Nelson (34 page)

Each change of atmosphere disdaining
With scarce the wreck of health remaining
Never of toil or wound complaining
Serv’d brave, immortal Nelson

Anon,
Nelson and Collingwood
, 1805

N
ELSON’S
command of the
Albemarle
spanned the last two years of the American War of Independence. It had developed from a colonial revolt into an international conflict, as first France and then Spain had opportunely attacked Britain, taking advantage of the deployment of her naval and military forces across the Atlantic. Almost twenty years before, Britain had triumphantly emerged from the Seven Years War as the most powerful sea power, with major gains in North America, the West Indies and India, but by 1781 she was visibly paling. Though Canada had remained firm, despite its French tradition, the American colonies looked irretrievably lost. A mere ten or eleven days before Nelson sailed for the Baltic, Lord Cornwallis surrendered a second British army to the rebel forces at Yorktown. At the same time Britain was isolated in Europe. She was not only threatened by a combination of the next two largest naval powers, France and Spain, but had alienated much of the rest of the Continent. In attempts to prevent the Baltic powers from shipping essential naval supplies of timber, hemp, tar, canvas and iron to her enemies, Britain had insisted upon the right to seize neutral ships carrying contraband items. In 1780 Russia, Sweden and Denmark-Norway formed the League of
Armed Neutrality to resist British pretensions, and in 1781 Britain attacked the Netherlands in an effort to pre-empt them reinforcing the opposition. Yet the British people were war and tax weary, and as Lord North’s government tottered beneath an avalanche of criticism, it was apparent that a new administration would have to wash its hands of America in order to settle its more threatening differences in Europe.

To command a man-of-war during those final years of the conflict undeniably offered opportunities, but the glory and prize money that interested Captain Nelson continued to slip through his fingers. Biographers have generally drawn a veil over what was plainly a frustrating period, and yet the cruises of ‘the poor
Albemarle
’ were not devoid of interest. Horatio recovered his health, advanced in experience and confidence and widened those all-important contacts to include senior admirals and royalty. He also enjoyed, or suffered, the pangs of first love.

But if Horatio had been asked for words to describe his first voyage in the
Albermarle
, he might have chosen ‘cold’, ‘dull’ and ‘drudgery’. It began at twelve noon on 31 October 1781, when one of Nelson’s nine-pounders signalled his departure from the Downs with the
Argo
(Captain John Butchart) and
Enterprize
(John Willett Payne). Four days across the North Sea, through the Skagerrak and into the Baltic Sound, brought the trio to Elsinore (Helsingor). Nelson found fifty British merchantmen waiting for him, and heard that twice as many were on their way, so he endured a few more weeks ‘almost . . . froze’, trying to gather as many charges as possible. Showing increasing confidence, young Nelson upbraided a Danish midshipman who came on board to enquire the purpose and strength of his forces. Sensitive to national honour, and incensed that a mere midshipman had been sent to speak to him, Nelson curtly informed the unfortunate Dane that he was at liberty to count the
Albemarle
’s guns as he went down her side, and to assure his superiors that they would be well served if ever the need arose. Eventually Nelson sent a boat to the castle of Cronenberg, and it was decided that a fifteen-gun salute on the part of both parties would satisfy pride all round.
¹

On 19 November the
Sampson
arrived and her captain, William Dickson, assumed overall command as the senior officer. Nelson gave him a list of fifty-nine sail ready to receive orders, but warned that another fifty sitting in the roadstead wanted to ‘run’ for home and chance the enemy rather than wait for the convoy to be completed.
The rebellious skippers complained that some of the Baltic merchantmen would not arrive before Christmas and there was a danger of being iced in. Although their orders required them to wait for the whole of the merchant fleet to assemble, Nelson convinced Dickson that they should leave with the ships they had rather than wait indefinitely for stragglers. But they were anticipated by the master of the twelve-gun Hull merchantman
Crow Isle
, who cajoled sixty or more of the merchantmen into a sudden departure by promising to act as their escort. The winds were unfavourable, but on 7 December the rebels put to sea, ignoring a warning gun fired by the
Sampson
.

The next day Dickson and Nelson followed with their convoy, and soon three warships, the
Albemarle
,
Sampson
and
Argo
, and two hundred and sixty merchantmen were spread across a vast expanse of sea. They were vulnerable, but no enemy ships seemed to be about and apart from bad weather the voyage proceeded quietly. Early on the 13th Nelson pursued a suspicious cutter approaching the convoy but failed to run it down. It was, he fumed, ‘Fall the pirate’, who had recently harassed the Scottish coast under French colours. Most of the time was spent more tediously, shepherding the undisciplined merchantmen forward. ‘Very few of the ships paid the least attention to any signals that were made for the better conducting them safe home,’ he complained.
²

The convoy soon fragmented. Forty-five separated on the 11th, and off the Dogger Bank Captain Payne, who had joined with the
Enterprize
, led another detachment away towards the northeastern ports. The
Argo
ran into the Humber with a few of the ships, while the
Albemarle
and
Sampson
reached Yarmouth with most of the others on 17 December. Nelson was now bound for the Downs with those ships for the Thames, Portsmouth and Plymouth, but as one year turned into another the weather was fitfully appalling. His frigate was penned in Yarmouth for almost two weeks by fresh southerly gales.

Captain Nelson spent an unusual Christmas 1781 fretting at his inability to get to sea. There were advantages in being close to home, and his brother William was among several who visited him at Yarmouth, but enforced idleness encouraged dissatisfaction in the crew. Already undermanned, the ship lost more men through desertions and discharges in Elsinore and Yarmouth, including some petty officers.
A midshipman deserted at Yarmouth, while an excellent master’s mate recommended by Captain Locker asked for his discharge so that he might join a ship bound for America with Admiral George Rodney. Another midshipman, George Mitchell, also left after difficulties with bills. Nelson had placed the boy with other midshipmen and master’s mates in Bromwich’s mess. Every member of the mess was expected to contribute to its upkeep, but Mitchell soon declared that he was incapable of keeping pace and insisted upon leaving the ship. Nelson was not unsympathetic; indeed, he was advancing money to another youngster (probably John Wood of Yarmouth, a captain’s servant) ‘whose friends are Norfolk people who had not made an allowance for their son’. But he was annoyed to learn that the impecunious ‘middy’ was going around claiming that Nelson had told him that at least £30 a year were needed to maintain a place aboard the
Albemarle
. ‘What in the name of God could it be to me whether a midshipman in my ship had not a farthing or fifty pounds a year?’ he stormed to Locker.
³

With the
Argo
,
Sampson
and
Preston
(Captain Patrick Leslie) Nelson finally got the convoy free of Yarmouth on New Year’s Eve, and made a difficult run into the Downs, which he entered on the night of 1 January 1782 with up to forty merchantmen and naval store ships in company. The commanding officer in the Downs, Baronet Sir Richard Hughes, rear admiral of the blue squadron, detailed the
Argo
and
Preston
to chaperone the ships bound for the western ports, but kept Nelson awaiting the Admiralty’s pleasure. Unfortunately, the weather deteriorated and the
Albemarle
was imprisoned again. For a month the gales drove his ship ‘from one end of the Downs to the other’ and strewed the coast with wrecks. Off Yarmouth alone thirteen sail were on shore in the middle of January. Ravaged by the raw winds, Nelson fell so sick that he believed the doctor saved his life, and realised that Captain Locker’s misgivings about the
Albemarle
had been justified.
⁴

The ship embroiled Nelson in a short-tempered exchange with his superior officer. Sir Richard Hughes was in his fifties and came from a naval family. Both his father and grandfather had been commissioners of the navy at Portsmouth, and though Hughes himself had served in all the principal theatres of naval operations his services had been routine rather than distinguished and administrative rather than active. For many years he commanded guard ships at Plymouth and Portsmouth, and prior to his appointment to the Downs had served as naval commissioner at Halifax in Nova Scotia. A sightless eye
suggested a little colour to his career, perhaps, but Hughes had sustained the injury at the table, not in battle. In his twenties he had accidentally pierced an eyeball with a dining fork.
⁵

Scholars have missed Nelson’s brief falling out with Hughes in 1782. It was insignificant in itself, but generated bad blood between the two men that affected subsequent and more notable altercations. The pitiable state of the
Albemarle
was the root of the problem. As Locker had foreseen, she sailed ‘exceedingly crank’. The
Albemarle
was no purpose-built warship: she was a merchantman, captured a couple of years before and converted for naval use. Before Nelson assumed command a report had noted her poor sailing and steering qualities, and on the voyage from Elsinore her new captain was forced to acknowledge that the masts were too long, and took a topgallant down to give the ship more stability in violent weather. The tempestuous journey from Yarmouth to the Downs confirmed that the frigate was dangerously top-heavy, and upon arrival Nelson applied for fifteen tons of iron ballast so that he could create additional buoyancy by packing the keelson at the bottom of the ship. Soon afterwards he wrote to Hughes again, this time in search of an anchor and cable to replace one ripped from the
Albemarle
by a gale that swept the Downs on 9 January.
⁶

Nelson had inconvenienced Hughes from the beginning. When his convoy had first been spotted beating towards the Downs in foul weather, Hughes doubted that the ships were English, and dithered over whether to risk sending out help. In the event, wind and tide precluded the attempt, but Hughes started complaining about the need for convoys to identify themselves more clearly. Now, writing from his flagship, the
Dromedary
, Hughes replied artlessly to Nelson’s request for an anchor and cable. The demand for both had been so great, he said, that few were left, and he had to issue them sparingly. Nelson was instructed to use his ‘utmost endeavors to sweep [recover] the end of the cable that you parted in the last gale of wind’, a task Hughes supposed easy since the position of the sunken anchor had been marked by a buoy and the weather had moderated. ‘It is at least necessary that you should make every possible effort to perform this service,’ Hughes went on, ‘as I cannot direct you to be supplied with any anchor or cable from hence.’
⁷

Hughes did Nelson less than justice, as the logs of the
Albemarle
demonstrate. The weather remained poor for a day or two after the frigate lost its anchor, but as soon as it moderated on 11 January
Nelson had indeed searched for the missing equipment, if without success. Nothing irritated him more than to be undervalued or presumed negligent.

To some officers, Hughes’s letter would have prompted little more than suppressed annoyance, but Horatio Nelson was always a deeply sensitive man, badly scorched by slights, however small. Moreover, intelligent and capable, he was increasingly confident and outspoken, proud not only of his independence of mind but also the fearlessness with which he expressed it. Strength and authority had begun to ooze from his assertions. When his brother reported local animosity to an officer of Nelson’s acquaintance, he rose powerfully to his defence. ‘Whatever may be the opinion of the Wells people respecting Captain [Alan] Gardner’s behaviour . . .,’ he wrote, ‘I will answer he was
right
. There is not a better officer, or more of a gentleman this day in the service.’ With all the assurance and ideals of intemperate youth, Nelson was already viewing himself a champion of the true purposes and interests of the service, and reacted badly to criticism.
⁸

Hughes touched a raw spot and Nelson dashed off a short but fierce reply the same day. He resented the suggestion that he would request a new anchor lightly as a slur on his professionalism. ‘I am very sorry you should have so bad an opinion of my conduct as to suppose that every effort had not and would not be made to sweep the anchor,’ he told Hughes on 12 January. ‘I knew if the weather was moderate we could get it with ease, but at the same time I thought it my duty to demand another anchor and cable that no accident might happen to His Majesty’s ship [in the meantime] through my neglect.’ The cable on his anchor was, in any case, ‘so very bad that I must request you will be pleased to order another for us.’ In other words, if a mishap befell the
Albemarle
for the want of an anchor, it would be on Hughes’s head.
⁹

Nelson got his ballast and his anchor and cable, but Hughes neither apologised for nor referred to the perceived insult. He had not intended to offend Nelson, or to charge him with incompetence, and should have said so. He was probably embarrassed and angered by Nelson’s rebuke, and tried to hurry the incident by, but he had created a lasting bad impression in the younger officer’s mind.