The Story of Nelson 3

The Story of Nelson 3

Horatio was the sixth child of a constantly growing family, and early

caused anxiety owing to his delicate constitution. In later years his

letters and despatches teem with reference to his ill-health, which

was accentuated, of course, by injuries which he received in the

performance of his duty. However, he breathed deeply of the North Sea

air which wafted through his native village, was tenderly cared for

by loving parents, and became sufficiently robust to be sent to the

High School at Norwich. The venerable building, endowed by Edward VI.,

stands within the cathedral precincts. It is now fronted by a statue of

its illustrious scholar. Later he attended a school at North Walsham,

now one of the yachting centres of the Norfolk Broads, where the

curious will find a brick on which the letters H. N. are scratched.

 

It is somewhat remarkable that so few boys who become great men

ever attract sufficient notice during their early scholastic career

for their comrades to remember anecdotes about them likely to be of

assistance to the biographer. Few anecdotes of Nelson in his younger

days have been handed down to posterity, but the following have

probably some basis of fact.

 

When quite a small boy he stayed for a time with his grandmother. On

one occasion he did not return at the accustomed dinner-hour, thereby

causing the good dame considerable anxiety, especially as gipsies

were in the neighbourhood and kidnapping was by no means unknown. He

was eventually found seated on the banks of a brook examining with

considerable interest a number of birds’ eggs he had secured in company

with a chum. “I wonder, child, that fear did not drive you home!” the

old lady said when the missing Horatio was restored to her. “Fear,

grandmamma!” he replied in a tone of disgust, “I never saw fear--what

is it?”

 

There you have the secret of Nelson’s life summed up in a single

pregnant sentence. His total lack of fear carried him through many a

trying ordeal, enabled him at times to defy the command of a senior

officer when he was convinced that his own plan of operations was

better, and helped him to bear the heat and burden of the day when his

physical energy was almost exhausted.

 

On another occasion he was “dared” by some companions to visit the

graveyard unattended at night. As a token of good faith he was to

bring a twig from a certain yew tree at the south-west corner of All

Saints’ Church. The uncanny task was successfully accomplished. From

thenceforth he was a hero, as he deserved to be.

 

A further instance of Nelson’s early lack of fear is afforded us. His

master at North Walsham was particularly proud of a certain pear-tree,

and his scholars were equally covetous of the delicious fruit which

it bore. Each preferred the other in the task of picking any of the

pears because of the speedy retribution which they knew would follow.

One night Horatio volunteered the task. His friends tied several sheets

together and lowered him from the dormitory to the garden. He swarmed

up the tree, secured the forbidden and therefore much prized fruit, and

was hauled up again. On distributing the booty, he justified his action

in his own mind by assuring the recipients that he had only taken the

pears “because every other boy was afraid.” Few hours passed before

the schoolmaster found that his tree had been plundered. It redounds

to the credit of the boys that they refused to “split” on their

comrade, although it is said that a tempting reward was offered for the

discovery of the culprit.

 

One winter morning Horatio and his brother William set out for school

on their ponies. They had not gone very far before they found the snow

so deep as to be almost impassable. They returned to the Parsonage and

told their father of the great drifts. He persuaded them to try again,

adding that he left it to their honour not to turn back unless it was

absolutely necessary.

 

The snow was falling in heavy flakes when they made their second

attempt. William’s heart soon failed him. He suggested that they had

sufficient reason to return. Horatio was as adamant. “Father left it

to our honour. We must go forward,” he replied, and in due course they

arrived at the school.

 

William, who was the elder by seventeen months, had the greatest

affection and esteem for his brother. In later years he was his

constant correspondent, and after Horatio’s death he was created Earl

Nelson of Trafalgar. Like his father and grandfather, William became a

clergyman, in which profession he rose to the dignity of Prebendary and

Vice Dean of Canterbury.

 

It was during the Christmas vacation of 1770 that Nelson casually

picked up a newspaper and read of Captain Maurice Suckling’s

appointment to the _Raisonnable_, a ship of sixty-four guns. The

announcement seems to have had an instant effect upon Horatio. “Oh,

William,” he exclaimed to his brother, who was standing near, “do, _do_

write to father, and tell him that I want to go to sea with uncle!”

 

The Rev. Edmund Nelson was staying at Bath owing to ill-health. When he

received his son’s letter he was inclined to dismiss the proposition

as a mere boyish whim. On thinking it over a little more carefully he

decided that perhaps the youngster really desired what he asked, and

he accordingly consulted his brother-in-law on the matter. The officer

replied in the easy-going manner of sailors, “Well, let him come and

have his head knocked off by the first cannon-ball--that will provide

for him.” He was afraid Horatio would never be able to stand the

rough-and-ready life, but he had the good sense to know that there is

nothing like putting a theory to a practical test.

 

The Navy was not then the skilfully-organised machine it has since

become. It was one of the privileges of a captain that he might take

two or three lads to sea with him as midshipmen or to serve in some

subordinate position. Captain Suckling accordingly sent for Horatio,

and we find his name on the ship’s books under date of the 1st January

1771. The _Raisonnable_ was then anchored in the Medway.

 

The lad’s father accompanied his twelve-year-old son as far as London,

put him into the Chatham stagecoach, and then left him to his own

resources. It was neither a pleasant journey in the rambling old

carriage, nor were the streets of Chatham particularly inviting when

he set foot in them. Nobody met the adventurer, and for some time he

wandered about until he met an officer who directed him to the ship

which was to be his temporary home. When he was safely on board it was

to find that his uncle had not arrived.[4]

 

The _Raisonnable_ was one of the vessels commissioned when hostilities

between Great Britain and Spain appeared imminent owing to trouble

respecting the Falkland Islands, a group in the South Atlantic. In

1770 Spain had insulted the British colonists there by compelling the

garrison at Fort Egmont to lower their flag. The matter was settled

amicably, for the all-sufficient reason that Spain did not feel strong

enough to come to blows with Great Britain unless she was assisted

by France, and as the support of that Power was not forthcoming, she

climbed down. Consequently Nelson was not introduced to the horrors of

naval warfare at this early stage, and the cannon-ball which his uncle

prophesied would knock off the lad’s head did not leave the cannon’s

mouth.

 

When the _Raisonnable_ was paid off Captain Suckling was given command

of the guard-ship _Triumph_ (74), stationed in the Medway, and

recognising that no good could come to his nephew by staying on such a

vessel, he secured a position for him shortly afterwards in a merchant

ship bound for the West Indies. This was not a difficult matter,

because the Master was John Rathbone, who had served with Suckling

on the _Dreadnought_ during part of the Seven Years’ War, that great

struggle in which Louis XV. of France had been forced to cede Canada to

Great Britain.

 

Nelson seems to have enjoyed the experience. In a sketch of his life,

which he wrote several years later for the _Naval Chronicle_, he says:

 

“From this voyage I returned to the _Triumph_ at Chatham in July 1772;

and, if I did not improve in my education, I returned a practical

seaman, with a horror of the Royal Navy, and with a saying, then

constant with the seamen, ‘Aft the most honour, forward the better

man!’ It was many weeks before I got in the least reconciled to a

man-of-war, so deep was the prejudice rooted; and what pains were taken

to instil this erroneous principle in a young mind! However, as my

ambition was to be a seaman, it was always held out as a reward, that

if I attended well to my navigation, I should go in the cutter and

decked longboat, which was attached to the commanding officer’s ship

at Chatham. Thus by degrees I became a good pilot, for vessels of that

description, from Chatham to the Tower of London, down the Swin, and to

the North Foreland; and confident of myself amongst rocks and sands,

which has many times since been of the very greatest comfort to me.

In this way I was trained, till the expedition towards the North Pole

was fitted out; when, although no boys were allowed to go in the ships

(as of no use), yet nothing could prevent my using every interest to

go with Captain Lutwidge in the _Carcass_; and, as I fancied I was to

fill a man’s place, I begged I might be his coxswain: which, finding my

ardent desire for going with him, Captain Lutwidge complied with, and

has continued the strictest friendship to this moment. Lord Mulgrave,

who I then first knew, continued his kindest friendship and regard to

the last moment of his life. When the boats were fitted out to quit the

two ships blocked up in the ice, I exerted myself to have the command

of a four-oared cutter raised upon, which was given me, with twelve

men; and I prided myself in fancying I could navigate her better than

any other boat in the ship.”

 

In this cold, matter-of-fact way, Nelson dismisses a phase of his life

fraught with peril and adventure. When the majority, if not all, of his

former school-fellows were reading of the doings of gallant seamen and

brave soldiers he was undergoing actual experiences. The expedition in

question had been suggested by the Royal Society, and was commanded

by Captain Constantine John Phipps, eldest son of Lord Mulgrave. The

_Racehorse_ and _Carcass_, heavy ships known as bombs because they

mounted one or more mortars for use in bombardments when on ordinary

service, sailed from the Nore on the 4th June 1773. All went well

until the 31st July, when the ice closed upon the vessels, and further

progress became impossible.

 

[Illustration: Nelson and the Bear

 

Stephen Reid]

 

“The following day,” says Colonel J. M. Tucker in his “Life and Naval

Memoirs of Lord Nelson,” “there was not the smallest opening, the

ships were within less than two lengths of each other. The ice, which

the day before had been flat, and almost level with the water’s edge,

was now in many places forced higher than the mainyard by the pieces

squeezing together. A day of thick fog followed; it was succeeded by

clear weather; but the passage by which the ships had entered from

the westward was closed, and no open water was in sight, either in

that or any other quarter. By the pilot’s advice, the men were set to

cut a passage and warp[5] through the small openings to the westward.

They sawed through pieces of ice twelve feet thick; and this labour

continued the whole day, during which their utmost efforts did not move

the ships above three hundred yards, while they were driven together,

with the ice, far to the north-east and east by the current. Sometimes

a field of several acres square would be lifted up between two larger

islands, and incorporated with them; and thus these larger pieces

continued to grow by cohesive aggregation. Another day passed, and

there seemed no probability of getting the ships out, without a strong east or north-east wind.