Nelson: Britannia's God of War (18 page)

This double success was unique. It was also highly risky, and fortunate. Both Spanish ships were badly battered, and the
San
Josef
was taken while still fighting the
Prince
George
, leaving the upper deck short of men and full of casualties. Both ships were ready to surrender: they had fought well for close on two hours, against far better trained ships, and were hastened in their decision by the sudden arrival of British boarders. Not that they gave up without a fight: a quarter of
Captain’s
eighty casualties came in this phase of the battle. Two more battleships were taken, and the
Santissima
probably hauled down her colours, but Jervis called off the attack just before James Saumarez in the
Orion
could take possession. The Spanish fleet crept away while Jervis’s force secured their prizes and attended to their own damaged ships. This had been a hard fight: the most closely engaged units, revealed by their casualties, were all battered and in need of repair.

That evening Nelson left Miller to patch up his flagship, and went over to the
Victory
, where Jervis greeted his grimy and bruised commodore with exactly the sort of praise that he most liked to hear: a thoroughly professional appreciation of his merits. After a brief standoff the following day, Cordoba withdrew. Jervis took his squadron into Lagos Bay, site of a great victory in 1759, to refit.

*

After this escapade, Nelson had earned the right to gather in his laurels, the praise of his peers and the admiration of amateurs like Elliot.
Jervis’s brief formal public report did not single out anyone for special notice, but his private letter to the First Lord was a more honest reflection of his views, praising Troubridge, Collingwood and especially Nelson, ‘who contributed very much to the fortune of the day’.
⁶
February he gleaned enough There were no complaints within the fleet, although Jervis was anxious to remove Admiral Thompson.

On 15 February Nelson wrote to thank Collingwood for his support the previous day, and visited his shattered flagship, where he gave Miller a ring. Elliot, meanwhile, was enraptured by what he had seen – ‘Nothing in the world was ever more noble’ – and he trusted Nelson would ‘enjoy your honours and the gratitude and admiration of your country for many years’.
⁷
In reply Nelson let Elliot know he wanted the Order of the Bath, not a baronetcy.

Nelson’s fame was further enhanced by printed accounts of the battle. While on HMS
Lively
in search of Elliot, he had given an impromptu interview to Colonel Drinkwater, already well known for a narrative of the siege of Gibraltar. The resulting account was published, as he had hoped, though it was later replaced in the popular press by Nelson’s own article. A copy of this was sent to Locker at Greenwich, his naval ‘father’ and part-time press agent, with halfhearted instructions to replace the first-person narrative figure with a less personal device – but if Nelson had really wanted this done, surely he would have written it in the second person himself.
⁸
The report duly appeared in the
Sun
without editing. Fanny, Clarence and Admiral Waldegrave received copies; Nelson kept the original. As expected Fanny showed a copy to Hood, who was in raptures, while Clarence praised him at court.

The report did not pass unnoticed in the fleet, because it contained a factual error. Nelson claimed to have been in action for an hour without support, but Rear Admiral William Parker publicly challenged this – rightly so, since the time that passed in this perilous situation was only a matter of minutes, and Parker’s flagship had been engaging the
San
Josef
when Nelson boarded her.
⁹
Later editions are slightly amended to say that he thought it was an hour, but was unsure of the real time.

To cement his fame Nelson now made a typical gesture. Jervis had marked his personal estimation of the day by allowing him to keep the captured sword of Admiral Winthuysen. This was sent to the Mayor of Norwich, with a copy of his report on the battle. The City
responded as he hoped, by giving him its Freedom, placing the sword in a special case in the Guildhall, and commissioning a portrait. The purpose of the gesture was to secure his place in Norfolk society, which he anticipated rejoining in later life.
¹⁰
In the event his fame soon outgrew the county: he never went back to Norwich or Burnham, and spent but a few hours in Yarmouth in 1800 and 1801. Although Nelson never forgot his home, and always gloried in being a Norfolk man, it quickly became obvious that he had outstripped his birthplace: Norfolk was too distant from the main centres of naval power.

On 1 April Nelson received his first English mail since the news of the battle had been known. It contained numerous letters of congratulation, newspaper reports and other signs of his hard-won, long-desired, and now very real public fame. He was the hero of the hour, and as he expressly desired, a Knight of the Bath, with a star and a red ribbon, rather than a Baronet with a title but no decoration. At the same time his promotion to Rear Admiral was confirmed, and he acquired a coat of arms which included the stern of the
San
Josef
. These honours were gratefully given, for the success had been a tremendous fillip to domestic morale after years of dismal news. Now it was time to exploit the victory. The only jarring notes were Jervis’s failure to praise him in the public dispatch, and Fanny’s rather nervous plea that he give up boarding and other heroic actions.

*

As Jervis refitted his fleet, he reflected on the lessons of the battle. His heroes were Nelson, Troubridge, Hood and Foley, and the first among them needed a new flagship – preferably a large two-decker, should the anticipated flag promotion occur. Spencer agreed, and Nelson even turned down the brand-new 110-gun
Ville
de
Paris
,
well aware that detached command, his forte, was not given to admirals in such powerful fleet units. Spencer passed on Cabinet thinking that a detachment should be sent into the Mediterranean, to re-establish contact with the Austrians and clear the Adriatic: ‘I suppose you would naturally enough look to Admiral Nelson for this purpose, and possibly detach some [battleships] under him.’
¹¹

After the fleet was safely in the Tagus, Jervis detached Nelson with a small squadron to cover the approaches to Cadiz, hoping to intercept a rumoured treasure convoy, bring out the Spanish fleet, encourage the Portuguese court, and alarm the Spanish.
¹²
This was Nelson’s
reward for the battle that had helped to make Jervis Earl St Vincent. Although he found nothing, the impulse would ultimately lead to the attack on Tenerife.

Cadiz was officially blockaded on 11 April. Confident the Spanish would not come out, Nelson handed over the task to Saumarez the following day,
¹³
before heading back into the Mediterranean to attend to some unfinished business at Elba. His thoughts were turning to the ‘rich ships from La Vera Cruz and Havana’ that the Earl reported were on passage. Discussions with Troubridge led him to put forward a plan to capture the treasure galleons, although he added, ‘I do not reckon myself equal to Blake’.
¹⁴
But success would ‘ruin Spain, and has every prospect of raising our Country to a higher pitch of wealth than ever she yet attained’. Military cooperation would be very useful, but he was prepared to make the attempt with the limited force then embarked on the fleet. Ultimately he knew the ‘risk and responsibility’ rested with Jervis.
¹⁵

The cruise to Elba was uneventful, because the ambush Nelson had anticipated was spotted off Minorca and avoided. The news from Italy was bad: the Austrians had been driven back to within 150 miles of Vienna by a vast French army under Bonaparte, seemingly unable to resist ‘these extraordinary people’. This only emphasised the need to strike at Tenerife.
¹⁶
Although he hastened back to the fleet by early May, hearing rumours the Spanish would come out, the situation off Cadiz left little hope that the enemy would try their strength again. Jervis had been reinforced, and was now stronger than he had been on the famous 14 February.

After repairing battle damage at Lisbon and sending home his prizes, Jervis led his fleet south to blockade his beaten foes in Cadiz, Spain’s southern naval base. The Spanish had changed their commander and begun to shake up the fleet. Initially Jervis expected they would offer battle, but by mid-June he accepted they were unlikely to move without a powerful inducement. He now faced the greatest challenge of the age: how to get an inferior fleet to leave the safety of a fortified arsenal and give battle at sea. On 19 May he made the blockade complete, including all commercial shipping. This would starve the local economy and the fleet, as both relied on sea transport. The stopper in the Spanish bottle would be a squadron of seventy-fours anchored in the harbour mouth, in sight of the town and only just out of gunshot from the walls. This tiresome command was given to
Nelson, who had done the same job at Leghorn the previous year. None of the senior flag officers protested at this appointment – that would only come later. Instead the fleet were annoyed to find a detachment of the Channel fleet cruising in the track of the treasure ships, which they believed were their due.
¹⁷

Nelson was in signal distance of the fleet, sending Jervis any scraps of intelligence that he could glean from the shore, from conversation with local craft or observation of activity in the harbour. He even opened a polite correspondence with the Spanish admiral, warning him of a royal salute to be fired on the King’s birthday, fearing that it might alarm the ladies. Admiral Mazzaredo’s reply was both dignified and charming.
¹⁸
While the economic life of the port was devastated the Spanish fleet would not come out. Instead the biggest threat to Jervis’s fleet was internal. While the Spithead mutiny was essentially a trade dispute about pay and conditions, it spread through the Navy and reached the Mediterranean fleet in a more politicised form. After a mutinous outbreak in June, four men from HMS
St
George
were tried and hung the next day, a Sunday. Jervis blamed lax officers. He shifted Nelson and Miller into the worst-behaved ship in the squadron, with a leaven of his old followers in all ranks. Within a fortnight the men of the
Theseus
were devotees at the feet of their admiral, and a credit to the service.

*

Throughout June, Nelson and Jervis prepared for an attack on Tenerife, assembling scaling ladders, guns, stores and a few extra red coats to dazzle the Spanish. The target of the operation was money, and the situation at home gave it a particular significance. The war was making unprecedented demands on the British economy, enough to cause problems even for a fiscal expert such as Pitt. In the wake of failed peace negotiations in late 1796, the evacuation of the Mediterranean and the landing at Fishguard in February 1797, there was a run on the banks. Money was in short supply, and cash even more so. While the tax system needed reform, the coinage was in a ruinous condition with a limited stock of old and worn money, numerous tokens and other substitute and counterfeit items in circulation. To meet the problem Pitt suspended bank payments in gold and silver, introduced paper money and issued captured Spanish silver dollars as legal tender from March 1797. These were overstruck with the head of King George, leading one wit to rhyme:

Nelson’s operation in Tenerife was intended to find treasure to meet the crisis. It would be difficult, but if successful, with ‘six or seven million pounds sterling … thrown into circulation in England, it would ensure an honourable peace’.
¹⁹
It would also knock Spain out of the war. These were the stakes for which Nelson would gamble his life, and those of his men.

In the mean time, however, there was always a risk that the new Spanish admiral, Gravina, would give battle once Nelson had left, so he paid minute attention to local intelligence. On 13 June the non-appearance of his regular vegetable boat persuaded him they were coming out,
²⁰
but still they did not come. Hoping to round off the season with the treasure ships, he retailed the latest congratulatory verses and seamen’s messages to Fanny. She must have begun to tire of phrases such as ‘The imperious call of honour to serve my country is the only thing which keeps me a moment from you’, especially when combined with the news that Jervis would be unwilling to let him go even in the autumn. He hoped for riches, but advised her not to bank on them when buying the ‘little cottage’ somewhere in Norfolk to which he hoped to return.
²¹

To keep the men occupied Jervis and Nelson agreed to bombard Cadiz, using their sole mortar vessel, the
Thunder
. After a sanguinary boat action on the night of 3 July, in which Nelson provided vital leadership when the British boats faltered, some damage was done. However, the means were altogether inadequate and with the Spanish fully alerted Jervis admitted defeat, withdrawing Nelson’s squadron on 14 July.