Nelson: Britannia's God of War (5 page)

Plagued by ill health Locker had to invalid home, but he made sure that Nelson moved over to HMS
Bristol
, the flagship of Admiral Sir Peter Parker, in July 1778. At the same time, Suckling died suddenly, although the news took three months to reach Jamaica. The true significance of his uncle to his career prospects is painfully obvious from Nelson’s response. He knew that among Suckling’s last acts had been to write to Parker on his behalf.
⁷
Already Parker’s first lieutenant, and thus marked for early promotion, he became master and commander of the brig HMS
Badger
in December. On 11 June 1779 he was appointed post captain, taking command of the small frigate HMS
Hinchinbrooke
when a death among the captains on station enabled Parker to promote his own son out of her into a better ship. Parker had the authority to fill such ‘death vacancies’ and with France now engaged in the war no one would question his action.

While waiting at Port Royal, Jamaica, for his new command, Nelson had time to extend his local contacts from the Admiral and Lady Parker, who treated him as a surrogate son, through Locker’s friend the planter Hercules Ross, to the Governor, Major-General John Dalling. Dalling had served at the capture of Quebec with the immortal Wolfe, and regaled his friends with stories of combined
operations, matchless heroism and timely death that would inspire Nelson for the rest of his life.
⁸
With the French heading for Jamaica Nelson was given command of the main battery protecting Port Royal Harbour. When the danger passed the ambitious Dalling developed a plan to cut Spanish central America in half, opening a two-front campaign by ascending the San Juan River into Lake Nicaragua, and moving on to the Pacific coast. Parker was unenthusiastic, but after registering his concerns he detached Nelson to escort the expedition.

Striking a pose: Nelson volunteering to board a prize in a gale

 

With only sketchy maps, and little local knowledge, the troops soon ran into difficulties: even entering the river proved beyond their competence. Nelson offered his assistance without hesitation, bringing boats and seamen to get the troops moving. Although he had no authority to join the expedition, he could see that without his help the project was doomed. The river, in the dry season, proved to be shallow and rocky, enclosed by dank jungle harbouring clouds of mosquitoes. Unaware that these carried malaria, the men were more concerned by larger threats – snakes, crocodiles and jaguars. After ten days they overpowered a Spanish outpost, and moved up to Fort San Juan, a small hilltop work of masonry commanding the river. Nelson urged Colonel Polson to storm the place, despite the lack of ladders and artillery ammunition. Polson disagreed, and settled down to a regular siege. The logistics of bombarding a stone fort with tiny four-pounder cannon, far from the sea, were challenging. With the weather about to break time was of the essence, and only Nelson’s skill and drive had got the soldiers this far. But the course he proposed was highly risky, and Nelson himself contracted tropical sprue, which soon led to severe dysentery, after drinking from a stagnant pool. His life was probably saved when Parker ordered him back to command a larger frigate. The
Hinchinbrooke
passed to Cuthbert Collingwood, although most of her crew died on the lethal coast. The Fort finally fell, but the expedition petered out as the rains came, leaving a terrible legacy of illness and death among all those who took part.
⁹

Arriving at Port Royal in a litter, Nelson was lauded by Dalling, and brought to the attention of the Secretary of State. He was too sick to take command of his new ship. Captain William Cornwallis rescued him from the charnel house that was the naval hospital by placing him in the care of released slave women, who treated him with local remedies and kept him isolated.
¹⁰
Later, Lady Parker took him to the admiral’s house. His health shattered, the doctors were convinced that he needed a change of climate, and in September he went home on Cornwallis’s HMS
Lion
.
The care of Cornwallis, and of Locker once he reached London, allowed him to join his hypochondriac father who was taking the waters at Bath. But his recovery took a long time, and his limbs were still partially paralysed months later.

By May 1781, however, he was well enough to apply for another ship, and in early August he was given the twenty-eight-gun frigate HMS
Albemarle
, recently converted from a French armed store-ship.
Nelson’s biographers have accepted his claims that it was a merit appointment at face value.
¹¹
But Nelson had done nothing to command favourable notice; he was very young and there were many officers waiting for employment. In reality this was another example of patronage at work, and once again his uncle had provided the necessary interest. This time it was William Suckling, now Deputy Collector of Customs, who contacted Charles Jenkinson, Secretary at War. Suckling also had the ear of the Prime Minister, Lord North, and his nephew looked to these connections for employment in peacetime.
¹²

Jenkinson wrote to the First Lord of the Admiralty, Lord Sandwich, in February 1781, asking for Nelson to be employed – because he was Maurice Suckling’s nephew, and he bore a good character.
¹³
While Sandwich claimed to make such appointments by seniority,
¹⁴
and did not interview Nelson for three months,
¹⁵
Jenkinson’s support gave him the edge over his competitors. By the time Suckling followed up his initial approach to Jenkinson in April, he was told the job was already done.
¹⁶
Had Maurice Suckling lived, Nelson might have been given a better ship.

In the meantime, he had returned to Rigaud’s studio to complete the portrait sittings. The fresh-faced youth of four years ago had gone, replaced by a confident post captain, with Fort San Juan in the background, representing his proudest achievement to date. The face had to be repainted; the subject was now thinner, and rather pale.
¹⁷

Even so it is a remarkable image, portraying an assured master of his art, hardly past twenty, yet a veteran of war, competent to command the largest ships afloat.

*

Nelson took over his new ship in mid-August 1781 while she lay in dry dock at Woolwich. It would be another three months before she went to sea, in company with two other cruisers, to pick up a large convoy at Elsinore, where the Danish Crown secured the Sound Dues from ships passing the narrow waterway connecting the North Sea with the Baltic. (He would return with more serious intent twenty years later.) The convoy, some 260 ships, was highly important, carrying vital supplies of timber, rope, tar, turpentine and masts for the hard-pressed Navy. By late November the merchant ships were ready, and after a frustrating passage, with the
Albemarle
constantly chasing the laggards, the convoy reached Great Yarmouth. But a fortnight later, the
Albemarle
was run down and badly damaged by a large merchant ship.

Nelson was detained at Portsmouth for the next four months while she was repaired, before escorting a convoy to Quebec. Cruising in Boston Bay in mid-August 1782, he was pursued by four French battleships and a frigate, but avoided trouble by sailing into shoal water. By mid-September he was back in Quebec. The month-long stay there brought him better health, another lifelong friendship, and a love affair with a local beauty. Fortunately his new friend, the merchant and contractor Alexander Davison, persuaded him to follow his orders to escort troopships to New York, rather than chase a sixteen-year-old coquette.

Nelson’s heart was set on battle and glory: the pinnacle of his ambition was to command a ship of the line on the West Indies station. For on 12 April, while Nelson lay at Spithead, patching up his makeshift frigate, the British and French fleets had clashed in the Saintes passage. Admiral Rodney’s fleet smashed through the French line, taking six ships, including the flagship of their admiral the Comte de Grasse. In an afternoon the threat to Jamaica was removed and the reputation of the Royal Navy restored. Such glory earned two British admirals, Rodney and Hood, peerages and national adulation. For the young Captain Nelson, it fired his imagination and fuelled his dreams: commanding a line-of-battle ship was clearly the royal road to glory. When Nelson reached New York the hero of the hour, Sir Samuel, now Lord, Hood was there with his fleet, about to return south. Having been a friend of Maurice Suckling, Hood was predisposed to favour his nephew. According to Nelson’s version, Hood was soon convinced that the charming young captain was a man after his own heart, dedicated to glory rather than profit. In truth Hood’s rationale was more prosaic, and more obvious. Nelson was an experienced West Indian officer, from whom he obtained valuable information concerning the local navigation around Jamaica and Hispaniola.
¹⁸

When Nelson went aboard Hood’s flagship he met His Royal Highness Prince William, later Duke of Clarence and King William IV, who was serving as a midshipman. When the slightly built, incongruously youthful captain, dressed in old-fashioned clothes, came on board, the Prince wondered who he could be.

Little wonder that Hood persuaded Admiral Digby to release Nelson’s ship to accompany the fleet back to the West Indies. His confidence was repaid when the
Albemarle
picked up a French transport packed with masts, of which the fleet was desperately short. Overwhelmed by the flattery of a great man, and the admiration of a prince, Nelson was in rapture, telling his professional confidant Locker: ‘He treats me as if I was his son … nor is my situation with Prince William less flattering.’
²⁰
Such high expectations were bound to be disappointed: neither Hood nor the prince would live up to Nelson’s hopes.

Desperate to gather some more glory before the war ended, Nelson, learning that the French had captured the tiny British possession of Turk’s Island in the southern Bahamas, formed a small squadron from ships in the area and attacked. Despite a bombardment, the French were well prepared, and the landing on 7 March was beaten off. Fortunately Nelson was not ashore, and recognised the island was not worth the cost of recapture with peace imminent.

He was right. The Peace of Paris had been signed in January 1783 and he was recalled to England. On 25 June the
Albemarle
dropped anchor at Spithead, paying off nine days later. Nelson took great satisfaction from the impact of his leadership: the entire crew offered to follow him to another ship. With the war over, however, this was unlikely. King George had lost his American colonies, but he had kept the prize sugar islands, while France and Spain had once more been put in their proper place at sea.

Nelson’s own position, nonetheless, had been immeasurably enhanced by the war. Not only had he risen from lieutenant to captain, he had acquired some useful patrons and was a welcome guest when Hood took him to a royal levee. He had a powerful circle of friends and contacts both in the Navy and among the merchants, traders and West Indian planters he had met on his travels. Equally important was the loyalty he commanded among junior officers and men from his ship. Their faith in him, expressed so forcibly at a time when other ships’ companies were close to mutiny, showed that though Horatio Nelson might be ‘the meerest boy of a captain’, he was already an inspirational leader of men. His seamanship had been demonstrated, and his tactical judgement, guided by Locker, honed in combat. Aggressive, flexible and dynamic, his style was based on a broad comprehension of his profession. That he was still alive suggested his constitution was robust – he had survived the worst the East and West Indies could offer.

Yet despite the apparent strength of Nelson’s position, he had no money. Although his well-placed uncle could help, his prospects were almost entirely dependent on further war service, and no one could guess when that opportunity would next arise. Several of his contemporaries would take their services to other navies – Russia, Sweden and Portugal all hired British captains – but Nelson’s emotional engagement hardly suited him to mercenary service. The American war had paved the way for Nelson’s greatness, but ultimately it proved to be only a preparatory stage. By 1782 Horatio Nelson had earned himself a footnote in history, but nothing more.