Nelson: Britannia's God of War (54 page)

Later the same day, Nelson was at the Admiralty, Downing Street and the Colonial Office, discussing the strategic situation with the Prime Minister, the First Lord and Secretary for War. He persuaded the doubters that Cadiz, now blockaded by Calder and Collingwood, was the key to success. If the Combined Fleet had not already met Cornwallis or Calder it had to be destroyed, or at worst completely neutralised, both to secure the Mediterranean elements of the coalition war plan and to ensure the invasion threat, now waning, was not suddenly revived just as when Britain was sending her regular troops abroad. Nelson was clearly the man for the job: his return from leave would be hastened, his forces increased, and his theatre extended, as he expressly desired, to Cape St Vincent.
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Now Nelson could really influence the British response to Bonaparte’s complex combinations. He had the opportunity to discuss the Mediterranean with ministers who were, albeit temporarily, anxious to listen. His emphasis on the need to secure Sardinia was quickly accepted, although his advice that General Mack was ‘a rascal, a scoundrel, and a coward’ came too late to prevent the catastrophe at Ulm. On 4 September Nelson was back at the Admiralty to settle his orders with Barham.
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He showed them to Minto that night.
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Fresh instructions went to Collingwood:
Victory
had been detailed to join Cornwallis on 30 September, but was reserved while Hardy reported himself fit for service.

Nelson would go to Portsmouth when his flagship was ready to sail, although his clothes, papers and furniture left Merton on 5 September.
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Orders for Vice Admiral Sir Charles Cotton to take command off Cadiz were cancelled, and Calder was recalled to account for failing to renew his action. News that the camp at Boulogne was breaking up arrived the same day. The scene was shifting to the south:
the best that Britain could do to aid her partners was to act quickly in the Mediterranean, open the sea-lanes for Russian and Austrian troops, and secure the key islands. Nelson would command from Istanbul and Suez to Cape St Vincent, with wide latitude to act. His instructions were to prevent the enemy putting to sea and protect trade – everything else was left to his judgement.

By 6 September the new orders were nearly ready at the Admiralty, but there were still details to settle. Hydrographer Alexander Dalrymple and ‘Bounty’ Bligh provided new charts and other intelligence for his station; John McArthur sent his new book on courts martial; Nile hero Saumarez, now commanding off Guernsey, sent in Nelson’s wine; while the Foreign Secretary promised to place a British consul on Sardinia, and found £40,000 to help Nelson secure the island.
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With every minute a precious resource, Nelson cannot have been pleased by the bombardment of begging letters from friends, relatives, old shipmates and complete strangers, though he managed to answer many of the letters, and pressed Barham to appoint worthy men like Berry. His main concerns, however, were to secure enough ships to annihilate the enemy, and to keep Collingwood as his second.
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Nelson and Emma dined at James Craufurd’s on 10 September, providing Whig circles with an opportunity to understand a hero they had affected to discount. Craufurd was a denizen of Devonshire House, the Whig social centre, and his guests included Lady Elizabeth Foster, mistress of the Duke and confidante of his wife, Georgiana, and her sister Harriet, Lady Bessborough. Lady Bessborough retailed the story to her lover:

The final thought expresses, as well as a civilian audience could understand, the terrible pressures of fleet command, and the awesome
responsibility he took when making the great decisions of 1805. He knew that one wrong choice could ruin his reputation.

Lady Bessborough’s well-drawn portrait of Nelson demonstrates that he was aware of his vanity, but kept it under control. Emma’s part in the little exchange presages the part that she would play in the years to come, embellishing a particular version of the man she loved, but clearly did not understand. Nelson was no fool, even in smart society. He won over Lady Elizabeth by promising to deliver a letter to her son, serving with the fleet. It was a charge he executed with his customary consideration.
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The significance of the dinner was not merely social, however. The inter-party struggle for power in the autumn of 1805, as both Pitt’s ministry and his health began to falter, was intense. A projected Pitt-Fox coalition had been blocked by the King and every scrap of success was vital political capital. As a national asset of the highest importance, the opposition might need Nelson.

On 11 September Nelson went up to London again, calling at the White House in Richmond Park to see Addington, now Lord Sidmouth, where he explained and drew on a dusty table his concept of the ideal battle, cutting the enemy line in two places.
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There was also another purpose to his visit, but Sidmouth refused the offer of his proxy vote.
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Nelson was still interested in politics, and trusted this rather colourless figure above the great men of the age.

The following day he took his leave of Pitt, pressing him to ensure the fleet was adequate to the real need, to annihilate the enemy. Pitt undertook to do this, and when Nelson departed, he rose and accompanied him to his carriage: a gesture of admiration and respect that gratified Nelson’s craving for recognition.
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He called at the Admiralty on his way out of town, to ensure that the new edition of Sir Home Popham’s signal code was sent to the fleet. This important addition to the signalling capabilities of ships and fleets had been devised by Popham a few years earlier, and tested in service. It enabled ships to signal specific information, rather than general predetermined statements, and was a major step forward in ship-to-ship communication. Nelson’s concern to have the code for his fleet was typical: he had already used it, and could see that it would be of enormous value for the future. He took fifty copies with him when he sailed south.

During his last visit to the Colonial Office, on 12 September, he met his one-time Indian correspondent General Sir Arthur Wellesley in the
Minister’s anteroom. According to Wellesley’s account, this famous meeting of heroes began with Nelson rambling on about himself, in a vainglorious style more suited to public occasions. But everything changed once he discovered he was talking not just to a young major-general, but to a man he knew by reputation and correspondence –who had fought and won battles that did as much to keep India British as the Nile. Now Nelson changed tack: with astonishing swiftness, the conversation turned into a brilliant, incisive discussion of war, politics and strategy, between two professional, reflective warriors. Thirty years later Wellesley, by now the hero of Waterloo and Prime Minister, observed, ‘I don’t know that I ever had a conversation that interested me more.’
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The same morning – typifying the incessant demands on Nelson’s time – he was summoned to Carlton House to meet his new ‘friend’, the Prince of Wales.
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After the alarms of 1801 the Prince had not occupied much of Nelson’s attention, but George, already descending into the opium-fuelled delusions that would dominate his later life, was anxious to touch the hand of glory, although his father had denied him any role in the war. The call, though it showed royal support to the national hero at the appropriate moment, the King being at Weymouth for sea-bathing, was quite unnecessary. Nelson had the admiration of the country, the love of the people, the respect of the political classes, and the acclaim of his profession. What need had he of Princes?

The Prince delayed Nelson and Emma’s return to Merton, where they found their dinner guests Lord Minto, and neighbours James Perry and his wife, had already arrived. After a quiet evening with his friends and his mistress Nelson spent the following day, Friday 13 th, at home. He took a chaise for Portsmouth around 10.30 p.m., arriving shortly before dawn. As he left, his thoughts and prayers were with his daughter, taking a last chance to entrust her soul to his God as she slept. He entrusted his own fate to divine providence, and if his life were cut short he relied on his God to ‘protect those so dear to me’.

The next morning he walked through Portsmouth, took a boat out and hoisted his flag on the
Victory
. He was accompanied by two of Pitt’s confidants, George Canning, Treasurer of the Navy, and George Rose, Vice-President of the Board of Trade. The crowd pressed in, touching his coat, kneeling, praying, crying and cheering: the short walk to the beach was later written up as the redeemer’s entry into
Jerusalem. Whether Nelson picked up that impression, he was certainly moved, turning to Hardy and observing: ‘I had their huzzas before, I have their hearts now!’ Only now did he realise quite how popular he was.