." But Browne wrote this in 
 1845 ; and the recollection of a conversation which 
 took place at a distance of nearly half a century 
 can hardly be regarded as decisive. 
 
 Nelson's general plan for the coming battle was 
 clear. He would attack the French fleet at sight, 
 and wherever he found it. If he found the French- 
 men lying at anchor he would throw the whole of
 
 SIR THOMAS FOLEY 283 
 
 his strength on a part of Brueys' line, and so crush 
 one-half of it before the other half could come to 
 the help of the ships attacked. Which half must 
 be first attacked would depend on questions of 
 wind, position, &c., Avhich could not be known till 
 the enemy's fleet was in sight. And exactly on this 
 general plan the battle was actually fought. " By 
 attacking the enemy's van and centre, the wind 
 blowing right along their line, I was enabled to 
 throw what force I pleased on the French ships : " 
 this is Nelson's own statement of the plan of the 
 battle, written afterwards for Lord Howe. 
 
 But there were two possible ways of carrying out 
 this plan. One British ship might be anchored on 
 the bow, and another on the quarter of each French 
 ship in turn ; or British ships could be placed on both 
 sides of each French ship. Foley's daring lead round 
 the head of the enemy's line decided in favour of the 
 latter plan ; but it seems highly probable that Nelson 
 himself was in favour of the first plan, and that might 
 well have proved even more effective than the tactics 
 Foley actually adopted. If a British ship had been 
 anchored on the bow and quarter of each French 
 ship the latter could have opposed only one broad- 
 side to two. With an enemy lying on both sides 
 of her she was able to fight both broadsides at 
 once. The British ships, moreover, firing across so 
 narrow an interval, inflicted much injury on each
 
 284 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 other. Foley's plan, however, had an advantage 
 which could hardly have been foreseen, and which, 
 in a sense, was a pure accident. The French, with 
 great slovenliness, had not cleared their port bat- 
 teries — the guns, that is, on the inner side of their 
 line. They were choked with lumber and obstruc- 
 tions of every kind. A comparison of the losses on 
 board the British ships shows that the French guns 
 in the port batteries had less than half the effec- 
 tiveness of their starboard guns, or those on the 
 outer side of the line. 
 
 A study of all the evidence available proves, in 
 brief, that Foley's fine and daring lead was 
 exactly in the line of Nelson's predetermined 
 tactics ; it only settled the question of the particular 
 way in which these tactics should be carried out. 
 If any proof, indeed, is wanted of Nelson's great 
 qualities as a leader, it is found in the very feature 
 of the great fight at the Nile out of which this 
 debate has arisen. He had discussed beforehand 
 with his captains how to meet every possible con- 
 tingency in the approaching fight ; he had stamped 
 his ideas indelibly upon them. And when the 
 enemy's fleet was sighted there was no need to 
 waste time in signalling. He could trust his 
 captains to lead into the fight without a moment's 
 pause, and in exactly the fashion which would 
 make his plans most effective.
 
 SIR THOMAS FOLEY 285 
 
 A curious illustration of the conflict of testimony 
 about even material points in tlie story of tlie great 
 battle is supplied by tbe varying statements as to 
 the charts of Aboukir Bay possessed by the British 
 fleet. Elliot says that " Hood of the Zealous had 
 an English chart which was not very correct ; " and 
 if the Zealous had led instead of the Goliath this 
 chart might have proved disastrous. Hood himself 
 says bluntly, " I had no chart of the place." Mahan 
 says that "the only chart in possession of the 
 British was a rude sketch lately taken out of a 
 prize." Sir William Laird Clowes, in his " History 
 of the Royal Navy," says, " There was in the British 
 fleet no trustworthy chart of the bay." But Elliot, 
 who, it must be remembered, was the signal midship- 
 man of the Goliath, says that " Captain Foley had a 
 French atlas which proved quite correct," and which 
 took the British ships safely round the head of the 
 French line ; and this, Elliot says, justly enough, 
 "was a circumstance which turned out of great 
 consequence." 
 
 A striking example of Nelson's power to forecast 
 the details of a battle, and to provide for them, is 
 shown by the instructions he gave to his captains 
 at the Nile to anchor by the stern. If they had 
 anchored in ordinary fashion by the head they must 
 have been smitten by a raking fire from the French 
 ships as they swung round. Anchoring from the
 
 2 86 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 stern the British ships were instantly in a fighting 
 position. Forbes, who was a middy at the Nile, says 
 that, after the battle, " I asked the second captain 
 of the Aquilon how it was that as we approached 
 they did not fire at us. He said, ' After we got 
 within a certain distance they held their broadside 
 until we should anchor, and when swinging they 
 meant to rake us.' Instead of which," says Forbes, 
 " we anchored by the stern, and the first broadside 
 we gave them killed their captain and destroyed 
 every battery but the lower deck." But it was 
 Nelson's forecasting genius, realising every detail of 
 the coming fight, that cheated the French of their 
 advantage. 
 
 There is no need here to tell over again the 
 story of the famous battle, the most decisive ever 
 fought on the sea. No one played a more gallant 
 part in it than did Foley, or contributed more to 
 the overwhelming victory won. He led the whole 
 fleet into action. He fired the first and most 
 destructive broadside from the British side. The 
 first French flag that fluttered down in sign of 
 defeat was the result of Foley's sustained and 
 dreadful fire. Miller, who from the quarterdeck 
 of the Theseus watched Foley lead into the fight, 
 goes into raptures over " the very gallant and 
 masterly manner in which the Goliath led along the 
 enemy's line, gradually closing with their van."
 
 SIR THOMAS FOLEY 287 
 
 Mahan, who writes tlie story of the battle from 
 the standpoint of a critic, nearly a century later, 
 says : "It is difficult to exaggerate the coolness, 
 intrepidity, and seamanship Foley showed at the 
 head of the British line." But how gallant and 
 resolute was the temper of the whole British fleet 
 may be judged from Elliot's narrative. He gives 
 us the landscape of the battle as seen through the 
 eyes of a middy, and a very keen and gallant pair 
 of eyes they were ! 
 
 Like a true middy, Elliot was quite as jealous for 
 the honour of his own ship as for the success of 
 the fleet. He was as eager that the Goliath should 
 outsail and outdo the Zealoics, just behind, as that 
 Nelson should overthrow Brueys and his whole 
 fleet lying just ahead. The keen rivalry between 
 the two leading sliij^s is very amusing. Elliot 
 himself, from the Goliatlis topmast, saw the masts 
 of the French ships first. He did not hail the 
 quarterdeck with the news, as the Zealous, he 
 explains, was so near that his voice must have been 
 heard on its quarterdeck. He slid down a back- 
 stay, and ran with the great tidings to Foley. The 
 long and desperate chase, which had stretched twice 
 across the Mediterranean, was over ! The signal, 
 "the enemy in sight," was instantly hoisted, and 
 hoisted, indeed, with such eager haste that " the 
 undertoggle of the upper flag at the main came off,
 
 288 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 breaking the stop, and the lower flag came down." 
 But the Zealous had caught a ghmpse of that 
 hurried, abortive ckister of flags and had guessed 
 its meaning ; and, in an instant, flew the all-impor- 
 tant signal, thus scoring against the Goliath, to the 
 speechless disgust of every youthful middy on that 
 ship. But the Goliath scored the next point in the 
 great game. It was certain that the answer from 
 the flagship would be the signal to " form line 
 ahead," and the ship quickest to see and obey the 
 signal would get the lead. Elliot himself, watching 
 the Vanguard with eager eyes, saw the tiny black 
 dots of the expected signal under the flagship's 
 foresail, as they left the deck ; and before they 
 reached the royal yard to slew over it, or the stop 
 was broken, and the signal flags flew clear, the 
 Goliath acted on the as yet unread message of those 
 little arrested black specks. The staysails and 
 studdingsails were all ready to be run up, the 
 men were tailing on to the ropes ; and, in a 
 moment, before the flags of the Vanguard's signal 
 flew open, the Goliath, from truck to deck, was 
 clothed with every inch of canvas she could spread. 
 The ship glided ahead of the Zealous, and won the 
 perilous pride of place ! " Hood," Elliot records, 
 with the natural glee of a middy, " was annoyed, 
 but could not help it." 
 
 The noble feature of the battle on the British
 
 SIR THOMAS FOLEY 289 
 
 side was tliat every ship in the fleet was fought 
 with unsurpassed skill and daring. There are no 
 dark spots in the sun of that great victory. On the 
 French side Brueys, though ho was a brave man 
 and died gallantly on the quarterdeck of his own 
 ship, showed no leadership. He failed to guess 
 Nelson's tactics. He was sure the British would 
 not attack at that late hour, and he believed that, 
 not the van, but the rear of his line was in peril, 
 and he had placed his heaviest ships there. Ville- 
 neuve, who commanded the rear division, showed 
 eA'en less of enterprise and of daring than he did at 
 Trafalgar. He looked on inertly while ship after 
 ship in the French van and centre was destroyed ; 
 then, when the red dawn broke on the Avreckage 
 and slaughter of the battle, he slipped his anchor 
 and bore out to sea. 
 
 Yet, on the French side in the battle there were 
 some examples of magnificent courage. Nelson 
 himself could not have fought his own flagship with 
 finer courage than Dupetit Thenars showed on the 
 quarterdeck of the Tonnant. He kept up his fire 
 till every mast on his ship was shot away, and his 
 guns were unworkable from the wreckage and slain 
 piled about them. Then, instead of striking, he 
 slipped his cable and drifted out of fire. But his 
 ship was a shot-torn wreck, and he himself was a 
 worse wreck than even the Tonnant. According to the 
 
 T
 
 290 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 French account — almost too ghastly to be believed 
 — he had lost first one arm, and then the other, 
 then one of his legs, by successive round shots. 
 Refusing to be taken below, he had his wounds 
 roughly dressed on deck, then had his bleeding 
 trunk placed in a tub of bran, whence he continued 
 to give his orders till speech and life alike failed 
 him ! His last words were an order to let the ship 
 sink at her anchor rather than surrender. 
 
 For Foley the golden hour, alike of life and of 
 fame, was when at the Nile he led so gallantly, and 
 with so fine a judgment, round the bows of the 
 Guerrier, and dropped his anchor broadside to 
 broadside with the Co7iquerant. He lived thirty-five 
 years afterwards, but he did nothing to surpass that 
 gallant deed. That is the one moment in which he 
 becomes visible for all time to admiring posterity. 
 But his sea service stretches through nearly sixty 
 years, and during its earlier stages at least was 
 crowded with gallant deeds. 
 
 Foley had Welsh blood in his veins, and came of 
 a hardy sea stock. His uncle was an ofiicer of the 
 Centurion, under Anson, in that great seaman's 
 famous voyage round the world. Foley himself 
 entered the navy as a lad of thirteen. He served 
 in the fogs and chills of the Newfoundland station 
 for three years ; he served a second term of three 
 years amid the tropical heats and fevers of the
 
 SIR THOMAS FOLEY 29 1 
 
 West Indies, and saw much perilous boat service 
 against the privateers wliich swarmed in those seas. 
 In all the hard fighting of the stormy years at the 
 close of the eighteenth century Foley took part, 
 and he learned seamanship and fighting skill from 
 such great ]]iasters in the art of sea-battle as 
 Keppel and Rodney and Hood. 
 
 In the earlier years of his sea career one gleam 
 of the romance of sea life came to him. He was 
 in command of a second-rater, the St. George, and 
 he recaptured a notorious French privateer, Lc 
 G^nircd Dumouricr. The Frenchman had a prize 
 in tow, a Spanish register ship, laden with specie. 
 She had on board more than 2,000,000 dollars, 
 beside jewels and uncoined gold and silver, valued 
 at more than a quarter of a million sterling. Here 
 was a golden haul for the Jacks of the St. George 
 and the ships with her ! 
 
 At Cape St. Vincent Foley was captain of the 
 Britannia, the flagship of Sir Charles Thompson, 
 Jervis' second in command. Late in the same year 
 he hoisted his flag on the Goliath, the ship Avith 
 which his fame is for ever associated. He was 
 then forty years of age, in the very prime of life, 
 and had seen more than twenty-five years of stern 
 and almost desperate service. He had in a high 
 degree the art of command, and he quickly made 
 the Goliath, in discipline and fighting power, almost
 
 292 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 the most formidable ship in the most formidable 
 fleet that ever fought and triumphed under the 
 British flag. 
 
 Foley had the signal good fortune to be associated 
 with Nelson again, in a sea-fight more desperate 
 than even the Nile, the Battle of the Baltic ; and he 
 is linked with perhaps the best remembered and 
 most picturesque incident in Nelson's whole career, 
 when Nelson put his telescope to his blind eye, 
 and declared " he really could not see " Sir Hyde 
 Parker's unhappy signal to " Cease action." Foley 
 commanded the Elephant in the fleet under Sir 
 Hyde Parker, off Copenhagen, in 1801. When 
 Nelson took his squadron of seventy-fours into the 
 tangled navigation of the Dutch deep to attack the 
 floatinof batteries of the Danes, he had to leave his 
 own flagship, the St. George, a three-decker of 98 
 guns, and he hoisted his flag on Foley's ship, the 
 EU'phant. Foley had thus the supreme good fortune 
 of being Nelson's flag-captain in that most obstinate 
 and equally matched of sea-fights, the Battle of the 
 Baltic. 
 
 Foley, a sailor and fighter of matchless resource 
 and experience, was of great service to Nelson in 
 the plans and explorations which preceded the great 
 fight ; and he took part in that famous dinner-party 
 on board the EUfhanl the night before the day of 
 battle. Round the table sat a group of the most
 
 SIR THOMAS FOLEY 293 
 
 gallant spirits that ever fought for the honour of 
 England — Nelson himself, Hardy, Fremantle, Kiou, 
 and others, in whom the sense of the cominsf fiu^ht 
 ran like wine in their blood. When the party broke 
 up, and the captains had gone back to their ships, 
 it was Avith Foley and Kiou that Nelson sat down to 
 plan each stern detail of the coming battle. Nelson 
 was of a generous, if also of a quick and hasty 
 temper, and he never forgot the services of a tried 
 comrade like Foley. Months after the battle he wrote: 
 " My dear Foley, I should be most ungrateful if I 
 could for a moment forget your public support of 
 me in the day of battle, or your private friendship." 
 The one unforgettable and picturesque incident in 
 the fight of the next day was, of course, the appear- 
 ance of that unhappy signal. Number 39, "Cease 
 action," which made its appearance from the mast- 
 head of the London, Sir Hyde Parker's flagship, in 
 the offing. Foley was walking with Nelson to and 
 fro on the quarterdeck of the Elephant when the 
 signal was reported. Nelson made no answer to the 
 signal lieutenant Avho brought the report, but took 
 another turn on the quarterdeck. " Shall I repeat 
 the signal, sir ? " asked the officer when Nelson came 
 up again to where he stood. " No," said Nelson ; 
 then, in the high-pitched nasal tone his voice took 
 at moments of excitement, he demanded : " Is my 
 signal. Number 1 6 (for close action), flying ? "
 
 2 94 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 " Yes, my lord," was the answer. ' Mind you keep 
 it so," flashed Nelson. " Leave off action ! " he went 
 on ; " no ; d — nie if I do ! " Then he turned to 
 Foley ; and it is easy to 23icture the immortal scene : 
 the 74 trembling to the shock of her own guns, 
 the smoke drifting across the quarterdeck ; Foley's 
 tall figure — he was six feet two in height — look- 
 ing down on Nelson's five feet six ; the stump of 
 Nelson's right arm jerking very much like the fin 
 of an agitated fish, as was the habit with him when 
 excited. " You know, Foley," said Nelson, " I have 
 only one eye. I have a right to be blind some- 
 times." Then, with a flash of grim humour, he 
 lifted the glass to his blind eye, and protested, " I 
 really do not see the signal." But there was little 
 space for a jest in the strain and passion of the 
 great fight, and Nelson summed up and dismissed 
 the incident by repeating : " D — the signal ! Keep 
 mine for closer action flying." 
 
 Another memorable chance came to Foley four 
 years afterwards, when Nelson, on his way to 
 Trafalgar, offered him the post of captain of the fleet. 
 Only six weeks ahead lay the greatest sea-fight of all 
 history ; and Foley, had he accepted that offer, might 
 have walked, instead of Hardy, by Nelson's side on 
 the quarterdeck of the Victory on that memorable day, 
 and might have heard, instead of Hardy, that pathetic 
 dying whisper of the great seaman, " Kiss me."
 
 SIR THOMAS FOLEY 295 
 
 But Foley refused the offer. He was in bad 
 health, and, for some obscure cause, was in a bad 
 temper. Practically he had fought his last fight. 
 He lived for nearly thirty years afterwards ; he 
 climbed high on the ladder of promotion, and was 
 commander-in-chief at the Downs, vice-admiral, 
 admiral, commander-in-chief at Portsmouth. But 
 these distinctions, though they added much to his 
 rank, added nothing to his fame. He died in 1833. 
 With a quaint touch of a sailor's imagination, he 
 had preserved for his coffin some oak timbers from 
 his old ship, the Mephant — planks from the quarter- 
 deck on which he had walked side by side with 
 Nelson. These became his coffin ; and in that shell 
 of timber that had shaken to the roar of the guns 
 at Copenhagen, the famous sailor sleeps in the 
 Garrison chapel at Portsmouth. 
 
 Foley, it may be added, was a man of singularly 
 commanding and attractive appearance. He was 
 over six feet in height. His blue eyes had, for a 
 fighter with such a record, an almost amusingly 
 gentle expression. His mouth, with its firm con- 
 tours, was yet rich in lines of good-humour. He 
 had the face and figure, in a word, which might 
 charm a woman's eye ; yet beneath its ease and 
 humour and kindliness lay the strength and stern- 
 ness of a born leader of men.
 
 CHAPTER XIII 
 
 SIR THOMAS MASTERMAN HARDY (1769-1839). 
 
 " Well, Hardy, Jioiu goes the battle ? How goes the day with 
 us ? . . . Kiss vie. Hardy." — (Nelson's dying words.) 
 
 HARDY stands imperishably linked to the 
 memory of Nelson by tlie pathos of the 
 immortal scene in the cockpit of the Victory, and 
 by the half womanly tenderness of the words on 
 Nelson's dying lips which we have quoted. When 
 Hardy was made a baronet, and had to choose a motto 
 for his coat-of-arms, he was urged to take the words, 
 " Anchor, Hardy, anchor," which Nelson spoke to 
 him when lying mortally wounded ; and no coat-of- 
 arms, ancient or modern, carries a cluster of syllables 
 round which gather such memories as these three 
 words. With characteristic modesty Hardy refused 
 to appropriate the words as a family motto ; but he 
 will be held in unforgetting memory by the whole 
 English-speaking race for the part he fills in the 
 last hour of Nelson's life. As long as the English 
 language is spoken, Nelson's last words will live, 
 and Hardy's name is enshrined for all time in 
 
 those imperishable syllables. 
 
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 SIR THOMAS MASTERMAN HARDY, K.C.B. 
 
 Front an engraving after the portrait by R. Evans
 
 SIR THOMAS MASTERMAN HARDY 29/ 
 
 And of all Nelson's captains and comrades, Hardy 
 Avas best entitled by right of fitness to stand by 
 Nelson's deathbed. Troubridge could not have 
 filled Hardy's place, nor Collingwood, nor Berry, 
 nor Foley, nor Saumarez, Collingwood was never 
 quite at ease Avith Nelson, and never quite under- 
 stood him. Troubridge in later years drifted apart 
 from Nelson, and was never quite forgiven for what 
 Nelson looked upon as want of sympathy, and 
 officious intermeddling at the Admiralty Board. 
 Berry was in his place in the mizzen chains of the 
 San Nicolas, leading the Victory's boarders ; he 
 would have been helpless and clumsy beside Nelson's 
 deathbed. Betwixt Nelson and Saumarez there 
 Avas a fatal lack of sympathy ; Nelson, indeed, never 
 understood Saumarez, and looked on him rather as 
 an ungenial, not to say priggish, critic, than as a 
 comrade and a friend. Ball comes nearest to Hardy 
 in the relationship in which he stood to Nelson ; yet 
 Ball's predisposition to a wordy philosophy provoked 
 a mood of half-angry banter in Nelson. Hardy 
 alone — grave, sweet-natured, modest, a gallant sea- 
 man, a man of sensitive honour, Avho understood 
 Nelson perfectly and Avorshipped him without 
 flattering him — he, beyond all others, was the 
 comrade Nelson would have chosen to hold his 
 hand as he died. Only perhaps to Hardy could 
 Nelson have spoken those pathetic Avords, childlike
 
 298 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 in tlieir simplicity and womanly in their depth of 
 feeling, " Kiss me, Hardy." 
 
 Sir William Parker, the last of Nelson's captains, 
 once described Hardy as " the very soul of truth." 
 Codrington, keen of eye and speech, who seldom 
 admires any one, has nothing but unreserved eulogy 
 for Hardy. Ho writes to his wife after Trafalgar : 
 " From the first day that I saw him on board the 
 Victory I w^as captivated by his manner, so unusual 
 and yet so becoming to his situation as confidant to 
 Lord Nelson ; and I gave in to the general good 
 opinion of the fleet. He has not beauty, or those 
 accomplishments which attract sometimes on shore 
 above all other qualities ; but he is very superior." 
 Hardy certainly had " no beauty." He was tall 
 and massive in figure, a curious contrast in ap- 
 pearance to Nelson, Avith his little, contorted body. 
 It is argued, indeed, that the sharpshooters in 
 the tops of the Redoutable were trying to shoot 
 Hardy rather than Nelson ; for no Frenchman, it 
 was reasoned, would have drawn a triirorer on the 
 little, insignificant figure walking with jerking steps 
 to and fro on the Victory's quarterdeck, when he 
 had the commanding bulk of Hardy, who walked by 
 Nelson's side, to aim at ! Hardy's face in Abbott's 
 well-known painting will repay study. The features 
 are large, the cheeks heavy, the eyebrows black and 
 thick. But there is a frankness in the wide-opened
 
 SIR THOMAS MASTERMAN HARDY 299 
 
 eyes, a kindness in the firm moutli, and an air of 
 sweetness as well as of gravity and strength in the 
 whole countenance, which take the gazer's imagina- 
 tion captive. It is the face of a man with whom 
 nobody would take any liberties ; a strong face, with 
 not an ignoble line in it. A certain half-solemn 
 dignity lies upon it ; but it is a face which would 
 win a child's affection, and to which a woman 
 would turn for help. 
 
 Hardy in a word was, in later years at least, 
 the closest of all Nelson's friends ; and Nelson 
 found in him not so much the qualities he himself 
 possessed, but the qualities he most admired. Hardy 
 had not, of course, that incommunicable and un- 
 definable quality in Nelson which we call genius, 
 and which made him the greatest sea-fighter the 
 world has ever known. He was fearless, cool, a fine 
 seaman, unsurpassed in his knowledge of all the 
 details, and his fidelity to all the duties of his pro- 
 fession. But he had no spark of the divine fire in 
 him. Nelson had this; and it made him on sea 
 a figure almost as terrible and commanding as 
 Napoleon was on land. But Hardy had more of 
 equipoise than Nelson ; less fretful nerves, a less 
 impatient temper, and a mellow sweetness of dispo- 
 sition which Nelson found inexpressibly soothing. 
 
 Hardy's sea career began in a very perplexed 
 fashion. He was entered when twelve years old as
 
 300 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 middy on a 14-gun brig, and served on her for 
 about a year. A boyish letter of that period still 
 survives, in which Nelson's future flag-captain 
 announces : " I ain now resolved to learn everything 
 as fast as I can." But young Hardy left the brig 
 early in 1782, and became once more a schoolboy; 
 his name, alter the curious fashion of that time, 
 being still borne on the books of some ship — the 
 Seaford or Carnatic. So that for three years, by an 
 official fiction, young Hardy was a middy afloat, 
 while in fact he was a schoolboy ashore. Hardy's 
 earliest captain wrote to his parents : " Thomas is a 
 very good boy, and I think will make a complete 
 seaman one day or other," a prediction which had 
 a happier fortune than most uninspired prophecies, 
 for it came true. 
 
 Hardy ended his school career, in boyish fashion, 
 by running away. He shipped on board a West 
 Indiaman and for some unknown period disap- 
 peared from human sight, serving before the mast, 
 or in the cook's galley. In 1790, however, he 
 reappears as a middy on board the Hclc, and served 
 in a steady but uneventful fashion, till in 1796 he 
 was lieutenant on the Minerve, a fine frigate, on 
 which Nelson flew his flag as commodore. At this 
 point begins that memorable friendship which ended 
 nine years afterwards in the cockpit of the Victory, 
 and which is Hardy's best title to human memory.
 
 SIR THOMAS MASTERMAN HARDY 301 
 
 Nelson had another frigate, the Blanche, with 
 him ; and two fine frigates under Nelson, in such 
 a sea — the Mediterranean — and at such a time, 
 were sure of adventures. On December 19 two 
 Spanish frigates were met off Carthagena. The 
 Mincrve picked out the largest Spaniard, and after 
 a tough fight of nearly three hours' duration — she 
 was gallantly fought by a captain who had Stuart 
 blood in his veins — she surrendered, the other 
 Spanish ship beating off her opponent. The 
 Minerve took her capture in tow ; but an hour 
 afterwards, and while daybreak was still two hours 
 distant, a new Spaniard, a heavily-armed frigate, 
 appeared on the scene. The Minerve cast off her 
 prize, which was in charge of Hardy, with another 
 officer and a small prize crew, and fought her new 
 antagonist, and was on the point of capturing it, 
 when three Spaniards — one of them a monster of 
 1 1 2 guns — made their appearance with the dawn, 
 drawn by the sound of the guns ; and these were 
 quickly followed by a fourth enemy. The Blanche, 
 Nelson's consort, was almost out of sight to wind- 
 ward ; but she fell on one of the Spaniards strag- 
 gling in the rear, a frigate of about her own size, 
 compelled her to strike, but was unable to take 
 possession of the prize, as the other Spaniards 
 were too near. 
 
 Mear while the Minerve, half crippled by two
 
 302 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 fights, and with a prize in tow, was being pursued 
 by a squadron. She must have been captured, 
 and Nelson would have endured — what for him 
 would have been an experience more bitter than 
 death — the ignominy of defeat and the bitterness 
 of surrender, but for a splendid act of chivalry on 
 the part of Hardy and his brother officer in charge 
 of the prize. They deliberately hoisted English 
 colours above the Spanish flag, and that challenge 
 to Spanish pride drew the pursuing ships upon 
 them, and gave the Mincrve a chance of escape. 
 The little prize crew fought their ship gallantly, but 
 her two remaining masts went by the board, and she 
 struck her flag. But they had saved Nelson ! 
 
 Nelson was the last man in the world to ever 
 forget a service so gallant and so self-sacrificing, 
 and he soon had the opportunity of repaying it. 
 Hardy was in due course exchanged, and rejoined the 
 Minerve at Gibraltar. The 3Tinerve on February 1 1 
 ran out of Gibraltar, and was instantly pursued 
 by a small squadron of Spanish line-of-battle ships. 
 In the uncertain wind, and under the lee of the 
 high land, the taller masts of the Spaniards gave 
 them the advantage, and the leading ship was fast 
 overtaking the Minerve. Just then a sailor fell 
 overboard from the British frigate, and Hardy, 
 always prompt in a generous act, lowered a boat 
 and leapt into it to rescue the drowning man.
 
 SIR THOMAS MASTERMAN HARDY 303 
 
 The search for him was vain, and the boat turned 
 to pull back to the Minervc ; but a strong current 
 made her progress slow, and the huge Spanish line- 
 of-battle ship was coming up fast. Nelson looked 
 at the great Spaniard, and then at the Minervc s strug- 
 gling boat. Should he risk the loss of his ship to 
 save his officer ? " By G — ! " he cried, " I'll not lose 
 Hardy ! Back the mizzen- topsail ! " The Mincrve 
 lay-to while the boat crept slowly up ; and, curiously 
 enough, the haughty contempt shown by the Minervc 
 for her pursuer chilled the ardour of the Spaniard 
 in pursuit. It, too, backed its main-topsail in doubt, 
 and the Mincrve picked up Hardy and bore him off 
 in triumph. 
 
 In May of the same year the Mincrve (now under 
 Cockburn) and the Lively (under Hallowell) dis- 
 covered a fine French brig of war lying under the 
 walls of Santa Cruz. The boats of the frigate were 
 launched, and, under Hardy's command, made a 
 dash for the Frenchman. It was a desperate 
 adventure. The brig herself carried 1 6 guns ; 
 she was covered by the shore batteries, by the 
 fire of a large ship at anchor near, and by the 
 muskets of a strong body of troops on the beach. 
 Hardy, however, attacked with perfect coolness and 
 skill, carried the brig, and brought her off with a 
 loss of only one man killed and fifteen wounded. 
 The prize was a fast, fine brig of 349 tons, the
 
 304 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 Mutine ; she was at once added to the British navy, 
 and rendered in after years memorable service. 
 Hardy was placed in command of her. The cap- 
 ture of La Miitine, Nelson declared, was " so des- 
 perate " an enterprise that Hardy amply deserved 
 his promotion. Thus, when only twenty-eight years 
 of age. Hardy found himself in command of perhaps 
 the finest and fastest brig of war under the British 
 flag, and, what was better still, he had won the 
 notice and admiration of Nelson. 
 
 The Mutine served as a despatch boat for Nelson 
 when in pursuit of Brueys ; and when, after the 
 Nile, Berry was sent home with despatches. Hardy 
 took his place as Nelson's flag-captain in the Van- 
 guard, a bit of very splendid promotion. He 
 followed Nelson to the Foudroyant, but must have 
 seen little of his admiral, and that little not of a 
 pleasant sort, during the ignoble days when Nelson 
 was falling under the influence of Lady Hamilton 
 and of the Neapolitan court. In 1799 Berry 
 resumed his place as Nelson's flag-captain, and 
 Hardy was transferred to the Princess (Jliarlotte ; 
 but in 1 800 he rejoined Nelson as his flag-captain 
 on the Namur, and followed him to the San Josef 
 and to the St. George in turn. From that time, 
 indeed, the two friends were inseparable. Nelson 
 had found his ideal flag-captain, Hardy his natural 
 leader.
 
 SIR THOMAS MASTERMAN HARDY 305 
 
 The St. George carried Nelson's flag under 
 Hyde Parker in the Baltic expedition, but when 
 Nelson took in his squadron of 74's to attack the 
 Danish batteries at Copenhagen, he had to leave 
 the heavy St. George behind him, and hoisted his 
 flag on the Elephant ; so it is Foley, and not Hardy, 
 who plays a part in the immortal incident when 
 Nelson put his telescope to his blind eye and de- 
 clared he really could not see his admiral's signal of 
 recall ! Hardy, however, accompanied Nelson as a 
 volunteer and rendered characteristically fine ser- 
 vice. On the night before the fight he sounded, 
 through the darkness, the passage along which 
 the British ships must come, pushing his sound- 
 ings with cool daring close up to the floating 
 batteries of the Danes. Had his soundings been 
 followed from the first, as the British ships moved 
 into the fight, the victory won that day would 
 have been achieved earlier, and at vastly smaller 
 cost. 
 
 In 1803 Nelson began his memorable blockade 
 of the French in Toulon, and Hardy was his flag- 
 captain, both then and during the memorable pur- 
 suit of Villeneuve to the West Indies. When 
 Nelson, on September 14, 1805, embarked at Ports- 
 mouth for what was his last cruise and his last 
 battle, Hardy was still his flag-captain, and, in 
 addition, was captain of the fleet. He was, in a 
 
 U
 
 3o6 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 word, Nelson's other self. In less than six weeks 
 came Trafalgar and Nelson's death. 
 
 The story of those six weeks lives imperishahly, 
 not only in English history, but in the English 
 imagination, and Hardy plays a great part in it. 
 With Blackwood he was a witness to Nelson's last 
 will. He stood by the side of his great admiral as 
 the Victory, sorely pelted with shot, drew slowly 
 near the enemy's line. Through what gap in that 
 wall of mighty ships should the Victory thrust her 
 stem ? The huge Santissima Trinidada, gleaming 
 red and white, lifted her four decks like a floating 
 mountain right in their course. The Buccntanre 
 followed the Santissima Trinidada, and flew the flag 
 of the French commander-in-chief. Then came 
 the Neptune and the Bedoutdble. Hardy asked 
 Nelson against which of these ships he should place 
 the Victory. " Take your choice. Hardy," was Nel- 
 son's reply ; " it doesn't signify much." Though 
 neither of the men knew it, on Hardy's choice, in a 
 sense, hung Nelson's fate. 
 
 Hardy signed to the helmsman, and the Victory 
 moved through the narrow gap astern of the Bucen- 
 taure, fired one deliberate, long-drawn, and over- 
 whelming broadside into that ship — a blast of fire 
 that practically destroyed her — then, moving for- 
 ward under a dreadful fire from the Neptune, ground 
 her sides against the Bedoutdble. The tops of that
 
 SIR THOMAS MASTERMAN HARDY 307 
 
 ship were crowded with sharpshooters, and it was 
 the musket of one of these that slew Nelson. 
 
 The comradeship of Nelson and Hardy through- 
 out the great fight comes out in moving characters. 
 One of the most gallant of English seamen, Cod- 
 rington, has told the world how, for brave men, 
 comradeship in danger has an ennobling effect. 
 " There is something very fine," he says, " in the 
 manner of men of courage to each other before going 
 into action, and the memory of this seems almost to 
 repay one for the danger. I can hardly ever think 
 without emotion of the examples of this I have seen." 
 And there is certainly something very fine and ele- 
 vated in the manner — visible unconsciously through 
 the syllables of the bald tale — of Nelson and Hardy 
 to each other in the fury of the great battle. As 
 the Victory drifted slowly into the fight, Nelson and 
 Hardy walked quietly to and fro on the quarterdeck. 
 Their work is practically done ; the two fleets are 
 closing on each other ; every preparation has been 
 made ; every man is at his post ; nothing remains 
 but the final argument of the guns, and it is cer- 
 tain that every man will do his duty. 
 
 An ordered silence lies on the great ship as she 
 moves slowly onward. Scott, Nelson's secretary, 
 stopped Hardy to speak with him for a moment, 
 and while he was still speaking a French cannon 
 ball strikes him. Nelson hears the sound of his
 
 308 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 falling body, and turns. " Is that poor Scott tliat has 
 gone ? " he asks ; " poor fellow ! " The fallen man is 
 carried below; but on the deck is the red splash 
 of his blood. On that very spot, an hour later, 
 Nelson himself is to fall. Meanwhile Nelson and 
 Hardy have resumed their calm walk to and fro. A 
 shot strikes the fore brace bits of the quarterdeck, 
 and passes betwixt the two friends, a flying splinter 
 from the bits tearing the buckle from Hardy's shoe 
 and bruising his foot. The two men stop and 
 survey each other with questioning looks. Each is 
 eager to find out if the other is wounded. Then 
 Nelson breaks into a smile, and says, " This is too 
 warm work, Hardy, to last long." In that little 
 vignette how much alike of deep friendship and of 
 cool courage — a courage that could smile amid the 
 flying splinters — is visible ? 
 
 A battle crystallises into strange shapes ; and 
 nothing could well be stranger than the aspect the 
 battle took immediately about Nelson. The Victory 
 had closed on the Redoutcible, the Neptune on the 
 Victory, the Temeraire on the Bedoutdblc. So here 
 were four ships of the line grindmg their sides 
 together, their heads lying in the same direction, 
 and forming almost as compact a tier as if 
 they had been moored together. The pulses of 
 red flame — the flame of heavy guns — throbbed 
 betwixt their hulls beneath, while their masts and
 
 SIR THOMAS MASTERMAN HARDY 309 
 
 sails above sparkled with musketry fire. Of these 
 four ships the Redoutable offered, perhaps, the 
 strangest spectacle. She had shut her lower gun 
 ports hurriedly as the Victory closed with her, fear- 
 ing lest she should be boarded through these by 
 the English ; but her tops were crowded with small- 
 arms men, who pelted the deck of the Victory with 
 incessant bullets. Below, therefore, the great guns 
 of the Rccloutahh were silent ; but a venomous 
 musketry fire crackled tirelessly from her upper 
 deck and her tops. 
 
 Nelson and Hardy, through all this hell of fire, 
 were still calmly pacing to and fro on the quarter- 
 deck. The mizzen-top of the BedoutahU looked 
 right down on them, and was not more than fifteen 
 yards distant. Just as the two friends turned in 
 their walk, a shot from a marksman in the enemy's 
 mizzen struck Nelson on his left shoulder, and tore 
 its way through his chest to the spine. " They 
 have done for me at last, Hardy," said Nelson, as 
 he fell. 
 
 There is no need to tell afresh that unforgettable 
 scene in the British flagship's cockpit. Hardy, it 
 must be remembered, was not only captain of the 
 Victory, but captain of the fleet. From the moment, 
 indeed, Nelson fell, till the moment when his death 
 was reported to CoUingwood, Hardy was in com- 
 mand of the fleet. The condition of the Victory
 
 3IO NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 itself called for liis utmost exertions. The venomous 
 fire of the French muskets had turned its deck into 
 a charnel house; and, with splendid audacity, the 
 French attempted to carry it by boarding. They 
 saw their enemy's deck before them, almost deserted. 
 Its apparent emptiness tempted them. Some 
 Frenchmen actually clambered up the Victory s 
 anchor, and made their appearance above the bul- 
 warks on the forecastle ; others tried to creep up 
 the chains ; yet others were hurriedly, and with 
 loud outcries, trying to lower the RcdoutaUe s main- 
 yard so as to form a bridge to the Victory's 
 bulwarks. 
 
 A broadside from the Tcnurairc swept these 
 audacious boarders into destruction ; bat, for a 
 moment, it seemed probable that a desperate hand- 
 to-hand fight would take place on the deck of 
 the Victory itself. How profoundly the long and 
 gallant fight of the BedoutaUe impressed Hardy 
 himself is told by what he said to William Parker, 
 the captain of the Amazon, afterwards. " Parker," he 
 said, " and you, Capel " — another youthful and ardent 
 frigate-captain — " have often talked of your attack- 
 ing a French line- of-bat tie ship with two frigates. 
 Now, after what I have seen at Trafalgar, I am 
 satisfied it would be mere folly, and ought never 
 to succeed," Yet the case of the Amazon and the 
 Indefatigable, in their long fight with Les Droits de
 
 SIR THOMAS MASTERMAN HARDY 3 I I 
 
 I'Homme, shows that British sailors sometimes ac- 
 complished what even Hardy, one of the most 
 gallant examples of the type, held to be impossible ! 
 
 Hardy, in the stress of the fight, could only visit 
 his dying admiral at intervals. And Nelson's im- 
 patience for his friend was constant and distressing: 
 " Will no one bring Hardy to me ? He must be 
 killed ! " Then, when Hardy came, it is moving to 
 notice how eager interest in the fight and the 
 pathetic sense of quick-coming death struggled 
 together in Nelson. " I am a dead man, Hardy ! " 
 follows hard upon the question of " How goes the 
 battle ? " " Anchor, Hardy, anchor ! " he cries, his 
 seaman's brain forecasting the gathering tempest. 
 Then follows the childlike entreaty, " Don't throw 
 me overboard, Hardy." Last comes that pathetic, 
 " Kiss me. Hardy." And when his friend's lips have 
 touched his cheek, the dying man says : " Now I am 
 satisfied. Thank God, I have done my duty ! " 
 
 Hardy stands for a moment looking down in 
 heart-broken silence on his dying leader, already in 
 the swoon of death ; then he stoops and kisses his 
 friend's forehead. " Who is that ? " whispers the 
 dying man, recalled by the touch of Hardy's lips to 
 semi-consciousness. " It is Hardy." " God bless you. 
 Hardy ! " and those words are Nelson's farewell. 
 
 Hardy lived for more than thirty years after- 
 wards, and he rendered England fine service ; but
 
 312 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 he saw no more great battles. His future work was 
 rather that of an administrator and a diplomatist 
 than of a fighting man. Nelson's captains in the 
 great war were not, in the modern sense, edu- 
 cated men. At eleven or twelve years of age the 
 middy's berth became their world. They had long 
 cruises and very short holidays ashore. Letters for 
 them were rare ; books a luxury ; newspapers almost 
 unknown. But their profession trained them ; they 
 were constantly wrestling with nature — fighting the 
 sea, battling with the winds, finding their way across 
 the trackless ocean — as well as contending with 
 human enemies. They had to refit, and sometimes 
 almost rebuild, their ships, as well as sail and fight 
 them. The captain of a frigate or of a 74 was 
 practically the ruler of a little kingdom ; and he 
 learnt all the arts of government. He knew men. 
 He became, more or less unconsciously, an expert 
 administrator, a diplomatist. And where such a 
 captain was, by gift of nature, quick-minded and 
 reflective, his profession developed in him a power, 
 both of managing affairs and of governing men, of 
 a very high order. 
 
 This explains why Troubridge, with no other 
 training than the quarterdeck, proved himself so 
 efficient at Whitehall. Ball, at Malta, showed the 
 same power of governing men of another race 
 which great Indian administrators have displayed.
 
 SIR THOMAS MASTERMAN HARDY 313 
 
 Saumarez, during the five years lie was in command 
 in the Baltic, was more of a diplomatist than a 
 sailor ; and he succeeded where many a trained 
 diplomatist would have failed. 
 
 And Hardy belonged to the same type as Trou- 
 bridge, and Ball, and Saumarez. During the five 
 years he held the post of commander-in-chief on 
 the South American station he had a task as diffi- 
 cult as that of Saumarez in the Baltic, and much 
 more perplexed than that of Ball at Malta. The 
 South American republics, with their angry politics 
 and perpetual revolutions, were a human powder- 
 mine. But Hardy had exactly the gifts and the 
 training which qualified him for being the spokes- 
 man and representative of England in such a 
 perplexed realm. His character won confidence ; 
 his cool temper kept him out of quarrels ; his calm 
 judgment carried unrivalled weight ; his advice was 
 never obtruded, and it was never suspected, and 
 never ineffective. 
 
 And the last stage of Hardy's life was just as 
 beneficently effective. He was governor of Green- 
 wich Hospital, and was the best fitted of all men 
 living to be the head of that great home of battle- 
 scarred veterans. Greenwich Hospital, at the close 
 of a twenty years' war, was choked with the human 
 debris of a hundred great sea-fights ; veterans who 
 had fought and suffered for England under every
 
 314 NELSON AND HIS CAPTAINS 
 
 sky and in every sea ; who were tanned by strange 
 suns, and torn by strange wounds, and were half 
 children and half heroes. For this strange flock 
 Hardy was a sort of human providence. He under- 
 stood them, loved them, was trusted by them. He 
 was jealous of their comfort, and if he ruled them 
 with the discipline of the quarterdeck, he cared for 
 them with something of the regard of a father. 
 
 A pillar to the memory of the great sailor who 
 was Nelson's friend stands on the crest of the Black 
 Down, above Portisham, and the passing ships can 
 see it, showing needle-like against the sky. But 
 Hardy himself sleeps where he would have chosen, 
 in the hospital cemetery, sown thick with the dust 
 of English seamen. A monument to his memory 
 stands in the hospital chapel, and his strong, wise, 
 and manly face looks down from the walls of the 
 painted hall at Greenwich. But his best title to a 
 place in the unforgetting memory of all Englishmen 
 is in that " Kiss me, Hardy " ; words by which, as 
 with one pathetic whisper, Nelson linked Hardy's 
 name for ever with his own. In Hardy's coffin, it 
 may be added, there lies, by his own dying wish, 
 Nelson's portrait.
 
 INDEX 
 
 Abbott, painter, 298 
 
 A'Court, midshipman, 55 
 
 Adams, Sir Charles, 244 
 
 Agamemnoyi, 7, 35, 83-85, loi 
 
 Ajax, 124-128 
 
 Albemarle, 7, 35 
 
 Alexander, 72, 162-166, 177-1S1, 
 
 185-190, 206 
 Algiers, Dey of, 269, 276 
 Amazon, 61-62, 100-104, 248- 
 
 257, 266, 310 
 Anson, Lord, 129, 183, 2IO, 290 
 Antelope, 211 
 Aquilon, 286 
 Argo, 171 
 Audacious, 239, 278 
 
 Ball, Sir Alexander, 35, 48, 65, 
 86, 175-199. 207, 232, 297 ; 
 at the Nile, 167, 185-191 ; 
 letters from Nelson, 175, 182 ; 
 characteristics, 175-179; friend- 
 ship with Nelson, 1 78-1 So; 
 saves Nelson and the Van- 
 guard, 1 80-1 81 ; the siege of 
 Malta, 191-194; friendship 
 with Coleridge, 194-199 ; 
 governor of Malta, 199, 312, 
 
 313 
 Barham, Lord, I 
 
 Beatty, surgeon, 65 
 
 Belle Poide, 152, 157 
 
 Bellerophon, 163-164, 171, 1 87 
 
 Belliqueux, 2 1 1 
 
 Bcllona, loi 
 
 Berry, Sir Edward, 19, 43, 61, 
 66-86, 88, 129, 232, 280, 304; 
 as a fighting man, 66-67 j earns 
 his commission, 69; boarding 
 the San Nicolas, 69-70, 297 ; 
 on the pursuit of Brueys, 71- 
 75 ; at the Nile, 75-77 ; in the 
 fight between the Leander and 
 the Oinireux, 77-81 ; knight- 
 hood, 81 ; captures the Guil- 
 laume Tell, 82-84, 112; at 
 Trafalgar, 83-85 ; receives a 
 baronetcy, 86 ; failure as a 
 leader, 86 
 
 Bissell, Captain, 153 
 
 Blackwood, Sir Henry, 43, 47, 
 51, 68, 82, 88, 106-128, 216, 
 232, 306 ; at Trafalgar, 83, 
 120-124 j fight with the Guil- 
 laume Tell, 107-113; action 
 with two French frigates in 
 the Brilliant, 115-118; visits 
 to Lord Nelson at Merton, 
 I18-I19, 203-204; watching 
 the French and Spanish fleets 
 
 315
 
 3i6 
 
 INDEX 
 
 off Cadiz, 1 19-120 ; loss of the 
 Ajax, 124-128 ; honours and 
 death, 128 
 
 Blanche, 55, 103, 301 
 
 Blenheim, 152-155 
 
 Bligh, Captain, 90 
 
 Boreas, 7 
 
 Bounty, 90 
 
 Bowen, Captain, 143 
 
 Breuton, quoted, 87, 228-229 
 
 Brilliant, II3-118, 128 
 
 Britannia, 137, 291 
 
 Browne, Admiral, 282 
 
 Brueys, Admirnl, 159, 185 ; pur- 
 sued by Nelson, 9, 17, 18, 28, 
 61, 71-74, 146, 162, 202, 217, 
 251, 304; at the Nile, 29, 38, 
 77, 108, 129, 132, 147, 163, 
 187, 219, 278-287 
 
 Bucentaure, 306 
 
 Burford, 68 
 
 Burgoyne, Sir John, 262 
 
 Byng, Admiral, 22 
 
 Byron, Lord, 89 
 
 Caesar, 45, 209, 221, 222, 226, 
 
 228 
 Calder, Sir Robert, 12, 118, 157 
 Camelford, Lord, 98, 99 
 Camin, General, 167 
 Campbell, quoted, 87, 105 
 Canoirus, 44, 127 
 Capel, Captain, 61, 310 
 Captain, 24, 69, 70, 131, 14 1, 142 
 Carcass, 6 
 Carnatic, 300 
 Castor, 133-134 
 Cato, 213 
 
 Centxirion, 129, 1 83, 290 
 Charles V., Emperor, 267 
 Chatham, Lord, 98 
 
 Clarence, Duke o^, 5 
 Cleopatra, 215, 265 
 Clarke, Captain, 88, 89 
 Clowes, Sir William Laird, 285 
 Cochrane, Lord, 2, 45, 46 
 Cockburn, Captain, 303 
 Codrington, Captain, 43, 47, 85, 
 
 129, 258, 298, 307 
 Coleridge, quoted, 176, 182, 185, 
 
 188, 190, 193; friendship with 
 
 Sir Alexander Ball, 194-199, 
 
 203 
 Collingwood, Admiral, i, 12, 20, 
 
 21, 43, 47, 49, 67, 104, 122, 
 
 129, 297, 309 
 Colomb, Admiral, quoted, 11, 
 
 18, 19 
 Colossus, 138, 171 
 Connolly, Colonel, 225 
 Conquerant, 290 
 Cook, Captain, 89 
 Cornwallis, Admiral, i 
 Couragcuse, 161 
 Cowen, Lieutenant, 166 
 Crescent, 207, 208, 214, 215 
 Cromwell, Oliver, 275 
 Cidloden, 11, 45, 104, 129-153, 
 
 1 86, 202-206, 216 
 
 De Grasse, Admiral, 51, 1S3, 
 
 213, 214 
 Decres, Rear- Admiral, 108-113, 
 
 121 
 Defence, 166 
 Defiance, 103 
 Discovery, 88 
 Dixon, Captain, 1 1 1 
 Douglas, Captain, 183 
 Duckworth, Captain, 49, 236- 
 
 238, 240, 241 
 Duquesne, 160-161
 
 INDEX 
 
 317 
 
 Edwabd III. at the battle of 
 
 Sluys, 280 
 Edwardes, Sir Herbert, 63 
 Ekins, 19 
 Elephant, 12, loi, 282, 292-295, 
 
 305 
 Elliot, Sir George, 279, 285-288 
 Endeavour, 89 
 
 Euryalus, 83, 113, 11 8- 122, 216 
 Excellent, 142 
 Exmouth, Lord (see under Pellew, 
 
 Sir Edward) 
 
 Fane, midshipman, 168 
 
 Fane, John, 238 
 
 Ferdinand, King, 150 
 
 Ferris, Captain, 223 
 
 Flaxman, sculptor, 4 
 
 Foley, Sir Thomas, 36, 27S-295, 
 297 ; with Nelson in the battle 
 of the Baltic, 101, 292-294, 
 305 ; leads in the Goliath at 
 the Nile, 129, 146, 187, 278- 
 290; early career, 290, 291 ; 
 subsequent promotion and 
 death, 295 
 
 Forbes, midshipman, 286 
 
 Formidable, 163, 223 
 
 Foudroyant, 81, 82, 109, 112, 
 
 304 
 Fox, 15 
 
 FranMin, 4.\, 164-166, 187,191, 
 
 203, 219 
 Eraser, General, 160, 172 
 Fremantle, Captain, 15, loi, 143, 
 
 293 
 Mrs., 15 
 
 Ganteaume, Admiral, 169-171 
 Gardner, Admiral, 238 
 Genereux, 77-81 
 
 George II., 64 
 
 Germain, 183 
 
 Glasgow, 271 
 
 Glory, 135, 136 
 
 Goethe, quoted, 8 
 
 Goliath, 146, 218, 278-282, 285- 
 
 288, 291 
 Goodall, Admiral, 9 
 Granicus, 272 
 Graves, Captain, 103 
 Gravina, 255 
 
 Griffiths, Lieutenant, 140 
 Guardian, 88-100 
 Guerrier, 146, 187, 21S, 278-2S1, 
 
 290 
 Guillaume Tell, 68, 82, 84, 107- 
 
 112, 192 
 
 Haliburton, quoted, 3 
 Hallowell (Carew), Sir Benjamin, 
 
 43, 129, 156-174, 303; at St. 
 Vincent, 157-158; presents 
 Nelson with a coffin, 158-159 ; 
 his career, 159-160 ; loss of the 
 Courageuse, 161 ; at the Nile 
 in the Swiftsure, 1 62- 167, 189 ; 
 at the siege of St. Elmo, 168, 
 169 ; taken prisoner, 170-171 ; 
 expedition to Egypt, 172 ; suc- 
 ceeds to a fortune and assumes 
 the name of Carew, 1 74 
 
 Hamilton, Lady, 5, 9-10, 35, 
 149-150, 159, 204, 304 
 
 Sir William, 3 
 
 Hannibal, 223-229 
 
 Hardy, Sir Thomas, ;^^, 36, 43- 
 
 44, 88, 129, 232, 248, 252, 
 296-314 ; with Nelson at Tra- 
 falgar, 4, 12, 52, 63, 296-298, 
 306-311 ; at the battle of the 
 Baltic, loi, 293, 294, 305 ; close
 
 3i8 
 
 INDEX 
 
 friendship with Nelson, 297- 
 300 ; early career, 299-302 ; 
 captures La Mutine at Santa 
 Cruz, 303-304 ; as Nelson's flag- 
 captain, 304 seq, ; commander- 
 in-chief on the South American 
 station, 313; governor of Green- 
 wich Hospital, 313, 314 ; death, 
 
 314 
 Harrier, 154 
 Hawke, Admiral, 23, 26 
 Hebe, 300 
 Hcnnione, 50 
 Hinchinhrolce, 7, 13 
 Hood, 45 
 
 Hood, Lord, 7, 23, 26, 44, 129, 
 156; in the attack on Santa 
 Cruz, 143 ; in the fight with 
 Linois, 222, 228 ; at the Nile, 
 279-281, 285, 2S8, 291 
 
 Sir Samuel, 159 
 
 Hoste, Sir William, 253 
 Hotham, Admiral, 18, 24, 137, 
 
 159, 160 
 Howe, Lord, 23, 25, 66, 114, 232, 
 283 ; in the battle of the First 
 of June, 134-136, 237-243 
 Hughes, Lady, 8 
 
 Sir Edward, 66, 132-133 
 
 Humber, General, 266 
 
 Innyregnable, 26S, 272 
 Indefatigable, 264, 266, 310 
 Invincible, 1 14 
 
 James, quoted, 19, 54, 112 
 
 Java, 154 
 
 Jervis, Sir John (see under Lord 
 
 St. Vincent) 
 Johnson, Dr., 32 
 
 Keats, Captain, 227 
 Keith, Lord, 81 
 Kempenfeldt, Admiral, 213 
 Kent, Duke of, 250 
 Keppel, Admiral, 291 
 
 La Mutine, 304 
 La Valetta, 175 
 Lawrence, Sir Henry, 63 
 
 Lord, 63 
 
 Leander, 20, 77-81, 147-148, 188, 
 
 271 
 Le Commerce de Marseilles, 44 
 Le General Dumourier, 291 
 Le Pcuple Souverain, 219 
 Lcs Droits de l' Homme, 266, 310 
 
 Leviathan, 243 
 
 Linois, Admiral, 152, 200, 220- 
 229 
 
 Lion, 82, 109, 1 1 1 
 
 Little Lucy, 7 
 
 Lively, 162, 303 
 
 Locker, Mrs., 8 
 
 L'oiseau, 248 
 
 London, 293 
 
 Louis, Sir Thomas, 43, 127, 160, 
 169, 172 
 
 Lowestoft, 6, 160, 161 
 
 Lucas, Jean, loS 
 
 Macaulay, quoted, 10 
 
 Magicienne, 243-245 
 
 Mahan, Captain, quoted, 19, 30, 
 
 65. 145. 1S8, 278, 285, 287 
 Majestic, 45, 135, 166 
 Malcolm, Sir Pulteuey, quoted, 
 
 232, 236 
 Malta, 113, 173 
 Marengo, 152 
 
 Marryat, Captain, 29, 233-234 
 Martin, Admiral, 173
 
 INDEX 
 
 319 
 
 Matthews, Admiral, 21 
 Mears, Lieutenant, 241 
 Miller, Captain, 43, 47, 69-70, 
 
 129, 286 
 Milne, Rear- Admiral, 272 
 Minerve, 300-303 
 Montreal, 212 
 Morino, Admiral, 226 
 Murray, Captain, 36 
 
 Namur, 304 
 
 Napoleon, Emperor, 2, 20, 26, 31, 
 38-41, 167 
 
 Nelson, Lord, a character study, 
 I-41 ; personal appearance, 
 3-4, 10, 130; characteristics) 
 4-6 ; rapid promotion, 6-7 ; 
 continued ill-health, 8-10; ex- 
 pedition to Santa Cruz, 13-16, 
 143-146 ; his strategy, 19-25 ; 
 blockade duty, 27-29 ; state- 
 ment of his services, 30 ; devo- 
 tion to duty, 31-32; and his 
 captains, 33-36; compared with 
 Wellington, 36-39 ; resem- 
 blance to Napoleon as a leader, 
 38-41 ; the men of his school, 
 42-65 ; indifference to death, 
 51-52; his influence, 61-63, 
 105 ; piety, 65 ; and Sir 
 Edward Berry, 66-68; at St. 
 Vincent, 67-71, 141, 142; at 
 the Nile, 75-77, 167, 278-289 ; 
 wounded, 7^-77 ; the battle of 
 the Baltic, 101-103, 292-294, 
 305 ; and Blackwood, 106-107 ; 
 at Trafalgar, 1 19-123, 306- 
 311 ; and Troubridge, 129, 141, 
 150-152; letter to Sir Alex- 
 ander Ball, 175 ; treatment of 
 Saumarez, 200-206 ; outwits Sir 
 
 John Orde, 251-256 ; his fore- 
 sight, 2S5-286 ; the death scene 
 at Trafalgar, 296-298, 307- 
 31 1 ; his friendship with Hardy, 
 
 297-303 
 Nemesis, 183-185 
 Neptune, 306, 308 
 Nielly, Admiral, 134 
 Nonsuch, 113 
 Northumbe7-land, 8 1 
 Nyniphe, 215, 265 
 
 Okde, Sir John, 251-253 
 Orient, 77, 159, 163-167, 1S7- 
 
 191, 220 
 Orion, ']Z, 85, 171, 180, 200, 202, 
 
 216-220, 236, 278 
 
 Pakenham, Captain, 114 
 Parker, Lady, 8 
 
 Sir Hyde, 6, t^t^ ; at the 
 
 battle of the Baltic, 100-103, 
 292-293, 305 
 
 Sir William, 43, 44, 47-50, 
 
 61, 62, 65, 232-258, 298, 310; 
 his discipline, 233; prize-money, 
 234, 246, 247, 255, 256 ; as 
 frigate - captain, 236 ; early 
 career, 235-248 ; his descrip- 
 tion of the battle of the First 
 of June, 238-242 ; appointed 
 to the Amazon, 248 ; carries 
 Nelson's despatches and evades 
 Sir John Orde, 251-254; cap- 
 tures the Gravina with specie, 
 255 ; refuses the command of a 
 squadron, 257 ; subsequent ser- 
 vices, 258 
 
 Pelican, 45 
 
 Pellew, Sir Edward (afterwards 
 Lord Exmouth), 43, 45, 65,
 
 320 
 
 INDEX 
 
 153, 215, 259-277 ; saves the 
 crew of an Indiaman, 259-260; 
 early career, 261-263 ; quells 
 the mutiny in Bantry Bay, 
 263; captures the Cleopatra, 
 265 ; fight with Les Droits de 
 VHoinme, 266 ; suppresses the 
 Algerine pirates, 267 - 277 ; 
 raised to the peerage, 268 
 
 Pellew, Sir Israel, 65 
 
 Penelope, 68, 82, 84, 106-113, 
 118 
 
 Perrott, Lieutenant, 54 
 
 Phcebe, 61 
 
 Pitt, midshipvian, 98-99 
 
 William, 99 
 
 Polyphemus, 84 
 
 Pompee, 223-226 
 
 Popham, Admiral Sir H., 120 
 
 Prince George, 216 
 
 Princess Augusta, 99 
 
 Princess Charlotte, 304 
 
 Queen, 241 
 
 Queen Charlotte, 114, 135, 268- 
 277 
 
 Redoutahle, 108, 298, 306-310 
 
 Regeneree, 115, 116 
 
 Rcgulus, 245 
 
 Resolution, 89 
 
 Reunion, 214, 215 
 
 Revenge, 113 
 
 Ricketts, Captain, 243 
 
 Riou, Captain Edward, 62, 87- 
 105, 24S ; qualities as a leader, 
 88 ; the wreck of the Guardian, 
 89-99 > famous letter to the 
 Admiralty, 94-95 ; promoted 
 commander and captain, 99 ; 
 
 with Nelson in the Baltic, 
 
 100-104, 293 ; death, 104 
 Rodney, Admiral, 23, 26, 51, 
 
 176, 243, 291 ; in the battle of 
 
 the Saints, 183, 213 
 Rose, 99 
 
 Ross, Sir John, 230 
 Rotherham, Captain, 12 
 Rowed, Lieut. Henry, 58-60 
 Royal George, 213 
 Roycd Sovereign, 12, 122 
 Russell, loi, 213 
 
 St. George, 291, 292, 304, 305 
 St. Vincent, Lord, i, 6, 9, 16, 
 
 28, 34, 43. 46, 49, 99. 167 ; his 
 
 system of blockades, 26, 27 ; 
 
 at the battle off Cape St. 
 
 Vincent, 25, 30, 139, 157, 158, 
 
 216, 217; on Blackwood, 106, 
 118 ; on Troubridge, 129, 137- 
 138 ; at the Admiralty, 130, 
 149-15 1 ; on Saumarez, 200, 
 209 ; and his nephew Parker, 
 232 sqq.; on Pellew, 263 
 
 Salvador del Mundo, 216 
 San Josef, 19, 70, 71, 141, 30J. 
 San Nicolas, 19, 66, 69-71, 141, 
 
 297 
 Sandioich, 183 
 Sanspareil, 134-136 
 Santissimia Trinidada, 23, 124, 
 
 217, 306 
 
 Saumarez, Sir James, 43, 44, 65, 
 74, 86, 129, 200-231, 232, 248, 
 313 ; his relations with Nelson, 
 200-206, 297 ; criticisms en the 
 Nile, 22, 205, 207 ; daring 
 seamanship, 207-209 ; blockade 
 duty, 209-210; early career, 
 21 1 -2 1 4; knighthood, 215;
 
 INDEX 
 
 321 
 
 appointed to the Orion, 216 ; 
 at St. Vincent, 216-217 ; at 
 the Nile, 218-220; the double 
 fight with Linois off Algegiras, 
 221-229; last years in Guern- 
 sey, 230-231 
 
 Scott, Michael, 233 
 
 Scott (Nelson's secretary), 307, 
 308 
 
 Sea Horse, 15, 131 
 
 Seaford, 300 
 
 Sirieuse, 218 
 
 Severn, 271 
 
 Sheei-ness, 58 
 
 Shelley, painter, 88 
 
 Shelley, quoted, 194 
 
 Shepherd, Captain, 179 
 
 Sibthorpe, Lieutenant, 128 
 
 Sirius, 57 
 
 Smith, Sir Sidney, 2 
 
 Smollett, Tobias, 43, 47, 130 
 
 Soleby, 211 
 
 Spartiati, 17, 76, 200 
 
 Speedy, 45, 46 
 
 Spencer, 229 
 
 Spencer, Lord, 150 
 
 Spitfire, 212 
 
 Stewart, Colonel, 12 
 
 Stork, 234, 247, 248, 257 
 
 Strachan, Sir Richard, 25 
 
 Suckling (Nelson's uncle), 6, 8 
 
 Suffren, Admiral, 67, 132-133 
 
 Superb, 132, 221, 227, 228, 271, 
 272 
 
 Swiftsure, 162-167, 170, 171, 
 185-188, 206, 281 
 
 Sykes, coxswain, 13 
 
 Temeraire, 44, 45, 308, 310 
 Tennyson, Lord, quoted, I, 39 
 Thaller, sculptor, 4 
 
 Theseus, 16, 278, 286 
 
 Thompson, Captain, 78-79, 147 
 
 Sir Charles, 291 
 
 Thouars, Captain Dupetit, 108, 
 289, 290 
 
 Tigre, 160, 172, 173 
 
 Tisiphone, 213 
 
 Tonnant, 108, 163, 289 
 
 Tourville, Admiral, 280 
 
 Treville, Admiral La Touche, 261 
 
 Troubridge, Sir Thomas, 33, 34, 
 72, 74, 86, 129-155, 182, 297, 
 313; at the Nile, 11, 146-149, 
 167, 202, 203 ; at Santa Cruz, 
 14, 68; as first Sea-Lord, 130, 
 151, 152, 312; early years, 
 131-132 ; marriage, 133 ; taken 
 prisoner, 134 ; appointed to the 
 CuUoden, 45, 136 ; in the action 
 off Hyeres, 1 37 ; at St. Vincent, 
 139-143 ; at Santa Cruz, 143- 
 146 ; the quarrel with Nelson, 
 150-152, 297 ; at the siege of 
 St. Elmo, 150, 169; loss of 
 the Blenheim and death, 154, 
 155 
 
 Vanguard, 61, 68, 71-76, 177- 
 180, 204, 207, 279, 282, 288, 
 
 304 
 
 Venerable, 222, 225, 228, 229 
 
 Vertu, 115 
 
 Victory, 29, 31, 44-46, 51, 108, 
 121, 129, 183, 213, 294-310 
 
 Villaret-Joyeuse, Admiral, 134 
 
 Ville de Paris, 214 
 
 Villeneuve, Admiral, 18, 20, 28, 
 119, 161, 172, 250; at Tra- 
 falgar, 12, 25, 51, 104, 124, 132, 
 160, 171 ; taken prisoner, 124; 
 at the Nile, 179, 206, 289 
 X
 
 322 INDEX 
 
 Villetle, Captain, 167 
 Volage, 246, 247 
 
 Warrhn, Sir John, 169, 249, 257 
 Wdrspite, 257 
 
 Watling, Lieutenant, 56, 57 
 Wellington, Duke of, 2,11; com- 
 pared with Nelson, 36-39, 230 
 Westcott, Captain, 43 
 William III., 10 
 
 William Henry, Prince, 3 
 Williams, chaplain, 280, 28 1 
 Willoughby, Lieutenant, 53, 54 
 Windham, 57 
 Wise, Captain, 272 
 Wordsworth, William, 176 
 
 Zealous, 17, 218, 278-281, 2S5- 
 288 
 
 THE END 
 
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 DATE DUE 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 CAYLORO 
 
 

 
 DA8 7. 1 A1F5 
 
 Fitchett, ^Jilliam F-lenry, 
 
 1845-1928. 
 Nelson and his captains: 
 
 cr..THF.^BFG,n..^LLiBBA^VFACn^|2,, 
 
 jpiA 001325 779 
 
 3 1210 00360 1943