Nelson: Britannia's God of War (68 page)

In 2005 Britain, and the world, will commemorate the two hundredth anniversary of Nelson’s death, and of his finest achievement. This time the naval pageant will be adequate: Spain and France will join every other fleet with a soul at Spithead, and HMS
Victory
will emerge from her restoration to serve as the focal point for worship. The museums at Portsmouth and Greenwich will present new and old versions of Nelson, while the bookshelves and souvenir stalls will groan under a weight of memorabilia. And then it will all be over.

Before we return the British national hero to storage for another century, we should take care that we have brought our Nelson into the twenty-first century, and understood how he fits into our national identity. Like Nelson we need to ask questions, make up our own minds. Over the past two centuries we have created many Nelsons, far removed from the man of flesh and blood: there is a Nelson to suit every need. Having been deified, worshipped, damned and occasionally ignored, he remains the national icon of the British state in adversity. His greatness lay in rising to every challenge, in working above and beyond the professional expertise of a naval officer to become a strategist, statesman and diplomat in pursuit of his nation’s interests. He had the courage to act when others waited for orders, and the genius to be right on almost all occasions. In a secular age he remains an inspiration, tangible proof that mankind can achieve immortality. Nelson remains the ultimate expression of those qualities that made Britain wealthy, secure and free. If we value such things we must honour his memory: a public holiday on Trafalgar Day should surely be instated.

We may know little more about Nelson than that he lost an eye and an arm, loved Lady Hamilton and stands in majesty in Trafalgar Square, but that should be enough to encourage fresh questions. Who was this man that he should have been rendered in stone, and placed above his countrymen? In the process we might learn more about who we are, and what it takes to create and sustain a modern state. We need to understand Nelson because he, and the culture of his age, still define the way the British see themselves in the world, and the way the world sees them. Any Nelson we create today will be ours, but it must be securely based in the historical events of his life: we must balance
our needs with his truth. If we know him well we might agree with Cuthbert Collingwood – the man who understood him better than anyone – that he was ‘the glory of England’:

Every great man has his critics – the greater his fame, the more serious the criticism. In the process the truth is often ignored.

Nelson’s role in the suppression of the Neapolitan republic and the execution of Caracciolo gave rise to a wholly unwarranted attack on his public character and moral integrity. The attack was given credibility by the repetition of highly critical verdicts by his greatest biographer, Robert Southey, back in 1813. Since Southey, the public and private events of Nelson’s period in and around the Neapolitan court have customarily been considered as a parade of weakness and error. His private relationship with Lady Hamilton, which eventually became intimate, is enmeshed with his public actions – the immorality of the former is seen to taint the latter. The ‘Black Legend’ – namely, that Nelson betrayed an armistice freely given by a British officer and a Neapolitan cardinal to the defeated Jacobin rebels in Naples, and caused the judicial murder of the Neapolitan officer Francesco Caracciolo – is still frequently believed, despite the fact that these accusations have been demonstrated to be false in all but one of the major studies of Nelson. The fact that they are still being repeated demonstrates the enduring power of malicious gossip and human credulity, as well as a woeful lack of research.

In point of fact, Nelson had full authority to act in the King’s name at Naples; the armistice was unauthorised by the King, as Cardinal Ruffo knew, and Captain Foote was deceived into signing it. The Jacobins, as a group, and Caracciolo as an individual, were victims of their own folly. They had taken the opportunity of a French invasion to repudiate their duty to their sovereign, and used French bayonets to set up a republic over the broken bodies of the common people who had fought to uphold their King and their country against a foreign invader. At a time when the fate of Britain hung in the balance, Nelson acted on his professional and political judgement, backed by his admiral, the King of Naples, and the British Minister. To have connived in the escape of the rebels would, as the Queen stressed, have threatened the very existence of a useful ally, at a time when Britain had very few. The French troops were allowed to surrender and leave, but the rebels were not. Caracciolo was guilty of throwing off his allegiance, and ordering the rebel ships under his command to fire on those of his erstwhile King, killing loyal seamen. He had no cause for complaint about his trial, or the sentence, and it was customary for the sentence to be carried out without delay.

The issue of Naples was brought into the public domain by Charles James Fox,
soi
disant
leader of the rump Whig opposition, and no friend of the Bourbons. After a long absence from active politics, Fox rose in the House of Commons on 3 February 1800 to suggest, on the basis of Consul Loeti’s self-serving letters, that the ‘atrocities’ attrib-uted to France were paralleled by those that followed the reconquest of Naples, and that a party of rebels in Castello dell’Uovo had made terms with a British officer for safe passage. The fact that the
restored Bourbon regime had taken revenge on a parcel of noble-born traitors was undisputed, but this was not Nelson’s responsibility. He had no occasion to intercede between the traitors and their sovereign: lest it be forgotten, the counter-revolutionary excesses were entirely the work of an enraged population, fuelled with religious and political loyalties that Nelson did not share. His detractors forgot that the atrocities in Naples only ended when Nelson placed the Jacobins on the ships in harbour, under his protection and out of reach of the enraged
lazzaroni.
Order on shore was only re-established when naval personnel took control of the key points. Nelson ended the bloody chaos and anarchy that followed Ruffo’s occupation, and handed over a tranquil and settled city to the King.

Although it was dismissed by the House of Commons, Fox’s public imputation of bad faith stuck, and when Nelson heard about it he was moved to respond immediately. His rebuttal of Fox’s attack satisfied the government, but unfortunately the matter did not rest there. In 1801 Helen Maria Williams, a pro-republican authoress and long-time French resident, produced
Sketches
of
the
State
of
Manners
and
Opinions
in
the
French
Republic
, a dire book that included a highly inaccurate account of the Neapolitan affair. After eulogising the rebels, she accused Nelson of tricking them out of the castles.
¹
Nelson read the book, and a copy with his marginalia is among his papers. He dismissed her remarks, noting that Foote’s agreement ‘was fulfilled most religiously’. Three years later he advised a prospective historian that the Neapolitan sections of her book were ‘either destitute of foundation, or falsely represented’.
²

John Charnock’s 1802 biography was distinguished by his access to Locker’s collection, and the disclaimer of anything more than a desire to ‘correct the defects and mistakes of such miserable sketches as have already appeared’.
³
While the book is not particularly enlightening, his account of the central incident at Naples bears re-reading:

These leaders paid for their crimes, ‘under a sentence regularly passed on them by the court constituted to take cognisance of their offences’.
⁴
This was clear enough, although Caracciolo had not signed any documents. Significantly Charnock produced a book entirely free of Emma.

After Nelson’s death there was an unseemly rush to print any thing that might pass for a book about him, and many peddled the Fox-Williams line. Even when they managed to take a more correct perspective, they invariably confused the issue.
⁵
The one early publication to have some claim to authenticity was James Harrison’s book. Emma’s object, as its editorial director, was to deal with ‘the many dishonourable insinuations which have been promulgated by bold speculators on public credulity’.
⁶
She argued that Nelson lamented Caracciolo’s fate, and would have recommended him for clemency ‘if it was not so at odds with the temper
of the people, and would have operated against the King’s interest; without preserving the culprit from the worst effects of their fury.’ Yet there is nothing in Nelson’s own writings to support this construction: it is more likely to have been Emma’s view.
⁷
However Harrison included one of the many letters in which Nelson called Ruffo’s armistice ‘infamous’,
⁸
and this proved too much for Captain Foote. Foote was still disturbed by the events of 1799, and appeared to believe that Nelson’s letter attached some of the stigma to him. In 1807 he publicly asked Harrison to remove the offending passage, but as his letter stirred up enough interest to warrant a second edition, Harrison did nothing. Confused and angry, Foote published a
Vindication
of his conduct. This unfortunate epistle worked from the assumption that the only way to clear his own name was to blame Nelson. Foote took from Williams’ book the explanation that Nelson’s conduct could be attributed to the influence of Lady Hamilton, and adopted it in order to avoid attacking the national hero directly – though he argued that 1799 ‘was the only occasion upon which the character of Admiral Lord Nelson has been found materially defective’. He then proceeded to quote Fox’s partisan and feeble speech, despite saying he was not of Fox’s party. While observing that it would be best to ‘bury the transaction in oblivion’, he did exactly the opposite.
⁹

Foote’s paper war with Harrison attracted the attention of the official biographer, Clarke, who proceeded to enter into an ill-advised and inconclusive dialogue with the disturbed captain.
¹⁰
In truth, neither Nelson nor Harrison had meant to insinuate anything about Foote: the ‘infamous’ armistice was the work of Micheroux and Ruffo, and Foote merely had the misfortune to be misled by two men far less scrupulous than himself. But Foote simply would not accept that Ruffo had tricked him. Clarke was ‘laid on his beam ends’ by Foote’s attitude, and despite all the evidence in his hands that established Nelson’s case, he continued to correspond with a man who clearly could not be advised. Somewhat obsequiously, he assured Foote that supporting Nelson’s conduct ‘surely cannot in any way prove that I wished to attach blame to you’. Foote, by contrast, considered that it was impossible to vindicate both himself and Nelson. He was not appeased by the proof sheets of the relevant chapter, and decided to republish his
Vindication
, with Clarke’s correspondence attached. This just added another confused and bitter text to a catalogue of hostile, judgmental, ill-informed or downright dishonest works, from which the ‘Black Legend’ would be created.

Clarke, meanwhile, was being fed hostile commentary on Emma by the Earl and Fanny. Initially he was disposed simply to follow the Williams line when preparing his authorised ‘Life’ – then he read the papers and shifted his position much closer to Nelson’s.
¹¹
Clarke’s purpose was to recover Nelson from his association with Emma, while using her as a convenient excuse for any conduct that appeared questionable. His biography pivots around the events of 1798–9, but the fact that the whole issue is based on a false premise – the same that so troubled the hero of Barry Unsworth’s
Losing
Nelson
– escaped Clarke. Nelson’s faults are attributed to the fact that he ‘enjoyed a delightful, but dangerous relaxation in the extraordinary talents and captivating flattery of Emma, Lady Hamilton’. This, with his ill-health, ‘led him to indulge a confidence which was fatally adapted to mislead his affectionate disposition, and to warp his judgment’.
¹²

Because Clarke lacked the confidence to produce his own account, and did not know how to deal with Foote’s pamphlet, he then began quoting large sections of Foote’s work almost verbatim, as if he could buy off a deluded monomaniac. He also stated that Emma was present at the trial and execution of Caracciolo and other Jacobins – this is absolutely false, and demonstrates better than anything the origins of his confusion, and the purpose of his judgement. With Earl William controlling access to the papers, he was obliged to tell a particular story. But his weak, inconclusive and shuffling account of what he knew to be the central story of the book was never going to convince anyone that Nelson was innocent of the imputation of dishonourable conduct. It is typical of Clarke’s incompetence that he did not see through Foote’s very partial recollection of the events: Foote’s barge had been prominent among the craft that seized the Jacobin ships on the King’s orders, and Ferdinand had rewarded him for his services.
¹³
And in his anxiety to exculpate Nelson by blaming Emma, Clarke overlooked that fact that although Nelson would fall passionately in love with Emma, he had not done so in July 1799. It would be January 1800 before they accepted the inevitable, and even then Nelson was far too professional to allow his private passions to override his public duty.

Clarke’s failure was the more remarkable because it appeared in the official life, a work intended to serve as a timeless lesson to the country, and the basis for the political, clerical and financial claims that the Earl was going to make. Clarke had a duty to demolish the petty, politically motivated and spiteful attacks that had been made on Nelson’s conduct in 1799. Rather than trying to see both sides and meet Foote halfway, he should have taken a clear line, following Nelson’s own robust and consistent defence. Emma – whatever the faults of Harrison’s book, and they are many – produced a far better account of what happened in 1799. By imposing Clarke on the Earl, the Prince of Wales served his supposed friend vey badly, leaving his reputation in tatters and open to ill-intentioned and ignorant attacks.

*

Clarke’s incompetence gave the ‘Black Legend’ the stamp of official credibility. He and he alone was responsible for elevating it above the petty, partisan sniping of 1800–1. By leaving the final text in such an unsatisfactory fashion, Clarke gave every subsequent writer a licence to take the story further. Robert Southey missed a golden opportunity to deal a mortal blow to his
bête
noire
, Clarke, when he compiled his eulogy of Nelson. Instead of following the correspondence which Clarke published, or that provided by Harrison, or consulting his friends Croker and Barrow for better materials, Southey repeated the Williams/Foote version, adding fresh nonsense of his own invention. When he served up this concoction in his elegant prose it became the definitive statement of the ‘Black Legend’. The explanation this time lies not in Southey’s one-time radical politics – his loyalties were now increasingly Tory – but rather reflected his own personal life. Through his writing, Southey was supporting his sister-in-law and her children, who had been abandoned by his old friend Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
¹⁴
It is hardly surprising that under these circumstances Southey chose to make the abandoning of his marriage Nelson’s greatest sin – but it is inexcusable that he did so in violation of the evidence, and vilified Emma for faults which he had invented. Clarke had not
imputed any improper motive or conduct to the trial of Caracciolo, but such an event – with a hero, a villain, and a Lady Macbeth to push the drama along – appealed hugely to Southey’s poetic sensibility. Southey described the public and private events at Naples as, ‘a stain upon the memory of Nelson, and the honour of England’.
¹⁵
That such unmitigated nonsense should have persisted in the popular consciousness for close on two hundred years is evidence of the influence that can be exerted by great literature, for Southey’s accusations of dishonourable public conduct, which have been widely followed ever since, are entirely without foundation.