The Story of Nelson 24

The Story of Nelson 24

“TRIESTE, _9th of August_, 1800.--... I told you we were become humble

enough to rejoice at a Russian Squadron conveying us across the

Adriatic; but had we sailed, as was first intended, in the Imperial

Frigate, we should have been taken by eight Trabaccoli, which the

French armed on purpose at Pisaro. Sir William and Lady Hamilton, and

Lord Nelson, give a miserable account of their sufferings on board

the Commodore’s Ship, (Count Voinovitsch).[50] He was ill in his cot;

but his First Lieutenant, a Neapolitan, named Capaci, was, it seems,

the most insolent and ignorant of beings. Think what Lord Nelson must

have felt! He says a gale of wind would have sunk the Ship.... Poor

Sir William Hamilton has been so ill, that the physicians had almost

given him up: he is now better, and I hope we shall be able to set off

to-morrow night for Vienna. The Queen and thirty-four of her suite have

had fevers: you can form no idea of the _helplessness_ of the party.

How we shall proceed on our long journey, is to me a problem; but we

shall certainly get on as fast as we can; for the very precarious state

of Sir William’s health has convinced everybody that it is necessary he

should arrange his affairs.... Poor Lord Nelson, whose only comfort

was in talking of ships and harbours with Captain Messer, has had a bad

cold; but is almost well, and, I think, anxious to be in England. He is

followed by thousands when he goes out, and for the illumination that

is to take place this evening, there are many _Viva Nelsons_, prepared.

He seems affected whenever he speaks of _you_, and often sighs out,

‘Where is the _Foudroyant_?’”

 

The party arrived at Vienna in the third week of August 1800. Nelson

became the hero of the hour. He was entertained in the most sumptuous

way. The composer Haydn played to him while the Admiral--played

at cards! Nelson was surfeited by attentions for a month, before

proceeding to Prague and Dresden. The beautiful and clever Mrs St

George, who afterwards changed her name a second time and became Mrs

Trench, and the mother of a celebrated Archbishop of Dublin, happened

to be at the latter Court during the visit, and she confides to her

Diary many interesting little happenings connected with Nelson and Lady

Hamilton. The picture she paints of Sir William’s wife is by no means

so prepossessing as others, but at a certain dinner she was _vis-a-vis_

“with only the Nelson party,” which gives her a right to speak.

 

“It is plain,” she writes, “that Lord Nelson thinks of nothing but

Lady Hamilton, who is totally occupied by the same object. She is

bold, forward, coarse, assuming, and vain. Her figure is colossal,

but, excepting her feet, which are hideous, well-shaped. Her bones are

large, and she is exceedingly _embonpoint_. She resembles the bust of

Ariadne; the shape of all her features is fine, as is the form of her

head, and particularly her ears; her teeth are a little irregular, but

tolerably white; her eyes light blue, with a brown spot in one, which,

though a defect, takes nothing away from her beauty or __EXPRESSION__.

Her eyebrows and her hair are dark, and her complexion coarse. Her

__EXPRESSION__ is strongly marked, variable, and interesting; her movements

in common life ungraceful; her voice loud, yet not disagreeable. Lord

Nelson is a little man, without any dignity, who, I suppose, must

resemble what Suwarrow was in his youth, as he is like all the pictures

I have seen of that General. Lady Hamilton takes possession of him, and

he is a willing captive, the most submissive and devoted I have seen.

Sir William is old, infirm, and all admiration of his wife, and never

spoke to-day but to applaud her. Miss Cornelia Knight seems the decided

flatterer of the two, and never opens her mouth but to show forth their

praise; and Mrs Cadogan, Lady Hamilton’s mother, is--what one might

expect. After dinner we had several songs in honour of Nelson, written

by Miss Knight, and sung by Lady Hamilton. She puffs the incense full

in his face, but he receives it with pleasure, and snuffs it up very

cordially.”

 

In another passage Mrs Trench refers to Lady Hamilton’s representations

of statues and paintings which Romney painted so delightfully. “She

assumes their attitude, __EXPRESSION__, and drapery with great facility,

swiftness, and accuracy.” When she sang she was frequently out of tune,

and her voice had “no sweetness.” Mrs Trench sums up the character of

her subject as “bold, daring, vain even to folly, and stamped with the

manners of her first situation[51] much more strongly than one would

suppose, after having represented Majesty, and lived in good company

fifteen years. Her ruling passions seem to me vanity, avarice, and

love for the pleasures of the table. She showed a great avidity for

presents, and has actually obtained some at Dresden by the common

artifice of admiring and longing.”

 

[Illustration: Nelson landing at Yarmouth

 

Stephen Reid]

 

It is not a pleasant picture, and is perhaps a little overdrawn, but

even allowing a certain amount of latitude for the severity of a woman

criticising a member of her sex with whom she has little in common, it

must be confessed that contemporary opinion is very largely on the

side of the young and beautiful widow who thus confided her opinion so

emphatically in the pages of her private journal.

 

Hamburg was reached on the 21st of October. Here Nelson met Dumouriez,

the veteran hero of the battle of Jemappes, and according to Miss

Cornelia Knight, “the two distinguished men took a great fancy to one

another.... Dumouriez at that time maintained himself by his writings,

and Lord Nelson forced him to accept a hundred pounds, telling him he

had used his sword too well to live only by his pen.” Ten days after

the arrival of the party at Hamburg they embarked for England. When

Nelson stepped on shore at Yarmouth on the 6th November 1800, the

crowd which had assembled greeted him with all the enthusiasm of such

gatherings when a great and popular man is in their midst. Some of the

more boisterous spirits unharnessed the horses of the carriage awaiting

the Admiral and his friends and drew them to their destination, a

certain well-known hostelry in the town.

 

Thus England welcomed back the hero of the Nile and a pillar of the

Sicilian Kingdom after an absence of nearly three years, every day of

which had been lived to the full.

 

 

 

 

CHAPTER XIV

 

The Campaign of the Baltic

 

(1800-1)

 

“_The service of my King and Country is the object nearest my

heart._”

 

NELSON.

 

 

Ostensibly Nelson had come back to England because of illness. That

his health was improved by the prolonged journey home via the overland

route is quite possible. The relief from worry as to the Mediterranean

in general and to Keith in particular no doubt conduced largely to so

desirable a result. It is evident that he had returned to a normal

condition of mind and of body; otherwise we should not find him writing

to the Secretary of the Admiralty on the day of his arrival in England

that his health was “perfectly re-established” and that he wished “to

serve immediately.”

 

Nelson did not have to wait long for his wishes to be fulfilled. On

the first day of the new year he was made a Vice-Admiral of the Blue,

not as a reward for his services but in a general promotion. A little

over a fortnight later he hoisted his flag on the _San Josef_ (112),

one of the prizes of the battle off Cape St Vincent, commanded by

the devoted Hardy. Nelson then made the request, apparently on the

principle of “nothing venture nothing have,” that the Lords of the

Admiralty would not consider his “necessary coming from Italy as a

dereliction of the service, but only a remove from the Mediterranean to

the Channel.” Although he was a favourite of the rank and file of the

Navy, he was certainly not esteemed so highly by “the powers that be.”

No doubt he was himself partly responsible. His friend Collingwood’s

“Correspondence” at the time affords a little sidelight on the matter.

“We are at present lying completely ready,” he writes on the 25th

January, “and, on the least motion made by the enemy, should sail;

so you may conceive what an anxious time I have of it. Lord Nelson

is here; and I think he will probably come and live with me when the

weather will allow him; but he does not get in and out of ships well

with one arm. He gave me an account of his reception at Court, which

was not very flattering, after having been the admiration of that of

Naples. His Majesty merely asked him if he had recovered his health;

and then, without waiting for an answer, turned to General ----, and

talked to him near half an hour in great good humour. It could not be

about his successes.”

 

The early days of the nineteenth century were overshadowed by a

storm-cloud which burst with sudden fury and dispersed almost as

rapidly, giving place to a short-lived peace followed by twelve years

of incessant tempest. So far back as 1780 Russia, Sweden and Denmark

had entered into a league of Armed Neutrality by which, in the terse

summing-up of Laughton, they had “bound themselves to resist the right

of ‘visit and search’ claimed by the belligerents, and to enforce

the acceptance of certain principles of so-called international law;

among others, the security of a belligerent’s property under a neutral

flag,--‘a free ship makes free goods’; that a blockade to be binding

must be maintained by an adequate force; and that ‘contraband of war’

must be distinctly defined beforehand. As these principles, if admitted

by England, amounted to the import by France of naval stores,--masts,

hemp, tar--from the Baltic, to be paid for by French exports, the

English Government was resolved to contest them.” From 1793 to 1800

Sweden and Denmark were neutral, but Great Britain, secure in her

maritime supremacy, had continued to search merchant-ships, whether

convoyed by a vessel of war or not. Matters were brought to a crisis

by the capture of the Danish frigate _Freya_ on the 25th July 1800,

and the subsequent passage of the Sound by a British squadron. At the

moment Denmark was not prepared for hostilities, and entered into a

convention with Great Britain, which admitted the right of search.

 

When, a little later, the half-crazy Czar, Paul I., dissatisfied

with England as an ally, and led on by specious promises on the part

of Napoleon, definitely renewed the League, the two Baltic Powers

willingly joined him. He laid an embargo on all British ships in

Russian ports, and generally showed that it was a case of “off with the

old love and on with the new.”

 

It was thought in England that negotiations, backed by a strong fleet,

would be sufficient to sever Denmark from the alliance. With this

object in view fifteen sail-of-the-line[52] having a considerable

number of soldiers on board for use if necessary, and attended by a

collection of smaller vessels, sailed early in March. When Nelson heard

of Sir Hyde Parker’s appointment as Commander-in-chief, he was no more

pleased than when Keith had returned to his former station in the

previous year, but he wisely smothered his disappointment. His “sole

object,” he informs Lord St Vincent, “and to which all my exertions and

abilities tend, is to bring this long war to an honourable termination;

to accomplish which, we must all pull in the collar, and, as we have

got such a driver who will make the lazy ones pull as much as the

willing, I doubt not but we shall get safely, speedily, and honourably

to our journey’s end.” This is Nelson at his best, the Nelson who could sacrifice himself for King and Country.