The Story of Nelson 11

The Story of Nelson 11

The Commodore was next instructed to embark the garrison of Porto

Ferrajo preparatory to the abandonment of Elba. Certain of the troops

were then to be landed at Gibraltar and the remainder at Lisbon: “The

object of our Fleet in future is the defence of Portugal, and keeping

in the Mediterranean the Combined Fleets,” namely those of Spain and

France. While on his way to carry out his important mission Nelson was

to meet with a surprising adventure.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER VI

 

Nelson’s First Great Fight: The Battle of Cape St Vincent

 

(1797)

 

“_To have had any share in it is honour enough for one man’s life,

but to have been foremost on such a day could fall to your share

alone_”

 

SIR GILBERT ELLIOT.

 

 

Sir John Jervis had concentrated his fleet in Gibraltar Bay. Nelson

was making his way from thence to Elba in the _Minerve_, accompanied

by the _Blanche_, both 32-gun frigates. All went well until late in

the evening of the 19th December 1796, when they fell in with two

Spanish frigates named the _Santa Sabina_ (40) and the _Ceres_ (40)

off Cartagena. The Commodore at once instructed Captain Cockburn to

bring the _Minerve_ to close action with the former. The struggle which

ensued lasted for nearly three hours. The lengthy resistance of the

enemy is proof that there were still gallant officers in the naval

service of what was once the mightiest Sea Power in the world, now long

since fallen from her high estate. Captain Don Jacobo Stuart fought his

ship with praiseworthy calm and daring. Not until 164 of the 286 men

who comprised the crew of the _Santa Sabina_ had been killed or wounded

did the Don strike his colours. The vessel had then lost both main and

fore-masts, and the deck must have resembled a shambles. The _Blanche_

had also behaved well, although the action was trifling compared with

the determined encounter between the other vessels. The approach of

three additional ships prevented the captain of the _Blanche_ from

following up his advantage and capturing the _Ceres_, which had hauled

down her colours and sustained considerable damage to her sails and

rigging.

 

Nelson’s prize was put in charge of Lieutenants Culverhouse and Hardy

and taken in tow by the _Minerve_. They had not proceeded far before a

third Spanish frigate came up and engaged the _Minerve_, necessitating

the casting-off of the _Santa Sabina_, thereby leaving the two young,

but able, junior officers to their own resources. The encounter lasted

a little over half-an-hour, when the frigate having had enough of

Nelson’s pommelling hauled off. The vessels from which Captain D’Arcy

Preston of the _Blanche_ had escaped were now approaching, their

commanders having been attracted by the sound of distant firing.

Dawn revealed them to Nelson as two sail-of-the-line and a frigate.

By hoisting English colours above the Spanish flag on the prize

the enemy’s Admiral was attracted to her, a ruse which enabled the

_Minerve_ and the _Blanche_ to escape, for it would have been foolish

for Nelson to run the risk of sacrificing them because of the prize

crew. Indeed, the situation was so perilous that Nelson afterwards

wrote to Sir Gilbert Elliot, “We very narrowly escaped visiting a

Spanish prison.” Neither before nor since have British Tars behaved in

finer fashion. They sailed the _Santa Sabina_ until she was practically

a hulk, when she was recaptured.

 

“The merits of every officer and man in the _Minerve_ and her Prize,”

Nelson reports to Jervis, “were eminently conspicuous through the

whole of this arduous day.” He likewise said the kindest things of his

antagonist: “My late prisoner, a descendant from the Duke of Berwick,

son of James II., was my brave opponent; for which I have returned him

his sword, and sent him in a Flag of truce to Spain ... he was reputed

the best Officer in Spain, and his men were worthy of such a Commander;

he was the only surviving Officer.” He reserved more picturesque

details for his brother.

 

“When I hailed the Don,” he relates, “and told him, ‘This is an English

Frigate,’ and demanded his surrender or I would fire into him, his

answer was noble, and such as became the illustrious family from which

he is descended--‘This is a Spanish Frigate, and you may begin as soon

as you please.’ I have no idea of a closer or sharper battle: the

force to a gun the same, and nearly the same number of men; we having

two hundred and fifty. I asked him several times to surrender during

the Action, but his answer was--‘No, Sir; not whilst I have the means

of fighting left.’ When only himself of all the Officers were left

alive, he hailed, and said he could fight no more, and begged I would

stop firing.” Culverhouse and Hardy, after having been conveyed to

Carthagena, were subsequently exchanged for the unlucky but brave Don,

and returned to the _Minerve_.

 

[Illustration: “I’ll not lose Hardy!”

 

H. C. Seppings Wright]

 

Nelson duly anchored at Porto Ferrajo, and met with a lack of

co-operation on the part of the military authority similar to some of

his previous experiences. Lieutenant-General de Burgh, in command of

the troops, declined to evacuate the town. Nelson, having no other

alternative, removed the naval stores, left a number of sloops and

gunboats for use in emergency, and sailed for Gibraltar, which he

reached on the 9th February 1797, having looked into the enemy’s ports

of Toulon and Cartagena on the way. Two days later the Commodore

again set out in his endeavour to join Jervis, and was chased by two

Spanish ships. It was then that a memorable incident occurred in the

lives of both Nelson and Hardy, names inseparably associated. A man

fell overboard, and Hardy and a crew in the jolly-boat hastened to the

rescue. The current was strong, the poor fellow sank, and the boat

rapidly drifted in the direction of one of the oncoming vessels, so

that Hardy stood a very good chance of again falling into the hands

of the enemy. “I’ll not lose Hardy; back the mizen topsail,” shouted

Nelson without a moment’s hesitation. This was done, and the

lieutenant and his sailors were rescued. The Spaniards were completely

put off their guard. Led to imagine by the peculiar manœuvre of the

_Minerve_ that other British ships had been sighted, they gave up the

chase. No further exciting incidents occurred as the doughty frigate

ploughed the blue waters of the Mediterranean, although the Spanish

fleet was passed at night. On the 13th Nelson joined Jervis, off Cape

St Vincent, and was able to assure him that a battle appeared imminent.

“Every heart warmed to see so brave and fortunate a warrior among us,”

says Lieutenant G. S. Parsons, then not quite thirteen years of age

and a first-class volunteer on board the _Barfleur_ (98). During the

succeeding hours of darkness the low and distant rumble of signal guns

proved the truth of the Commodore’s assertion. The enemy’s fleet of

twenty-seven sail-of-the-line and twelve 34-gun frigates was certainly

hastening in the direction of Jervis. It had sailed from Cadiz for a

very important purpose. After concentrating with the Toulon fleet the

allies were to attempt to raise the English blockade of Brest, thus

releasing the important armament there, gain command of the Channel,

and invade Ireland. We shall have occasion to notice that in later

years Napoleon conceived a similar idea. It is open to question whether

Admiral Don Josef de Cordova would have been quite so eager for the

fray had he known the full British strength. He believed it to be

nine sail-of-the-line, whereas fifteen battleships and seven smaller

vessels were awaiting his coming. When the signal-lieutenant of the

_Barfleur_ exclaimed of the oncoming leeward line of vessels, “They

loom like Beachy Head in a fog! By my soul, they are thumpers, for I

distinctly make out _four_ tier of ports in one of them, bearing an

admiral’s flag,” he expressed plain, honest fact. “Don Cordova, in

the _Santissima Trinidad_,” Jervis correctly surmised, “and I trust

in Providence that we shall reduce this mountain into a mole hill

before sunset.” The Spanish flag-ship was the largest vessel afloat,

and carried 130 guns. She must have towered above the insignificant

_Captain_ (74), to which Nelson had transferred his broad pennant,

much like an elephant over a Shetland pony. Nor was the _Santissima

Trinidad_ the only vessel built on what was then considered to be

colossal lines. No fewer than six of the Spanish three-deckers carried

112 guns each; two of them had 80 guns each, and seventeen were 74-gun

ships. England was represented by two sail-of-the-line of 100 guns

each, two of 98 each, ten of 74 each, and one of 64.

 

“The British had formed one of the most beautiful and close lines

ever beheld,” Parsons tells us. “The fog drew up like a curtain, and

disclosed the grandest sight I ever witnessed. The Spanish fleet,

close on our weather bow, were making the most awkward attempts to

form their line of battle, and they looked a complete forest huddled

together; their commander-in-chief, covered with signals, and running

free on his leeward line, using his utmost endeavours to get them into

order; but they seemed confusion worse confounded. I was certainly very

young, but felt so elated as to walk on my toes, by way of appearing

taller, as I bore oranges to the admiral and captain, selecting some

for myself, which I stored in a snug corner in the stern-galley, as a

_Corps de réserve_. The breeze was just sufficient to cause all the

sails to sleep, and we were close hauled on the starboard tack, with

royals set, heading up for the Spanish fleet. Our supporting ship, in

the well-formed line, happened to be the _Captain_, and Captain Dacres

hailed to say that he was desired by the vice-admiral to express his

pleasure at being supported by Sir Horatio Nelson.”[17]

 

Men famous in British naval annals were present at this memorable

contest, fought on St Valentine’s Day, 1797. Jervis was in the

_Victory_ (100), Troubridge in the _Culloden_ (74), Collingwood in the

_Excellent_ (74), and Saumarez in the _Orion_ (74). Twenty-four years

before Troubridge and Nelson had sailed together in the _Seahorse_;

Collingwood was the Commodore’s life-long friend, and Saumarez, whom

the great little man did not like, was to become second in command at

the battle of the Nile eighteen months later.

 

“England,” the Admiral averred, “was in need of a victory,” and he gave

her one. Jervis was indeed a doughty champion of his country’s rights

at sea. “The British Admiral made the signal to prepare for battle,”

says an eye-witness. “As he walked the quarter-deck the hostile numbers

were reported to him, as they appeared, by signal. ‘There are eight

sail-of-the-line, Sir John.’ ‘Very well, sir.’ ‘There are twenty-five

sail-of-the-line.’ ‘Very well, sir.’ ‘There are twenty-seven sail, Sir

John,’ and this was accompanied by some remark on the great disparity

of the forces. ‘Enough, sir--no more of that: the die is cast; and

if there were fifty sail-of-the-line, I would go through them.’” Sir

Benjamin Hallowell-Carew, then a supernumerary on the quarter-deck

of the _Victory_, disregarding the austerity of naval etiquette and

thinking only of the determined utterance of the grim old veteran, so

far forgot himself as to give the Admiral a hearty slap on the back.

 

The Spanish fleet was in two divisions of twenty-one and six

sail-of-the-line respectively, separated by a distance of some miles.

Three of the main squadron joined the latter a little later, while one

“sailed away.” Jervis’s fleet, in single column, separated the two

lines. By a skilful manœuvre he held in check the smaller division

and brought his ships to bear on the larger, the _Culloden_ being the

first vessel to attack, which elicited warm praise of Troubridge from

Jervis. The fight at once became general and was waged for some time

without decisive results. Then several of the leading Spanish ships

endeavoured to get round the rear of the British. Had they succeeded

in doing so it would have enabled them to join the detached leeward

division and escape to Cadiz. Nelson at once discerned the project,

and without hesitation placed the _Captain_ in the path of the oncoming

ships. He “dashed in among the Spanish van,” to quote Parsons, “totally

unsupported, leaving a break in the British line--conduct totally

unprecedented, and only to be justified by the most complete success with which it was crowned....”