which did increase his popularity with the mob, but cost him
many friends.
The first of these three passages in his life is full of events which must, however, be told briefly. In May he sailed for the Mediterranean with Hood, and was engaged under his orders in the occupation of Toulon by the allied British and Spanish forces. In August 1793 he was despatched to Naples to convoy the troops which the Neapolitan government had undertaken to contribute towards the garrison of Toulon. It was on this occasion that he made the acquaintance of Emma Hamilton (q.v.), the wife of Sir William Hamilton, minister at the Court of Naples. References to Lady Hamilton begin to appear in his letters to his wife, but, as might be expected, they indicate little beyond respectful admiration, and he makes a good deal of her kindness to his stepson, Josiah Nisbet, whom he had taken to sea. Young Nisbet was afterwards promoted to post captain, and was put in command of a frigate at an improperly early age by Nelson’s interest. He proved quite unworthy, and in the end died mad. After the allies had been driven from Toulon by Napoleon, Nelson was employed throughout 1794 in the operations connected with the occupation of Corsica. In April and May he was engaged in the capture of Bastia, and June and July in the taking of Calvi. Both towns really surrendered from want of stores, but the naval brigades under Nelson’s personal direction were conspicuously active, and their energy was favourably contrasted with the alleged formality of the troops. During the operations at Calvi, Nelson’s right eye was destroyed by gravel driven into it by a cannon shot which struck the ground close to him. From the date of the occupation of Corsica till the island was evacuated, that is to say, from the end of 1794 till the middle of 1796, he was incessantly active. He served under Hotham, who undertook the command when Hood returned to England, and was engaged in the indecisive actions fought by him in the Gulf of Lyons in March and July 1795. The easy-going ways of the new admiral fretted the eager spirit of Nelson, and Hotham’s placid satisfaction with the trifling result of his encounters with the French provoked his subordinate into declaring that, for his part, he would never think that the British fleet had done very well if a single ship of the enemy got off while there was a possibility of taking her. His zeal found more satisfaction when he was detached to the Riviera of Genoa, where, first as captain, and then as commodore, he had an opportunity to prove his qualities for independent command by harassing the communications of the French, and co-operating with the Austrians. In Sir John Jervis, who superseded Hotham, he found a leader after his own heart. When Spain, after first making peace with France at Basel, declared war on England, and the fleet under Jervis withdrew from the Mediterranean, Nelson was despatched to Elba on a hazardous mission to bring off the small garrison and the naval stores. He sailed in the “Minerve” frigate, having another with him. After a smart action with two Spanish frigates which he took off Carthagena on the 20th of December, and a narrow escape from a squadron of Spanish line of battle ships, he fulfilled his mission, and rejoined the flag of Jervis on the eve of the great battle off Cape St Vincent on the 14th of February 1797 (see St Vincent, Battle of). The judgment, independence and promptitude he showed in this famous engagement, were rewarded by the conspicuous part he had in the victory, and revealed him to the nation as one of the heroes of the navy. Nelson receiving the swords of the Spanish officers on the deck of the “San Josef” became at once a popular figure.
A few days after the victory he became rear-admiral by seniority, but continued with Jervis, who was made a peer under the title of Earl St Vincent. Nelson’s own services were recognized by the grant of the knighthood of the Bath. During the trying months in which the fleet was menaced by the Sedition then rife in the navy, which came to a head in the mutinies at Spithead and the Nore, he remained with the flag, and in the blockade of Cadiz. In July 1797 he was sent on a desperate mission to Santa Cruz de Tenerife. It was believed that a Spanish Manilla ship carrying treasure had anchored at that place, and Lord St Vincent was desirous of depriving the enemy of this resource. The enterprise was, in fact, rash in the last degree, for the soldiers from the garrisons of Elba and Corsica having gone home, no troops were available for the service, and a fortified town was to be taken by man-of-war boats alone. Nelson’s well-established character for daring marked him out for a duty which could only succeed by dash and surprise, if it was to succeed at all. But the Spaniards were on the alert, and the attack, made with the utmost daring on the night of the 24th of July, was repulsed with heavy loss. Some of the boats missed the mole in the dark and were stove in by the surf, others which found the mole were shattered by the fire of the Spaniards. Nelson’s right elbow was shot through, and he fell back into the boat from which he was directing the attack. The amputation of his arm was badly performed in the hurry and the dark. He was invalided home, and spent months of extreme pain in London and at Bath. On the 10th of April 1798 he came back to the fleet off Cadiz as rear-admiral, with his flag in the “Vanguard” (74).
He was now one of the most distinguished officers in the navy. Within the next six months he was to raise himself far above the heads of all his contemporaries. It was notorious that a great armament was preparing at Toulon for some unknown destination. To discover its purpose, and to defeat it, the British government resolved to send their naval forces again into the Mediterranean, and Nelson was chosen for the command by Jervis, with whom the immediate decision lay, but also by ministers.
Having joined the flag of Lord St Vincent outside of the straits of Gibraltar on the 30th of April, Nelson was detached on the 2nd of May into the Mediterranean, with three line-of-battle ships and five frigates, to discover the aim of the Toulon armament. Napoleon had, however, enforced rigid secrecy, and the British admiral had to confess that the French were better than the British at concealing their plans. Beyond the fact that a powerful combined force was collected in the French port he could learn nothing. On the 20th of May the “Vanguard” was dismasted in a gale. Nelson bore the check in a highly characteristic manner. “I ought not,” he wrote, “to call what has happened by the cold name of accident; but I believe firmly that it was the Almighty’s goodness to check my consummate vanity.” The “Vanguard” was saved from going on shore by the seaman-like skill of Captain Ball of the “Alexander” against whom Nelson had hitherto had a prejudice, but for whom he had henceforth a peculiar regard. The “Vanguard” was refitted by the exertions of her own crew under cover of the little island of San Pietri on the southern coast of Sardinia. In the meantime the frigates attached to his command had returned to Gibraltar, in the erroneous belief that the liners would be taken there to make good the damage suffered in the gale. “I thought Hope would have known me better,” said Nelson. On the 30th of April he was off Toulon again, only to find that the French were gone, and that he could not learn whither they were steering. Racked by anxiety and deprived of his best means of obtaining information by the disappearance of his frigates, he remained cruising till he was joined, on the 7th of June, by Troubridge with ten sail of the line. And now he started on his fierce pursuit of the enemy, seeking him in the dark, for there were no scouts at hand; exasperated at being left without the eyes of his fleet; half maddened at the thought he might, by no fault of his own, miss the renown towards which his prophetic imagination had seemed to guide him; knowing that St Vincent would be blamed for choosing so young an admiral; but resolved to follow the enemy to the antipodes if necessary. From the coast of Sardinia to Naples, from Naples to Messina, from Messina to Alexandria, from Alexandria, where he found the roadstead empty, back to Sicily, and then when at last a ray of light came to him, back to Alexandria—he swept the central and eastern Mediterranean. At no time in his life were the noble qualities of his nature displayed more entirely free from all alloy. He was an embodied flame of resolution, and as yet he showed no sign of the vulgar bluster which was to appear
