Nelson: Britannia's God of War (7 page)

Nelson encountered another example of Hughes’ lax approach to naval regulations when he arrived at Antigua for repairs in early February 1785. He found the
Latona
flying a Commodore’s pendant: as her captain was Nelson’s junior, he ordered that it be struck, but Hughes had directed Commissioner Moutray to act in a military capacity in his absence. This was clearly in breach of regulations, since Moutray’s post was purely civil. Why Hughes chose to act in this way is unclear, but Nelson was correct. It did not help that the drunken and ailing Captain Sandys, for whom Nelson had already expressed his contempt, was at the centre of the affair.
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But the Admiralty, while agreeing with him, considered he should have resolved the matter with Hughes. Taken together, the illegal trade and pendant issues showed Nelson to be a well-informed, confident young captain, who was prepared to take a stand on principle, with the moral courage and personal authority to make his case. Feeble, second-rate officers placed over him soon discovered that his loyalty was only given to those of superior merit, not superior rank.

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When Moutray and his charming wife returned to England Nelson needed another female focus for his emotional dependence. Like many young officers, he found local society often resembled a marriage market, with eligible young women paraded before potential suitors. Nelson might be a master of his profession, but he had yet to show any talent in affairs of the heart, where his rather too obvious desperation and failure to empathise had already led him to make a fool of himself on at least two occasions. This time he was more reserved, suppressing his greatest asset, the charming conversation that appealed to all ages and both sexes.

One of his few friends and supporters among the planters was John Herbert, President of Nevis, who stood surety for him in a legal case arising from the American ship seizures. In the President’s imposing mansion, Nelson met Frances Nisbet, Herbert’s niece, a widow of about his own age with a five-year-old son. Unlike the girls he had hitherto taken to heart, Fanny needed Nelson at least as much as he needed her. It was a relationship of the desperate: a single mother and a penniless, almost friendless naval officer. Fanny was looking for a way out of her current situation, and Herbert encouraged the relationship,
flattering Nelson and promising him money that never appeared. However, Herbert was determined to keep Fanny, who was a useful part of his household, until it was time for him to move to England in 1787.

Frances Nelson,
née
Nisbet

 

If Nelson’s letters are to be trusted, there was little passion in the relationship.
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As he explained: ‘Duty is the great business of a sea officer. All private considerations must give way to it, however painful it is.’
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At least he was honest. It would be duty that took him away from her, and duty that attracted him to other women. For Nelson duty was the drug, the spur, the key –  it dominated his conscious life. He closed his life with the words: ‘Thank God I have done my duty.’

It was on young Josiah Nisbet that the Nelson charm worked its effect most immediately, and through the boy Nelson secured a place in his mother’s heart. It is revealing that Nelson saw much of Mary Moutray in Fanny, both in her looks and her manners. Such sentiments tell us what he was looking for in this relationship, and explain why the marriage lacked sparkle. Needing a maternal relationship he borrowed Josiah’s mother. Only when he needed a mother to nurse him, after Tenerife, did he truly appreciate Fanny. She served many functions for Nelson, but there is no indication that she quickened his
pulse, or occupied his thoughts when they were apart. His letters remained matter-of-fact, little different from those he sent to friends and relatives. Fanny, meanwhile, had no desire to live in society and never exerted herself to move in Nelson’s world. She sought quiet and calm. The fact that she clung to old Edmund, an aged hypochondriac parson, has often been cited as evidence of her innate goodness, but it is also an indication of her wishes.

As Herbert would not provide adequately for his niece in his own lifetime, Nelson was left to beg Suckling for an allowance. Once again he found it awkward and embarrassing, and was upset when Suckling did not respond with enthusiasm. As ever with Nelson, astonishing ambition and prudent foresight collided. He could have managed without the money, even as a married man.

However, all that was in the future. Before the marriage could be concluded, two years after the initial meeting, Nelson would face further challenges. The greatest of these concerned a young prince, and exposed the flaw in his hitherto stiff and correct application of service protocol. The relaxed regime of Admiral Hughes came to an end in August 1786, leaving Nelson as senior officer on the station. In December the frigate
Pegasus
arrived, commanded by a newly made twenty-one-year-old captain, His Royal Highness Prince William Henry. The Prince’s rapid promotion from midshipman to captain without any service in the intervening grades, allied to his limited capacity for reflection, did not promise well. William needed to spend time, as Nelson had, serving under a first-rate sea-officer like Locker. As First Lord of the Admiralty Lord Howe knew this, urging the King not to promote him out of turn. When the King insisted, Howe appointed one of Hood’s protégés, the thirty-four-year-old Lieutenant Isaac Schomberg, as first lieutenant of his ship. Nelson knew and respected Schomberg, but William was only too well aware that the older man had been sent to ensure that he did not lose his ship, or his life, through inexperience.

William was on something of a royal tour of the North American station: part public-relations exercise, part opportunity to further his education. On the surface, he was doing well: he had brought his ship to the pitch of perfection, striking all who saw her as neat, tidy and smoothly efficient. But he did not command the enthusiasm of his officers, or his rigidly controlled crew. William was in the habit of publicly dressing down the vastly more experienced Schomberg in the
presence of the other officers and high-ranking visitors. A more expeienced officer would have realised that the regulations on which William insisted needed to be tempered by common sense. An explosion was inevitable, and in the closely confined wooden world of an eighteenth-century frigate the tension at the top would affect the morale of the crew. Someone needed to take William aside and advise him to cool down.

Unfortunately Nelson had no intention of taking this vital role. Instead he saw a golden career opportunity: ‘It is in my interest to be well with the Prince.’
¹⁶
If William was to be a professional sea-officer, then he would need someone at his right hand to supply his deficiencies. The self-confident Nelson’s charm and professional knowledge evidently made a powerful impact on the impressionable young prince, who derived ‘vast pleasure from his instructive conversations about our Service in general, and concerning the illicit commerce carried on in these islands’.
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William’s petty tyranny, which seems to have been exacerbated by Nelson, led Schomberg to demand a court-martial. Nelson responded by placing him under arrest for a frivolous complaint − a feeble, non-committal gesture. He must have known that taking action against Schomberg would risk his own relationship with Hood, on whose advice the lieutenant had been appointed. Nelson had backed the wrong horse. William, as Nelson might have realised had his veneration for royalty and vaulting ambition not clouded his judgement, could hardly rise to the top of the national arm. When Howe rebuked William, and by extension Nelson, for their petty and preposterous conduct, the two men responded in typical fashion: Nelson wished he could undo his actions, and asked William to forgive Schomberg; the bull-headed William was having none of that, and proceeded to pick a quarrel with Hood as well.
¹⁸
Unlike his friend, William had family and position to fall back on, and could sacrifice his career to his pride. By transferring his hopes to William, Nelson had lost the confidence of Hood and Howe.
¹⁹
He would have the opportunity to reflect on the real balance of power in the service over the next five years.

Nelson’s connection with William did have one positive result, when the Prince used his authority and rank to force the procrastinating Herbert to hasten his marriage to Frances. The ceremony took place on ii March 1787 at Montpelier, Herbert’s palatial residence, and William insisted on taking the starring role by giving away the bride.

William also found Nelson a useful occupation to fill his last months on station, when he passed on a complaint about frauds in the local purchasing of government stores: a cartel of merchants was colluding to keep up prices and spread the rewards. This offered Nelson another opportunity to gain credit with Maurice Suckling’s successor at the Navy Board, Captain Charles Middleton: if his response was successful it could mark him out as a suitable man for a dockyard or Board appointment. Whatever his mistakes over the Prince, Nelson was still William Suckling’s nephew, in tune with the economic reform agenda of the age, and he would show the same determination and moral courage in assailing corruption and illegality as he had against the Spanish works on the San Juan river. But the affair brought Nelson no glory, and in any case his future did not lie in shipbuilding or administration. However, it did secure him an important friendship with George Rose, Secretary to the Treasury: a key confidant of Pitt and a name for the future.
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Nelson left the West Indies in June 1787, low in spirits, though this was probably more the result of boredom than real ill-health: he needed to be busy, active and at the forefront of events. A month later he anchored at Spithead, remained there for six weeks and then cruised round to the Nore. While the Dutch crisis remained unresolved the Admiralty was unwilling to pay off any ships, but Nelson found the wait demoralising. He was entitled to a spell ashore, he was newly married and if there was not going to be a war he might as well go home.

The
Boreas
was ventually paid off in late November 1787 and after various official and personal journeys the Nelsons arrived at Burnham in mid-1788. Initially they planned a brief visit before travelling to France to complete the linguistic studies interrupted four years earlier. Instead they ended up settling at the Rectory, where old Edmund found his naval son a source of great comfort as young Edmund slowly died. Fanny, however, as a child of the tropics, did not flourish in the biting cold winds of the open coast, often keeping to her bed for days on end.

Nelson’s complaints about being ignored should not be taken too seriously. Six years ashore for a young captain was hardly unusual in peacetime, especially after a four-year commission. In any case, these years, as well as allowing Nelson to indulge in a little ‘Capability’
Brown-style gardening and resume his place in local society, gave him the leisure to reflect on his career, and develop his professional understanding. He read the periodicals and the limited literature available; he studied charts, wrote and took in the wider political scene. His analysis of the link between local conditions and political unrest demonstrated a mastery of the labour market, the political claims of the radicals, and the most effective methods of securing the loyalty of lower orders. The people, while naturally loyal, required higher wages to remove the attraction of the radicals.
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It was an analysis that the Navy would have to adopt five years later.

Nelson’s evident mastery of the Navigation Acts and other legislation related to his profession stands in marked contrast to the failure of his efforts to master French. His acute intelligence was practical, not abstract. Nelson was not a deep or original thinker – such traits were ill-suited to the dynamic aggressive methods of junior leaders in 18 th century naval warfare. His great strength was a quick and clear grasp of issues, the ability to acquire, assimilate and assess large amounts of information, which then formed the basis of his decisions. Nelson’s detailed analysis also shows that he remained determined to play his part in current political events, rather than being the isolated, lonely figure implied by his correspondence

The one thing Nelson did not analyse with sufficient honesty was the value of his connection with the Prince. Unlike Nelson, William had been given another ship, more as a sop to the King, who wanted to keep him out of the way, than as a sign of approval of his conduct in the Schomberg affair. Yet Howe and Hood had already settled their views on William’s career prospects. He was a liability, and could not be given fleet command either in peace or war.
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William was created Duke of Clarence in 1789 and given a ship of the line in the Nootka Sound armament of 1790, unlike Nelson, but his quarrel with the King and increasing espousal of reform and the Whig cause in the House of Lords did nothing to endear him to Pitt’s ministry. With Lord Chatham, Pitt’s elder brother, at the Admiralty, and Hood as his principal professional adviser, William’s chances of employment were not good. Unlike his equally outspoken and wrong-headed brothers, William had the misfortune to serve in a professional force, where rank could not replace ability. After war broke out William was quickly booted upstairs to flag rank, where his lack of experience precluded any active service. Even so he remained optimistic, considering himself an ideal First Lord of the Admiralty and promising to reward Nelson once in high office.
²³
While making himself a thorough nuisance, William also ruined any hopes Nelson had of rising on his coat-tails.