The unwavering resolution and prompt decision of hischaracter thus crop out at every step. In Leghorn he found a large French frigate, which had been on the point of sailing when his ship came in sight. "I am obliged to keep close watch to take care he does not give me the slip, which he is inclined to do. I shall pursue him, and leave the two Courts [Great Britain and Tuscany] to settle the propriety of the measure, which I think will not be strictly regular. Have been up all night watching him—ready to cut the moment he did." The enemy, however, made no movement, and Nelson was not prepared to violate flagrantly the neutrality of the port. On the 30th of September he sailed, and on the 5th of October rejoined Lord Hood off Toulon, where four thousand of the Neapolitan troops, for which he had negotiated, had already arrived.
The high favor in which the admiral had held him ten years before in the West Indies, though slightly overcast by the coolness which arose during the intervening peace, had been rapidly regained in the course of the present campaign; and the customary report of his proceedings during the six weeks' absence could not but confirm Hood in the assurance that he had now to deal with a very exceptional character, especially fitted for separate and responsible service. Accordingly, from this time forward, such is the distinguishing feature of Nelson's career as a subordinate. He is selected from among many competitors, frequently his seniors, for the performance of duty outside the reach of the commander-in-chief, but requiring the attention of one upon whose activity, intelligence, and readiness, the fullest dependence could be placed. Up to the battle of the Nile,—in which, it must always be remembered, he commanded a squadron detached from the main fleet, and was assigned to it in deliberate preference to two older flag-officers,—Nelson's life presents a series of detached commands, independent as regarded the local scene of operations, and his method of attaining the prescribed end with the force allotted to him, but dependent, technically, upon the distant commanders-in-chief, each of whom in succession, with one accord, recognized his singular fitness. The pithy but characteristic expression said to have been used by Earl St. Vincent, when asked for instructions about the Copenhagen expedition,—"D—n it, Nelson, send them to the devil your own way,"—sums up accurately enough the confidence shown him by his superiors. He could not indeed lift them all to the height of his own conceptions, fearlessness, and enterprise; but when they had made up their minds to any particular course, they were, each and all, perfectly willing to intrust the execution to him. Even at Copenhagen he was but second in command, though conspicuously first in achievement. It was not till the opening of the second war of the French Revolution, in May, 1803, that he himself had supreme charge of a station,—his old familiar Mediterranean.
Being held in such esteem, it was but a short time before Nelson was again sent off from Toulon, to which he did not return during the British occupation. He was now ordered to report to Commodore Linzee, then lying with a detachment of three ships-of-the-line in the harbor of Cagliari, at the south end of Sardinia. On her passage the "Agamemnon" met and engaged a French squadron, of four large frigates and a brig. Though without decisive results, Nelson was satisfied with his own conduct in this affair, as was also Lord Hood when it came to his knowledge; for, one of the frigates being badly crippled, the whole force, which was on its way to Nice, was compelled to take refuge in Corsica, where it was far from secure. Two days later, on the 24th of October, Cagliari was reached, and the "Agamemnon" accompanied the division to Tunis, arriving there on the 1st of November.
Linzee's mission was to try and detach the Bey from the French interest, and it was hoped he could be induced toallow the seizure of a number of French vessels which had entered the port, under the convoy of a ship-of-the-line and four frigates. When the British entered, the frigates had disappeared, being in fact the same that Nelson had fought ten days before. In accordance with his instructions, Linzee strove to persuade the Bey that the Republican government, because of its revolutionary and bloodthirsty character, should receive no recognition or support from more regular states, not even the protection usually extended by a neutral port, and that in consequence he should be permitted to seize for Great Britain the vessels in Tunis. The Turk may possibly have overlooked the fallacy in this argument, which assumed that the protection extended by neutral governments was rather for the benefit of the belligerent than for the quiet and safety of its own waters; but he was perfectly clear-sighted as to his personal advantage in the situation, for the French owners, in despair of getting to France, were selling their cargoes to him at one third their value. To the argument that the French had beheaded their king, he drily replied that the English had once done the same; and he decisively refused to allow the ships to be molested. Nelson was disgusted that his consent should have been awaited. "The English seldom get much by negotiation except the being laughed at, which we have been; and I don't like it. Had we taken, which in my opinion we ought to have done, the men-of-war and convoy, worth at least £300,000, how much better we could have negotiated:—given the Bey £50,000, he would have been glad to have put up with the insult offered to his dignity;" and he plainly intimates his dissatisfaction with Linzee. This irresponsible and irreflective outburst was, however, only an instance of the impatience his enterprising, energetic spirit always felt when debarred from prompt action, whether by good or bad reasons; for almost on the same day he expresses the sounder judgment: "Had we latterlyattempted to take them I am sure the Bey would have declared against us, and done our trade some damage." No advantage could have accrued from the seizure of the French vessels, at all proportioned to the inconvenience of having the hostility of Tunis, flanking as it did the trade routes to the Levant. The British had then quite enough on their hands, without detaching an additional force from the north coast of the Mediterranean, to support a gratuitous quarrel on the south. As a matter of mere policy it would have been ill-judged.
Nelson, however, did not as yet at all realize the wideness of the impending struggle, for it was in these very letters that he expressed a wish to exchange to the West Indies. "You know," he writes to his old friend Locker, "that Pole is gone to the West Indies. I have not seen him since his order, but I know it was a thing he dreaded. Had I been at Toulon I should have been a candidate for that service, for I think our sea war is over in these seas." Perhaps his intrinsic merit would have retrieved even such a mistake as we can now see this would have been, and he would there have come sooner into contact with Sir John Jervis—to whom, if to any one, the name of patron to Nelson may be applied—for Jervis then had the West India command; but it is difficult to imagine Nelson's career apart from the incidents of his Mediterranean service. The Mediterranean seems inseparable from his name, and he in the end felt himself identified with it beyond all other waters.
His longing for action, which prompted the desire for the West Indies, was quickly gratified, for orders were received from Hood, by Linzee, to detach him from the latter's command. The admiral sent him a very handsome letter upon his single-handed combat with the French frigates, and directed him to go to the north end of Corsica, to take charge of a division of vessels he would there find cruising, and to search for his late enemiesalong that coast and through the neighboring waters, between the island and the shores of Italy. He was also to warn off neutral vessels bound to Genoa, that port being declared blockaded, and to seize them if they persisted in their voyage thither. "I consider this command as a very high compliment," wrote Nelson to his uncle Suckling, "there being five older captains in the fleet." This it certainly was,—a compliment and a prophecy as well.
In pursuance of these orders Nelson left Tunis on the 30th of November, and on the 8th of December discovered the French squadron, protected by shore batteries, in San Fiorenzo Bay, in Corsica. This island, which during the middle ages, and until some twenty years before the beginning of the French Revolution, was a dependency of Genoa, had then by the latter been ceded to France, against the express wishes of the inhabitants, whose resistance was crushed only after a prolonged struggle. Although it was now in open revolt against the Revolutionary government, the troops of the latter still held three or four of the principal seaports, among them the northern one in which the frigates then lay, as well as Bastia upon the east coast of the island, and Calvi on the west. His force being insufficient to engage the works of any of these places, there was nothing for Nelson to do but to blockade them, in hopes of exhausting their resources and at least preventing the escape of the ships of war. In this he was successful, for the latter either were destroyed or fell into the hands of Great Britain, when the ports were reduced.
Meanwhile affairs at Toulon were approaching the crisis which ended its tenure by the British and their allies. The garrison had never been sufficient to man properly the very extensive lines, which the peculiar configuration of the surrounding country made it necessary to occupy for the security of the town; and the troops themselves were not only of different nations, but of very varying degrees ofefficiency. Under these conditions the key of the position, accurately indicated by Napoleon Bonaparte, then a major and in command of the artillery, was held in insufficient force, and was successfully stormed on the night of December 16, 1793. It was immediately recognized that the ships could no longer remain in the harbor, and that with them the land forces also must depart. After two days of hurried preparations, and an attempt, only partially successful, to destroy the dockyard and French ships of war, the fleets sailed out on the 19th of December, carrying with them, besides the soldiery, as many as possible of the wretched citizens, who were forced to fly in confusion and misery from their homes, in order to escape the sure and fearful vengeance of the Republican government. The "Agamemnon" was in Leghorn, getting provisions, when the fugitives arrived there, and Nelson speaks in vivid terms of the impression made upon him by the tales he heard and the sights he saw. "Fathers are here without families, and families without fathers, the pictures of horror and despair." "In short, all is horror. I cannot write all: my mind is deeply impressed with grief. Each teller makes the scene more horrible." He expressed the opinion that the evacuation was a benefit to England, and it unquestionably was. He had not always thought so; but it must be allowed that the hopes and exultation with which he greeted the acquisition of the place had sufficient foundation, in the reported attitude of the people of Southern France, to justify the first opinion as well as the last. The attempt was worth making, though it proved unsuccessful. As it was, the occupation had resulted in a degree of destruction to the French ships and arsenal in Toulon, which, though then over-estimated, was a real gain to the allies.
FOOTNOTES:[18]Turin was capital of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which embraced the island of that name and the Province of Piedmont.[19]This statement, which apparently depends upon a memoir supplied many years later by the first lieutenant of the "Boreas," is not strictly accurate, for Nelson himself, in a letter written shortly after her arrival in the West Indies, mentions that several of her ship's company had been carried off by fever (Nicolas, vol. i. p. 111); but it can doubtless be accepted as evidence of an unusually healthy condition.
[18]Turin was capital of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which embraced the island of that name and the Province of Piedmont.
[18]Turin was capital of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which embraced the island of that name and the Province of Piedmont.
[19]This statement, which apparently depends upon a memoir supplied many years later by the first lieutenant of the "Boreas," is not strictly accurate, for Nelson himself, in a letter written shortly after her arrival in the West Indies, mentions that several of her ship's company had been carried off by fever (Nicolas, vol. i. p. 111); but it can doubtless be accepted as evidence of an unusually healthy condition.
[19]This statement, which apparently depends upon a memoir supplied many years later by the first lieutenant of the "Boreas," is not strictly accurate, for Nelson himself, in a letter written shortly after her arrival in the West Indies, mentions that several of her ship's company had been carried off by fever (Nicolas, vol. i. p. 111); but it can doubtless be accepted as evidence of an unusually healthy condition.
REDUCTION OF CORSICA BY THE BRITISH.—DEPARTURE OF LORD HOOD FOR ENGLAND.—THE "AGAMEMNON" REFITTED AT LEGHORN.
JANUARY-DECEMBER, 1794. AGE, 35.
Map of Northern Italy and CorsicaMap of Northern Italy and CorsicaFull-resolution image
By the loss of Toulon the British fleet in the Mediterranean was left adrift, without any secure harbor to serve as a depot for supplies and a base for extended operations. Hood took his ships to Hyères Bay, a few miles east of Toulon, a spot where they could lie safely at anchor, but which was unsuitable for a permanent establishment,—the shores not being tenable against French attack. He now turned his eyes upon Corsica, whence the celebrated native chieftain, Paoli, who had led the natives in their former struggle against France, had made overtures to him, looking to the union of the island to the British crown. Nelson in person, or, during his brief absence in Leghorn, his division, had so closely invested the shores, that neither troops nor supplies of any kind had been able to enter since the early part of December, nor had the blockaded vessels been able to get out. The thoroughness with which this work was done brought him, on the 6th of January, 1794, yet further compliments from Hood, who wrote him that "he looked upon these frigates as certain, trusting to my zeal and activity, and knows, if it is in the power of man to have them, I will secure them." At the same time he was instructed to enter into communication with Paoli, and settle plans for the landing of the troops. In attending to this commission his intermediary was Lieutenant GeorgeAndrews, brother to the lady to whom he had become attached at St. Omer, and who had afterwards been a midshipman with him on board the "Boreas." "This business going through my hands," he wrote with just pride, "is a proof of Lord Hood's confidence in me, and that I shall pledge myself for nothing but what will be acceptable to him." It was indeed evident that Hood was more and more reposing in him a peculiar trust, a feeling which beyond most others tends to increase by its own action. Nelson repaid him with the most unbounded admiration. "The Lord is very good friends with me," he writes; "he is certainly the best officer I ever saw. Everything from him is so clear it is impossible to misunderstand him." "His zeal, his activity for the honour and benefit of his country," he says at another time, "are not abated. Upwards of seventy, he possesses the mind of forty years of age. He has not a thought separated from honour and glory." The flattering proofs of his superior's esteem, and the demand made upon his natural powers to exert themselves freely, had a very beneficial effect upon his health and spirits. It was not effort, however protracted and severe, but the denial of opportunity to act, whether by being left unemployed or through want of information, that wore Nelson down. "I have not been one hour at anchor for pleasure in eight months; but I can assure you I never was better in health."
Meanwhile a commission from the fleet arrived in Corsica. Sir Gilbert Elliot, the representative of the British government in the island, was at its head, and with him were associated two army officers, one of whom afterwards became widely celebrated as Sir John Moore. A satisfactory agreement being concluded, Hood sailed from Hyères Bay with the ships and troops, and operations began against San Fiorenzo, terminating in the evacuation of the place by the French, who upon the 19th of February retreated by land to Bastia. Nelson was not immediatelyconnected with this undertaking; but he had the satisfaction of knowing that two of the four frigates, of whose detention in the island he was the immediate cause, were here lost to the enemy. He was during these weeks actively employed harrying the coast—destroying depots of stores on shore, and small vessels laden with supplies. These services were mainly, though not entirely, rendered in the neighborhood of Bastia, a strongly fortified town, which was to become the next object of the British efforts, and the scene of his own exertions. There, also, though on a comparatively small scale, he was to give striking evidence of the characteristics which led him on, step by step, to his great renown.
When Hood himself took command at San Fiorenzo, he relieved Nelson from that part of his charge, and sent him on the 7th of February to blockade Bastia,—a strictly detached service, and one of the utmost importance, as upon the intercepting of supplies the issue of the siege largely turned. Three weeks later, on the 1st of March, Nelson wrote: "We are still in the busy scene of war, a situation in which I own I feel pleasure, more especially as my actions have given great satisfaction to my commander-in-chief. The blocking up of Corsica he left to me: it has been accomplished in the most complete manner, not a boat got in, nor a soldier landed, although eight thousand men were embarked at Nice;" and, he might have added, although a vessel was said to sail from Nice every thirty-six hours. Nor was his activity confined to blockading. He continually reconnoitered the town and the works, in doing which on the 23d of February he engaged the batteries at short range, with the "Agamemnon" and two frigates,—the action lasting for nearly two hours. While it was at its height, the heads of the British columns, coming from San Fiorenzo, only twelve miles distant by land, were seen upon the heights overlooking Bastia from the rear. "What a noble sight it must have been" to them! wrote Nelsonenthusiastically, in the ardor of his now opening career,—for it must be remembered that this hero of a hundred fights was even then but beginning to taste that rapture of the strife, in which he always breathed most freely, as though in his native element.
Bastia, as he saw it and reported to Lord Hood, was a walled town with central citadel, of some ten thousand inhabitants, on the east coast of Corsica, and twenty miles south of Cape Corso, the northern extremity of the island. The main fortifications were along the sea-front; but there was, besides, a series of detached works on either flank and to the rear. The latter not only guarded the approaches from the interior, but also, being situated on the hills, much above the town, were capable of commanding it, in case of an enemy gaining possession. Nelson, while modestly disclaiming any presumptuous dependence upon his own judgment, expressed a decided opinion, based upon the engagement of the 23d, that the "Agamemnon" and the frigates could silence the fire of the sea-front, batter down the walls, and that then five hundred troops could carry the place by assault. "That the works on the hills would annoy the town afterwards is certain, but the enemy being cut off from all supplies—the provisions in the town being of course in our possession—would think of nothing but making the best terms they could for themselves." To his dismay, however, and to the extreme annoyance of the admiral, General Dundas, commanding the army, refused to move against Bastia, condemning the attempt as visionary and rash. Meantime the French, unmolested except by the desultory efforts of the insurgent Corsicans, were each day strengthening their works, and converting the possibilities Nelson saw into the impossibilities of the cautious general.
Hood on the 25th of February came round from San Fiorenzo to Bastia; but he purposely brought with him no captain senior to Nelson, in order that the latter mightremain in charge of the operations he had begun so well. When Dundas retreated again to San Fiorenzo, Hood on the 3d of March followed him there with the flagship, to urge his co-operation; leaving Nelson with six frigates to conduct the blockade and take such other steps as the opportunities might justify. By the middle of March, nearly three months having elapsed since her last hasty visit to Leghorn, the "Agamemnon" was wholly destitute of supplies. "We are really," wrote Nelson to Hood, "without firing, wine, beef, pork, flour, and almost without water: not a rope, canvas, twine, or nail in the ship. The ship is so light she cannot hold her side to the wind.... We are certainly in a bad plight at present, not a man has slept dry for many months. Yet," he continues, with that indomitable energy which made light of mere difficulties of material, and conveys so impressive a lesson to our modern days, when slight physical defects appear insurmountable, and ships not wholly up to date are counted obsolete,—"yet if your Lordship wishes me to remain off Bastia, I can, by going to Porto Ferrajo, get water and stores, and twenty-four hours in Leghorn will give us provisions; and our refitting, which will take some time, can be put off a little. My wish is to be present at the attack of Bastia."
On the 18th of March Hood summoned him to San Fiorenzo. The difference between him and Dundas had become a quarrel, and the latter had quitted his command. Hood wished to strengthen the argument with his successor, by a report of the observations made by Nelson; but the latter records that, after expressing his opinion that eight hundred troops with four hundred seamen could reduce the place, it was found that all the army was united against an attack, declaring the impossibility of taking Bastia, even if all the force were united,—and this, notwithstanding that an engineer and an artillery officer had visited the scene, and agreed with Nelson that there was aprobability of success. On the north side both they and he considered the place weak, and at the same time found the ground favorable for establishing the siege guns. Moreover, even during the winter gales, he had succeeded in so closing the sea approaches, while the revolted Corsicans intercepted those by land, that a pound of coarse bread was selling for three francs. The spring equinox was now near at hand, and with better weather the blockade would be yet more efficient. Between actual attack and famine, he argued, the place must fall. "Not attacking it I could not but consider as a national disgrace. If the Army will not take it, we must, by some way or other."
If every particular operation of war is to be considered by itself alone, and as a purely professional question, to be determined by striking a balance between the arguments pro and con, it is probable that the army officers were right in their present contention. In nothing military was scientific accuracy of prediction so possible as in forecasting the result and duration of a regular siege, where the force brought to bear on either side could be approximately known. But, even in this most methodical and least inspired of processes, the elements of chance, of the unforeseen, or even the improbable, will enter, disturbing the most careful calculations. For this reason, no case must be decided purely on its individual merits, without taking into account the other conditions of the campaign at large. For good and sufficient reasons, the British had undertaken, not to conquer a hostile island, but to effect the deliverance of a people who were already in arms, and had themselves redeemed their country with the exception of two or three fortified seaports, for the reduction of which they possessed neither the materials nor the technical skill. To pause in the movement of advance was, with a half-civilized race of unstable temperament, to risk everything. But besides, for the mere purpose of the blockade, it was imperative to force the enemy as far as possible tocontract his lines. Speaking of a new work thrown up north of the town, Nelson said with accurate judgment: "It must be destroyed, or the Corsicans will be obliged to give up a post which the enemy would immediately possess; and of course throw us on that side at a greater distance from Bastia." The result would be, not merely so much more time and labor to be expended, nor yet only the moral effect on either party, but also the uncovering of a greater length of seaboard, by which supplies might be run into the town.
The strength of the place, in which, when it fell, were found "seventy-seven pieces of ordnance with an incredible amount of stores," was far superior to that estimated by the eye of Nelson, untrained as an engineer. Not only so, but the force within the walls was very much larger than he thought, when he spoke with such confidence. "I never yet told Lord Hood," he wrote nearly a year later, "that after everything was fixed for the attack of Bastia, I had information given me of the enormous number of troops we had to oppose us; but my own honour, Lord Hood's honour, and the honour of our Country must have all been sacrificed, had I mentioned what I knew; therefore you will believe what must have been my feelings during the whole siege, when I had often proposals made to me by men, now rewarded, to write to Lord Hood to raise the siege." "Had this been an English town," he said immediately after the surrender, "I am sure it would not have been taken by them. The more we see of this place, the more we are astonished at their giving it up, but the truth is, the different parties were afraid to trust each other." The last assertion, if correct, conveys just one of those incidents which so frequently concur to insure the success of a step rightly taken, as that of Nelson and Hood in this instance certainly was. "Forty-five hundred men," he continues, "have laid down their arms to under twelve hundred troops and seamen. Ifproofs were wanting to show that perseverance, unanimity, and gallantry, can accomplish almost incredible things, we are an additional instance."
"I always was of opinion," he wrote in the exultation of reaction from the weight of responsibility he had assumed by his secrecy,—"I always was of opinion, have ever acted up to it, and never have had any reason to repent it, that one Englishman was equal to three Frenchmen." This curious bit of the gasconade into which Nelson from time to time lapsed, can scarcely be accepted as a sound working theory, or as of itself justifying the risk taken; and yet it undoubtedly, under a grossly distorted form, portrays the temperament which enabled him to capture Bastia, and which made him what he was,—a man strong enough to take great chances for adequate ends. "All naval operations undertaken since I have been at the head of the government," said Napoleon, "have always failed, because the admirals see double, and have learned—where I do not know—that war can be made without running risks." It is not material certainty of success, theignis fatuuswhich is the great snare of the mere engineer, or of the merely accomplished soldier, that points the way to heroic achievements. It is the vivid inspiration that enables its happy possessor, at critical moments, to see and follow the bright clear line, which, like a ray of light at midnight, shining among manifold doubtful indications, guides his steps. Whether it leads him to success or to failure, he may not know; but that it is the path of wisdom, of duty, and of honor, he knows full well by the persuasion within,—by conviction, the fortifier of the reason, though not by sight, the assurance of demonstration. Only a man capable of incurring a disaster like that at Teneriffe could rise to the level of daring, which, through hidden perils, sought and wrought the superb triumph of Aboukir Bay. Such is genius, that rare but hazardous gift, which separates a man from his fellows bya chasm not to be bridged by human will. Thus endowed, Nelson before the walls of Bastia showed, though in a smaller sphere, and therefore with a lighter hazard, the same keen perception, the same instant decision, the same unfaltering resolve, the same tenacity of purpose, that, far over and beyond the glamour of mere success, have rendered eternally illustrious the days of St. Vincent, of the Nile, and of Copenhagen.
Of the spirit which really actuated him, in his unwavering support of Lord Hood's inclination to try the doubtful issue, many interesting instances are afforded by his correspondence. "I feel for the honour of my Country, and had rather be beat than not make the attack. If we do not try we can never be successful. I own I have no fears for the final issue: it will be conquest, certain we will deserve it. My reputation depends on the opinion I have given; but I feel an honest consciousness that I have done right. We must, we will have it, or some of our heads will be laid low. I glory in the attempt." "What would the immortal Wolfe have done?" he says again, refreshing his own constancy in the recollection of an equal heroism, crowned with success against even greater odds. "As he did, beat the enemy, if he perished in the attempt." Again, a fortnight later: "We are in high health and spirits besieging Bastia; the final event, I feel assured, will be conquest." When the siege had already endured for a month, and with such slight actual progress as to compel him to admit to Hood that the town battery had been "put in such a state, that firing away many shot at it is almost useless till we have a force sufficient to get nearer," his confidence remains unabated. "I have no fears about the final issue," he writes to his wife; "it will be victory, Bastia will be ours; and if so, it must prove an event to which the history of England can hardly boast an equal." Further on in the same letter he makes a prediction, so singularly accurate as to excite curiosityabout its source: "I will tell you as a secret, Bastia will be ours between the 20th and 24th of this month"—three weeks after the date of writing—"if succours do not get in." It surrendered actually on the 22d. One is tempted to speculate if there had been any such understanding with the garrison as was afterwards reached with Calvi; but there is no other token of such an arrangement. It is instructive also to compare this high-strung steadfastness of purpose to dare every risk, if success perchance might be won thereby, with his comment upon his own impulses at a somewhat later date. "My disposition cannot bear tame and slow measures. Sure I am, had I commanded our fleet on the 14th, that either the whole French fleet would have graced my triumph, or I should have been in a confounded scrape." Surely the secret of great successes is in these words.
The siege of Bastia was not in its course productive of striking events. Having reasoned in vain with the two successive generals, Hood demanded that there should be sent back to him a contingent of troops, which had originally been detailed to serve as marines in the fleet, but which he had loaned to the army for the operations against San Fiorenzo. Having received these, he returned to Bastia, and on the 4th of April, 1794, the besieging force, twelve hundred troops and two hundred and fifty seamen, landed to the northward of the town. They at once began to throw up batteries, while the Corsicans harassed the landward approaches to the place. Nelson being with the troops, the "Agamemnon" with some frigates was anchored north of the city, Hood with his ships south of it. During the nights, boats from the fleet rowed guard near to the sea-front, with such diligence that few of the craft that attempted to run in or out succeeded in so doing. When darkness covered the waters, British gunboats crept close to the walls, and by an intermitting but frequent fire added much to the distress of the enemy. On the 11th of Aprilthe garrison was formally summoned, and, the expected refusal having been received, the British batteries opened. There was not force enough, however, to bring the place to terms as a consequence of direct attack, and after three weeks Nelson, while betraying no apprehension of failure, practically admitted the fact. "Although I have no doubt but even remaining in our present situation, and by strict guard rowing close to the town, and the Corsicans harassing them on the hills, and the gunboats by night, but that the enemy must surrender before any great length of time, yet, if force can be spared, a successful attack on the heights must much facilitate a speedy capture. I own it will give me the highest pleasure to assist in the attack."
It was by such an attack, or rather by the fear of it, coming upon the long and exhausting endurance of cannonade and hunger, that Bastia finally fell. "We shall in time accomplish the taking of Bastia," wrote Nelson on the 3d of May. "I have no doubt in the way we proposed to attempt it, by bombardment and cannonading, joined to a close blockade of the harbour." "If not," he adds, "our Country will, I believe, sooner forgive an officer for attacking his enemy than for letting it alone." On the 12th a large boat was captured coming out from the port; and on her were found letters from the governor, Gentili, confessing the annoyance caused by the British fire, and saying that if relief did not arrive by the 29th, the place must be looked upon as lost. Three nights later another boat was caught attempting to enter. On board her was a brother of the Mayor of Bastia. This man, while talking with Hood's secretary, expressed his fears for the result to his relatives, if the town were carried by assault. The secretary replied that Hood could not prevent those evils, if the garrison awaited the attack, and gave the Corsican to understand that it was imminent, troops being expected from San Fiorenzo. At the urgent request ofthe prisoner, one of the seamen taken with him was permitted to land with a letter, stating the impending danger. By a singular coincidence, or by skilful contrivance, the San Fiorenzo troops appeared on the heights upon the evening, May 19, following this conversation. Flags of truce had already been hoisted, negotiations were opened, and on the 22d the French colors were struck and the British took possession. "When I reflect what we have achieved," confessed the hitherto outwardly unmoved Nelson, "I am all astonishment. The most glorious sight that an Englishman can experience, and which, I believe, none but an Englishman could bring about, was exhibited,—4,500 men laying down their arms to less than 1,000 British soldiers, who were serving as marines." As towards the French this account is perhaps somewhat less than fair; but it does no more than justice to the admirable firmness and enterprise shown by Hood and Nelson. As a question of Bastia only, their attempt might be charged with rashness; but having regard to the political and military conditions, to the instability of the Corsican character, and to the value of the island as a naval station, it was amply justified, for the risks run were out of all proportion less than the advantage to be gained.
Thus the siege of Bastia ended in triumph, despite the prior pronouncement of the general commanding the troops, that the attempt was "most visionary and rash." These epithets, being used to Hood after his own expressions in favor of the undertaking, had not unnaturally provoked from him a resentful retort; and, as men are rarely conciliated by the success of measures which they have ridiculed, there arose a degree of strained relations between army and navy, that continued even after the arrival of a new commander of the land forces, and indeed throughout Hood's association with the operations in Corsica.
During this busy and laborious period, despite his burden of secret anxiety, Nelson's naturally delicate healthshowed the favorable reaction, which, as has before been noted, was with him the usual result of the call to exertion. His letters steadily reflect, and occasionally mention, the glow of exultation produced by constant action of a worthy and congenial nature. "We are in high health and spirits besieging Bastia," he writes to his wife soon after landing; and shortly before the fall of the place he says again: "As to my health, it was never better, seldom so well." Yet, although from beginning to end the essential stay of the enterprise, the animating soul, without whose positive convictions and ardent support Lord Hood could scarcely have dared so great a hazard, he was throughout the siege left, apparently purposely, in an anomalous position, and was at the end granted a recognition which, though probably not grudging, was certainly scanty. No definition of his duties was ever given by the commander-in-chief. He appears as it were the latter's unacknowledged representative ashore, a plenipotentiary without credentials. "What my situation is," he writes to a relative, "is not to be described. I am everything, yet nothing ostensible; enjoying the confidence of Lord Hood and Colonel Villettes, and the captains landed with the seamen obeying my orders." A fortnight later he writes to Hood: "Your Lordship knows exactly the situation I am in here. With Colonel Villettes I have no reason but to suppose I am respected in the highest degree; nor have I occasion to complain of want of attention to my wishes from any parties; but yet I am considered as not commanding the seamen landed. My wishes may be, and are, complied with; my orders would possibly be disregarded. Therefore, if we move from hence, I would wish your Lordship to settle that point. Your Lordship will not, I trust, take this request amiss: I have been struggling with it since the first day I landed."
Hood apparently gave him full satisfaction as regards his own view of the situation. "I am happy," Nelsonwrote, when acknowledging his reply, "that my ideas of the situation I am in here so perfectly agree with your Lordship's;" but he did not settle the matter by a decisive order. His object, as he seems to have explained, was to bestow a certain amount of prominence upon a young captain, Hunt, who had recently lost his ship, and who, Hood thought, would be sooner provided with another, if he appeared as in command at the guns. Nelson acceded to this arrangement with his usual generosity. "Your kind intention to Captain Hunt," he wrote, "I had the honour of telling your Lordship, should be furthered by every means in my power; and my regard for him, I assure you, is undiminished. He is a most exceeding good young man, nor is any one more zealous for the service. I don't complain of any one, but an idea has entered into the heads of some under him, that his command was absolutely distinct from me; and that I had no authority over him, except as a request." Unfortunately, Hood, in his desire to serve Hunt, not only unduly but absurdly minimized Nelson's relations to the whole affair. His despatch ran: "Captain Nelson, of his Majesty's ship Agamemnon, who had the command and directions of the seamenin landing the guns, mortars and stores,[20] and Captain Huntwho commanded at the batteries,[20]... have an equal claim to my gratitude." To limit Nelson's share in the capture of Bastia to the purely subsidiary though important function of landing the guns, was as unjust as it was unnecessary to the interests of Hunt. The latter, being second in command ashore, and afterwards sent home with the despatches, was sure to receive the reward customarily bestowed upon such services.
The incident singularly and aptly illustrates the difference, which in a military service cannot be too carefully kept in mind, between individual expressions of opinion, which may be biassed, and professional reputation, which,like public sentiment, usually settles at last not far from the truth. Despite this curious inversion of the facts by Lord Hood, there probably was no one among the naval forces, nor among the soldiery, who did not thoroughly, if perchance somewhat vaguely, appreciate that Nelson was the moving spirit of the whole operation, even beyond Hood himself. As the Greek commanders after Salamis were said to have voted the award of merit each to himself first, but all to Themistocles second, so at Bastia, whatever value individuals might place on their own services, all probably would have agreed that Nelson came next.
The latter meantime was happily unconscious of the wrong done him, so that nothing marred the pleasure with which he congratulated the commander-in-chief, and received the latter's brief but hearty general order of thanks, wherein Nelson's own name stood foremost, as was due both to his seniority and to his exertions. When the despatch reached him, he freely expressed his discontent in letters to friends; but being, at the time of its reception, actively engaged in the siege of Calvi, the exhilaration of that congenial employment for the moment took the edge off the keenness of his resentment. "Lord Hood and myself were never better friends—nor, although his Letter does,[21]did he wish to put me where I never was—in the rear. Captain Hunt, who lost his ship, he wanted to push forward for another,—a young man who never was on a battery, or ever rendered any service during the siege; if any person ever says he did, then I submit to the character of a story-teller. Poor Serocold, who fell here,[22]was determined to publish an advertisement, as he commanded a battery under my orders. The whole operations of the siege were carried on through Lord Hood's letters to me. I was the mover of it—I was the cause of its success. Sir Gilbert Elliot will be my evidence, if any is required. I am not a little vexed, but shall not quarrel." "I am well aware," he had written to Mrs. Nelson a few days before, "my poor services will not be noticed: I have no interest; but, however services may be received, it is not right in an officer to slacken his zeal for his Country."
These noble words only voiced a feeling which in Nelson's heart had all the strength of a principle; and this light of the single eye stood him in good stead in the moments of bitterness which followed a few months later, when a lull in the storm of fighting gave the sense of neglect a chance to rankle. "My heart is full," he writes then to his uncle Suckling, speaking not only of Bastia, but of the entire course of operations in Corsica, "when I think of the treatment I have received: every man who had any considerable share in the reduction has got some place or other—I, only I, am without reward.... Nothing but my anxious endeavour to serve my Country makes me bear up against it; but I sometimes am ready to give all up." "Forgive this letter," he adds towards the end: "I have said a great deal too much of myself; but indeed it is all too true." In similar strain he expressed himself to his wife: "It is very true that I have ever served faithfully, and ever has it been my fate to be neglected; but that shall not make me inattentive to my duty. I have pride in doing my duty well, and a self-approbation, which if it is not so lucrative, yet perhaps affords more pleasing sensations." Thus the consciousness of duty done in the past, and the clear recognition of what duty still demanded in the present and future, stood him in full stead, when he failed to receive at the hands of others the honor he felt to be his due, and which, he never wearied in proclaiming, was in his eyes priceless, above all other reward. "Corsica, in respect of prizes," he wrote to Mrs. Nelson, "produces nothing but honour, far above the consideration of wealth: not that I despise riches, quite thecontrary, yet I would not sacrifice a good name to obtain them. Had I attended less than I have done to the service of my Country, I might have made some money too: however, I trust my name will stand on record, when the money-makers will be forgot,"—a hope to be abundantly fulfilled.
At the moment Bastia fell there arrived from England a new commander-in-chief for the land forces, General Stuart, an officer of distinguished ability and enterprise. Cheered by the hope of cordial co-operation, Hood and Nelson resumed without delay their enthusiastic efforts. Within a week, on the 30th of May, the latter wrote that the "Agamemnon" was taking on board ammunition for the siege of Calvi, the last remaining of the hostile strongholds. In the midst of the preparations, at eleven P.M. of June 6, word was received that nine French ships-of-the-line had come out of Toulon, and were believed to be bound for Calvi, with reinforcements for the garrison. At seven the next morning the squadron was under way; the "Agamemnon," which had two hundred tons of ordnance stores to unload, sailing only half an hour after her less encumbered consorts, whom she soon overtook.
Hood shaped his course for Calvi, being constrained thereto, not only by the rumor of the enemy's destination, but also by the military necessity of effecting a junction with the rest of his fleet. Admiral Hotham, who commanded the British division of seven ships in front of Toulon, instead of waiting to verify the report brought to him of the enemy's force,—which was actually the same, numerically, as his own,—bore up hastily for Calvi, intending, so wrote Nelson at the time, to fight them there, rather than that they should throw in succors. Whatever their numbers, thus to surrender touch of them at the beginning was an evident mistake, for which, as for most mistakes, a penalty had in the end to be paid; and in fact, if the relief of Calvi was the object of the sortie,the place to fight was evidently as far from there as possible. Off Toulon, even had Hotham been beaten, his opponents would have been too roughly handled to carry out their mission. As it was, this precipitate retirement lost the British an opportunity for a combat that might have placed their control of the sea beyond peradventure; and a few months later, Nelson, who at first had viewed Hotham's action with the generous sympathy and confident pride which always characterized his attitude towards his brother officers, showed how clearly he was reading in the book of experience the lessons that should afterwards stand himself in good stead. "When 'Victory' is gone," he wrote, "we shall be thirteen sail of the line [to the French fifteen], when the enemy will keep our new Commanding Officer [Hotham] in hot water, who missed, unfortunately, the opportunity of fighting them, last June." Ten years later, in his celebrated chase of Villeneuve's fleet, he said to his captains: "If we meet the enemy we shall find them not less than eighteen, I rather think twenty, sail of the line, and therefore do not be surprised if I should not fall on them immediately [he had but eleven]—we won't part[23]without a battle;" and he expressed with the utmost decision his clear appreciation that even a lost battle, if delivered at the right point or at the right moment, would frustrate the ulterior objects of the enemy, by crippling the force upon which they depended. As will be seen in the sequel, Hotham, throughout his brief command as Hood's successor, suffered the consequences of permitting so important a fraction of the enemy's fleet to escape his grasp, when it was in his power to close with it.
The British divisions met off the threatened port two days after leaving Bastia, and two hours later a lookout frigate brought word that the French fleet had been seen by her the evening before, to the northward and westward,some forty miles off its own coast. Hood at once made sail in pursuit, and in the afternoon of the 10th of June caught sight of the enemy, but so close in with the shore that they succeeded in towing their ships under the protection of the batteries in Golfe Jouan, where, for lack of wind, he was unable to follow them for some days, during which they had time to strengthen their position beyond his powers of offence. Hotham's error was irreparable. The "Agamemnon" was then sent back to Bastia, to resume the work of transportation, which Nelson pushed with the untiring energy that characterized all his movements. Arriving on the 12th, fifteen hundred troops were embarked by eight the next morning, and at four in the afternoon he sailed, having with him two smaller ships of war and twenty-two transports. On the 15th he anchored at San Fiorenzo.
Here he met General Stuart. The latter was anxious to proceed at once with the siege of Calvi, but asked Nelson whether he thought it proper to take the shipping to that exposed position; alluding to the French fleet that had left Toulon, and which Hood was then seeking. Nelson's reply is interesting, as reflecting the judgment of a warrior at once prudent and enterprising, concerning the influence of a hostile "fleet in being" upon a contemplated detached operation. "I certainly thought it right," he said, "placing the firmest reliance that we should be perfectly safe under Lord Hood's protection, who would take care that the French fleet at Gourjean[24]should not molest us." To Hood he wrote a week later: "I believed ourselves safe under your Lordship's wing." At this moment he thought the French to be nine sail-of-the-line to the British thirteen,—no contemptible inferior force. Yet that he recognized the possible danger from such a detachment is also clear; for, writing two days earlier, under the same belief as to the enemy's strength, andspeaking of the expected approach of an important convoy, he says: "I hope they will not venture up till Lord Hood can get off Toulon, or wherever the French fleet are got to." When a particular opinion has received the extreme expression now given to that concerning the "fleet in being," and apparently has undergone equally extreme misconception, it is instructive to recur to the actual effect of such a force, upon the practice of a man with whom moral effect was never in excess of the facts of the case, whose imagination produced to him no paralyzing picture of remote contingencies. Is it probable that, with the great issues of 1690 at stake, Nelson, had he been in Tourville's place, would have deemed the crossing of the Channel by French troops impossible, because of Torrington's "fleet in being"?
Sailing again on June 16, the expedition arrived next day off Calvi. Although it was now summer, the difficulties of the new undertaking were, from the maritime point of view, very great. The town of Calvi, which was walled and had a citadel, lies upon a promontory on the west side of an open gulf of the same name, a semicircular recess, three miles wide by two deep, on the northwest coast of Corsica. The western point of its shore line is Cape Revellata; the eastern, Point Espano. The port being fortified and garrisoned, it was not practicable to take the shipping inside, nor to establish on the inner beach a safe base for disembarking. The "Agamemnon" therefore anchored outside, nearly two miles south of Cape Revellata, and a mile from shore, in the excessive depth of fifty-three fathoms; the transports coming-to off the cape, but farther to seaward. The water being so deep, and the bottom rocky, the position was perilous for sailing-ships, for the prevailing summer wind blows directly on the shore, which is steep-to and affords no shelter. Abreast the "Agamemnon" was a small inlet, Porto Agro, about three miles from Calvi by difficultapproaches. Here Nelson landed on the 18th with General Stuart; and, after reconnoitring both the beach and the town, the two officers decided that, though a very bad landing, it was the best available. On the 19th, at 7 A.M., the troops disembarked. That afternoon Nelson himself went ashore to stay, taking with him two hundred and fifty seamen. The next day it came on to blow so hard that most of the ships put to sea, and no intercourse was had from the land with those which remained. The "Agamemnon" did not return till the 24th. Lord Hood was by this time in San Fiorenzo Bay, having abandoned the hope of attacking the French fleet in Golfe Jouan. On the 27th he arrived off Calvi, and thenceforth Nelson was in daily communication with him till the place fell.
As the army in moderate, though not wholly adequate, force conducted the siege of Calvi, under a general officer of vigorous character, the part taken by Nelson and his seamen, though extremely important, and indeed essential to the ultimate success, was necessarily subordinate. It is well to notice that his journal, and correspondence with Lord Hood, clearly recognize this, his true relation to the siege of Calvi; for it makes it probable that, in attributing to himself a much more important part at Bastia, and in saying that Hood's report had put him unfairly in the background, he was not exaggerating his actual though ill-defined position there. That Nelson loved to dwell in thought upon his own achievements, that distinction in the eyes of his fellows was dear to him, that he craved recognition, and was at times perhaps too insistent in requiring it, is true enough; but there is no indication that he ever coveted the laurels of others, or materially misconceived his own share in particular events. Glory, sweet as it was to him, lost its value, if unaccompanied by the consciousness of desert which stamps it as honor. It is, therefore, not so much for personal achievement as forrevelation of character that this siege has interest in his life.
Besides the defences of the town proper, Calvi was protected by a series of outworks extending across the neck of land upon which it lay. Of these the outermost was on the left, looking from the place. It flanked the approaches to the others, and commanded the communications with the interior. It was, by Nelson's estimate, about twenty-two hundred yards from the town, and had first to be reduced. By the 3d of July thirteen long guns, besides a number of mortars and howitzers, had been dragged from the beach to the spot by the seamen, who also assisted in placing them in position, and for the most part worked them in battle, an artillerist from the army pointing. Nelson, with Captain Hallowell, already an officer of mark and afterwards one of distinction, took alternate day's duty at the batteries, a third captain, Serocold, having fallen early in the siege. Fearing news might reach his wife that a naval captain had been killed, without the name being mentioned, he wrote to her of this sad event, adding expressively: "I am very busy, yet own I am in all my glory; except with you, I would not be anywhere but where I am, for the world." On July 7th the first outwork fell. The attack upon the others was then steadily and systematically prosecuted, until on the 19th all had been captured, and the besiegers stood face to face with the town walls.
During this time Nelson, as always, was continually at the front and among the most exposed. Out of six guns in the battery which he calls "ours," five were disabled in six days. On the 12th at daylight, a heavy fire opened from the town, which, he says, "seldom missed our battery;" and at seven o'clock a shot, which on the ricochet cleared his head by a hair's breadth, drove sand into his face and right eye with such violence as to incapacitate him. He spoke lightly and cheerfully of the incident toLord Hood, "I got a little hurt this morning: not much, as you may judge by my writing," and remained absent from duty only the regular twenty-four hours; but, after some fluctuations of hope, the sight of the eye was permanently lost to him. Of General Stuart's conduct in the operations he frequently speaks with cordial admiration. "He is not sparing of himself on any occasion, he every night sleeps with us in the advanced battery. If I may be allowed to judge, he is an extraordinary good judge of ground. No officer ever deserved success more." At the same time he expresses dissatisfaction with some of the subordinate army officers, to whose inefficiency he attributes the necessity for undue personal exertion on the general's part: "The General is not well. He fatigues himself too much, but I can't help seeing he is obliged to do it. He has not a person to forward his views,—the engineer sick, the artillery captain not fit for active service; therefore every minute thing must be done by himself, or it is not done at all."
The work was tedious and exhausting, and the malaria of the hot Corsican summer told heavily on men's health and patience. The supply of ammunition, and of material of war generally, for the army seems to have been inadequate; and heavy demands were made upon the fleet, not only for guns, which could be returned, but for powder and shot, the expenditure of which might prove embarrassing before they could be renewed. The troops also were not numerous enough, under the climatic conditions, to do all their own duty. In such circumstances, when two parties are working together to the same end, but under no common control, each is prone to think the other behindhand in his work and exacting in his demands. "Why don't Lord Hood land 500 men to work?" said Colonel Moore, the general's right-hand man. "Our soldiers are tired." Nelson, on the other hand, thought that Moore wanted over-much battering done to the breachof a work, before he led the stormers to it; and Hood, who was receiving frequent reports of the preparations of the French fleet in Toulon, was impatient to have the siege pushed, and thought the army dilatory. "The rapidity with which the French are getting on at Toulon," he wrote confidentially to Nelson, "makes it indispensably necessary for me to put the whole of the fleet under my command in the best possible state for service; and I must soon apply to the general for those parts of the regiments now on shore, ordered by his Majesty to serve in lieu of marines, to be held in readiness to embark at the shortest notice. I shall delay this application as long as possible."
Nelson, being a seaman, sympathized of course with his own service, and with Hood, for whom he had most cordial admiration, both personal and professional. But at the same time he was on the spot, a constant eye-witness to the difficulties of the siege, a clear-headed observer, with sound military instincts, and fair-minded when facts were before him. The army, he wrote to Hood, is harassed to death, and he notices that it suffers from sickness far more than do the seamen. He repeats the request for more seamen, and, although he seems to doubt the reasonableness of the demand, evidently thinks that they should be furnished, if possible. Hood accordingly sent an additional detachment of three hundred, raising the number on shore to the five hundred suggested by Moore. "I had much rather," he wrote, "that a hundred seamen should be landed unnecessarily, than that one should be kept back that was judged necessary." On the other hand, when the general, after a work bearing on the bay had been destroyed, suggests that the navy might help, by laying the ships against the walls, Nelson takes "the liberty of observing that the business of laying wood before walls was much altered of late," and adds the common-sense remark, that "the quantity of powder and shot whichwould be fired away on such an attack could be much better directed from a battery on shore." This conversation took place immediately after all the outworks had been reduced. It was conducted "with the greatest politeness," he writes, and "the General thanked me for my assistance, but it was necessary to come to the point whether the siege should be persevered in or given up. If the former, he must be supplied with the means, which were more troops, more seamen to work, and more ammunition." Nelson replied that, if the requisite means could not be had on the spot, they could at least hold on where they were till supplied from elsewhere.
It will be noticed that Nelson was practically the intermediary between the two commanders-in-chief. In fact, there appears to have been between them some constraint, and he was at times asked to transmit a message which he thought had better go direct. In this particularly delicate situation, one cannot but be impressed with the tact he for the most part shows, the diplomatic ability, which was freely attributed to him by his superiors in later and more influential commands. This was greatly helped by his cordial good-will towards others, combined with disinterested zeal for the duty before him; the whole illumined by unusual sagacity and good sense. He sees both sides, and conveys his suggestions to either with a self-restraint and deference which avert resentment; and he preserves both his calmness and candor, although he notices in the camp some jealousy of his confidential communication with his immediate superior, the admiral. Though never backward to demand what he thought the rights of himself or his associates, Nelson was always naturally disposed to reconcile differences, to minimize causes of trouble, and this native temperament had not yet undergone the warping which followed his later wounds—especially that on the head received at the Nile—and the mental conflict into which he was plunged byhis unhappy passion for Lady Hamilton. At this time, in the flush of earlier enthusiasm, delighting as few men do in the joy of battle, he strove to promote harmony, to smooth over difficulties by every exertion possible, either by doing whatever was asked of him, or by judicious representations to others. Thus, when Hood, impatient at the disturbing news from Toulon, wishes to hasten the conclusion by summoning the garrison, in the hope that it may yield at once, the general objected, apparently on the ground that the statement of their own advantages, upon which such a summons might be based, would be prejudicial, if, as was most probable, the demand was rejected. Whatever his reason, Nelson, though indirectly, intimates to Hood that in this matter he himself agrees, upon the whole, with the general, and Hood yields the point,—the more so that he learns from Nelson that the outposts are to be stormed the next night; and sorely was the captain, in his judicious efforts thus to keep the peace, tried by the postponement of the promised assault for twenty-four hours. "Such things are," he wrote to Hood, using a favorite expression. "I hope to God the general, who seems a good officer and an amiable man, is not led away; but Colonel Moore is his great friend."