to a head at the time of Nelson’s triumph at the Nile and betrayal of his mother. He later did well in business. Nelson had more success with his protégés such as William Hoste, Edward Parker who died of wounds after the abortive raid on Boulogne in 1801, and John Quilliam who was first lieutenant of Victory at Trafalgar.
Nelson’s Early Career
It is only necessary to sketch in the chronicle of Nelson’s life before he came to assume the responsibility of commanding British battlefleets. From the contemporary biography by Robert Southey, to those by Tom Pocock, Christopher Hibbert and Roger Knight, Nelson’s life has been the subject of numerous books.
He was born in Burnham Thorpe in Norfolk in 1758, the son of the rector. His mother died when he was young, leaving him with the chief recollection that she ‘hated the French’, and a great sense of loss he was never able to resolve. Horatio first joined the navy in 1770 when the fleet was mobilised during the Falkland Islands crisis.35 His mother’s brother, Captain Maurice Suckling, introduced him to the service. When the danger of war passed, Nelson made a voyage on a commercial vessel to the West Indies, and then on the Carcass, a survey vessel, which penetrated the ice fields north of Spitzbergen. Allegedly, Nelson had to be rescued from a youthful effort to kill a polar bear. He then made the voyage in a frigate to the East Indies. His promotions came fast, helped by Suckling’s appointment as Comptroller of the Navy Board in 1775 which gave him a patron with influence enough to take the exam for lieutenant at the early age of eighteen. Suckling had also given him a good grounding in seamanship, and in human relations.
In 1779 Nelson was ‘made’ Post-Captain at the very early age of twenty by an appointment to command the frigate Hinchinbrook. In 1780 he saw his first active service in a land operation against San Juan de Nicaragua, and nearly died there of fever. He recovered when he was invalided home, and an appointment to command the frigate Albemarle, which took him to the healthier climate of Canada, completed the cure. After the conclusion of the American Revolutionary War, Nelson was fortunate enough to obtain the appointment to the frigate Boreas in which he sailed to the West Indies with Lady Hughes as a passenger.
It was during his service in the West Indies that he made enemies amongst the merchants and senior officers by his insistence on enforcing the Navigation Acts against the King’s former American citizens who were attempting to continue their trade with the Islands. Despite the reputation this gave him in the planter community, Frances Nisbet accepted his offer of marriage. He had, however, to cool his heels for five years, perhaps because his officious probity had made him enemies at the Admiralty, or perhaps because his friendship with Prince William Henry was not regarded with favour by King George III. He was not employed during the crisis of 1790 occasioned by the Spanish attack on British interests at Nootka Sound on Vancouver Island. He was too capable an officer, however, to be overlooked in the greater crisis of war with revolutionary France.
The execution of Louis XVI in January 1793 was quickly followed on 1 February by the declaration of war by France on England, Spain, Austria and the Netherlands. The day before, Nelson had been appointed to command a 64-gun ship of the line, the Agamemnon, with orders to place himself under Admiral Lord Hood who was to be Commander-in-Chief in the Mediterranean. The reputation he had already acquired in Norfolk by his concern for the sufferings of the poor, and for his readiness to greet warmly old friends from all stations in life, enabled him to fill his needs for ships company with Norfolk men without extensive reliance on the press. When later Hood offered him a 74-gun ship he declined to leave those who had been loyal to him.
The Spanish participation in the First Coalition against the French Revolution was a result not only of the hostility of deeply monarchist Spanish sentiment, but also of resentment of French betrayal at the time of the crisis over Nootka Sound. It gave Nelson an opportunity to observe Spanish army and navy commands as an ally, and he was not impressed. In Cadiz, which he visited on his way to the Mediterranean, he was shocked by the inefficiency with which the Spanish navy manned their otherwise excellent ships.
A royalist insurrection in southern France, supported by a badly directed Spanish force, opened the port of Toulon to the British Navy in August 1793. Nelson was involved in the operation, most notably by his effective diplomacy at the Court of Naples, which led to Neapolitan soldiers being rushed to Toulon. It was on this mission that Nelson met Sir William Hamilton and Emma. It proved impossible to defend Toulon against the army of the French Republic, however, and the irresolute behaviour of the Spanish army holding part of the perimeter was a major contributing cause. Artillery, commanded by the young General Napoleon Bonaparte, forced the Royal Navy to leave the harbour before the task of burning the Toulon fleet was complete. The failure of Spanish incendiary parties to carry out their task properly no doubt added to Nelson’s conviction that the forces of Spain were not to be rated highly. This was not blind prejudice, but it was an over-reaction that cost him dearly at Tenerife in 1797, and influenced his tactics at Trafalgar.
Nelson’s attack on 13 May 1795 on the Ça Ira, which had been damaged by an accident and was being towed by a frigate.
Nelson later played an active part in an operation intended to liberate Corsica, and he was the driving force behind the siege and capture of Bastia, although this was never acknowledged in dispatches. And it was at the works before Calvi, which later fell, that he lost the sight in one eye from gravel thrown up by a mortar bomb.
His resourcefulness and determination ashore was more than matched afloat. The disgust Nelson had expressed to Fanny when Hotham broke off an indecisive action against the French off Toulon in March 1795 is the more understandable because it was in that action that Nelson had so brilliantly distinguished himself in the fight with the 84-gun Ça Ira. The general action was no more than a skirmish, but over a thousand men were killed or wounded on each side. When two French ships, the Ça Ira and Jean Bart, collided, and the former lost speed, Nelson hauled the 64-gun Agamemnon out of the line and headed for her. Nelson’s journal gives a stirring account:
Sir William Hotham’s engagement, 14 May 1795. Nelson, in Agamemnon, was directly ahead of the flag and took the opportunity to urge decisive action, but Hotham was content with the capture of the isolated Ça Ira and the Censeur.
March 13th – At daylight the Enemy’s Fleet in the S.W. about three or four leagues with fresh breezes. Signal for a General chase. At eight A.M. a French Ship of the Line carried away her main and fore topmasts. At a quarter-past nine, the Inconstant frigate fired at the disabled Ship, but receiving many shot, was obliged to leave her. At ten A.M., tacked and stood towards the disabled Ship, and two other Ships of the Line. The disabled Ship proved to be the Ça Ira of 84 guns … [supported by the] Sans Culotte, one hundred and twenty guns; and the Jean Bart, seventy-four guns. We could have fetched the Sans Culotte by passing the Ça Ira to windward, but on looking round I saw no Ship of the Line within several miles to support me: the Captain was the nearest on our lee quarter. At twenty minutes past ten the Ça Ira began firing her stern-chasers. At half-past ten the Inconstant passed us to leeward, standing for the Fleet. As we drew up with the Enemy, so true did she fire her stern-guns, that not a shot missed some part of the Ship, and latterly the masts were struck every shot, which obliged me to open our fire a few minutes sooner than I intended, for it was my intention to have touched his stern before a shot was fired. But seeing plainly from the situation of the two Fleets, the impossibility of being supported, and in case any accident happened to our masts, the certainty of being severely cut up, I resolved to fire so soon as I thought we had a certainty of hitting. At a quarter before eleven A.M., being within one hundred yards of the Ça Ira’s stern, I ordered
