Nelson (106 page)

The picture that emerges from these records is occasionally stark, but not in its finality unsatisfying. It appears that for all their disadvantages and difficulties, most of the Marine Society boys used their opportunities to build new careers for themselves at sea. No studies of the fortunes of such boys on other ships appear to have been made, but as far as the
Agamemnon
was concerned the Society would seem to have been a moderate success.

The practised hands, no less than boys, looked to the captain to mediate their needs and perplexities in a world that frequently baffled them. The seaman of the day was often portrayed as a simple soul. ‘Excluded by the employment which they have chosen from all society but people of similar dispositions,’ wrote an observing surgeon, ‘the deficiencies of education are not felt, and information on general affairs is seldom courted. Their pride consists in being reputed a thorough bred seaman, and they look upon all landmen as beings of inferior order. This is marked in a singular manner by applying the language of seamanship to every transaction of life, and sometimes with pedantic ostentation. Having little intercourse with the world, they are easily defrauded, and dupes to the deceitful, wherever they go; their money is lavished with the most thoughtless profusion; fine clothes for his girl, a silver watch and silver buckles for himself, are often the sole return for years of labour and hardship.’
¹²

Nelson realised that many of his men were far more complex, but
he was ready to assist them over everyday hurdles, great and small. He witnessed a legal document for John Brock, who granted a power of attorney to his wife to enable her to receive his money in England, and for others he kept an eye open for suitable promotions and a watch over their prize dues. It was also his custom to address a company when leaving a command, and to assure the men in his Norfolk drawl that his concern for them would continue and that he would be ever ready to answer their calls for assistance. Examples of his willingness to fulfil those obligations in earlier times will be remembered, and the men of the
Agamemnon
and
Captain
likewise benefited.
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Thus Robert Robinson, a boatswain of the
Captain
who later ran upon hard times, reminded Nelson that he had once told him he ‘should write if occasion required’. Even so humble a servant as Andrea Peri Romano, who had shaved and dressed Nelson when he stayed with a Mr North in Bastia in 1796, felt able to send an appeal. Many sailors remembered Nelson’s helping hand. A sailmaker of the
Captain
, fighting to escape imprisonment for debt, received written testimony that Nelson knew ‘this person very well’ and considered him ‘a worthy good man’. The Colletts – William, a gunner, and his son Isaac, a young gentleman of the
Agamemnon
– left testimony to their captain’s kindness, as did John Wilkinson, a Cumberland man, born in 1762. He served his apprenticeship in Irish colliers and shipped aboard traders and transports before being drafted into the
Agamemnon
. Nelson was impressed with his handling of the wheel during the Channel cruise of 1793, made him a boatswain’s mate and eventually got him promoted to the
Ganges
. When Wilkinson’s career subsequently stumbled, he wrote to his old benefactor, hoping he had not been ‘forgotten’, and was rewarded with an appointment as boatswain’s mate of a sloop. As a frail Greenwich pensioner he still recalled Nelson with a mixture of gratitude and awe:

It is truly gratifying to hear him speak of Nelson [wrote the interviewer]. ‘He was a daring man, sir,’ said he. ‘There was nothing he would not do if it came into his head. We could always tell of a morning, when he came on deck, whether we should have anything to do. When he came up with his ironbound hat on and his roast-beef coat, we knew he was up to something, and it used to be a sort of warning to us to get ready.’ The old man’s face will kindle as he speaks, and you see that he feels what he is talking of.
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The seamen who followed Nelson into the
Captain
were his most dedicated followers, and nearly all of them were young and vigorous. They included the twenty-four-year-old able seaman Tom Allen, a Sculthorpe ploughman with an almost incomprehensible Norfolk dialect; the Fearney boys of Newcastle, William twenty-four and James a year younger; Francis Cook, aged twenty-six, from Sudbury in Suffolk; Thomas Ramsay of Berwick, a sturdy man of middling height, but in his thirties or early forties; a twenty-six-year-old Lincolnshire man named John Sykes; Joseph King, a twenty-nine-year-old boatswain; and at least one American, a twenty-four-year-old able seaman, William Hayward.

Most were uncomplicated men, loyal, conscientious, valorous and fiercely protective of a commander they had come to rely upon for their employment, welfare and self-respect. King, for example, had been with Nelson in the
Boreas
, and would soon owe to him an appointment as boatswain in the Gibraltar dockyard. Despite the social gulf between the two, one an officer and gentleman of the quarterdeck and the other a petty officer of the lower deck, they became remarkably close. King worshipped Nelson, and acknowledged the many favours done him. When he heard that his old commander had been injured at Tenerife, he wrote from Gibraltar, recalling ‘that dreadful moment’ when he thought that he had lost ‘my best of friends’. A few months later, blessed with a daughter on Christmas Day 1797, the admiring boatswain named her Mary Nelson King. The admiral was touched by the tribute, and as late as 1804 we find him gratuitously sending King one hundred Spanish dollars as a ‘present from me’.
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Stereotypical sailors apart, Nelson’s self-elected guard were by no means all primitive beings. Of sixteen men acknowledging their receipt of prize money in one account, only five were illiterate and unable to sign their names in full. John Lovell, a small, powerful
Agamemnon
from London, was the son of a modest merchant skipper and had benefited from a little schooling. King wrote a fair letter. John Sykes was even more accomplished. He joined the
Agamemnon
in 1793, and devotedly served Nelson as able seaman, ship’s corporal, gunner’s mate and coxswain. Hailing from humble agricultural folk of Kirton, Lincolnshire, he had lost his father, though a step-parent, Thomas Huddlestone, earned a living as a fishmonger on the riverside in Lincoln. John’s brother, Robinson Sykes, was also in the navy, and as far as can be told John himself took to the life. He had raw courage,
for which Nelson referred to him as his ‘brave Lincoln friend’, yet he could write a good letter, and exhibited unusual sensitivity. Ralph Miller, soon to become Nelson’s flag captain, thought Sykes good commissioned officer material. ‘His manners and conduct are so entirely above his situation,’ he wrote, ‘that Nature certainly intended him for a gentleman.’
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No fewer than sixty-five of those who followed Nelson into the
Captain
were soldiers of the 69th (South Lincolnshire) Regiment who had been acting as marines aboard the
Agamemnon
. These, too, thought Nelson a good provider and protector. Prompted by his friend Villettes, the lieutenant colonel of the regiment, he had intervened to secure them fair shares of prize money.
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Most notable of the six officers of the 69th who transferred was Lieutenant Charles Bradshaw Peirson, a handsome twenty-two-year-old Londoner who had become one of Nelson’s most dependable supporters. When Nelson first saw Peirson during the sieges in Corsica two years before he was wearing a Neapolitan uniform, for he had somehow got from Britain to Italy and won the patronage of Sir William Hamilton. It was Hamilton who recommended Peirson to Hood and his entourage, and he proved a useful aide-de-camp to Villettes before getting an ensign’s commission in the 50th Regiment of British Foot the following September. A man eager to be the first with good news, Nelson assured Hamilton of his own ‘sincere regard and esteem’ for Peirson, whose ‘propriety . . . in every situation’ had won the praise of superiors.
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In March 1795 Peirson advanced to a lieutenancy in the 69th and it was in that capacity that he served on the
Agamemnon
. Despite his obvious military and diplomatic talents, facilitated by a rare command of the Italian language, Peirson’s prospects in a force as elitist as the army were doubtful, and there was an insecure restlessness about him. Josiah, Nelson’s stepson, thought him the mercantile type. Nevertheless, Nelson’s affection and support for his ‘poor soldier-officer’ were rewarded with an extreme loyalty. Though a redcoat, Peirson ‘always’ found Nelson ‘my friend and protector’, and was so ‘distressed’ at the thought of being left behind in the
Agamemnon
that he implored the commodore to specifically request his transfer. Peirson wanted ‘much to go with me’, Nelson wrote Jervis, ‘if it be possible, pray sir, indulge me’.
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Twenty-two of the seamen who joined Peirson in that transfer had also, in fact, been soldiers by profession. Some of them were Austrian
soldiers from De Vins’s army, captured by the French and liberated by the
Blanche
, one of the commodore’s frigates. Now they happily served as landmen, the rating given to inexperienced sailors, enriching the
Captain
with linguistic skills and specialist knowledge of use to a squadron still cooperating with the allied armies of Europe.

Nelson regarded the commissioned officers of the
Agamemnon
as the best in the fleet, and ‘much in the habit of doing handsome things’. The admiration was mutual, and all but one lieutenant stayed with him when he went to the
Captain
in June 1796. The exception was Lieutenant Suckling. A family death had left only ‘the lunatic’ between him and the Suckling estate of Woodton, and he intended to return to England, marry, and claim his inheritance. But the decision to leave the fleet would cost him a part in the battle of Cape St Vincent, for which he later said he almost hanged himself, and an almost certain elevation to the post of commander, and it disrupted his professional progress. He eventually returned to active service and commanded the small
Neptune
in the North Sea until 1801, but never rose above lieutenant.
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The other lieutenants remained with Nelson – Berry, Spicer, Noble, Summers and Compton, acting out of solid self-interest as well as simple affection and admiration for their commander. For no captain in the fleet fought more tenaciously for the promotion of his officers than Nelson. He had gained the goodwill of several commanders-in-chief, from Hood to Jervis, and successfully traded upon it by seeking rewards for fellow officers. ‘I will not forget Capt. Cockburne [Cockburn], nor any other person you are interested in,’ replied Jervis on one occasion. On another he responded, ‘I have written in such strong terms to the Admiralty in praise of your first, second and third lieutenants that I think . . . one [Berry] at least will be made a captain immediately, and I think Spicer and Noble cannot be long without it.’ Additionally, Nelson’s own enterprise created opportunities for his lieutenants to distinguish themselves, and when they did he praised lavishly, pressing their claims to promotion in dispatches and verbal reports. Ultimately several, including Andrews, received ‘hero promotions’ for conduct in the face of the enemy.
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Nelson’s success in creating promotions had one disadvantage: the high turnover of lieutenants on the
Agamemnon
. As one officer after
another was promoted out of the ship, the captain was constantly searching for new talent to replace the old, and having to begin the process of nurturing and training again. When he was with the fleet, Nelson routinely sat on boards examining prospective lieutenants, and got a view of the upcoming crop, but he was still occasionally obliged to sail short-handed.

But he gained satisfaction from helping good officers and benefiting from the loyalty and effort such favours engendered. Five lieutenants had originally sailed with Nelson to the Mediterranean – Martin Hinton, Joseph Bullen, George Andrews, Wenman Allison and Thomas Edmonds. After his success in Naples, Nelson had persuaded Hood to promote the senior lieutenants to the flagship, Bullen in 1793 and Hinton the following year, and from there both stepped briskly to the rank of commander, the first almost immediately. Neither officer fared particularly well beyond Nelson’s ken, however. Invalided home from Corsica, Bullen made the all-important step to post-captain in 1796 and did good service in the Mediterranean and Ireland, but ultimately had to settle for a command in the Sea Fencibles. Nevertheless, he lived until July 1857, long enough to climb the lists of captains and flag officers by seniority and become a full admiral in 1841. By contrast Hinton never even reached the post-captains’ list and died a commander in the Sea Fencibles in October 1814.
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Nelson was proud of his achievements for Bullen and Hinton, but made heavier work of nudging the career of Andrews forward, despite the lieutenant’s distinguished services aboard the
Agamemnon
. There was little help at home. Andrews had lost his early patrons, Hugh Pigot and John Nott, and felt adrift in the service. He had met Hood during the ‘Dutch armament’ of 1789, and used the good offices of both Nelson and Sir Gilbert Elliot to renew the connection in 1794, but even that lever was lost when the admiral sailed to England the same year. Hood’s departure also disempowered Nelson, who had less sway with Admiral Hotham, and he resorted to string-pulling in England. While the Andrews family lobbied Earl Spencer, Nelson tried to find Andrews a position in the Channel fleet, but when its commander, Earl Howe, replied with ‘a jumble of nonsense’, he concluded that the ‘great men’ had ‘neither gratitude nor regard’.
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There was an upside to the delay in Andrews’s progress, however. It had only been with considerable difficulty that the vacancies left by Bullen and Hinton had been filled. Andrews, Allison and Edmonds had moved up to fill the senior positions on the
Agamemnon
, but
juniors proved stubbornly hard to find. After using three temporary stand-ins from the
Victory
, Nelson had eventually replaced Bullen in October 1793 by the newly commissioned William Lucas, and the following August Hinton’s place was taken by another raw lieutenant, nineteen-year-old Edward Cheetham. The son of a Derbyshire squire and a favourite of Hood, Cheetham had joined the service at eleven and served aboard the admiral’s ship, the
Duke
. Unfortunately, neither of these replacements remained with Nelson as long as a year. Lucas was transferred to another ship after only five months, while Cheetham was wounded in the battle off Hyères in July 1795 and invalided home. The young man fortunately recovered and his career rebounded; he would be buried an admiral in 1862, having fought in the spectacular victory over Algiers in 1816.
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