Lord Nelson

English naval leader

• Born: September 29, 1758
• Birthplace: Burnham Thorpe, Norfolk, England
• Died: October 21, 1805
• Place of death: Off Cape Trafalgar, Spain

Nelson is perhaps the most venerated figure in British naval history. His innovative tactics in battle and his determination to achieve total victory over the enemy made him one of the most successful admirals in naval history and helped to establish the tradition of British perseverance until final victory could be won.

Early Life

Horatio Nelson was born in an Anglican parsonage in the English county of Norfolk. He was the sixth of eleven children of Edmund and Catherine Nelson. His father, a devout, educated man, was a minister in the Church of England and was following his own father’s occupation, although without much financial reward. Catherine Nelson came from a family that owned much land and occupied a respected position on the social ladder; her father was the prebendary of Westminster, and her maternal grandmother was the sister of Sir Robert Walpole, the first prime minister in English history. The Walpoles resided nearby, at Houghton, and the second Lord Walpole of Wolterton acted as godfather to young Nelson when he was christened.

As a young boy, Nelson was sent by his father to three separate schools in Norfolk, but some of his major personal beliefs he developed at home. Although his mother died when he was only nine years old, Nelson remembered that it was from her that he became aware that France was England’s ancient enemy. From his father, he learned about piety and obedience to God, and throughout his naval career he often expressed his pleasure at being able to serve God as well as his country.

Young Nelson was always sensitive to criticism, and he displayed his emotions publicly. In future years, as an officer in the fleet, he continued to display these same feelings, even though it was a tradition for naval officers to keep their feelings well hidden from their men. This practice, however, coupled with an unusually large measure of common sense, a genuine interest in the welfare of his men, and a willingness to lead his crew personally into battle, helped to produce the feelings of awe, respect, and loyalty that his men always held for him. Nelson received many serious injuries in the line of duty, and members of his crew, who were the most likely to be injured or killed in close combat with the enemy, trusted him as an officer who would actually lead them into battle and not simply watch their actions from a safe distance.

In the meantime, after the death of Catherine Nelson it was increasingly difficult for Edmund Nelson to provide proper care for all of his children, and they gradually left home to obtain independent positions. For Horatio, an interest in the sea had been slowly developing. From his hometown, he could easily catch sight of the North Sea and the ships that sailed its waters almost constantly, and on occasion he would sail some of his paper boats down one of the streets of Burnham Thorpe. His desire to go to sea, however, seemed to represent a most unlikely choice for a boy of his physical build: His rather thin face was highlighted by a large, protruding nose and piercing blue eyes, and he possessed a frail body that would attain a height of less than five feet, six inches by adulthood. Throughout his life, he would be plagued by a constant cough, and he often had difficulty sleeping at night. Fits of depression troubled him from time to time, and occasionally he was unable to keep his food down. Later in life, he would be afflicted with seasickness if forced to remain for long on a small vessel.

These problems notwithstanding, Nelson, at the age of twelve, sought to go to sea. His father registered no objections, and his uncle, Maurice Suckling, who held the position of post-captain in the navy at the time, agreed to obtain a position for his young nephew on his own ship, the Raisonnable, in spite of his personal doubts about Nelson’s physical qualifications.

Suckling’s ship was to sail to the Falkland Islands to defend Great Britain’s position in a dispute with Spain over the ownership of those islands. This voyage, which was Nelson’s first at sea, ended peacefully, and subsequently the young man was placed with John Rathbone, an officer who had served under Suckling during the Seven Years’ War and who was now commanding a ship for the trading firm of Hibbert, Purrier, and Horton. Under Rathbone’s guidance, the young Nelson sailed on a voyage to the West Indies, and it was this voyage that convinced him that he wanted to spend the rest of his life in the Royal Navy.

Life’s Work

Nelson’s naval career began in 1773, when he served as a coxswain on a scientific expedition to the Arctic. He subsequently was assigned as a midshipman in the waters off India, and by the age of nineteen, he was commissioned with the rank of lieutenant. Throughout his career as an officer, Nelson worked hard to keep morale high on his ships. He regularly invited other officers to fine dinners in his quarters and tactfully inquired as to the welfare of the members of their families. Although he expected absolute obedience, he never forgot the basic needs of his men; their living quarters were equipped with stoves to prevent dampness, and in the evenings, they were allowed to play music and to dance.

At the time Nelson was commissioned, the American Revolution was in progress, and he spent much of the war on duty in the West Indies. After the war ended, Nelson, now a post-captain, remained in the islands until 1787. It was on this peacetime tour that he met Frances Nesbit, the widowed niece of John Herbert, the president of the island of Nevis. On March 11, 1787, Nelson married the woman he said would keep him happy for the rest of his life.

During his courtship, however, Nelson aroused the ire of the local planters and merchants by refusing to allow them to trade with ships from the United States. Although the Board of Trade defended Nelson’s actions, he became so unpopular that he returned to England two months after his marriage in 1787. From 1787 to 1793, Nelson lived quietly with his family in Burnham Thorpe, a virtual social outcast because of the many complaints from the wealthy residents of the West Indies. When war with France appeared imminent in 1793, however, his unpopularity faded and he was assigned to the Mediterranean fleet under Admiral Samuel Hood.

On this tour of duty, Nelson saw military action around Corsica. As was his custom, he took little precaution for safety and was standing right up at the batteries outside Calvi on July 12, 1794, when he was hit in the right eye by sand and rocks from a French shell. As a result of this injury, he permanently lost the use of his eye, although it was never removed.

After a brief period of recuperation, Nelson was eventually assigned to the command of Admiral John Jervis, who commanded a fleet of fifteen ships of the line and was known for his strict discipline. On February 14, 1797, off Cape St. Vincent, Jervis attacked a Spanish fleet of twenty-seven ships of the line by moving his ships in a line between the leading and the trailing Spanish columns. Nelson, however, realized that the enemy segments would be able to join before the British move could be completed, and without orders he pulled his own ship out of the line and blocked the advance of the Spanish flagship. In the fierce fighting that followed, Nelson personally boarded and captured two Spanish ships. When the battle ended, the Spanish had lost four ships of the line, while the British had lost none. For Nelson, who had risked a court-martial by breaking naval tradition, Jervis had only words of praise. Both men were subsequently rewarded; Jervis became the earl of St. Vincent, and Nelson was promoted to the rank of rear-admiral and became a Knight of the Bath.

St. Vincent, convinced by now of Nelson’s abilities, next sent him to capture a Spanish treasure ship in the harbor of Santa Cruz, on the island of Teneriffe, in the Canary Islands. On July 24, 1797, Nelson, in typical fashion, led the attack himself, but a musket ball shattered his right arm. Within hours, surgeons amputated the arm just above the elbow, and Nelson’s tour of duty had come to an end.

After a brief recuperation in England, Nelson was sent to watch the French fleet at Toulon. When this fleet sailed for Egypt in May, 1798, he gave chase and finally came upon it in late July in Aboukir Bay, just east of Alexandria. Admiral Francis Brueys, the French commander, had placed his thirteen ships of the line close to the shoals offshore, so that only the seaward side of his ships could be attacked by Nelson. Because of his strong position, Brueys did not bother to clear his guns on the landward side of his ships, and he was caught completely by surprise on August 1, 1798, when Nelson sent five of his thirteen ships of the line between the French fleet and the shoals offshore. Panic broke out among the French as they were fired on from two sides at once, and although Nelson himself was wounded in the forehead, his victory in the Battle of the Nile was assured when Brueys’s flagship, L’Orient, exploded. By dawn of the next day, only two of the French ships had escaped; Nelson had not lost a single ship, and for his efforts he was made Baron of the Nile.

From Egypt, Nelson sailed to Naples, where his famous affair with Lady Emma Hamilton led to the birth of a daughter, Horatia. This affair, however, severely damaged Nelson’s reputation; when he returned to England in 1799, he found himself rejected by both society and his wife. In January, 1801, Horatio and Frances Nelson permanently separated.

The Admiralty, however, still needed Nelson’s services, and he was assigned as second in command to Sir Hyde Parker on an expedition to detach Denmark from the League of Armed Neutrality. Parker, who fought by the book, cautiously agreed to Nelson’s plan to attack the harbor of Copenhagen at its least defended point by sailing through a narrow, shallow waterway that was considered impassable for ships of the line. Nelson attacked on April 2, 1801, but when the Danes put up unexpected resistance Parker ordered him to withdraw. In response, Nelson placed his telescope to his blind eye, reported that he could see no such order, and scored a major victory within the hour. Once again, Nelson had disobeyed the orders of a superior officer, but he was praised by Sir Thomas Masterman Hardy, Nelson’s flag captain, and was made a viscount for his victory.

Lord Nelson subsequently remained in England until 1803, when war with France was renewed. Now a vice-admiral, he was named commander in chief for the Mediterranean Fleet and began to cover the fleet of Admiral Pierre de Villeneuve at Toulon. Villeneuve made various efforts to join up with other ships of the French fleet, but Nelson pursued him closely and eventually engaged him in battle off Cape Trafalgar on October 21, 1805. In this action, Nelson’s twenty-seven ships broke the enemy line of thirty-three in two places, in the rear and in the center. Typically, Nelson led the attack on the center himself, but about one hour and twenty minutes after the battle had begun, a musketeer in the rigging of the French ship Redoutable fatally wounded Nelson, who fell with a bullet through his spine. Before he died, however, he learned that eighteen of the enemy ships had been destroyed or captured and that not one of his own vessels had been lost. With his last words, he thanked God that he had been able to do his duty.

Nelson’s body was returned to England, where on January 9, 1806, it received one of the most impressive funerals in all British history. According to his wishes, Nelson was buried in St. Paul’s Cathedral.

Significance

Even before his death, Lord Nelson was regarded as a legend, and the circumstances surrounding his funeral merely added to that mystique. Captain Benjamin Hallowell of the Swiftsure had given his commander, as a victory souvenir, a beautiful wooden coffin fashioned out of part of the main mast of L’Orient after the Battle of the Nile, and it was in this coffin that the famous admiral was buried.

Memories of the funeral faded, but people never forgot that Nelson was the first British commander to seek not merely victory but also total destruction of the enemy fleet. The victory at Trafalgar ended Napoleon I’s hopes for an invasion of Great Britain and became a symbol of British inspiration in the dark days when Adolf Hitler was putting forth every effort to conquer the island kingdom.

Nelson’s legacy is well represented by preservation of his last ship, the Victory, a ship of the line of one hundred guns that became a national monument. Nelson himself is also remembered in London’s Trafalgar Square, where his statue stands as a constant reminder of the man who saved Great Britain from one of the greatest threats in its long history.

Bibliography

Bowen, Marjorie. Patriotic Lady. New York: D. Appleton-Century, 1936. A useful work that presents much detailed information about the personalities of Nelson and Hamilton. The coverage of Hamilton’s first meeting with Frances Nelson is particularly interesting. Well researched, the work includes a good index and a helpful bibliography.

Coleman, Terry. The Nelson Touch: The Life and Legend of Horatio Nelson. New York: Oxford University Press, 2002. Well-researched, balanced biography of Nelson, whom the author describes as “a paramount naval genius and a natural born predator.”

Hattersley, Roy. Nelson. New York: Saturday Review Press, 1974. The style is easy to follow, and many drawings and portraits are included. Although he covers Nelson’s major victories, Hattersley also takes time to bring out the personality behind those victories. The index is most helpful for the general reader.

Howarth, David. Trafalgar: The Nelson Touch. New York: Atheneum, 1969. One of the most readable of all books about Nelson, this work concentrates upon the admiral’s last campaign. Howarth provides specific details; he also covers Nelson’s close relations with the men who served under him. An excellent index and many maps and drawings enhance the scholarly nature of this work.

Mahan, Alfred T. The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660-1783. Boston: Little, Brown, 1890. A standard work in the field, Mahan’s book helps the reader to understand why control of the sea is so important during wartime. Nelson’s tactics at Aboukir Bay and Trafalgar are analyzed, and his general manner in battle is also discussed.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. The Influence of Sea Power upon the French Revolution and Empire, 1793-1812. 2 vols. Boston: Little, Brown, 1892. A famous work in the field, featuring maps, drawings, explanatory footnotes, and an extremely complete index. Contains helpful coverage of Nelson’s campaigns in detail, with emphasis upon the tactics that he introduced.

Marcus, Geoffrey J. The Age of Nelson: The Royal Navy, 1793-1815. New York: Viking Press, 1971. An excellent, well-researched work complete with maps, many illustrations, footnotes, and a thorough list of sources for additional reading. Quite helpful in its discussion of Nelson’s relations with Jervis.

Pope, Dudley. The Great Gamble. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1972. A complete account of the Copenhagen campaign, Pope’s work provides footnotes, maps, and a full bibliography. Discussion of the contrast in the personalities of Nelson and Parker is especially helpful. Virtually any fact that the reader desires to know about the Copenhagen campaign may be found in this book.

Sugden, John. Nelson: A Dream of Glory, 1758-1797. New York: Henry Holt, 2004. The first of a projected two-volume definitive biography. Sugden makes excellent use of primary sources to present Nelson’s life and career in all of their complexity and to place them within the context of eighteenth century naval service.

Vincent, Edgar. Nelson: Love and Fame. New Haven, Conn.: Yale University Press, 2003. A perceptive, empathetic look at Nelson’s professional and emotional lives, describing the causes and effects of his insatiable desire for admiration and attention.

Warner, Oliver. Nelson’s Battles. New York: Macmillan, 1965. Warner provides detailed information about Nelson’s major engagements; an appendix lists all the ships and captains who served with Nelson at Aboukir Bay, Copenhagen, and Trafalgar. Excellent maps, many portraits, and frequent quotations from Nelson and his contemporaries.

‗‗‗‗‗‗‗. Victory: The Life of Lord Nelson. Boston: Little, Brown, 1958. A well-written, detailed life of Nelson in which considerable emphasis is placed upon personalities as well as major campaigns. Includes an extensive bibliography and a most complete index.